Forever E-Book

Natalie J. Case

• Herausgeber: Next Chapter
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

Born in the dawn of man's history, Amara is neither human nor vampire and yet fully both; a killer, a child, a lover, a monster.

Wandering the world, she seeks redemption and vengeance in equal measure. Discovering love in its many forms and loss in its deepest agony, her life circles around two others who return to her again and again, until their fates are set right.

"The ancient game is played out as three souls, born together in the lost pages of time, are as they were meant to be. But to tell that story, my story, I must go back to the beginning. To the time before I came to be.

Before any of us had come to be."

Leseprobe

Forever

Natalie J. Case

Copyright (C) 2016 Natalie J. Case

Layout design and Copyright (C) 2022 by Next Chapter

Published 2022 by Next Chapter

Edited by Donna Rich

Cover art byhttp://www.thecovercollection.com/

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the author's permission.

Chapter 1

I am comfortable in the dark, when the moon slumbers and clouds dim the stars and the smell of the earth rises in the still air. Perhaps that still moment is the only place I am comfortable. My years have been long and have seen me travel nearly all of this world, often alone. I have given life and dealt death, but I offer no regrets. Regret is a waste of effort when justice brings the guilty no peace. I will see justice in the end, I am certain of that, for all that I have done, and all I have not.

So much has gone now and I am ill at ease with the time, the waiting, here at the end of my life. The ancient game is played out and three souls, born together in the lost pages of time are as they were meant to be … but to tell that story, my story, I must go back to the beginning, before I came to be, before any of us had come to be.

It begins near to the birth of time, or man's keeping of it, when three brothers entered into an unholy bond, bound by blood to the night, trading the daylight for eternal life. The stories tell of their calling, the slaughter of their mortal families, and the beginning of what would be called The Family. The middle brother, a brutish man named Crenoral, chose my mother to be his first bride. She had been a farmer's wife, and was pregnant, only barely so, when Crenoral came and called her into the night. She followed him, bringing me with her, and leaving behind a mortal family of two sons to mourn her. It was some time after that when I came to be born.

Our existence and all of its dark burden was new to us then. There were no rules to our existence, save for the drinking of blood and the death that rose with each sunrise. The Family was small, those three brothers, their brides and the occasional other whom they adopted along the way. In all, there were no more than twelve in my earliest memories, aside from Crenoral and his brothers.

I was born in a dark, dank cave somewhere in the Caucasus to a mother who wasn't exactly beautiful. She learned early how to make use of what gifts she was given, and when she chose, could be dynamically attractive, terrifying and compelling at once. I can still see her long, angular face and hair as black as the night, which made her appear somehow harsh, unforgiving. Her green eyes burned eerily in the darkness and smoldered in the firelight.

There was little to our relationship but for the vague, distant kinship we all shared and the occasional moment of maternal gesture. Her life was securely coiled around her own hunger and little intruded upon her desire, save her duty to Crenoral. She did, however, take pleasure in telling me how long she was forced to carry me, and how I had maimed her in my infancy.

When I was first born, Mother fed me, returning from her own hunt to suckle me to her breast. My teeth and instinct combined to fill me with the blood that she brought for me. As I grew, ever so slowly, I was given to drink from her wrist, but the damage was done and both breasts bore scars from my years of feeding. As she complained, and grew bored with me, Crenoral would feed me, cradling me in his arms as he held his wrist to my lips. The day came, however, when it was no longer enough, the instincts born within me cried for release, the hunger needed to be appeased.

I waited in the dark of my nursery crypt, cold and hungry, the Change full upon me when Crenoral came. I caught him unaware, pouncing from my sleeping pallet and clawing my way up his chest to bite into the tender skin at his neck. When I was sated and pulled back from him, he was laughing, wiping at the still dripping wound. I was breathless and shaking as he pulled me to him and held me tightly, pride filling his words. “Amara, my little one, what a killer you shall be.” He held me, caressing my wild, un-brushed hair and showering me with kisses until the Change subsided.

The next night was ours. He bathed me and dressed me, parading me before the gathered clan as his perfect little daughter. I was proud, walking beside him, knowing we were going out into the night together, and that not even my mother was afforded that honor. I was his protégé and he was my mentor, my father.

I might have even passed as his daughter, though I was born with skin purely white. My full head of black hair was thick like his and slightly wavy. The fangs that sliced through flesh so easily had cut my mother as I was born, though they were the only teeth in my head. Over the next decades, the rest of my teeth came in and the fangs became somewhat less noticeable, retracting until the Change came upon me. My eyes were so dark that they might not be discerned from the shadows and my vision was sharp in the dark without a moon or stars. There was little remarkable about my appearance, save these things. I did not possess the odd, translucent beauty of my brothers and sisters, nor the mysterious, gripping quality I would find later in humanity. I was, beside them all, rather plain.

That night, none my inadequacies mattered. I was glorious beside him, my tiny hand held in his thick one as we followed the night down from our mountain home, a slowly growing abode above the natural caves that hid us by day. I had never been outside the protective walls before that spring night, and I wanted to see everything. The crisp aroma of broken grass was punctuated with bursts of fennel and yarrow and underscored by the constant base of damp earth. There was a slight tang in the air that Crenoral said came from the sea that was nearly a whole night's journey away, even for us, to the east and slightly north. Sometimes, when the wind blew just right, it brought with it the scent of the water. Closer to us the aroma of blood faintly came to me. I was more familiar with this scent and my feet quickened their pace.

