Victoria Allen

PROLOGUE

Scotland, Rannoch Moor, 1740

He blinked open his eyes- well, really just the one. The world was blurry. His eyelashes were heavy- frozen with raindrops and his vision through his right eye was completely red. Wincing, he felt the burning sensation of crippling pain cut through the numbing cold. His fingers stretched out on the ground before him, combing through wiry thin damp grass, he moved his right arm, his elbow immediately connecting with what felt like a boulder-. Pain lanced up his arm like lightning and ripped over his shoulder and down his back.

He let out a choked holler, shutting his eyes tight and pressed his throbbing head into the ground. Gasping, he lay there- unable to move- and the world spinning even though his eyes were closed and he was about as prone to the ground as one could be without being buried beneath it. And he momentarily wished he was in fact buried if only it would stop himself from feeling like he was being splintered apart.

Cold rain trickled down his neck and under his torn shirt, chilling him further.

“Are ye alive, son?”

He froze at the voice that had echoed into his empty mind, his breath halting at once in his body- which was somehow more painful than if he’d just kept breathing. He raised his head up slightly and stared at a pair of boots only inches before his face.

He moved slightly, his weary and leaden arms slipping under him and lifting his hurting body up at an awkward angle, unable to do much else. But he was at least able to take in the bulk of the man who stood over him. He wore a cap, his hair and thick beard grey. And he was wrapped solidly and warmly in a thick cloth. The frayed tartan ends flapped in the wild wind before him, the brilliant stripes of red and white over overlapping blocks of black, blue and green, flashing before his eyes- almost making his left eye see red in his mind…

“Where you come from, lad?”

He looked up at the man blankly.

He didn’t know.

He didn’t know why he hadn’t thought of that before when he woke up… He just was. He looked from the man out at where he was- at the sweeping rugged land before him, the land was comprised of swaths the jagged brown and grey, and cold. Low cloud hung low over the valley before them, but he knew there were hills beyond that framing this place and beyond that, snow-covered mounts.

He knew this land… but he didn’t know it. He didn’t know where he was.

Or who he was.

“Gáidhlig?”

He looked back at the man. He was asking if he spoke Gaelic. How did he know that but yet he didn’t know who he was-?

“W-Where am I-?” he struggled out, his mouth hanging open as he slowly felt panic flood him.

“Rannoch Moor. Scotland.” The man slowly stooped before him. “What the devil happened to you?” The boy had no tartan, ripped tunic, completely soaked through, several fingers close to being frostbitten, and injuries as far as the eye could see; half his face was covered in blood from a raw wound on his temple. He seemed to have no name anymore, and no clan… He would not survive long out here in Scotland’s harsh winter.

“You’re in MacKenzie territory, son.”

CHAPTER ONE

New Orleans, 2017

At four twenty in the morning, Liam McKenzie stood out in front of a white French villa-style mansion on St. Charles. The neighborhood was quiet at this time, as it should be. The late summer night was slowly giving way to the early precursors of dawn, was hot and sticky but, surprisingly there was a cool front wind that promised rain. Now, whether it would actually rain or not, you’d have to ask Mother Nature to grant sweet Louisiane such a reprieve from this late July heat.

Liam wasn’t sure why he found himself standing outside of this particular residence at this hour…Well, that would be a lie, because actually, he did know why- he just didn’t know why he found himself here again. Every damn time he found himself outside this house he wondered the real reason why.

The world was crazy that was why.

There were monsters in this world and they hid in those dark places you try not a look at when you’re walking down the street by yourself…

The key is- don’t look.

Just because no one ever saw them, that didn’t mean they didn’t exist. Yeah, the exact opposite of what your mother used to tell you at night.

Well, he had looked, long before the two-hundred plus years he could actually remember…

And he was one of those monsters.

A vampire.

Oh, yeah, they existed alright. Vampires were exactly what you knew them to be: undead things brought back to life through the curse of blood.

When you dare to look behind the curtain, you expect to be disappointed. But what you’re not expecting is the shock when you realize you seriously fucked up because you are not disappointed- but rather- horrified by the truth of what you find. Liam supposed this was what the rest of the world felt when their carefully hidden existence was made known… brutally.

Vampires had roamed this earth for thousands of years. Vampires pre-dated story and myth. And they were not known by the rest of the world. Literature only started sowing the seeds of their kind in the 1800s. And it was fiction, where their carnal nature remained, and where their name became the root of heinous nightmares and, in some cases, even lurid romances. The stories that came after- for shock and awe- and to satiate teenage fantasies- got it wrong.

All wrong.

Those stories, myths, and legends stemmed from truth of what they were- a perversion to the living- and left them hidden in the shadows…And rightly so. That was where they belonged. But the world had a sick desire to seek the ugly and the morbid, only to then turn a blind eye right before the veil was finally lifted. The world of vampires and the supernatural and all the macabre that came with it was just ugly and morbid enough to fit that bill. And his world was ugly… that was all true. But the rest was all wrong.

