Tales of the Demimonde Read online

  Would she and Marek have found love if she wasn't an empath? Hard to say—when I said Marek was tall, dark and handsome, I should have emphasized the word dark. His self-esteem is far from ideal, too, because he thinks he's one step away from eternal damnation. Something about Sophie calls to him, something beyond the physical. For him, the love is almost spiritual.

  Sounds quirky, but think: aren't we all searching for our soul mate, our one perfect love? And isn't the soul intrinsically spiritual by nature?

  Questions like these are what led to Bleeding Hearts becoming the story it is today. I remember when I started out, it was going to be more along the lines of: Demivamp Marek hunts Sophie as prey, but chatterbox Sophie ends up causing him to re-evaluate himself and his actions, essentially becoming a better man (I mean, a better DV.) However, the more I got involved with the characters and their relationships, the more the story changed.

  Stories evolve. Love evolves. They are both too dynamic to remain the same for long.

   

  Colors of Sunrise

  Sophie’s Perception

   

  It once occurred to me that the colors of sunrise on a clear morning, despite the haze that often rose before the sun did—the colors of sunrise, so bright and pure and golden, washing the blankets of green beneath blankets of valley fog—the colors of sunrise were the same as the colors of sunset.

  The startling difference was what kept me from looking at my watch or reaching out with the Sophia. Even without an intentional touch upon the metaphysical brow of the DV, I knew morning from evening, sunrise from sunset.

  There was no pain. There was no fear, no threat of damnation. At sunrise, there was only hope.

  Hope birthed itself as the sun pushed over the edge of the horizon and hope found its feet and spread its arms. Hope at sunrise, balm for those who survived the sunfall.

  Even though I drove into valley and shadow I saw the light warming the tops of the trees high above. Death shall not cause me to fear for the sunrise is with me, within me always…

  —Sophie Galen

   

  BLEEDING HEARTS: The Egyptian Connection

   

  BLEEDING HEARTS (Demimonde #1) contains one of my very guilty pleasures. And I'm not talking vampires.

  Not exclusively, anyways.

  I've always had a keen interest in ancient civilization. Rome and Greece, Persia, the Vikings and their promise of Valhalla…

  Top of the list, though, has always been Egypt. I have an absolute obsession with Egypt—the pyramids, the inventions, the mummies…*sigh* I love mummies.

  So it's no surprise that Egypt had sneaked its way into the heart of my story, eventually becoming the essence of the world of the Demivampire. In Bleeding Hearts, Marek, a Demivampire, has a keen interest in Ancient Egypt. In fact, our heroine Sophie first meets him in a museum exhibit of an Old Kingdom temple. (The scene was inspired by a visit to the Penn Museum of Archeology and Anthropology in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.)

  Ancient Egyptians worshipped many gods, each of whom had many qualities. People related to their strengths and flaws, and devoted themselves to the divinity of the gods. As a Christian, I believe we are made in God's image—and that reflection of Divinity within myself endears me to God. I suppose the Egyptians felt the same way, since their gods were depicted with human bodies. The animal heads were indicative of their divine aspect.

  Horus is the son of Osirus and Isis and is one of my favorites. Horus is depicted as having the head of a falcon, usually a peregrine. Very appropriate for the God of the Sky.

  In my research, I came across the description of Horus' eyes. That caught my interest, because the power of a demivamp had a great deal to do with eyes and their color. The ancients said that, as God of the Sky, one eye of Horus was the sun and the other was the moon.

  Hmm…sun and moon…vamps and werewolves…of course!

   

  Excerpt from BLEEDING HEARTS (Demimonde #1)

  "There is a more practical reason why the Were are unwelcome in Demivamp feeding grounds," Marek said. "Granted, it's a reason based on legend rather than fact but no one is willing to test the theory."

  "Which is?"

  "I'm getting to it." He took a deep breath, a sure sign of a long and detailed lecture. "I've told you a great deal of our Genesis lies in Egyptian mythology. We are descendants of Horus."

  "Yes."