Two of the local tribes were at war and the call of blood and death rose higher in the air as we moved through the trees. My little body shook with excitement as we neared the battlefield and I felt my teeth biting into my lower lip. The scents grew sharper as the Change came over me, transforming my tender, child-like features into something far more terrifying.

As we paused in the shadows of the trees, Crenoral smiled down at me. His face was also distorted by the Change, his thick eyebrows thicker still and raised somewhat from his eyes, which seemed brighter. His smile revealed white teeth and deadly fangs. The pale light of the half moon reflected off his face, making him appear to glow. I wondered if I glowed too.

Yards away from us, a man walked a slow pattern through the field, pausing from time to time to examine a body. His wrapped feet scuffed on the stones and cold dirt of the bloodied field that had earlier been filled with living souls, but now held only the dead and the dying. The smell of him was nearly overpowering. I had never seen a mortal alive before.

He was smaller than I had imagined, in a rough spun cloth tunic girded with a leather belt. He wore a bag over one shoulder and he was collecting items from the bodies. His breath plumed on the chill air as he looked around him nervously. I licked my lips in anticipation, willing him closer. The hunger inside me was undeniable.

I held my breath, as Crenoral stole up behind the man, overpowering him quickly and pulling him to the ground, with one hand covering the man's mouth. Crenoral used that hand to pull the man's head away from his shoulder, exposing his neck and signaling me to come. I scrambled over a stiff body and slick grass. I could see then he was already bleeding from a small wound Crenoral had made with a blade secreted in his hand. I looked up at Crenoral expectantly.

“What are you waiting for? Drink.”

I needed no further encouragement, clamping my small mouth over the bleeding, pulsing wound just below the man's ear. The taste was richer than what I was used to, thicker, sweeter. The echo of another heart called out to my own, even as I felt that other heart slowing. Images of his life filled my mind, thoughts of his brother, a child, his fear of death. For all my appetite, he was far more than my body could contain, and when I was full I pulled back, my face was wet with his blood. I pulled a corner of my tunic over my sticky chin and looked up at my teacher.

Crenoral laughed and dropped the man, leaving him to die alone where he fell. We made for the outskirts of the nearest camp then, and Crenoral feasted twice before we turned for home. As we walked through the night, he spoke of the people of the mountain, those closest to us. He warned me away from certain roads and told me stories of his early days, when he and Bestin raged through the nights.

Crenoral was a dark and sinister man. He had already reached his mid-thirties when his elder brother came to him and kissed him with immortality. He was short, as most men were in his time, dark of skin and hair, and he was possessed of deep, dark blue eyes, made all the deeper by the prominent brow that gave him a permanent scowl. Even the many years spent in the embrace of the night only slightly paled him. Dark hair, trimmed short, conferred on him an appearance of strength, even when the Change was not upon him, and he was charismatic and charming.

He doted upon me in those early days, lavishing me with gifts and praise. He made a show of honoring the day of my birth, though the others clearly despised me for the unnatural way I came to be. Crenoral fancied himself my father, and I the only daughter he would ever have. In turn, I adored him. He gave me anything and everything my heart desired and I followed him through the nights, emulating him.

From that first night on, I went out to hunt among the tribes of man, a child small, frail…fearsome, ferocious. Hand in hand we wandered through dark settlements, stealing through opened doors and crawling into open windows when we could find no wayward soul dealing death or attending to urgent private matters in the small hours of the night. In those days the hunger was more than I knew how to control, and I would fall upon my prey fiercely, leaving little behind.

Crenoral's pride in me was palpable, and the strength and rush that came with the blood was enthralling. I had known that we were stronger, faster than our mortal cousins, but was fascinated by the frailty of the human body, the ease with which death came to them. I was captivated as well by what I saw as we passed like wraiths through settlements and villages. Homes built of wood and stone, gathering places, shrines to gods and goddesses, tools with which they killed and worked the ground all would bring me to pause in my hunt, running my tiny hands over them until Crenoral's hunger dragged me away.

One night, in a village on the western slope of the mountain where the salty scents of the distant Black Sea would reach strongly if the sky was clear, I stole a small piece of burnished copper from the room of a young girl whose blood was sweet. Her things had enthralled me, and I settled on the reflective surface, slipping through the night back to my dark crypt to spend hours staring at my own face.

By candlelight I watched my face change from one not much different from that of the girl who had last owned the primitive mirror, to that of a monster. I had seen the others, my mother and Crenoral, as they Changed and wondered about my own face. I knew I was different, though I had little understanding of what that meant. The face that scowled out at me was not unlike Mother's, though my brow was not nearly as pronounced as hers or Crenoral's. My sunken eyes made my face seem far more sinister than any mortal child my size I had seen. My teeth, already slightly larger and more distinct than the humans I had encountered, lengthened just noticeably, their sharpness catching on my lip if I wasn't mindful of them. Not all of the gifts of the Change can be found in a mirror though, and the truth of our differences from our mortal brethren can be found in those that cannot be seen.

