by JD Franx
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Information
Dedication
Map
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-Two
Chapter Forty-Three
Acknowledgements
Chapter One
The Darkness Within Saga
Book Two:
Blood of the Lost
by JD Franx
The Darkness Within Saga: Book 2
Blood of the Lost
Author: JD Franx
Copyright © JD Franx
Registered Copyright 2017
Cover Illustration and Design © 2017
Joel Lagerwall and Stefan Celic
Editing by Casa Cielo
Kindle design and formatting by Rachel Bostwick
All rights reserved
ISBN 978-0-9953363-1-5
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in any retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means with out the expressed written permission from the author. This novel is a work of fiction: names, places, characters, and all events are products of the author’s imagination and are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Dedication
To all my readers:
The dedication for this second book
can really only go to you.
You are the reason I have worked as hard as I did to finish this book and have it ready for release six months after the first. The private messages, the emails, and even the comments on my Facebook page and posts all kept me writing, revising, editing and even proofreading in order to see Blood of the Lost completed.
Thank you to each and every one of you, wherever you may be. You have all been phenomenal.
Chapter One
“Talohna is home to some of the nastiest creatures that exist. And as a bard, minstrel, and writer, I have sung about and studied most of them. Weres, banshees, gorgons, and even the Mahala. Like every good entertainer, I have travelled far and wide in pursuit of myths and legends, real and imaginary, learning more about them in the hopes that inspiration would strike. The DeathWizard is probably feared more than any other magical creature, but they are ultimately extremely rare. On the other hand, Ella Navasha, the White Witch, is feared even more, mostly because she does exist in the here and now. To control the power offered by or stolen from an Angel is an amazing feat. But the thing is, with Ella the White, no one alive knows whether she was granted her power or whether she stole it. Some people even believe she killed an Angel to get its power, as disturbing as that is. I’ve often wondered myself, which version is actually true.”
Garren Sallus, A Traveller’s Codex, Vol. 2
ELLORYA, 5025 POST CATACLYSM
NORTHERN ELLORYAN FOREST
Fourteen-year-old Desiree Star tripped on a raised root, plunging head first into a stagnant, slow-moving creek. Pulling her face from the noxious green slime, she gagged as the taste of rot filled her mouth. Realizing it came from the putrefying human corpse half-submerged in the creek, her stomach rebelled, tossing nothing but bile from her empty stomach. A howl followed by the crash of something heavy racing through the forest behind her spurred her back to her feet and straight into another desperate run. Her legs ached with a constant throbbing and added more agony to the pulsating thump behind her eyes caused by a lack of sleep from two full days of running and fighting.
The apprentice Broken Blade assassin had known no fear until three days past. As the thought of what she witnessed bounced to the front of her mind, her legs trembled, making her stumble and cold fear flipped her stomach. Worse than either of those was that she was defenceless.
The creatures chasing her were relentless. Weres never gave up the hunt, but werewolves were so much worse with that canine nose. With both of Desiree’s wooden dagger blades broken off inside of the massive alpha female, the great beast still pursued her. The weapon’s natural poison only slowed the monster—it did not stop her. It would be almost an hour before the blades grew back, she hoped. The magic within the handles was efficient, but not perfect.
Another howl rolled across the valley behind her, bouncing off the mountain cliffs and dense brush, making it impossible to know exactly where the creature was. Desiree pushed harder, increasing her speed, dodging and slipping between the trees of the northern Elloryan Forest. Another howl, deeper than the female’s, bounced off the rocks ahead of her and to the right. She stopped dead in her tracks. Holding her breath for a couple seconds, she could hear the female to her rear, racing through the forest. Even running on two legs, the alpha was nearly as fast as her. But there was something else bothering the assassin. She frowned and focused harder, but her advanced skills and senses were unable to pinpoint it.
Darting to her left, Desiree leapt into a roll, running the moment her feet landed as a dark-pelted werewolf crashed into the tree behind her. The savage growl and exploding bark lent her more speed a second too late, as a blaze of silver-white hair slammed into her side, knocking her the ground.
She lifted her arms to defend herself as the alpha female chomped down on her left wrist. Trained from the age of four to ignore pain, Desiree ground her teeth as canine jaws crunched the bones in her wrist. Swallowing the tingle of fear creeping into her body, she smiled up at the growling beast. Jamming her right thumb into the monster’s mouth, she forced it under the tongue and pushed with everything she had. The werewolf gagged, letting go of her wrist and pulling back. The assassin shifted her weight, pushing her waist up. Throwing her right leg over her left, she grabbed the female by the neck and pulled her closer, heaving both of their bodies to the left. The werewolf tripped on Desiree’s legs, falling on its side and snapping its jaws. White teeth clicked, catching only air as Desiree mounted the creature, her good arm pressing down on the female’s throat.
“Where is he? Where’s your mate? Tell me, or I’ll skin you alive!” she screamed.