  "Legends say Horus had several children. Burial practices describe the 'Four Sons of Horus' as gods who protected canopic jars. Not all of Horus' children were benevolent, however.

  "Our legends focus on the eldest two, born as twins yet as different as night and day. One son was Vampire. The other, you can now guess, was Were. Horus' line combined the humanity he obtained from his mother, Isis, with the supernatural gifts of being god-begotten and magically conceived from the dead."

  Marek's voice took on the cadence of chanted prayer. "Horus, our falcon-headed forefather, is a pillar of strength, a storm of revenge. His eyes are the sun and the moon, and his eyes follow his children everywhere.

  "Horus bequest great gifts to his children but never intended for them to become stronger than he. The sun controls the Vampire, driving him into unconsciousness, destroying him should he grow defiant and challenge its power. The moon controls the Were, giving him power only at her command and whim. The gods may be forgotten in these times but Horus lives on. His eyes are watching and controlling his children's children. Although legend may have spawned it, for us it is no myth."

   "So. The Werekind are your cousins?"

  Marek's upper lip curled, as if he was repulsed by the suggestion. "Maybe centuries ago, when our lines were young. Certainly not now."

  I leaned over and poked him. "You can't pick your family."

  "No, but I can pick my next meal." His threat was disarmed as the corners of his mouth tugged upward in a grin. I laughed and looked out the window.

  See how much my world had changed? Crap like that wasn't usually funny.

   Wanting to change the subject, I remembered what we'd been talking about when the phone rang. "So, apart from all that, why are there No-Were rules?"

  "Ah. I never finished. See, because of our origins, it is forbidden our bloods should be combined. If one fed upon the other, legend says it would manifest a phenomenon known as Horus United—both of his bloods co-mingled in a single vessel. The person would shape-shift, irreversibly but not into wolf. There's only one animal that person could become. Falcon."

  "Like Horus."

  Marek nodded, keeping his eyes on the road. "No one wants to volunteer for testing. Can you blame them? Who'd want to live as a bird? Tiny brain, weak, helpless..."

  "Able to fly, living simply as nature intended, free from humanity and the pettiness and the ugliness."

  He shrugged. "Still. No volunteers. Accidental transformation has never been formally documented. The rules are as old as tradition, and tradition is as old as our existence. Weres and DV do not share blood. Period."

   

  The Horus Bird Phenomenon is a theme explored throughout the series because it's both a miracle and a tragedy—and an important aspect of Demivampire folklore. Although it is only referred to as a legend in this excerpt, the Horus Bird will not remain a legend for much longer. Sophias have a way of bringing out a Demivamp's full potential.

  I love exploring the Horus connection to my Demivamps and Weres because it means I get to fill in all sorts of new details around the ancient ones. And, because I get to visit every single Ancient Egyptian exhibit we encounter when my family travels, it also ensures I get to indulge in my guilty pleasure often.

  What can possibly be wrong with that?

   

  Chronical of the Blood Countess

  Best read following BLOOD RUSH (Demimonde #2)

   

  Blood.

  If ever that word should be uttered, in its wake should only one word be whispered.

 
Countess.

  Truly, I don’t think that I am who I was originally destined to become. Perhaps long ago, if the path of the world had turned at a different place, if circumstances had been slightly different at a critical place in time, perhaps destiny would have written a different story for me.

  That is not important now. Only the fearful would waste precious moments of eternity pining for a past that never occurred. How I have lived, how I was reborn…while fascinating memories in themselves, those things are completely unimportant now.

  Who I am now... is everything.

  Today, I step foot onto foreign grounds. The New World, it was once called. Hope and promise lay in heaps of abundance here. People flocked by millions to this shining land of plenty.

  I look around, but I am not impressed. There is not so much luxury as I had hoped to find, and the people who mill around the streets look old and weary and broken.

  But the blood…

  Yes, there is blood. So many people densely packed into the tall castles of this city, like cattle struggling to pass all at once through a narrow gate. So many people, degenerated by the naked world, who wouldn’t mind giving a little blood if it meant getting pleasure in return.

