Bloodspell
By Samantha Calcott
The right of Samantha Calcott to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him/her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it was published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, items, characters, places and incidents are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Cover Design by:
Lily Luchesi
Partners in Crime Book Services
Edited by:
Elizabeth A. Lance
EAL Editing Services
Formatted by:
Partners in Crime Book Services
Copyright © 2019 Samantha Calcott
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by
any means without written permission of the author.
Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Poison Pleasures Series:
(Series of standalone novels that are connected by the BDSM club the characters go to, Poison Pleasures. This series can be read out of order, and you will see characters popping up briefly in each others’ books.)
Perfect Disaster
Lie To Me (MM)
Her Secret Master (coming March 6th, 2020)
His First Submissive (coming 2021)
Lose Myself (coming 2021)
Tempted (coming 2021)
Standalones:
The Vampire Mistress (FF, coming autumn 2020)
Bloodspell (MM)
Playlist
Music feeds the soul, and I hope these tunes help you enjoy this story even more.
“Lithium” by Evanescence
“Through The Ghost” by Shinedown
“Pulse of the Maggots” by Slipknot
“Bound” by Disturbed
“Fire and Fury” by Skillet
“Shape Of You” by Ed Sheeran
“Hurricane” by 30 Seconds To Mars
“Nowhere That We Know” by Matt Lande
“Find The Real” by Alter Bridge
“The Power of Love” by Jennifer Cihi
“Demolition Lovers” by My Chemical Romance
“Wrap Myself Around You” by Kill Hannah
He stared, unable to move as the dark curse headed right toward him. Hazel eyes widened in horror, but his legs couldn’t move. It was like one of those nightmares where you know the monster is right behind you, but you can’t bring yourself to run.
He had the time to think, “So this is how it ends…” before it was lights out.
* * *
“Simon? Can you hear us?”
His body felt the pain before his mind realized it was there. His head was pounding, his limbs felt like they weighed a hundred kilos each, and there was a fire in his chest that was somehow pleasant even as it burned.
He opened his mouth, feeling the hinges on his jaw creak from disuse. “Am I dead?” he asked, his voice croaking like a frog.
He heard a giggle. Amy. So, she was still alive. And that meant he was, too. With effort, he opened his heavy-lidded eyes and glanced around at his friends. They had all survived somehow. Amy, the only girl in their group, looked haggard and pale, she had endured the worst of the torture from the blood-eaters, but she was okay. Jake, his best friend and her fiancé, was holding her protectively. Ricky, the least battle-ready out of them, had a long, jagged scar down the side of his face.
“Someone wanna tell me how the Hell I survived? And what happened to ol’ tall, blonde, and evil?” Simon struggled to sit up, and Ricky helped situate his pillows.
All three of them glanced between each other and Amy spoke first. “I … think it might be easier to show you.”
“Yeah,” Jake added. “Otherwise you’d never believe us. Hell, I was there, and I don’t quite believe it.”
Simon nodded, an uneasy feeling in the pit of his stomach. What could have happened that he couldn’t believe from his friends’ mouths? It had to be something awful and drastic. Dark magic like what had been headed for him was nearly impossible to counteract. And yet, someone had, because he was alive.
Amy, the only psychic in their group stepped around to sit on the side of his bed. Her powers matched her demeanour. She was quiet, kind, and intelligent. She never said a thing without fully thinking through the implications of her words, and just being around her was like being around a warm fireplace in January. That part came from her being half-fae. It was no wonder Jake had fallen for her.
“You just woke up, Simon,” she said. “Are you certain you’d rather not wait till you’re well?”
He shook his head. “No, tell me now. You know I have the patience of a toddler.”
“True,” Jake said.
“Like you’re any better,” Ricky told him.
“Piss off.”
“Boys!” Amy scolded. “All right, I’ll show you. But you’ll be just as flabbergasted as we are. I have to put a little more into the memory. I don’t want you going right into your near-death experience.”
Simon nodded, and Amy offered her small, delicate hand to him. He took it and was instantly transported back to the half hour before the battle that had almost claimed his life…
* * *
The four of them were hiding out in a storage shed that had been forgotten but still stood on the grounds of Moonspell Manor; Simon’s home and legacy. Now the manor was being overrun with blood-eaters. Not to be confused with vampires, who were essentially human, blood-eaters were skinny, bat like creatures with a vaguely humanoid appearance that existed solely to feed and breed.
Simon had hastily put a protection enchantment on the shed as they ran inside to regroup and figure out what they were going to do. Right then, it seemed hopeless. There were more blood-eaters than allies out there by far.
“I need a spell,” Simon muttered. “Something hard-hitting that will blow those batty bastards away.”
Simon was a mage, one of the last three living mages in the world. The other two were … well, they weren’t very nice, to put it mildly.