Senses intensify as the Change comes and the speed of our stride can imply the notion of flight. Our eyes are not well suited for the harsh light of day, but are keen in the dark and shadow. We, small as we might have been, were the dark predators that hunted in the cold shadows and caused the preternatural fears among the early ancestors of today's man. Much of the uneducated mythology and barbaric belief dismissed so easily by modern scholars is, in its deepest core, the reality of who and what we were. There was no escaping our hunger. There was only death. It was all I knew in those days.

I was, however, quite alone. The Family despised me, even Mother who grew bored with me as Crenoral became enamored of me. He was my only companion, and when I was not with him I was alone, or bullied about by Arda and Vahe who despised me. Vahe was the oldest of Crenoral's clan, taken, on a whim when Crenoral needed company, from a sheep pasture. He had only been sixteen. Arda was little more than that, brought by Vahe to serve his lust. With my arrival, Crenoral left them to their own darkness. They hated me for that. My childhood was filled with torments, the hunger which haunted my day and night and their hatred, softened only by Crenoral's affection. I craved companionship, and after a time it was not that of a doting father that I needed.

Crenoral seemed to recognize it. I appeared as a human of six or so when he came to me, beaming and happy with himself. It was the night of my birth, three hundred and sixty-five years old as I recall, a night when he and I would celebrate and he would bring me incredibly tasty gifts. He had been away for many days, and I was expecting his return with something from a faraway land.

“I have brought you something, Amara,” he said, slipping into the dark room, his teeth shining in the light of a single flame from the crude oil lamp beside my bed.

I looked up expectantly and saw the flush upon his face, the tiny telltale drops of red at the corners of his mouth. He sat beside me and gathered me into his arms. “What is it, Father?” I asked in a voice hushed with excitement.

He squeezed me once, then disappeared out the door. When he returned, a child walked beside him. A boy, no more than ten himself, beautiful as the night, with fair hair and skin. His face was vacant and I could smell the distinct aroma of death about him. This was no juicy morsel from the east or north. Crenoral brought him to me, sat him beside me. I could see the minute changes just barely begun in him, upon his once human face. His porcelain-smooth skin was paling, his lost eyes widening as the pain of death registered. The deed was already done, and the hunger was awakening. “What is he, Father?” I breathed, one hand grazing the surface of his skin.

“He is yours, darling, forever. Does he please you?”

I was enamored, watching him go from being human to being like me, seeing him die and be reborn. “Yes, Father, very much. Does he have a name?”

“Adan,” the boy himself responded, his face turning to me, his eyes clear.

I clapped my hands with glee, so excited to have a new friend, a playmate. At last, a companion who would be devoted to me. Crenoral beamed with his own happiness. “Are you hungry then, my young ones?” he asked, after a time.

I was at his side instantly, Adan only slightly behind me. We went out together to hunt. That night, in the glory of the newborn of the night, we fed gluttonously on anything that crossed our path; deer, rabbits, and finally as the clouds closed in over the half-full moon, a teenager rising in the small hours of the morning to begin his chores. Adan and I frolicked in the shadows as Crenoral watched, beaming at us like a proud father. We slipped into the dark of our caves just minutes before the dawn, Adan and I falling together into my bed to sleep contentedly tangled together.

We were inseparable for a time after that, Adan and I, with Crenoral lagging along behind. Adan was an eager student, willing to learn all I could teach him. I taught him all that I knew; the names of stars, the stories of the Family, how far off we could travel in search of food and still have time to return before daylight, how to find shelter from the day when you've gone too far. Our hunts were punctuated with play as he taught me the games of his homeland north of the Black Sea.

There was a connection between us that made words nearly meaningless, as if we could read one another's thoughts. I knew when he needed to feed, and felt the pull of sleep dragging on him as dawn approached. Hunting was exhilarating beside him, my own excitement enhanced by his need. I was too young yet to understand the feelings that I felt, but I felt them fiercely.

Crenoral shadowed us, watching our play as any proud parent might, his eyes darting around us whenever we neared a place where people might be found. Adan and I found endless fascination in finding children out attending to bodily needs or setting to chores in the earliest hours of the dark, and seducing them into games. We would draw them further and further from their home, playing until it was obvious that the child wanted to go home, or until we were bored with the game. Then, we would fall on the child, leaving the body for the village to find with the sunlight. All the while, Crenoral watched, a strange smile on his face that made me wonder what pleasure he got from watching our nighttime games.

Adan and I were caught up in ourselves, in our union and the pleasure of being children free to roam the night. He was the companion that filled an ache inside me that Crenoral never could. It took some time, but eventually Crenoral became bored with our increasingly private world and left us to ourselves. Mother or one of the others was given the task to watch us while we fed, though we often slipped away unnoticed. I suppose it was inevitable that Crenoral should feel shut out of our lives, as we became increasingly more dependent upon one another than on him.