  Oh, but the lessons I will teach them.

  I wonder if they remember the stories of the woman I once was. I wonder if they believe the rumors, or if they would be willing to accept the truths of what I’d done. I smile to think of how horrified they would be to learn that, even now, She Who Bathed In Blood was here in their precious little city, strolling through their fortresses and extracting the occasional screams from one of their own.

  Blood. So much of it, wasted on the living. It should be mine.

  It will be.

   

  I don’t often speak of my past. It is not who I am. My history is the remnant of a disease that I had cured long ago. Still, I remember fond moments and I am reluctant to deny my life and my accomplishments. Such pain should not be credited to another. There is only one me.

  I was born Erzsebet Bathory during the eighth month, 1560. My family was a clan of Demivampires that controlled a large part of Hungary. Members of my family were great court figures, bending to find the ears of princes and kings throughout our lands as well as the lands surrounding ours. We had great power, and our roots could be traced back to the forgotten glory of Thrace itself. We were warriors, and we kept the Turks back as if Spartacus himself commanded the armies.

  We kept our power by providing for our denizens, of course. The Demivampire cannot survive without human blood. Humans served us; they were our staff, our citizens, our sustenance. Some humans who worshipped dark powers and demonic ideas swore they obtained witch’s protections for us, but truth be known, their misguided beliefs merely covered up our own mistakes. They did not know that we were different, that as Demivampire we were so much more than they. The humans attributed our power, our intelligence, our physical attributes to the breeding of nobility. They were wrong.

  We were the center of a great web of power. Power, and blood, and life.

  At a young age, my marriage was arranged, as was customary for girls in my position. From a young age I had been given to fits and rages, remarkable even for a family that was well known for its tendency for brutality. As I neared a marketable age, family elders grew concerned about my ability to attract a suitable match, and hoped a husband would settle my disastrous behavior. They needn’t have worried.

  A nobleman, a soldier for the Royal family, was in need of a profitable marriage. Rumors of my having been a difficult child seemed not to deter the Count from uniting our powerful lineages. Our betrothal at eleven years of age only made me defiant, and I secured my reputation as a promiscuous teen. However, instead of impending shame, in me he only saw potential. I was fifteen when I married Ferencz Nadasdy.

  I still see him in my mind, dashing soldier that he was, stealing my breath away with such cruel tales of his dealing with the Turks. He told his stories with such passion that I, too, wished I could be there also, to drop the blade and collect the fear of the men he’d slain.

  He was an honest man. Cruel in battle, and cruel to those beneath him, he could be cruel to his wife as well. I never took it personally. He taught me how much pleasure could be found in pain. It was an unwitting education, my introduction to the world and my instruction to the sensation of the flesh. If it ever hurt, it only meant that I was alive.

  I loved him. I served him, even as he was nourished by my family’s power. I bore his children and I made dark promises to The Unseen in order to bring him glory and victory. And I regret none of it.

  By the time I was eighteen, he’d been promoted to a commander’s position and went off to war. His need to kill was undeniable, a thirst that drove him like demons upon the damned. At first, his absences from home did not bother me. I was Countess, after all, bred and raised to rule. Our marriage home was the Castle Nadasdy, his home in the Carpathians, and I had all the affairs of a manor and territory to look after.

  I went through my cusp without him, but I bore it as a sacrifice for his cause. Only my beloved advisor, Dorcas, was there to guide me through the change and the newly awakened need for blood. The servants were used to the Count’s hard rule, and were accustomed to the clouds of compulsion that covered up our demivampire needs.

  I emerged from the Change an extremely authoritative adult. My parents had seen to my education from a very early age, and I was intelligent, curious, well-read. I had human staff and Demivampire advisors to keep me company. There was much corresponding with my family and my husband, who sent me reminders of his love, as unloving as they might have outwardly seemed.

