The Blood King

Prologue: Angel of Death

Six months ago...

FROM THE moment I laid my eye on him, I knew it was fate. It felt like a dream, drowning in his sharp cobalt eyes and drinking him like a cool glass of water on a hot day. I could tell he was telling me something but everything around me was muffled. Sounds were echoing in all directions and I couldn't pinpoint exactly where they were coming from. My sight was getting blurry, I was losing sight of him. It felt as if I was in water, trying to push my way to the surface for a breath of fresh air.

His hair was soaked wet as he spoke to me. I knew he was telling me something important, but I just couldn't figure it out. His eyes flashed with alert as he turned to his right and looked as if he was talking to someone. An angel, I thought as a halo filtered around his head, but I realized the street lights in background made him appear like that. I couldn't understand where I was or why he was there, but I was beyond sure that meeting him the way that I did was not a coincidence. A breath escaped my lips and I cringed in pain. My chest hurt unbearably and my lungs labored tirelessly to try and pull in as much air as they could...

That was when I started realizing details. It was in the middle of the night and there were light showers. I was trembling because I was cold and wet, and I was lying down on the ground. While one side of my body blared with excruciating pain, the other side was completely numb. My eyes turned up to the man in front of me and this time, I was able to make out his words:

Stay with me....

A smile appeared on my face. He wanted me to stay with him...but he was a complete stranger, a very good-looking stranger with black hair locks populating his forehead. He was too beautiful to be real. Maybe he was death. In myths and legends they said that death had ethereal beauty that kept you at ease while he took your soul.

Stay with me...

But why was death saying such a thing to me? Wasn't he just supposed to take my soul to the afterlife? And why was I not able to move or make a solid thought?

"Who..." I croaked and but my throat burnt as if someone had poured a gallon of sand down. I tried to shift, sit up but I couldn't. The numb side of my body wouldn't have it and there was an annoying itch on my nose where a wet hair lock clung.

As if reading my mind, the stranger reached up and pushed the hair lock away and cupped my neck.

"Stay with me, sweetheart." He rasped again and I hummed in content. Hearing him say those words somehow penetrated deep into my soul and settled inside cozily. They made me feel warm and fuzzy—

I frowned when I saw the blood in his hand as he removed it from my neck. That was a lot of blood.

Was he injured?

"Blood..." I croaked again trying to point to his hand, but every movement of my body made the crippling pain I was feeling intensify.

"Sit still. You are wounded." He had an accent!

Suddenly I forgot about everything else and just basked in the attention that he was giving me. His movements were sure as he tried to make me comfortable, removing his jacket and covering my chest with it. I got a glimpse of the black coils of an intrinsic tattoo on the left side of his chest inside his black shirt but it was quickly obscured from my sight.

"We need to keep on moving, Rayn." Another voice came through and suddenly the person moved into my line of sight. He darted his eyes all around before landing them on the man who was crouched beside me. He had blonde hair, a little longer than the angel of death's but dripping wet and coiled around his face. He also had a beauty unlike any other but he wasn't as striking as my angel of death. His blue eyes pierced through mine as if trying to decipher my soul.