Liam walked through the wrought iron fence that separated the outside world from the darkness. He looked up at the house, and like all the other mansions on St. Charles Avenue, the boulevard of old names, old money, and stately oaks, the place had a certain presence: one of self-importance, confidence, and most importantly: power. That was how New Orleans worked. And this house was no different than the hierarchy of their- the vampires’- place in this city. There were big names… and smaller names. And power existed not just in old names, but the immortal ones as well.

And in New Orleans in the area alone there were seven “Purebloods” who shared territory and they were some of the oldest vampires across the country a majority bordering on at least two hundred years old if not older.

And this particular mansion was home to one of those Purebloods.

There was a soft warm sensual glow emanating from behind the heavy curtains that were drawn across the tall windows obscuring any passerby the view of the interior. No outsider was permitted to view the interior of a Queen’s most intimate sanctuary. Because that was what this house was. A sanctuary from the outside, where volatile uncertainty hung in the air now for the past two years… No one but those especially invited would know the riches that embellished this house from marble floor to 15-foot ceilings, nor the gold leaf adorned wall molds… nor would they ever experience the lavish feasts that were held here… Let’s just say, the dessert wasn’t always rose syrup macaroons… or even breakfast, which was what he was there for, held a different meaning.

Liam came to a pause before the ornate stained-glass door. Suddenly debating whether he should turn around and leave. Unlike the oblivious passersby, he knew exactly what was inside- and what kind of feast awaited him this night…

And before he could knock or leave by his better judgment, the door opened to the host herself.

Vivienne Moreau.

Vi had received her fangs before the worst of massacres of the French Revolution. She had once been a lady of Her Royal Majesty Marie Antoinette’s court before she was so graciously turned before the ensuing revolution.

Vivienne was petite, with a tiny narrow waist, her skin a pale cream. Her seductive hooded crystal blue eyes were wide in her oval face, she had a pointed chin and a small turned-up nose. Her long white-blond hair was pin straight and fell over her bare shoulders. Tonight, she wore a white leather corset and white jeans with black stilettos- a perfect summer outfit by her standards. She opened the door invitingly wide to him.

“Darling, do come inside,” she said warmly, her voice a serene accented melody.

Liam walked into the open entrance hall. Vivienne closed the door behind him and walked elegantly around him while he became acclimated to the heady scents of her home. The walls were a rich French cerulean blue with white accent baseboards and the rooms were full of lavish gold embellished furniture accented with pearls and jewels. The effect was extravagant and opulent, but not gaudy. He looked up at the crystal chandelier over his head, in the center of a gold medallion on the ceiling… Perhaps it was gaudy after all.

He lowered his head, his eyes catching his reflection in the silver mirror over the side table. He quickly averted his eyes- which as he had seen were not their normal blue, but instead a hungry and almost wrathful black. Though Vivienne did not seem to care about the tell-tale sign of their true nature hiding under their skin, he dipped his head so that they were somewhat hidden behind a little too-long blond hair that fell into his fair eyelashes.

The smell of rich cabernet wine hit his nose…along with another scent- warm feminine flesh with hints of rose. And a hint of iron. Liam instantly felt warm. His breath hitched deep in his stomach.

“Apéritif?” Vivienne proposed, drawing his attention and stepping over to a small polished silver trolley to his right.

“Thank you,” he said, his voice suddenly thick, his mouth a little dry. There was soft music, violin plucked notes, coming from somewhere upstairs. He looked into the large sitting room to his right, a room designed to be evocative of Versailles’ mirrored hall. A number of her harem lay half clothed- sated and asleep- a seemingly impossible number of limbs entwined tantalizingly over even more limbs… Vampires of wealth and popularity sired close groups to surround them; these became known as harems. And the harem inside this specific mansion was one of the biggest and most infamous this city had.

Vivienne returned to him and handed him a glass of a dry sauvignon blanc. “I know how you like a quiet house. I put melatonin in their blood a half hour ago,” Vivienne murmured raising her own glass of wine to her lips. “I am glad you agreed to come by. What happened this evening…” She let out a soft tsk.

It had been a simple beer run. He’d just walked out of the convenience store… simple as that. Five blocks from their house. Five fucking blocks. Damn them. He smirked a little, well he did quite literally damn them after all…

It hadn’t always been like this. Two years ago, everything had changed though, and now this world was- how had he put it… crazy.

“The Incident was unprecedented-.”

Now that was the answer to why the world was crazy. “The Purge” as humans liked to call it. But to his kind, vampires, it became known as “The Incident” or “Event”. Crazy was putting it mildly. What happened with the Incident…was nothing short of chaos.

One day, in broad daylight, the existence that their kind had fiercely kept secret was out of the bag and dragged unceremoniously into the spotlight… And then promptly burned to ashes in the streets for all to see. The age-old curse that bound them suddenly betrayed every single one of them… for no apparent reason.

So, if one ever wondered what would happen if everyone- literally everyone- knew the supernatural really existed? Vampires now had the answer. It felt like the world came crashing down. It was a rude awakening for them all.

“The Incident was a tragedy,” Liam corrected Vivienne.

It first affected newly sired vampires… and was not just limited to a city and state, or country- this was across the world. The supernatural world was known to all in a matter of minutes.