It was also inevitable that I would grow beyond my pet, bored with his limitations. He was, after all was said and done, a child, his mind and body stuck in the moment Crenoral stole him from the daylight. In truth, I had never thought about it before, that while I aged slowly, I did age, and none of the others did. I was constantly maturing. I noticed it as the dawn pulled him to sleep, while I, still excited from whatever fun we'd found in the night, lay awake beside him. I saw it as my head inched slowly passed his shoulder. I could see it in minute ways if I looked, my fingers lengthened, my hair grew longer, my appetite lessened … and Adan remained the same. Our interests began to change as well.

Our play became increasingly violent and Adan's desire for blood intensified. I was generally sated easily, and sharing a meal with him was sufficient most nights for me. Many nights I had no need to feed, or chose not to as I saw nothing that interested me. As time passed, Adan desired more. His needs carried us miles from home, down the mountains to the shores of the Black Sea in search of towns and villages that had never heard of our kind, or felt the sting of our bite. On those nights we were forced into the mountain caves for shelter. As he fell into the deep sleep of the Family, I lay awake, listening to the strange sounds and smelling the odd odors and wondering what made me different.

It was becoming obvious that I was different, and my interest in our violent death games was waning. We fought over little things, and it would hurt me every time he would storm away in anger. I wanted him to stay with me, so I would give in and do as he desired, but my heart wasn't in it. We began hunting separately from time to time, and I would find him returning with Arda and Vahe. I suppose it matters little which one of us stopped looking for the other first, but eventually I was alone again, and Adan was just another member of the Clan.

Occasionally after that I would hunt with Crenoral, but it never felt the same again. I was changing, realizing I was not like the others. I was not human either, and that left me to wonder where I fit in. Crenoral began to seem to me as the others did … cold, distant, so unlike the father I had once adored. The night eventually arrived when I, in all my child-like wonder, truly saw him for the first time.

We were hunting together, alone in the quiet of the early night. Not far from the mountainside where we dwelled, we came upon a family of three, settling in to sleep beside their wagon. They were young, the mother could have been no more than seventeen or eighteen, the child barely three. Crenoral played with the man when he roused at our approach. Crenoral taunted them, the Change plain upon his face. Their fear only encouraged him. The child cried, perhaps sensing the coming death, and I found myself holding her, trying to quiet her. The hunger burned hot inside me as Crenoral joked with the man, earning uneasy laughter, then embarrassment and finally the man's anger. He lunged at Crenoral who only caught him and bent him to his pleasure.

Then, he tormented the woman, her dead husband's blood staining his face as he touched her breasts and kissed her. He flirted with the idea of bringing her into the Family, having grown bored with his latest fling, and not yet ready to go back to my mother, as he always did eventually, but in the end he killed her. I was still holding the child. He was sated, happy with himself … a monster. He laughed at my revulsion of him and mocked the protective way I was holding the child.

I felt the hunger inside of me and clung to it, utterly revolted by what I had just witnessed. The child began to cry again as Crenoral grew angry with me. “What will you do, Amara? Leave it here to die slowly?” he asked, circling us. I felt hot tears sting my own skin as the Change transformed my face and the need to kill filled me.

“I will not kill it,” I said, clutching the child tightly to me. “I will not.”

“It is not a choice … look at you.” His voice was low, menacing. “I can feel how much you want her.”

Small blond curls tumbled out from under her bonnet and big blue eyes opened to stare at the mask of evil on my face. I felt as if she was looking through me, touching some part of me that had never lived until that very moment. Yes, I wanted her. My heart pounded with it, wrapping around her own as if to squeeze it from her breast. “No, Father. I will not. She is–”

“What, Amara? What is she? What is she if not food to sustain you?” He crowded over me, his eyes dark. The pressure of him nearly broke me.

“A child. Innocent. I will not kill her.” I repeated it like a mantra as I released her and set her in the grass beside the dead body of her mother.

Crenoral stared at me in disbelief, then looked to the child. She had ceased her crying, and only looked upon us, as if memorizing our faces. “Innocence is no protection,” he said. “Innocence is only the absence of knowledge. Think how sweet she will taste, how hot her blood must be now.”

“No.” I turned my back and took the first steps away. He followed.

“Kill her now, or be punished.”

I stopped and looked up at him. The Change had left his face, but in the dark his scowl was dangerous and his eyes glittered with anger. It frightened me, but I did not respond, only stepped away. He continued to follow, his fury almost palpable on the night air. I hoped he would continue following me, and forget the small child alone on the side of the road. I hurt inside with the unanswered hunger, I hadn't fed in several nights, and his displeasure with me cut deeply.

I kept moving until I was behind the closed door of my room, and even then I could feel him, hovering outside the door. I didn't sleep, and was up and out into the night almost as the sun went down. I had never before ventured out without at least Adan for company, but I could not bring myself to face him right then. I remember little of that night, but I hated myself. I hated what I was, where I came from. I fed to appease the hunger, but it left me morose and disgusted.

When I returned, he was waiting for me on the ground floor, just inside the door. His hard hand came down across my face with a force that knocked me over. I lay still for a moment, then felt his hand in my hair. He pulled me to my feet and dragged me to the place that would come to be known as the punishment closet. It was a storage hole, barely big enough to stand in, and I still wore the body of a child. The door shut and was barred behind him.

