Blood Destiny
Authors: Tessa Dawn
Tags: #Fiction, #Fantasy, #Paranormal, #Dark Fantasy, #Romance
Blood Destiny
by Tessa Dawn
Charles River Press
www.charlesriverpress.com
Copyright ©2010 by Tessa Dawn
First published in 2010
NOTICE: This eBook is licensed to the original purchaser only. Duplication or distribution to any person via email, floppy disk, network, print out, or any other means is a violation of International copyright law and subjects the violator to severe fines and/or imprisonment. This notice overrides the Adobe Reader permissions which are erroneous. This eBook cannot be legally lent or given to others.
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CONTENTS
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* * * *
Blood Destiny
by Tessa Dawn
Blood Destiny
* * * *
A Blood Curse Novel
In the Blood Curse Series
* * * *
To you—for surviving
what few others could.
* * * *
My thanks to all those who made this work possible: Miriam Grunhaus, for such an awesome cover, Roger Hunt, for your patience and perfectionism; Jonathan Womack for believing in the story and opening the door, and most fondly, Reba Hilbert, for being such a delightful editor to work with.
To my "sister" Monique, for stepping in when it was needed. My immense love to Kiana, Nashoba, & Angelina, thank you for your endless support. And to Steve, for being a lighthouse in the storm.
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800 BC ~ Romania
"Your punishment has been decided."
In the dark Romanian castle of their beloved homeland, the royal twins, Jaegar and Jadon, fell to their knees on the cold stone floor while the remaining males of their kind waited anxiously outside the castle walls to hear the edict. Their thick black hair fell forward, shielding their terrified eyes from their accuser, as torchlight cast eerie shadows upon the dank gray walls around them.
Their accuser was The Blood of countless victims.
Each one slaughtered without mercy.
The grim face of death eager to exact revenge.
"Great Celestial Beings, have mercy on our souls," Jadon pleaded as the ghostly apparition drew closer.
"You make me sick, brother!" Jaegar spat the words, unable to conceal his rage or his arrogance.
The shadow weaved to the left and then to the right like a phantom pacing.
And then it bent into a horrible arc of darkness, dipping down until, at last, it hovered face to face with the trembling men.
Oh gods...
Flushed and swaying, Jadon Demir reached out with a firm hand to steady himself against the ground. He cast a sideways glance at his older twin, who was now as pale as moonlight.
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"From this day forward you shall be cursed! And your sons shall be cursed. And their sons after them...unto all eternity."
The shadow drifted closer and a heavy mist settled on their skin. "And to make certain your suffering is inescapable, you shall be made immortal. Condemned to roam the earth in darkness as reviled creatures of the night. Forever forced to feed on the blood of the innocent to survive."
Jadon inhaled sharply, his heart pounding in his chest.
Despite his iron resolve, Jaegar collapsed on the floor.
The ghostly aberration continued: "As punishment for your unspeakable crimes against women, you shall never know the love or companionship of a female, nor shall you be capable of producing female offspring. Your sons will be born in sets of twins. Two children of darkness. The spawn of human hosts who will die wretchedly upon giving birth—even as the firstborn of the first set will be demanded as a sacrifice of atonement." The phantom glowered with fury. "Failure to yield the sacrifice will be met with a hideous and terrible death!"
The damp walls of the cavern creaked as if moaning beneath the pronouncement, and the torches flickered in and out as a deep red glow consumed the once yellow flames.
Jadon Demir shook like a child unable to awaken from a nightmare. His chest heaved as he struggled for breath.
"I beg of you, grant mercy!" The words came out in a rush.
The phantom dipped and hissed, "Speak quickly."
Jadon cringed and averted his eyes. "I beseech you before all of heaven, before the Ancient Ones who came before us, 7
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and in the presence of the Celestial Gods: remove this curse upon my house and the house of my descendants."
The shadow stood still...listening.
Then all at once, Jadon's voice became a haunting song of sorrow, a sound so melodious that the room lit up, and the moon and stars dipped down to hear the beleaguered prince's words. Beneath a wind of grace and power, his plea took wings and flew....
"While I have walked among the warriors who have sacrificed our women, I have never taken life with my own hands. Although I have failed miserably to save the innocent, I have tried to convict the guilty. And while it is true, I have enjoyed the privileges of the mighty, my heart has wept for the weak. Your wrath is deserved. Your punishment is just.
But I beg of you: search my heart...and have mercy upon me and my house."