  In the way of my family, I was extremely politically active, and waged my own campaign against the Turks. The Habsburgs that ruled the world also held the power of Royal Hungary, and my fierce devotion to my country and my people fueled my eagerness to please them. My home was dangerously close to the border that divided Royal Hungary from Ottoman Hungary, and I played an important role in that war.

  Some evenings, after spending long hours with emissaries and inkpots, I’d muse over grand thoughts of Ferencz and I leading armies to wipe out the threat once and for all. Black Beg and his Countess, fearful to behold, sweeping like plague through the treacherous mountain passes, ignoring pleas for mercy from the dogs that had troubled us so.

  At night, however, those thrilling thoughts would be chased away by cold shadows. Eighteen is a terrible age for a young woman to lay in an empty bed at night. I missed my husband, even his cruel tendency to smile when I’d gasp in pain. I was lonely.

  Eventually, the longings that haunted my empty nights began to invade my days. Even the well-educated can become restless. Despite the work I did at the behest of the Throne, despite the well-stocked library, I grew bored.

  With it grew frustration. I took a lover to ease the affliction, and in her arms I dreamed of finding something satisfying and pleasurable. My husband absent, I took refuge in the bed of another. My loneliness was abated, and I was happy once more.

  I was ultimately scorned, and something inside me cracked.

  It wasn’t that I was shattered, mind you. I was a woman of beauty and power, and no one, not even that selfish woman could stamp out my fierce pursuit of satisfaction. But that crack ripped a jagged line through me, and I didn’t quite fit back together afterwards.

  I no longer had patience when it came to getting what I wanted. I became sharper, harsher. I was Countess. No one would remark upon the change, at least not within my hearing.

  My husband visited during breaks in his campaign, and I welcomed his brutal love. I soon put past me the wasted affair, although I could not help but compare male to female. If he knew what I was about while he was gone, which surely he must have, he never mentioned it.

  Ferencz was proud of the woman I was becoming, and commented to his men when we sat at table what a fine warrior I’d have made had I been born male. He always expressed h
is satisfaction that I had not been born so, and sometimes his reasoning caused me to blush and his men to cheer. I adored him.

  When he found I was pregnant, everything changed.

  I was made of glass, it seemed. The Demivampire had notorious difficulties with breeding, and few children survived to adulthood. Ferencz was enamored with the swell of my body and the hopes that a son would emerge to take his place at his father’s side. He pampered me, coddled me, handled me so gently so as not to harm the life within me. He would do nothing that might endanger the child. Eventually he began sleeping in another bed so that he would not roll onto me in his sleep.

  I began to resent him for it. He didn’t know. I couldn’t tell him. The mindless act of conceiving his child had given me such power of this, the most powerful of men. I ruled him and yet he would not have me. I begged nurses to tell him lovemaking would not hurt, that my body would grow stronger from it. He would have none of it.

  My daughter was born, and by the time I was fit to receive Ferencz’s attention, the war had once again claimed him. I sank into old patterns once more.

  I hated myself for resenting him, so I bent the hate towards other directions. My spite and my frustration found softer targets. Faded humiliation from having been scorned by my old lover renewed itself. I wasn’t discarded by my husband, I was discarded by her. And I began to see her face everywhere.

  One evening, I was hating myself more harshly than usual. I sat in my room as I allowed my girl to prepare me for bed. I dreaded the empty bed, and stared sullenly at the aging woman in the mirror. I was twenty five years old, a mother, a wife whose husband played at war. Had I past my prime? Was I not beautiful or powerful anymore?

  I lowered my head to my hands quickly, angry that tears of self-pity had the nerve to show themselves. I could not allow anyone see this weakness. The girl had been brushing my hair and there was a sharp tug when I dipped my head.

  It may have been a crack of lightning, or the bugle call to signal a charge. The sharp pain snapped me out of my sullenness and I flew to rage, striking her. The force of my hand rocked her head back and bloodied her nose. I looked down at my hand in disbelief at the crimson stain, unable to believe I did such a thing.

  The heat that had spurted from her wound shook me. It called the light to my eyes and it drew my teeth. They filled my mouth like daggers. Horrified, she shrank back from me.