Tobias Bloodworth was one. The last living descendant of the ancient family, Tobias was the same age as the four of them, but his magic was unstable and dark. He was a danger to not just others, but to himself as well. He’d recently gone on a sabbatical, and had come back in control, but darker than ever.
The Moonspell and Bloodworth families had been rivals for centuries, and the last members of each house were keen to keep that rivalry alive. It helped that the two men were like oil and water naturally. Simon was friendly, jovial, and mischievous. Tobias was insular, shy, and creepy.
The third mage was Nash Thornhill. He was not of an old family. In fact, no one was sure where he came from or who he actually was. All they knew was that he could create magic like a baker could make cookies, and he had little to no self-control.
He had been the one to create the spell to make the blood-eaters do his bidding as he waged war on the Moonspell house. Bloodworth had taken Nash’s side in the battle. Simon assumed that h
e wanted to finally win the battle waged between the two families once and for all, and was using Thornhill to help him.
Of course, the Moonspells had allies, many of them. Three of them were huddled in that damned shack with Simon, and the others were battling the blood-eaters head-on.
“Simon, if you use an untested spell, you could kill yourself!” Ricky said, alarmed at his friend’s outburst.
“Better than sitting here twiddling my bloody thumbs!” Simon cried.
“Peace, both of you,” Amy said quietly. “We need a plan that’s more than one spell.”
Jake stood up and glanced out the one grimy window. “We need something to disperse the blood-eaters, so we can get at Thornhill and Bloodworth.”
Amy sighed, head in her hands. She was the only one of them who ever liked Bloodworth, and had even been friends with him. His betrayal when he joined up with Thornhill had been an almost personal blow to the sensitive half-faerie.
“What do the blood-eaters hate more than humans?” Ricky asked, his grey eyes lighting up.
“Sunlight. But it’s not even midnight yet,” Jake said sadly. “We can't possibly wait till dawn, everyone will be dead!”
Ricky rolled his eyes. He was a lower-level wizard and one of the youngest magical scholars to ever exist. He was their brains, Amy was their heart. Amy was also fond of saying that Jake and Simon were their arse cheeks.
“You’re an elemental wizard, Jake. We can make sunlight, burn these bastards alive, and that will leave Simon free to take on Thornhill,” Ricky explained.
“And Bloodworth,” Simon added, nodding. “That’s a good idea. Jake can make the gaseous flames, and Ricky can shape and amplify them. Amy, you can levitate the pseudo-sun into the sky to hit as many of them as you can.”
People often thought Simon a bit slow, because he seemed to care more about human necessities like nice clothing, dating, and rock music than magic. Truthfully, Simon was exceptionally intelligent … he just never cared enough to bother. Now he cared. He cared a Hell of a lot.
Amy nodded, her red hair seeming to sparkle like fire even in this semi darkness. “All right, but we’ve got to get out of this shed. Or else we’ll suffocate from the gas. And that means…”
“…We’ll have to risk being attacked,” Jake finished.
“It’s a risk we have to take,” Ricky said.
“All right. On my mark… One… Two… Three… Let’s go!” Simon dropped the shields on the shack and ran out first, hoping to draw any fire toward him and not his friends. He did a tuck and roll, narrowly avoiding a hex sent at him by one of Thornhill’s lackeys.
“You missed, you fucking git!” he called, blowing a raspberry. He wasn’t known for his maturity, despite being twenty-one years of age. That’s it, he thought, as the two wizards began following him, an angry looking witch following behind. Follow me and ignore the people building an exploding star over there…
It worked, and Simon sent a blast of magic at the man in the lead, tearing his shoulder away from his body. His arm now hung by a string of sinew and skin that was once his underarm. He fell over in a faint and would probably die from loss of blood soon.
The other two advanced on him, but he knew he could take them. Or at least, distract them long enough for the others to do what they needed to do.
“Our master believes it is time for the prophecy to be fulfilled. We are inclined to agree,” the woman said, her own magic building within her palm.
“Fuck your master and fuck the prophecy,” Simon replied, sending a stinging hex aimed at her hand. One of those felt like hundreds of fire ants biting at the part of the body the hex made contact with.
She yelped in pain and began shaking her hand, dissipating the magic. It was turning red from the hex.
He sent a blast of magic at her and a hole appeared in her abdomen, dripping blood. It took a moment for her to realise she’d been hit before she fell to the ground, dead and twitching.
Simon hated killing, but this was war and he had to do what he needed to do.
The final wizard advanced, rage burning in his eyes. “You’re dead, mage. I’m going to decorate the manor walls with your fucking guts.”
“Huh. Sounds kinda morbid to me,” Simon said, smirking. “But to each their own.” He prepared himself for the fight, but it didn’t come. From behind the wizard’s head, he saw a light begin to brighten and grow.
