Bloodcraft
Authors: Amalie Howard
Table of Contents
Dedication:
For the truest fans
“Monsters are real. They live inside us, and sometimes, they win.”
~Stephen King
The Reii will rise when the world is at its close.
Vampyre Covenant XXV, The Book of Reii
ONE
Prison of Lights
The magic rose to her command, her blood racing like wildfire in her veins as the creeping shadow unfurled in the corner, its eyes gleaming and vicious. Victoria suppressed a shiver as she stood against the side of the far wall, her body rigid. She swallowed hard, adrenaline making her ears throb. “You never should have ventured from whatever hole you call a home.”
She’d marched into that dark corner of the room of her own free will, and now there was no doubt in her mind that it was now or never. She had no choice but to stand her ground. Fight or flee, as it were. She took a deep breath, pulling the magic that she would need to the fore as she faced her enemy square in the face.
“Die,” she said, her heart in her throat. “You’re going to die.” The creature stared back at her, uncowed by her threats as it shuffled closer. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.
Ignis cremo
,” she yelled, leaping onto the bed and brandishing her arms wildly.
Her would-be attacker exploded as the fire spell ignited and charred its target until nothing remained but a blackened hole in the carpet. Victoria sighed with relief as she sank back against the pillows.
Stupid spiders.
The sprawling old Parisian château had its charm, but it also had its not-so-charming variety of sinister visitors, including this particular beast. Christian’s home was impeccably decorated and furnished, but given its age, circa early seventeenth century, it was natural to expect some uninvited guests here and there, hiding in the most unexpected places. This one—the size of her fist—had practically hunted her down from the bathroom.
Well, at least it was gone. A hissing noise drew her attention and Victoria’s eyes snapped open, her cheeks reddening as she noticed Leto’s mirthful expression. Propping herself up onto her elbows, she glared at the cat that had been at her side since birth and scowled. He continued to make that silly hissing noise that sounded like laughter, and she flushed with embarrassment—he must have seen her showdown with the spider.
“What?” she muttered defensively. “It was the size of a house.”
At least this one died a quick death
, he replied, his mental voice sounding strangled.
“Shut up, Leto,” Victoria said. “Before I banish you back to Maine.”
She stuck her tongue out at him and flung herself onto the bed. Leto was an old and arrogant silver-furred feline, and, as she’d discovered last year, certainly far more than a mere cat. He was her familiar—her spirit link to a world full of witchcraft and magic.
Magic
—as in real live witches and warlocks, spells and curses. No flying brooms though, which was a pity. She’d read
Harry Potter
along with everyone else in the world, and racing a broom around a Quidditch pitch sounded pretty fantastic. Then again, it wasn’t like Victoria had much to complain about—she could teleport in the blink of an eye, heal any wound, cast a number of spells, and had a talking cat for a guide.
She’d inherited Leto from her grandmother’s friend, Holly Milton. Despite his annoying tendency to disapprove of everything she did, he had been instrumental in most of her education in the ways of witches over the past year. Victoria sighed. Most days, she vacillated between being a source of disappointment or one of entertainment for him.
Today, it was obviously the latter. Victoria could see his body still shaking with silent laughter at her expense, and she bit her lip to keep from doing something rash, like tossing him out the window and testing the theory of whether cats did indeed have nine lives. She settled for some bland conversation instead.
“I really need to call Holly and let her know that we are okay,” she said.
I am sure Holly is fine. You spoke to her last week.
“I know, but we’ve been here over a month now and I’ve only called her twice,” she said. “I feel guilty.”
Truth was, she missed Holly. She’d been a rock over the few months when things had gotten more than a little rough during Victoria’s last year of high school in Maine. One of her best friends—who turned out to be an evil power hungry warlock—had tried to kill her. And that was
after
he kidnapped her and tortured her friends. It’d been a fight to the death, which thankfully had not been hers, or any of her loved ones, for that matter. All because of one teeny tiny curse.
A summer ago, it started with a random blood disease that had attacked her nervous system. The disease was parasitic—infecting her very cells and leaving the doctors baffled, even more so when she recovered in perfect health. In the space of the few weeks following, however, her entire world was flipped upside down. The mysterious blood disease wasn’t a sickness at all. Instead, it was the precursor to the centuries old curse that had ushered in her magical powers … powers that everyone else in the world seemed to covet. Running for her life, the only person she could trust turned out to be a vampire.
A
vampire
… as in a blood-sucking creature of the night that preyed on people and stole the life from their veins, one with fangs and claws that never aged and feared the sunlight. Victoria smiled to herself. Christian wasn’t all bad. Okay, well, he
did
drink human blood, but he wasn’t a killer. And he wasn’t just any vampire—he was a vampire royal who had risked his immortal life for her.