Time passed, I couldn't tell how much. My young body was unaccustomed to the starvation. It became harder and harder not to throw myself at the door, and to hold off the Change. Before Crenoral returned for me, I had spent more than twenty-four hours in the hold of the Change. I shook from head to toe, desperate to feed.

He brought to me a child then, when he knew I could not resist. Thankfully, it was not she whom I had already spared, but a boy about the same age, his eyes wide and red as though he had been crying. His tiny heart raced, his blood called me. I tore his neck open and swallowed his life, nearly ripping his head from his small body. Crenoral laughed. “That is more like it, Little One. Do not disobey me again.”

I did not feed again until the hunger became unbearable, until it tore me from my sleep and dragged me into the night. Then, I did it quickly, leaving little sign of my deed. I would leave early in the night with the young ones, brought to the clan by the impatient Vahe and Arda. Their hunger drove them all night long and they were easily distracted, allowing me to slip away and wander alone. I avoided Mother and Crenoral, certain that they would sense that something was wrong with me and punish me again. Crenoral's attentions however had returned to his first bride, and they were rather absorbed in themselves, so it made little difference to them if I chose company other than theirs. Indeed, it seemed as if Crenoral were as disgusted with my actions as I was with his.

It appeared to all as if I fed as I had in the past, leaving early with the small group and returning several hours before dawn, but I fed little, hiding my starvation as best I could. I hovered near humanity, listening in on conversations of the world, of farming, hunting and children, love and desperation … things I knew little of. The lure of them was strong, I wanted them desperately, craved the warm rush they alone could provide, the heated passion of approaching death.

More than that, I longed to be a part of their lives, their loves … their light. I wanted to stand in daylight and feel the heat of it kiss my closed eyelids and work its way into my soul. I was utterly smitten with the mortals who had been my playthings and suppers for as long as I could recall.

Chapter 2

I found that I loved to hear a voice sing, or watch children at play in the warm glow of a fire after supper. It brought a smile to my face, and made my heart shudder. The hunger filled me and I felt some great pleasure that rivaled the killing itself in the strain of holding myself still and silent and unchanged. I also found that I aged more rapidly when I went without feeding. In my infancy, my mother had counted decades as mortals do months, and the decades since Crenoral had brought Adan had seemed as years. I could, at long last, pass myself off among humanity as a young woman of fourteen or so.

It was then that my heart governed me most. Long nights I would walk alone, unwilling to take human life. I would feed every few nights on wildlife, sparingly. Once or twice fate conspired to leave in my path a wounded or sickly soul, who would not live whether I fed or not. Soon, even that left a bitter taste on my tongue. I would hold them and whisper things they could never understand. I tried to be gentle and take what I needed to survive. When I'd finish, laying them softly back as I had found them, I would cry, sometimes violently, sobbing in an anguish I was unable to put into words. Once or twice, I became overwrought by it and would vomit back what I had taken, leaving them in a puddle of their own blood.

I would hunt animals when the need grew to deafening volumes, falling upon deer, moose, whatever I could to feed the fire. Sometimes I would spot one of the others, watching me. In my most rational moments I knew the time had come to leave the Family all together, but I had yet to do more than think about it. Even then, I knew what my future life would be. Mathis, the old hermit who fancied himself a mystic saw it in me. He would whisper to all who would listen that I was the harbinger of their doom. He said the portents told that my unnatural creation was the omen of the end. Mother and the others had come from superstitious human stock, and easily believed him.

Crenoral, of course, would not listen. I was still, on some level, his beloved daughter, and in his eyes they were merely jealous of his obvious affection. I may have angered and disgusted him, but I was his child, and he would not show me anything but affection in front of them, lest they think him weak and easily influenced. He showed no signs of recognizing that I no longer returned the affection, or of the changes within me.

They knew. They watched me wander aimlessly all night and return no more sated than when I left. They could smell the bloodlust, the hunger I refused to feed. They taunted me; harassed me … tormented me until I wanted to turn all of my needing upon them and feast better than I had in months, even years. Mother knew as well, I think, as mothers sometimes will, but she said nothing. I wanted to be free from them all. How they sickened me … my stomach churning as they talked so trivially of death, to see blood dripping from open mouths as they fed. I hated them, despised them for what they were, what I was because of them … for the ease with which they killed, with no remorse, no regret.

Time passed slowly, and I tried to make some sense of it, of my life. Mankind was growing and began to spread across the open spaces, building towns and villages where once wilderness reigned. I was still so young, so naïve, though my body had matured a great deal. I discovered that I could travel down the dark side of the mountain before the sun had completely set, covered in a heavy cloak and keeping to the shadows, allowing me to travel further away than I ever had before. I found a small village that I had never seen before, grown up several hours from my mountain home. Little stone and mud brick homes with closed roofs, wooden doors and windows clustered around a central gathering space with a fire pit and benches, all nestled in the shadow of the mountain.

There was something familiar in the patterns of their lives, comforting to me in some way. I watched from the shadowed trees as the men returned from hunting and from tending the grain fields and the women scurried children indoors or served dinners. I listened to their language, and learned the words hovering outside their windows. Their women were strong and led the family in their daily chores, while the men saw to the building and filling the needs of their village.

