(Summary of the novel)
When vampires were ‘outed’ in the year 2020, the humans
attempted to alter their diet to ensure their safety. This resulted in a
worldwide bloodbath known as the Rage. Now fourteen years on and the world has
been torn apart and rebuilt from the ground up to accommodate the vampires
unholy desire for human blood.
But despite the
constant push of the Equal Rights Movement, vampires are still being depicted
as the ruthless, rapid monsters they had become in the months of the Rage. Many
humans still oppose their presence and do not agree with the forced peaceful
coexistence.
One person who shares this belief is a young
scientist named Nico Bergan. Doctor Bergan wants to return the world to its
former glory. His way of achieving this goal… creating a cure for vampirism.
Prologue
It was the year 1934. The night sky was grey
and thick with fog. Ominous looking figures gathered in the graveyard behind a looming church. They were
nightwalkers.
One man crouched on a wall, eyeing the
scene before him. He had an air of grandeur about him. He was old but far older
than he looked. Hundreds of years older than his sixty year old body. The crowd
below him hissed, sniggered and bared their teeth at the lowly man in the
centre of them. The man had his hands tightly entwined together in front of his
chest to try and contain his shaking. He was pale with a body of a man in his
early thirties. His short, dark hair was slicked back with a side parting and
glistened in the moonlight. His striking, pale blue eyes were smeared red with
tears. The crowd hunched over gravestones and inspected him mockingly.
The old man looming over them lifted
his palm into the sky. The sniggering and snapping of fangs stopped. The only
sound left was the rustling of leaves.
____________________
“Caius.” The elder man’s voice made the
dark haired man hold back a cringe.
“Yes, Guardian,” he replied in
the strongest voice he could muster.
The old man stood and
leaped from the wall, clearing the ten feet between him and the ground with
ease. He inspected himself and straightened his tailored suit before his dark
eyes fixed on Caius.
“You stand before the Vampire Court
today-” The old man began to make his way over to him with slow, measured strides. The
light of the moon bounced off his perfectly bald head. “Because, I have reason
to believe that you have put our kind in danger.”
Caius’ skin prickled with fear as
he stood before the smartly dressed man. He too was wearing a tailored
three-piece suit. He was quaking in his once shining shoes. Now, the
old man stood before him, so close that Caius could count the wrinkles that
pooled round his eyes.
“You fell in love with a
breather. You shared a house. A life. Our
secrets. With a breather.”
Caius’ jaw set and he
straightened his back in an attempt to look defiant. He didn’t regret any of
that. He loved Catherine with all his un-beating heart because she accepted him
for who he was.
The old man sniggered, inspecting
Caius’ sharp features. “It’s a good thing I heard about it when I did. So I
could put a stop to it.”
Caius’ eyes flickered as tears
threatened to make themselves known. But he stayed quiet. His jaw set, looking
off into the distance, past Guardian’s steely eyes.
“But I don’t think you’ve been
punished enough.”
Caius’ eyes widened for a
fraction of a second as he felt his gut twist. How could he have not been
punished enough? He had just lost the woman he loved. He has just lost
everything.
Guardian looked to the
crowd. “Belle, Corsette, if you don’t mind.”
Two women straightened and
flashed the old man a fanged smile before disappearing behind a tomb. Caius
watched curiously then started at a scream. The two vampire women returned with
another body between them, being held up by her upper arms. Her feet scrambled
across the floor to keep up with the vampire women’s pace. The frail, young
woman’s auburn hair fell over her tear-stained face and her pale body was
quaking uncontrollably. With a sharp nod from Guardian, the two nightwalkers
released their grip on her. She slumped to the ground with a whimper in front
of Guardian. Slowly, she
picked herself up to a sitting position and pushed her hair from her face. Her
hazel eyes were wide as she scoped her audience. Hugging her tattered, white
night dress closer to her body, she curled up on herself and found the man in
charge.
“P-please...let me
go...don’t kill me...please...” she begged. Her voice was broken with sobs.
Tears poured down her cheeks leaving pale trails down her dirty skin. “W-why
did you take me?...I-I’ve done nothing wrong...If I did then...I’m sorry...”
“Shhh...” crooned Guardian,
pressing his bony finger against his lips. “This has nothing to do with your
mistakes.” He turned to Caius. “This is all his doing.”
Caius gulped heavily and
looked to the girl. Her eyes found his. They were wide and pleading. His gut
twisted tighter.
“You will Turn her.”
Caius blinked and turned to
Guardian. If his heart could beat, it would be thumping against his slender
chest. Guardian showed him a malicious grin. “Did you really think you could
live your whole immortal life
never becoming a Maker?”
