Awakened Dawn (Blood and Darkness Book 1) by Aria Storm
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Blurb:
Mavis was my name, and you could say I have had a bit of a tough go. Following a tremendous personal loss, I was entombed by my own daughter rather than allow me to expose our secret to the world.
I woke up in a mausoleum and two centuries have passed. All I want to do is drink a bit of blood and maybe find a beautiful modern maiden to entertain what's left of my soul. However, sinister forces are ever at play in my world. Even a queen who is two-centuries usurped cannot rest. Vampyrs are dying and the royals including my only surviving child are all in danger, as are the communities around us.
Set in modern New Orleans, this is the tale of the Lower Queen, Mavis Aubrey the mysterious vampyr who once led most of Britannia. Come follow Mavis as she struggles to learn how to function in the post-modern world and the vast array of new challenges rising to greet her.
Slow building poly lesbian romance.
Excerpt:
Prologue:
1820:
Steam and fog mixed with the early
humid winds as they swirled through the bustling morning streets of New
Orleans. Humans humming and thrumming throughout their busy-work.
This was one of the most honest
times of the day for the little species. Their most dedicated and faithful
workers were up while the masters of the town nursed whatever spirit had bitten
them in the parlors or the bars of the city.
While the light of dawn proved
painful to my kind, I still forced myself to watch the bustling of the break of
day. All the flow and the blood pumping and thrumming in time around me like my
own personal feast.
Even as old and wise as my people
are, we have basic predatorial instincts like every other apex predator in the
wild. The main difference being we have chosen to learn how to live in
obscurity and hide amidst the human pack. We don’t kill without justifiable
cause and we don’t condone the waste of precious human life. We have extremely
self-serving reasons for our stance.
“Mum, you’re going to ruin your
sight if you keep at this.”
Abigale, my tender younger twin
daughter told me. She was just shy of her sixteenth year. If we were humans
this might mean she was already looking for her suitors, but mercy upon me, we
are vampyr and we do not often search for our eternal bonds, they find us in
their own time.
Being that we never age much beyond
eighteen years, I have already been forced to pretend to the world that these
are my little sisters and not my daughters.
“Abigale, go shutter your window and
bed down for the night, my child.”
My voice was soft but stern. I was
the matriarch of my line, and none except my own blood-born children dared to
speak a cross thought against me.
“But tis morning, naught the night,
mum.”
Abigale pointed out, and I turned
and arched an imperial ginger brow in question at my youngest child. Mercy
found harbor in my heart, for it had taken me over three-centuries to bare my
daughters. I was gifted with Abigale who was just like me, ginger and
completely spirited like a wild mare, and Alexia, named for her human father
Alexander Smithfield. Alexia favored her father, they were twins, but not the
kind who happened to look identical. Not that any mother born could ever see
their children as duplicates. To me, their differences were vast and highly
pronounced, even if most of the world at large would claim them to be similar in
spirit and temperament.
“Tis night for all that lives by the
darkness of night, my daughter.”
I told her, and Abigale snickered at
me, and said, “That sounds a bit redundant and possibly conflictual to the laws
Sir Newton presented us with.”
My clever and cheeky child quipped
to me, and I felt my bloody vision flash red in a warning. It was an
instinctive response as a seasoned apex-being. I am not one to tolerate
challenge lightly, however, I am discovering parenthood has tempered my wild
Irish disposition ever so slightly.
“Off with ye, Lass!”
I dismissed her, and she decided she
had pushed her poor mum as far as she intended for the night. I was certain my
child would rediscover her jolly spirits at my torment in on the marrow.
“You’re too stern with them.”
I heard Alex as he walked up. He was
the girl’s father, and he knew now that I had lain with him sexually for four
straight months, simply because it was finally my cycle of fertility. Outside
that window, I have no need or desire for the company of men. I just needed his
seed to give life to my womb.
“Alexander, remember your station
here. I give you all, but never forget that I am the Lower Queen of the Vampyr
of the Celtic people. Beholden to none, save fer her co-Ruling King of
Britannia residing in London.”
I reminded Alexander, not that I
flung my station in his face often. The young man was now thirty-eight. He had
been about the age I appear when we met. Our girls desired their daddy, so I
brought him into the vampyr tribe as a human confidant. However, such intimate
knowledge of my sex seems to let slip the weight behind my every word and whim.
“Of course, forgive my loose tongue,
Lower Queen Mavis Aubrey.”
He bowed to me, part of it tasted of
mockery, but I decided not to call him on his subtility. Alexander desired to
be what I was, this was not lost to me. However, the tribes rarely bring in
humans and the process is potentially fatal to the vampyr themselves. As Lower
Queen, I am not allowed to risk my life on such a flight of fancy.
“There have been growing numbers of malcontents outside the gates of the
estates, My Queen.”
Alexander informed me, and I nodded
to him and I looked out, past the yard, then the fields. Out beyond the cotton
fields and the orchards. Beyond even the farthest grazing herds of my cattle.
My eyes came upon a cluster of local farmers and other various seasoned men of
their crafts. They were furious because a young woman ruled over these lands
and managed them better by far than any other estate in New Orleans. Add to
that the fact that we employed and protected freed slaves and refused to
practice the unseemly cultural ways of mistreating dark-skinned humans.