I learned that they had named the mountain on which I had lived my entire life. They called it Arakatz, and on certain nights they celebrated in ceremonies I could not comprehend. They had painted skin and chanted around a fire while one of their number performed some rite that invoked the great strength of the peak that overshadowed them and the grace of their god, Ar. Their lives were simple and I wanted, more than anything, to feel what they felt.

In all I spent a year or more watching them, learning to braid my hair in a style which emulated the women, and styling my clothing after theirs. Garments of wool, dyed brown with pigments found in the earth, the women wore long skirts that protected their legs from the cold, often in layers so that they could carry things and dry their hands on the outermost layer, while still keeping warm.

It was on a celebration night, early in the spring, when the irises and gladioli had not yet put out their first blooms, I stepped out of the shadows and followed the rumbling voices as the chant rose, into the village center where the holy man poured out an offering into a wooden bowl on the shrine. The smells of the wood fire, the sweaty bodies that danced in disarray near the fire, all swirled around me, intoxicatingly. There was expectancy on the air, as they made their pleas to Ar for their coming planting, and the hunt that would follow to supplement the remaining of their winter stores. The emotion was thrilling, and I let it sweep over me, wanting their happiness to be my own.

As the celebration came to an end, I was reluctant to leave. I knelt alone, warming my hands over the remains of a once roaring fire. There I felt calm, the glow of the hot coals bathing my hands in a ruddy color that made them look nearly human. The air around me grew quiet as I knelt there and the villagers scattered to their homes. The pounding of my heart quieted and I breathed deeply of the life that infused that place.

“You are not of our village,” a voice said near me.

I jumped upwards, pulling my hands back away from the fire as if they might somehow give me away. “No. I am … not,” I said haltingly. I was frozen to my place, caught in uncertainty. Some part of me wanted to run, far and fast, and never return. The part of me that was drawn to them, bade me to stay and talk. I did not know what to say, and my grasp of their language was entirely theoretical. “I live … with my family … not far from here.” I was too nervous to consider lying, but neither dare I tell the truth.

He nodded and poked a long stick into the fire. I recognized him as the holy man who spoke at these celebrations and prayed for the people. Up close he seemed much younger than I had anticipated. He had removed his ceremonial headdress and I could see he had short, curly hair that was lighter than most of those in the village, a soft blond-brown that was echoed in his beard.

“What brings you to us?” he asked, his voice clear and pleasant.

I was sure I could never articulate what had brought me to enter that village that night. “We, my family, have no village.” I stopped, struggling for words. “We live alone, up on the mountain. I wanted to see.”

His eyes were dark, but glittered in the dying light of the fire. “What did you see?” he asked.

“My people have no … ceremonies, like yours. It was beautiful.”

“Do you not have gods?” he asked, stirring the coals of the fire.

I shook my head. “No, not as such. My father would not approve.” I tried to imagine Crenoral giving an offering to some faceless god, but could not.

“Where is your father?”

I looked up from the coals, slightly startled. “You are a young woman, and it is well past supper. Won't he worry for your safety?”

I knew I should leave, but couldn't bring my feet to move. I found myself speaking again. “My brothers and sisters are not far away, looking for one of our animals that broke loose. I came with them.”

I was completely enamored of him in those few minutes, his voice, the gentle nature, the concern for my safety. “I am Amara.” I said, almost breathlessly. I had never given my name to a mortal before.

“And I am Adroushan, priest of Ar for the people of this village.”

Nearby I could sense one of the others, probably Arda. “I should go now.” I said, moving away. I paused and turned back. “Could I … come back, another time?” I held my breath.

He smiled and nodded and I exhaled in relief. That began my first friendship among mankind. Once every ten days or so I would appear in the little village in the shadow of Arakatz and seek him out. At first I asked questions, curious about his god, and the people. We would spend the early dark sitting outside his hut while he told me the stories of his people and of the great city more than a week's journey north. He showed me clay tablets with curious symbols on them that he said recorded the stories he taught me. As spring gave way to summer, I brought gifts of wild flowers and shiny stones I sometimes found in the caves. As summer gave way to autumn, I came with shells and smooth stones from the sea. When winter blanketed the valley in white and hunting was scarce, I brought rabbits and deer from parts of the mountain they would never reach in the snow.

I told him little of myself, and what I did say was vague. He seldom questioned me, though he often expressed worry about my traveling alone so often at night. I assured him that I was less alone than he might think. Indeed, I often felt one of them hovering nearby on the nights I tarried there with him, watching me. I didn't understand what drew me there to sit with him, or why I craved his company almost as much as I craved his blood. I knew somehow that it would be sweet, not quite like that of a child, but precious, delicious. Near him, the hunger was cooled, the need appeased by his calming nature.

His voice was almost magical, and the poetry he recited came to life with a beauty I had never experienced. His hands were large, soft. When they touched me, my heart raced and I ached with desires I didn't quite understand. When I saw those hands touch another, an irrational anger filled me. I guess one could say that I loved him, though this was different than the affection I had held for Crenoral or Adan. As we walked through his village, I imagined what it would be like to be a part of his world. Or, to make him a part of mine.