The thought of him made her blood tingle beneath her skin as it always did. The intimate nature of their relationship had drawn the censure of the Witch Clans and the Vampire Council, the governing factions of both species. She glanced at Leto. He’d been fiercely against them, too, and had only recently come to a reluctant acceptance of the fact that Christian wasn’t going anywhere.
As if that wasn’t enough to fuel the fire, Christian had a sadistic twin brother who wanted nothing but both their deaths and was still conspiring to usurp Christian’s position as head of the House of Devereux. Lucian had been coveting Victoria’s magic from the beginning, which led to why they were here, at Christian’s family estate, just an hour south of Paris. Face the enemy directly and all that. Not that Victoria wanted to be anywhere near Lucian, but she could do a lot worse than spending the summer in the most romantic city in the world.
Not that she’d seen any of it either.
Victoria sighed and stared upward, her eyes tracing the intricate gold swirls of the crown molding on the ceiling. Upon his return to Paris, Christian had resumed his duties, mostly to keep an eye on his marauding brother and his vampire consort, Lena, who was now a member of the powerful Vampire Council. Victoria had accompanied him to Paris to learn about the Witch Clans, but she knew that Christian was obsessed with her safety. Thus far, she had yet to leave this drafty old castle or meet any of her own kind.
As a result, she was going stir crazy and killing insects for sport, while Christian insisted that it was not as safe as he would like. The night before, they’d had a huge fight about it. She had argued that she could more than take care of herself, but he hadn’t budged an inch, and in the end, given that this was his territory, she had given in—if ungracefully—to his demands.
“I need to get out of here,” she muttered, more to herself than to Leto.
You could always teleport to Holly’s or Angie’s
, Leto suggested helpfully.
Victoria smiled as she thought how great it would be to see her friend Angie, who had started out as an enemy and had ended up becoming her closest friend. Or not, as she immediately imagined what Christian’s reaction would be if she disappeared without telling him. She sighed. She had to get him to be reasonable or she’d just go back to Canville. Anything was a better alternative than being a prisoner in someone else’s home in someone else’s country, fighting abnormally large spiders all day long.
“Any more news on what the other familiars are saying?” she asked Leto, trying to change the subject to something that would distract the slow, angry simmer of her emotions.
Since their arrival in France, Leto had been communicating with other familiars that lived in the Paris covens. It irked her that
he
had been able to go out, but she was desperate for any information she could get, especially when Christian was being so overprotective and secretive. Victoria hadn’t asked how Leto had known the other familiars—it was one of those things that went along with his endless knowledge of witchcraft. One of these days, she
would
get him to tell her his life story. Her attention snapped to him at his next words.
They are mobilizing
, he was saying
. They sense that the Cruentus Curse is near
.
Victoria’s body tensed at the mere mention of the blood curse that had haunted her for the past year, and Leto’s mental voice shifted into a deep purr, dissipating the tension with some of his own special magic. She felt the rigidity seep from her shoulders.
They are looking for you to lead them,
he added.
“Lead them against what?” she asked, frowning.
It is your birthright, Victoria. You are a witch queen. You must take your place among the Witch Clans.
She shook her head. “We’ve been through this before, Leto. I can’t lead them. I can’t even deal with my own life. And think about it. They’d never accept me given where I live or who I’m with, now would they?” Victoria’s pointed reference to the fact that she was practically shacking up with a vampire—which was not condoned by either of their worlds—made Leto dip his head in silent acknowledgment.
Even so, you are the witch from the prophecy, the descendant of a legend. Who is to say you cannot make your own rules?
You could
make
them agree, you know.
He said the last part so quickly that she almost didn’t hear him. But she did, and her eyes widened.
“I couldn’t. Could I?”
Yes.
Victoria frowned in disbelief. “Forcing others to bend to my will?”
What’s wrong with changing an antiquated belief so that you can live in your world on your own terms?
“But I
am
living on my own terms with Christian,” she said, working through Leto’s muddled logic. Sometimes she didn’t know if he wanted her to heed his advice or whether he was playing devil’s advocate and expected her to argue. What he was suggesting was barbaric. Tyrannical. She shook her head. “I don’t think it’s that easy. We’re talking about millennia of mistrust between two feuding species. Witches and vampires are like oil and water—they don’t mix.”
Except for her and Christian. They were the anomalies … the exception to the rule. They shouldn’t be together. But somehow when they were, nothing else seemed to matter. From the very first moment she had met him, she had known that he was hers
.
Just as she had been his. Their road hadn’t been an easy one. Love didn’t always conquer everything—especially not other people and what they believed.