Seed

My vampire world has been renamed Coffee and Blood. I didn’t like Shadows and Secrets. It will revolved mainly in trilogies. The first was called Wraith’s Rebellion. The next is called Harvester.

Here is a little preview, which will be included at the back of Death Mask.

 

My name is Kazimir DeElysia. I am four thousand years old, well, just shy of four thousand, but I’ve been told that mortals prefer rounded numbers, and I’m closer to four thousand than thirty-five hundred.

I was twenty-seven when I was captured, taken to what you know as the Crete, and then turned into a vampire. My turning was consensual, though I didn’t quite understand what was being offered. I knew immortality and hunting the night, but my Maker was little more than a fledgling when I was turned.

That is the term that mortals are familiar with, correct? ‘Maker,’ as if we create toys and set them loose on the world. As if the one who turned me could be summed up with such a hollow title.

I called her ‘Love’ then, and through most of history.

Maker… no wonder the vampiric world is so weak and pathetic.

They have a name for me, you know. They whisper it to one another and fall silent as I pass by. Few see me these days, as I am a wanted man.

I reside outside of Council control. I always have. The Council and I just don’t see eye to eye on so many important topics of conversation.

Such as the place of a child in the life of their ‘Maker.’ The Council views all as free agents, a ridiculous belief. Some have made children only as blood bags, or weapons, or whores. That is their only use, the only thing they are good for.

Only an heir might come and go as they please, and only one heir is needed. All other children are there to serve the will of their Maker, nothing else.

These are the same people who believe a vampire should be destroyed if that vampire does not meet their very strict requirements. If they’re too young or too old, if they aren’t perfect upon turning.

Not even the hermaphroditic are welcome amongst Council lands any longer. One must be male or female, nowhere in between.

Oh please, like you believe every fantastical tale they tell you about honesty and equality, about being the great saviour of mankind? The Council doesn’t believe that. They believe in only one thing: control.

And they will gain that control by whatever means necessary.

I suppose some of you might be eager to hear how I’ve spent my four thousand years on this planet. Well, too bad. I’m not going to ramble like dear, soft Quintillus about my daddy issues.

My father and mother raised me to be a fighter, a warrior among my people. For that reason, when I was captured, I was sold. Perhaps to be a guard, or perhaps they knew to whom they sold me, knew what would happen to me. The reason why no longer matters, I was sold into slavery and turned. That’s about as much of my history as I’m willing to share with any mortal soul.

Don’t take me to be a pathetic loner just because I live outside of Council lands. I have made my way and lived in factions before. I know how to ‘play nicely’ as Elysia would say, though only ever for her.

Whatever my dear Elysia asks for, I try in earnest to deliver. She has kept me sane all these years and given me a reason to do more than simply be.

So, when Elysia picked up the book of the Prophet, hot off the presses as it were, and she became interested in such narrations and their effects on the mortal world at large, I agreed to take up the task.

But only for her.

Oh, who is the Prophet you ask?

Well, dear reader, just because you’ve seen the vampire world through Quin’s eyes, does not mean that you have seen the whole world. He’s always had a knack for knowing just a little too much, has happened to slip into town as I was just getting comfortable.

But we’ve never met face to face. He does not know what I look like, and until his televised interview just under a year ago, I had no idea what he looked like either. I simply know the man by reputation and know to stay out of his way as much as he knows to stay out of mine.

Most vampires ignore the obvious, their little minds too shallow to accept the whole truth, but it’s paying attention to those details, following the interviews and reading the books that the Council expects other vampires to ignore, that has given me such a keen edge.

They call me the Warlord.

If only they knew how appropriate the name was