It was late spring of the following year when I arrived shortly after sundown and he took me by the hand, leading me out of the village, through the poplar trees, to a small clearing near a pond that sat still and dark beneath a starry sky. He had spread a woven wool blanket on the ground and prepared a small meal. I was terror struck. I had never eaten human food, and was unsure if I even could eat it. I searched for an excuse, a reason, anything to get me away from him, but the smell of him was strong and he seemed so pleased with himself. I was trapped by my own affection for him. If he noticed my reluctance, my terror, he said nothing. He was warm and gentle as he led me to that blanket and handed me a wooden goblet filled with wine.

I knew I would have to try it, despite my fear. Hesitantly I sipped, expecting to gag upon something that was decidedly not what my body wanted most. Instead, my mouth was filled with a warm, sweet rush of a delicate flavor that went beyond the mere taste. I swallowed quickly, feeling the heat of it flood through me. He smiled again and began setting out the food.

I was like a child tasting sweets for the first time, as he set out a smoky cheese and fruits, bread still warm from baking and roasted duck. I tasted each in turn, savoring each morsel, awakening to each new sensation, every change of texture, aroma, and flavor.

The cheese smelled and tasted of age, mellowed by smoke and lightly flavored. It crumbled on my tongue and stuck to my teeth as I chewed. There was a round fruit that seemed soft and fuzzy on the outside. When he cut it open, the inside was orange and juicy. The taste was somewhat tart, but not unpleasant. It was soft to the bite and the juices burned as they ran down my throat before I could swallow. He cut into the rind of a small melon, then broke it over his knee, scooping out the seeds before handing me half of the white flesh. This too was juicy, running down my chin as I devoured the soft, tenderly flavored meat.

Even the duck, the very thought of which turned my stomach, was truly delicious. Somehow the taste transcended even my hunger for the blood, cooling the fire without slaking it, and arousing me. He watched as I ate, sipping on his wine, smiling at the obviously unexpected pleasure I found in each rapturous bite. I was aroused by his nearness, by the flavors, by the feeling of filling and heat that the food produced. It was more than I had ever felt, more so than even the killing had ever produced in me. I was hungry for more, so much more. My appetite had only whetted upon the mortal food.

Adroushan touched my face in obvious affection and I could smell him, his life beating in those veins just beneath the skin. I turned to it, brushing my lips across the flesh, tasting the exquisite saltiness of his skin. He moaned and his arm slipped around me, bringing me in close as he kissed me. I knew I should resist, but the fire of his lips on mine burned away my resistance. I melted into him, my body hot with the wine and food and desire.

Somewhere deep inside I could hear my own voice warning me, cautioning my passion, but I paid it no heed. I wanted him, in more ways than that which he was offering. His kisses and touches were dizzying, as hungry as my own, or more so. Frantically, we pulled at each other, lost in lust and passion, consummating our friendship in hasty desire. I never felt the coming of the Change, never realized my own error, until it was too late to recover. His heart roared in my ears, speaking to me as his poetry did, pulling at me. The hot touch of him upon my tongue was unlike anything I had ever tasted, so beautiful, so … much … more … I was breathless and full, and he lay beneath me, naked and dead, one jagged wound in his neck. His blood coursed through me beside the fever of the food and I howled into the night in anguish.

I could hear the others, Arda and Vahe and the rest, laughing from the trees. They had been watching, knowing my long restrained hunger would bring this to an ugly conclusion. I flew at them in a rage, lashing out at them in anger at myself, at my inability to control my desires. They allowed me to vent my emotion, circling me and letting me spend the remainder of my energy before they gathered me up and took me home.

Crenoral paced around me, Mother hovering nearby as they relayed the incident, from the moment I had met Adroushan through that very night. I knelt where they had deposited me, on the floor of his room, still naked and shaking. It was silent a long while before he ushered them out.

“Do you see, Little One, what becomes of you? Do you see now?”

I didn't answer, just huddled further into myself.

He came to kneel beside me. His anger and disappointment hung in the air around me. “They are not pets. They are vulgar, vile beings. They are not like us. They are mortal, cattle … nothing more. When will you accept this?”

He sighed and stood to resume his pacing. “I'm tempted to lock you in your room for the next two hundred years, see if that brings you back to your senses. I don't know, Illari, what do we do with her?”

Mother moved forward for the first time, her face paler than normal. Her dark hair cascaded over one shoulder and her dark eyes seemed to shimmer in the low light of the torches that lined the room. One hand lifted my chin almost gently and those eyes peered deeply into mine. It was more intimate than she had been with me in many years, though what she saw in my eyes I could not begin to know. So much about her was a mystery to me.

“Hmmm … She is weak yet. So much of her is still like her father.” Something in her voice made me realize she meant the mortal man who had been her husband before Crenoral had called her. This seemed to anger Crenoral further. “Do not hold it against her, Love. She will come around. So much of her is like me as well. It is the mortal heart in her that holds her to them.”

At that instant, that mortal heart seemed to be thundering with a life of its own, I could smell the humanity with me, the very essence that each of us in the Family craves. Crenoral turned, a strange look on his face. “That can be remedied,” he said, his voice low and menacing. The Change came upon him quickly and he flew at us. The air reverberated with his sudden fury. Mother stepped quickly between us, the Change taking what little humanity remained upon her face.