The creature huffed and a distorted laughed crawled from her throat.
Desiree pressed down harder, cutting the laugh short. “Fine, I’ll get him too if he keeps chasing me. So long, dog-bitch.” Desiree spit, pressing down with all her weight, but a set of teeth clamped tight to her neck halting her kill. The pressure increased qu
ickly, until both sets of canines pierced her flesh, stopping an inch deep in her throat. A growl rumbled from her captor’s throat, vibrating the flesh of Desiree’s neck and forcing her to release the female as the second werewolf carefully eased her off the pack leader. The white female snorted and pulled herself off the ground onto her hind legs, towering over Desiree as the male shook her neck, pressing her to her knees. The female bent over, looking into Desiree’s pale blue eyes. Their noses almost touching, the female growled, her black lips curling away from six-inch long canines. The teeth in her neck eased and disappeared.
“If you wanted to find me so badly, why run from my family?” a male voice asked from behind Desiree only seconds after he released her neck. He shifted to Human-form a little too fast. Impossibly fast.
“Not exactly running from you, dog,” she sneered.
“Ah yes. Your encounter with the mad alchemist. I caught the scent of vaporized assassin on your clothing. You must know by now that the crazy fool isn’t chasing after y—” Desiree frowned and the creature clearly sensed it, though the voice remained behind her. “Of course, of course... You survived, but your mentor did not. So, you run from the Broken Blades then. Won’t guild loyalty protect you?”
“Yrlissa Blackmist is dead. Guild law means little lately. For some,” the assassin answered.
“So, you ran.” The alpha male chuckled. “Not the smartest move, but the only one, I guess.”
“You’re smart for a smelly mutt, but I’m not... Wasn’t looking for you, just passing through your territory...” Still nose to nose, the female alpha growled, bumping Desiree with her wet nose and huffing in her face. The nauseating stench of rotting meat made her eyes water, but she’d smelled much worse—swallowed worse only minutes ago.
“Yes,” the male continued, finally walking into her view. She was surprised at his youthfulness, almost too young for an alpha. His black hair, tipped with flecks of white, matched the dark pelt covering his body earlier. White and Black, female and male; the perfect werewolf match, which further explained his youth when compared to the scarred, grizzled female; their brindle pups would be incredibly powerful shifters. “You’re heading for DormaSai. You assassins really aren’t the brightest bunch, are you? Most people in Talohna go out of their way to avoid us.”
“Had no idea this was your territory, dog. Still wouldn’t have stopped me. Merethyl has too many guild killers in the Southern Kingdoms these days. This forest is the only way out.” The alpha male laughed, deep and throaty, but it was a female voice that answered, again from behind.
“This isn’t werewolf territory, my dear Blade. It’s mine.” Desiree swallowed hard, her mouth drying with excitement. The points of her daggers gently poked the underside of her arms. The blades had finished growing, finally. “They merely guard the forest and keep the riff-raff away from my home. You should be more respectful to my friends,” the voice carried on. “After all, they’re just following my orders. Strangers aren’t welcome here, killers least of all. You must have heard the rumours.”
“I... have...” Desiree said. As her esoteric senses flared as a warning to what stood behind her, she pulled her tongue from the roof of her cotton-filled mouth. “Still didn’t stop me. I believe I said that... witch.”
“Your senses are well-honed. Though not many people would speak to me like that,” the woman said. Desiree could hear the woman move, her footsteps light, balanced. Something she’d expect from a skilled fighter, not a witch.
The alpha male snorted. Desiree watched him carefully as he breathed deeply. As if not satisfied, he approached, kneeling at Desiree’s side. Grabbing her dark ponytail, he pulled her head closer, breathing deep. Her skin twitched with revulsion as his nose nuzzled her ear and he inhaled her scent. “I smell no fear, Mistress,” he said, releasing her ponytail and rising to his feet. “Only charred Elvehn flesh and organs.”
“Of course you smell no fear, Torgo. A Broken Blade assassin fears only their own. You don’t scare her, even that crazy alchemist didn’t scare her, though he wasn’t the easy target you expected, was he, my dear?”
“Obviously not,” Desiree answered.
The woman stepped in front of Desiree, the alpha female relinquished her guard in order to make way. “I’ll bet dear old Merethyl Bellas neglected to tell you and your mentor what you would really face in that glade. Am I right?” Desiree frowned, saying nothing. “Let me guess... Bring her some crazy old fool, an alchemist, and an easy target, not even a corpse. Bring him back alive, easy job, easy money. I bet she even dropped the guild’s tax for this job. Yes?” Desiree’s frown deepened. The witch’s words were almost identical to what Merethyl had said during their contract briefing. “Your head council member didn’t exactly have your best interests in mind, did she?”
“Not this time, witch.”
“I promise you, my dear, Merethyl Bellas knew exactly what she was sending you into. So you must be a Yrlissa Blackmist loyalist then.”
“My loyalty lies with the guild. Always.”