“She shouldn’t have to
pay,” Caius said mournfully, bowing his head, feeling even more empty inside
than usual.
“Well, how else are you
going to learn?” asked Guardian, tilting his head.
“This was my mistake, not
hers.”
The girl whimpered.
“Ah, yes,” said Guardian.
His voice carried a hiss. “But the only way you will know what it truly means
to be a vampire is to you teach it to your progeny. I guarantee that you will
learn from this experience.”
Caius lifted his head
and opened his mouth to protest but was interrupted by a blood curdling wail.
He snapped his head to the side and watched as the crowd of vampires lunged at
the defenceless girl and started to bite, claw and pull at her like a pack of
wild dogs. He winced at the sight of her blood being spilled. He couldn’t even
see her as the vampires huddled around her. She shrieked, cried and begged for
the first several seconds then the only sound was claws against flesh and the
snapping of jaws.
“Enough!” barked Guardian
and they all stood, wiping their blood covered faces with the backs of their
hands. Caius’ eyebrows furrowed with pity as the young girl lay limply across
the floor. Her dainty white dress was now torn to shreds and red with her
blood. Caius winced as the scene caused flashes of his worst memory to invade
his mind. How similar she looked to Catherine when he found her on their bed,
bite marks covering every inch of her. But this girl was different to Catherine.
This girl was still alive. Her chest rose and fell ever so slightly. Without
vampire sight, he wouldn’t have noticed. The weak beat of her heart travelled
through the air.
“Turn her.”
Caius gulped and
pulled his eyes away from the body. The smell of her blood hung heavy in the
air, attacking his senses and awakening the beast that was at rest within him.
Guardian noticed his unwillingness and sighed. “For every second of my time you
waste. I will kill a breather.”
Caius' eyebrows pinched in pain.
Guardian grinned.
“Don’t believe me?” He snapped
his fingers and the same two female vampires disappeared and returned with a
sluggish human in each arm. Two men and two women. They were frozen with fear
as they studied the nightwalkers.
Guardian gripped one of the
men’s arm, making him hiss with pain, and yanked him to his side. The other hand
wavered at the human’s chest, his fingers waggling impatiently.
“Turn the girl.” Guardian
narrowed his eyes.
Caius reluctantly walked to
the half-dead girl and knelt beside her. He gulped and brushed her hair from
her face, taking in her beauty.
“Turn her,” Guardian
seethed but Caius didn’t move. A strangled gasp and the crunch of flesh and
bones raised his head. His jaw set in anguish as the male human dropped to the
floor. Guardian raised an eyebrow and inspected the bloody heart in his hand.
His eyes flickered to Caius. “Waver any longer and I’ll have quite the
collection.”
More screams and cries
follow from the humans that were still alive. Caius looked down at the girl
before him and smoothed her hair again, listening to her slow heartbeat. It would
stop soon. And he would be the one to stop it.
He lifted his wrist to his
mouth and bit into his flesh then pressed the oozing wound to her lips. Fearing
that she couldn’t swallow, he also dabbed his fingers into his own blood and
rubbed it into her bites and scratches, hoping it would seep into her
bloodstream.
In the corner of his eye, Caius could see Guardian grinning as he watched.
He pressed his wrist to her lips
once more with a new desire to keep her alive. Well...half alive. Then,
swallowing a thick lump and attempting to bite back tears, he pressed his hands
to her throat and squeezed until he cut off her air. She didn’t fight against
him, she didn’t have the energy. She just lay there, allowing him to starve her
of oxygen.
“It will work, Caius,”
eased Guardian. He settled his bloody hand on Caius’ shoulder, making him
flinch. His body sagged and he withdrew his hands when her heartbeat ceased and
looked down at the girl in defeat. “It will work.”
The crowd huddled closer,
their eyes trained on the girl and sniffing her scent. Minutes passed. Caius
waited, anxiety swelling in his chest. Then her wounds start closing, sealing shut
and leaving her skin pale and perfect once more.
Suddenly, the girl jerked up and
inhaled deeply but then coughed and wheezed. The air must have felt foreign to her, like it had for Caius when he had first Turned. She wasn't experiencing her lungs
inflating. She would be feeling nothing. Nothing but numbness and her new burning hunger.
Her hazel eyes blinked up at her
Maker and a faint smile lifted on Caius' lips. Despite being forced to do
something that he had tried to avoid all his immortal life, Caius couldn’t help
but be in awe of what sat before him. His progeny was born.
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