“No!” They stood, locked in a stare that might have melted any mortal and filled the room with a sense of dread. I was afraid to move, lest I precipitate some further argument. They stayed that way from a long, long time. “You took that from me, Crenoral. I'll not let you take that from her as well.”

“Step aside, Illari.”

“Not this time. Remember that she was not offered a choice in what she is. You and I made that choice for her on the night you made me. If she chooses to hold on to what remains of who I once was before you, it is her right. If you wish to rip it from her, you will do so at the cost of losing me forever.”

For a while longer, they stood in a silent battle of wills, but for once in her life, Mother was the stronger. His need for her companionship must have exceeded his anger that night. So suddenly that the room itself seemed to sigh, he gave in and stormed away. She hung her head, as if the confrontation had taken all her strength, then turned to me and smiled. In that moment she was more maternal than I can recall her having been before or since.

“Mother?” I said softly, reaching a hand out to her. She came, kneeling beside me and taking my hand. I didn't understand what had just happened.

“Dovan was here,” she said, as if that explained everything. She touched my cheek and smiled, then the moment was over. She stood and was once more the cold, distant stranger.

Chapter 3

My mother sacrificed a great deal that night, and neither of us would ever have the same relationship with Crenoral again. I knew that from that moment on I would be watched, more so than in the past. My activities were reported back to Crenoral as if I were some criminal. I was afraid to visit the village, though I heard through Arda that they cursed our kind and vowed vengeance. It was Adan upon whom that vengeance would fall, nearly a hundred years later, caught feeding on one the village's children; he was driven into the fire at the shrine and burned alive. It sent ripples of fear through the Clan and the village was declared off limits.

I wasn't allowed out alone for years after that. Crenoral was convinced that I had taught the people of the village how to kill us. No mortal had taken one of his children before. No one spoke to me for a long time, not even Mother, though I was forced to accompany Crenoral and the others and participate in their blood baths, to feed gluttonously when they felt I had not fed enough on my own.

Of course, there was a part of me that reveled in the killing, a part of me that was complete and whole only when feeling a human life fade beneath my touch. Otherwise it would have been rather difficult to force me to it. I am a stubborn creature and seldom submit to such coercion if my own nature is truly set against it. So it was that they drew me back to them, brought me to temporarily set aside my guilt and fit myself into the role they would have me play.

The time came however, when my thoughts returned to my previous plans of escape. It was the time of the Birth, when we celebrated the making of Bestin, the eldest of the brothers, into the monster he became. All I knew of Bestin was the stories told of his Birth, many of which had already transcended from truth to myth to legend by the time I heard them. It was said that he was sleeping beneath a tree, having set out on a journey to retrieve a stallion for stud, when the shaking of the earth awakened him. From the ground sprang a creature so vile that the scent of him caused plants to wilt and Bestin was said to have challenged him. They fought and Bestin held his own for several hours before the creature bit him and he fell to the ground dead, only to rise several hours later, changed forever. There were other variations of the story, none more believable. It was said that the tree still existed on the road leading up to the home Bestin now claimed for his clan.

It was Bestin who had brought it, the cursed gift of eternal life, to his brothers, Crenoral and Dovan. Each of the three had created Clans of their own, spreading out in the world to keep the feeding fields from depleting. I had seldom met either of the other brothers, but to celebrate the three thousandth year since the Birth, Bestin called the three Clans together at the ancestral home of the Family, three nights' journey to the north and two nights' journey east of Arakatz. This began the Great Hunt, seven nights of gathering hundreds of victims, from as far away as could be reached, including many gathered on the journey. They were held in a fortress built on the very ground where Bestin and his brothers had lived.

So it was, far from our home and all that I knew, I distanced myself from my Clan, trying to stay out of the way and planning a trip out with the hunters to disappear. I made my move the night before the celebration, slipping away and making good time into the dark, but it was not to be. Crenoral must have suspected or missed me. It matters little, what mattered was only that he found me, trying to find shelter against the coming day. His eyes were filled with an emotion I can only describe as disappointment as he brought me back to the fortress. I expected another lecture, a long day of his self-important criticism of my shortcomings. I was surprised then when he sank with a sigh beside me on the sleeping pallet. “What is it, Amara? Why are you not happy?” he asked softly.

I could almost believe he truly cared at that moment, that were my reasons good enough … he might let me go to seek out what happiness I might find. I too sighed. “I … don't know, Father.” I replied just as softly. “My heart is heavy within me. I do not wish to kill.”

“You will die without it … you know that?”

“I will die if I continue. I do not understand it.” I stood and paced the little room. He looked so small, so defeated there on that bed, his head hung, his eyes closed. It made me pity him, to want to comfort him, to stay. That of course, was his charm. “Let me go, Father.” I said it so softly, more whispered from my mind to his than actually spoken.

His head snapped up and suddenly the life returned to his eyes. I could feel him swell with anger. “Let you go? Go where? Ungrateful wench!” His hand snapped across my face, bringing tears to my eyes. “You embarrass me, and my Clan. How dare you behave like this now … here? You will go nowhere! You are my daughter and you will stand with me tonight. I shall think of a suitable punishment for you when we have returned home.”