Clearly disgusted, his older twin sat up and slowly turned his head to the side, his stark onyx eyes narrowing with contempt. He cursed Jadon beneath his breath and held his gaze in an angry glare.
"Remember your place, brother. That which curses us now is the blood of the slain, the wretched females we offered to the gods for our birthright: to be worshiped beside the Celestial Beings. Plead not with these inferiors for mercy. We are the strong. The powerful. What we did was justified. And I will not beg mercy of a female."
The room erupted into angry flames.
Sparks flew through the air like fire and brimstone.
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A revolting abomination of heat licked at the brothers'
skin, yet it did not consume their flesh.
And then the voice of the slain cried out from within the flames: "Ours was once a proud and noble race, before you led the corruption of our men beyond the abyss of evil." A blast of rage scorched the dark twin's eyes, turning his pupils from black to red as he was brought to his belly before his accuser. "In your thirst for power, Prince Jaegar, you have sacrificed the last of our females: our powerful sisters, mothers, and daughters. The keepers of the secrets of our race. You have not achieved greatness. You have brought an entire civilization to its knees! To the verge of extinction!"
The blaze then formed a halo around the body of the male who had pled so eloquently for mercy.
"And Prince Jadon, we have searched your heart and find your words to be true. You and your descendants—alone—
shall be granted four mercies accordingly: Though still creatures of the night, you shall be allowed to walk in the sun. Though still required to live on blood, you shall not be forced to take the lives of the innocent. Though still incapable of producing female offspring, you will be given one opportunity to obtain a mate, and the sign of her arrival shall be heralded in the heavens.
"Though still required to atone for the sins of your people, your twin sons will be born as one child of darkness and one child of light, and you shall be allowed to sacrifice the former while keeping the purer soul to carry on our noble race."
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Blood Destiny
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And so...
Banished from their homeland in the mountains of Eastern Europe, the descendants of Jaegar and the descendants of Jadon became the Vampyr of legend: roaming the earth, ruling the elements, living on the blood of others, forever bound by an ancient curse.
They were brothers of the same species, separated only by degrees of light and shadow.
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Present Day
The dark woods were eerily quiet. Not a single sound invaded the night. Not even the soft hooting of an owl overhead or the faint rustle of leaves in the trees as an icy wind swept through the darkness. The ancient, circular clearing was on hallowed ground. A spherical grave-yard surrounded by tall, looming pines and enormous, jutting rocks—the final resting place for the fallen descendants of Jadon.
Nathaniel Silivasi knelt before a perfect, lifeless body as it lay unnaturally still upon an ancient stone slab. His fraternal twin, Kagen, crouched down beside him.
His heart was heavy with sorrow—his grief overwhelming.
The gravity of the loss was almost too much to bear.
It was still hard to believe that their youngest brother had fallen. Shelby: the last born of the five, a soul so full of mischief and humor. Shelby: vibrant, powerful, and gifted beyond measure.
Only five-hundred years old, he had died as a mere fledgling. Just another proud warrior lost to the original sin.
Nathaniel cursed the heavens against the fate of their kind.
Like all descendants of Jadon, he was a being of both darkness and light, a powerful prince of the night, protecting the earth and its inhabitants from the darker demons of their species—the descendants of Jaegar.
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He bowed his head in silent resignation, trying to accept what could never be changed: Shelby had failed to complete his destiny, to obtain the one human woman tied to his infinite soul—the only being in a lifetime of immortality who could free him from the ultimate claim of the Blood Curse.
With piercing eyes the color of emeralds and long black hair that flowed as the wind, Dalia Montano's path had been chosen long before her birth. Chosen for Shelby and the future of their race.
It had been Dalia's fate to bear Shelby's twin sons: a child of light, who would forever lift the dark curse of death and spare his soul from eternal damnation, and a child of darkness, who would be offered in atonement for the sins of their forefathers.
Nathaniel trembled as the memory replayed in his mind.
Shelby had immediately recognized all the signs—just as he should have—the blood red moon, the sudden appearance of his birth constellation in a pitch-black sky, even the matching birth mark on Dalia's inner wrist. But he had failed to consummate the ritual in time.
Wanting to make things easier on the beautiful human female who had turned his heart as easily as she had twisted his fate, Shelby had waited too long. And in doing so, he had created a lethal opportunity for one of the shadow descendants of Jaegar to get to Dalia first.
Valentine Nistor.
The true undead.
A living, breathing expression of evil itself.
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