“That’s too bad for you, Desiree Star.” Desiree frowned. Regardless of the rumours, there was no way this witch could know who she was. “Yrlissa Blackmist was my friend. If you knew her at all, you’d know my real name.”
“Your real name won’t frighten me either, witch.” The moment she said it, the white werewolf laughed, and the rumours Desiree had heard around the guild started to drift back through the haze of exhaustion smothering her brain.
“We shall see, my dear.” The witch leaned over. Desiree felt the woman’s breath tickling the soft hairs by her ear. “I can see you struggling to pull my name from the depths of your sleep-deprived, exhausted memories, child. Let me help you.” A spell slammed into her mind, the rumours and innuendo stormed back, as clear as the very first time she heard them, especially the stories Desiree had heard during her initiate years.
“Impossible...” she whispered, trailing off.
“Not so, my dear. My name is Ella Navasha. But most people call me Ella the White.” Desiree turned, bravely smiling over her shoulder at the most powerful witch to ever live, doing her best to keep her bladder in check. The witch was young, too young for the experience within the voice. Dressed in an immaculate long, white dress even though they were in a damp forest just seemed to match the rest of the impeccably proper-looking woman.
“Talohna’s only angel-blessed witch...” Desiree breathed.
Ella’s voice dropped even lower. “Because a witch has the power of the White does not mean she is blessed by an angel. Angels don’t like giving mortals power unlike demons. What power an angel gives up is gone forever, but they can be tricked into surrendering it, or it can be taken when you kill one.” More memories, rumours, myths, swirled inside Desiree’s head, leaving her with the truth as her only option.
“If you really are Ella Navasha, then you should know that my dead mentor and myself were both trained by Yrlissa.”
“But I do know that, my dear. Why do you think we’re here? Merethyl already knows you’re alive. You were branded a day ago. Look.” The woman stepped around her and lightly lifted her left hand. Like all Broken Blade assassins, the black magical tattoo of two opposing daggers, one missing the blade and one whole, marked Desiree’s palm.
“Jafin Berr,” Ella whispered, pressing her right hand to Desiree’s left palm. A bright light flashed and searing pain followed.
“Dammit! What the fuck, witch?” Desiree cursed. Ella released Desiree’s hand, her spell completed. The tattooed blades were broken in numerous places, as if shattered by a smith’s hammer.
“You’ve been branded a traitor by your guild. Only those hunting you can see the brand. It is how the Broken Blades hunt their own so easily, how a Blade runs when they rarely realize their guild wants them dead.”
“I... I didn’t know...”
“Because you’ve yet to reach the rank of guild assassin, apprentice. You still should have known, Desiree Star. The magic imbued in t
hat mark no longer works. Your heightened speed, reflexes, and stealth are all gone. A werewolf, even an extremely rare alpha like my dear friend here, should never catch your kind. You want me to believe your loyalty lay with Yrlissa? Come with me now and I’ll make sure Merethyl never tracks you down. Not until we’re ready for you to burrow that broken blade in the bitch’s neck.”
“How could you possibly offer such a thing? Even if all the rumours about you are true, it’ll take me four hundred years before I could rival Merethyl as a killer, even she won’t live that long.”
“Oh, my dear, you have so much to learn. Come with me and have faith that my name carries with it no rumours.” Truth seemed to layer every word, but still Desiree had doubts.
“Have faith?!” she yelled. “I’m marked for death by Talohna’s best magical killers. Killers who don’t have targets, but corpses, because a contract is only fulfilled when that person is dead—they never give up. Even Yrlissa Blackmist wasn’t good enough to survive against Merethyl. Give me something now, Ella, or kill me. I’m not afraid to die!”
“Fair enough, Desiree Star,” Ella said. Leaning closer once more, she whispered, “I trained Yrlissa Blackmist. So many years ago, you wouldn’t even recognize your own guild.”
The alpha female shifted back to her human form, muttering. “Fuck me.” The transformation took mere seconds.
Desiree didn’t know who to stare at, the werewolf who changed ten times faster than any other, or the witch claiming to be over several millennium in age, at least. The guild’s only changes occurred during the Cataclysm over five thousand years ago. The guild had grown so large that the independent cell structure used no longer allowed for the guild to be efficient. After months of internal conflict, dissidents had been rooted out and killed, leading the way for the guild to be run by a senior council. It was the largest recorded change in the guild’s history.
Finally, she found her tongue and asked, “Why? Why me?”
“Yrlissa’s loyalists outside the guild who have already undergone your training don’t exist. Blade initiates receive training unlike anywhere else. You were trained by Yrlissa, which means the months you suffered building poison and pain resistance are irreplaceable. Not every Blade initiate gets that. The years of agony you suffered learning to ignore your stealth skills and your magic so that you’d be that much better with them. Everything! The best way to kill Merethyl Bellas is from within, but serious threat from outside her guild is the best way to keep her distracted...”