You could feel the heat, and it caused the wizard to turn his head as a bright ball of light began to rise in the sky. It was blinding, beautiful, mesmerising. Simon shielded his eyes as he heard Amy cast the charm to send the ball high into the sky, out of the stratosphere and so high the black night sky turned a beautiful, pure pale blue.
The blood-eaters that were outside screeched in such a way that Simon wondered if anyone had gone deaf. Their already shrivelled bodies began to fold in on themselves as the fake sun burned through their demonic flesh, leaving nothing but piles of charred bones where each one had previously stood.
The wizard ran for cover, unsure of what was happening, and Simon was left in the clearing alone … or so he thought. A high-pitched laugh reached his ears and he whipped around to see where it had come from. Standing near a copse of trees was Nash Thornhill himself, clad in an outrageously posh bespoke suit of silver and white. His silver hair hung in his red eyes, and his skin was the colour of snow. Simon wondered for a moment if he was albino or had charmed himself to appear that way.
“Bravo. Your little group stopped many of the blood-eaters … but they were never my concern. I think you know that,” Nash said. “Finally, I have you alone.”
Simon chuckled. “While I am into men, I’m kinda against being alone with mass murderers in the Biblical sense. Now are you gonna fight, or trade insults with me? Because I’m more than ready for this to be over.”
“Then let’s not tarry.” Nash stepped forward.
“Just tell me one thing first: once you kill me, what are you going to do with Bloodworth? If you believe the prophecy, you can’t let him live,” Simon pointed out.
Nash cocked his head like a bird. “Oh? You are concerned with his well-being?”
“No, I just wanna know if he’s being fooled by you. If he is, he’s dumber than he looks.” He held his hands apart and then fired a hex while Nash was distracted.
The mage blocked the spell and said, “You’re sneakier than you look, Moonspell. A shame you have to die.”
Blows were exchanged, hexes and charms and curses flung, borne, and counter attacked. Nash was an excellent dueller, and Simon felt at a slight disadvantage. He needed to level the playing field in his favour.
The moment he realised that, he saw his opening. When Nash bent to his left to toss a curse — curses and hexes were cast with the left hand, charms and spells with the right — a lock of silver hair fell ever so slightly into his right eye. It wouldn’t be much, but it would have to do.
Simon knew he only had one chance to finish this. He danced around the spells Nash was now casting, able to repel most, taking a numbing charm in his right ribs. He saw the mage begin to lean ever so slightly to cast a curse or hex and he leapt to his left, sending a bolt of magic at Nash’s exposed neck while that eye was delayed in seeing exactly where the magic would land to adequately block it.
Simon stayed still, wanting to savour this moment and capture it in his memory for eternity.
But Nash wasn’t so naive as to have left such a wide opening. Rooted to the spot, Simon could only watch as Nash spun in a half-circle and cast the deadliest curse known to man, a curse invented by the Moonspell family before time was counted.
“Dumaya!”
Simon stared and then began to see what had happened once he’d passed out.
The curse came in a flash of black smoke instead of a coloured light. From Simon’s left came another spell, “Praesidio!” That meant “protect”, and the spell did exactly that to whomever or whatever it was cast upon. In this case, it protected Si
mon.
The spell connected with the curse and Simon was knocked unconscious from the force of the impact. His head hit the ground and it was light’s out. Now he could see what had happened in the moments after he’d been saved.
Nash looked beyond Simon and said, “You dare to betray me?”
“I dare to kill you,” a deep, resonating voice said. Tobias Bloodsworth stepped out from the shadows, long black hair matted and dirty, his usually immaculate clothes sullied with dirt and blood. “And I will protect those who would assist me in that respect.” He held his hand out to cast another spell, but Nash was faster.
He cast a blinding spell, and when everyone’s eyes were cleared, the evil mage was nowhere to be found.
* * *
Amy removed her hand from Simon’s shoulder and he was jolted back to the present.
He was trying to wrap his head around what he just saw. Tobias, the man whom he had despised since they were children? The longest surviving rival mage heir. Why on Earth had he saved him? And how did he come to turn on Thornhill?
“Yeah … your expression matches ours when we saw that go down,” Jake said, sitting on Simon’s other side.
“What happened after?” Simon asked. “Did he say anything?”
They all shook their heads.
“He walked away, angry that he’d lost Thornhill, or so it seemed,” Ricky said. “He was headed toward Bloodworth Manor. When you feel better, you should go talk to him.”
Jake nodded eagerly. “Yeah, as soon as you’re up to it, we’ll go over there and get some answers outta the slimy git.”
Amy shook her head. “No, not us. Just Simon. I have a feeling that our part in this is over. It’s up to the mages now.”
“And if he kills him on sight?” Jake asked, aghast.
“He won’t,” Amy insisted. “You know I’m right, Jacob. This is Simon’s journey. Simon’s and Tobias’. We are not to interfere.”
Bloodspell: An MM, BDSM High Fantasy Novella Page 1