(These humans clearly have not grown
up next to Darken Fae, and just how diverse that lot gets! Which makes the skin
color thing exceedingly illogical from my or any other vampyr’s point of view.
Beyond all else, we find blood tastes better when it is not imbittered by
misery and oppression.)
“Indeed, it appears they have
themselves a rebel-rousing leader of some sorts. This happens on occasion; the
menfolk get enough spirits in their bellies and they set their ire upon the
wench ruling her own little fiefdom.”
I told Alexander, and he hesitantly
nodded his understanding.
“My Queen, would it not be wise to
try to keep them dispersed?”
Frowning at the suggestion given
question, I shook my head.
“Nay, tis the lads being rowdy. If I
go off in full keg blast every time, they were showing their public disdain for
me, I’d never get any work done, nor would anyone on these lands. These folks
have handled our presence here for over a hundred years now, so they will keep
themselves on the other side of that fence.”
(The few who didn’t, ended up
vanishing without a trace and not even a banshee could find them to wail for
their deaths. Not that I shared this sorted bit of fact with anyone.)
Being born a Vampyr of high-birth
had made me learn how to decern threat-levels. I could smell a truly violent
thug before he managed to romp and fuss or do damage to me or mine. After all,
if we simply killed everyone who disagreed with us, we’d be like the
slave-driving lot of the southern plantation owners. Even my kind was far nicer
to our prey. We learned a very long time ago not to kill the blood-font, simply
to extract what was needed, which is about a chalice full a day.
Humans are a deep mystery to me, how
they behave and how they perceive themselves.
“Alexander, I will keep my best men
on the gates and the various points one might use to enter my lands. I never
dismiss danger so close to our precious ones running about at night.”
I told him, and he nodded stiffly
and turned walking back into the house. He had plenty of reason to worry,
considering his finite life-experience. He’d lived first as a wealthy farm
owner’s son, and now as the father of the heirs of the entire Aubrey holdings.
My name and wealth were not at all insubstantial. In fact, I am certain I
possess more earthy treasures than I could possibly find a use for in any
number of my lives. With all my wealth, came the burden of watching over every
soul under my land and my banner--such as it was. I was born in a time where
every house held a crest and the Aubrey name meant something in Ireland. We
were ancient Celtic as sure as the mortal Celtic peoples. We lived in balance
amongst the druids and the fair-folk most of the history of our lineage.
“You should have dismissed that
human years ago, My Queen.”
The deep rocky tone of my old friend
Olaf sounded. He had been the vampyr of the Viking lands, come to conquer with
their raiding parties. Now, he was my most faithful servant and one of my only
true friends.
“He’s the girl’s father. It is bully
for me I required his manhood to make them, but even his insufferable prattling
is worth the reward of their delightful countenances.”
Olaf grunted a masculine affirmation.
He had one single soft spot in his entire persona, me and by extension, my
daughters. To all else, he was a brute and a bit of a bully.
“It’s not wise for one so great to
keep someone so self-involved, this close.”
Biting down on my lip lightly, my
right fang protruded from my mouth.
“He’s hardly so troubling as to
warrant this appraisal. Not to worry, I will keep him in line, and he will
eventually even out with age. It is mainly youthful exuberance that bursts forth
from him. Even now, he is a young man still even by human standards. Many of
his age would only have wee-children with a blushing young bride barely past
her first cycle.”
Olaf gave a loud snort at this, and
he seemed to agree for the most part.
“I am off for a fortnight, My Queen.
I will travel across the Mississippi to tend to our interests with the native
folk. They promised us unhindered hunting paths, but only if we keep more white
folk from bothering them.”
Olaf was still a bit of a stranger
to my people, so he knew how to deal with sensitive matters like people as
close to nature as the indigenous people of this dark wild continent. As far as
I considered it, they had much more right to be angry with us than was being
displayed. Sure, there were constant struggles and plenty of folks disappeared
on both sides, but I’d not witnessed much unilateral warfare on their part.
My heart broke every conflict drove
them further from their original homelands. Being here from the inception of
this American continental experience, I have a far different memory than that
which is being re-told as our history.
“Bring them offerings and give them
every honor and dignity. I too will venture out to speak with their elders and
chieftains when next we meet them. Continued kindness and honor may keep them
from war.”
Olaf was no stranger to battle, yet
he too found himself ill at ease with the thought of conflict with the neighbors.
My interests backed up to their territories, what was left of them in this
area. I hoped to keep this as a buffer between them and the rowdy youth, like
the ones eyeing my free workers as they began their days.
“I’ll leave Jack for the guard of
the estate, My Queen.”
Olaf told me, and I nodded in
agreement.
“He has his father’s heart. I think
he will prove to be a fine captain one day.”
Olaf grunted and said, “Here we
don’t have knights or captain of knights anymore. We just have shape-changing
Lycans and terribly angry Indians.”
He left me with that morbidly amusing
final thought as he raced off to begin his journey. Olaf was ever a glutton for
punishment and was known to travel by day, despite how brutally painful the sun
and mid-day heat could be to our kind.
About Aria Storm
Lover of magic, karate, and all things my twisted little mind deems "girly." A writer of very gritty, visceral worlds that can both be real and imagined at the same time.
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