INTERLUDE: RAE ECHO HALE
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August 2, 1459
How much can change in a year.
It's one of those phrases that I've caught in conversation, one that rattles in my mind like a pebble along a road, a vestige of my previous life. Once upon a time, a year was weighty, substantial. It was filled with possibilities: of meeting a new love, of having children, of dying. It was a stepping-stone on the path of life—a path that I no longer walk.
A year was one thing. Twenty years ago, when my entire world turned upside down, was something else entirely.
A year ago, I came to England, a land so steeped in history it makes the prospect of eternity seem less overwhelming. And although the setting had changed, I stayed the same. I still looked like I had the day I turned into an immortal monster, and the same thoughts—of Father, who killed me, of Daniel, my soulmate, of the death and destruction that I could never, ever seem to erase—still haunted my dreams. Time had been steadily galloping forward, but I remained as before, a demon desperate for redemption.
If I were a human, I'd be comfortably in my mid-thirties by now. I'd have a husband, children, perhaps even a few werewolf sons to take over the "family pack."
Before the Hale family pack became murder.
It's a legacy I've spent the past twenty years trying to correct, hoping that somehow an eternity of good deeds could make up for the mistakes I have made, the blood I have shed.
And in some was, it has; England was good for me. Now, I'm an honest woman—or as honest as a woman can be when her past is as wretched as mine.
I no longer feel guilty for draining the blood of woodland creatures. I am, after all, a Demi-Demon. Diable. But I am not a monster. Not anymore.
Still, time does not touch me as it does humans, nor does each new year turn over with the breathless anticipation of those who live. All I can hope is that each year will carry me further and further from the destruction of my youth with no fresh pain on my conscience. If I could have that, it would be my salvation.
But, still, I know that somewhere down the road I will slip...
— Rae Echo Hale
London, England, 1461
Rae stormed out of the bar without a second glance and walked into the darkness. Only a few stars peeked through the tattered gray blanket of the London evening. She pulled out her pocket watch, something she had stolen from a man back in New York over twenty-years ago. After all those years, it still worked. It was nearly midnight. The witching hour.
A sliver of moon hung high in the sky, and a layer of fog, so thick she could feel the dewy condensation on her skin, swirled around the dilapidated buildings surrounding her. She cocked her like a hunting dog. She could hear laughter emanating from around the corner, but no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't hear the ba-da-bump, ba-da-bump gallop of Victoria's heartbeat.
She'd lost her.
She glanced around, trying to get her bearing. Even though the bar had been bustling, the rest of the area seemed desolate. After a few moments, she came to a park. Or rather, she came to a patch of greenery that at one point might have been a park. Now, the grass was yellowed, the trees were sickly, paint was peeling from the wrought-iron benches, and none of the lamps were lit. She shivered. This was the ideal place for a murder.
She tilted her head. She could hear heartbeats—of rabbits, and squirrels, and even a fox—but then she heard it: ba-da-bump, ba-da-bump.
"Victoria!" She called, her voice cracking. She easily jumped over the peeling fence and ran toward the woods in the center of the park. "Victoria!" She called again, the ba-da-bump getting closer.
And then, a shriek pierced the air, followed by deafening silence.
"Victoria!" She yelled, her fangs bulging. She pelted through the trees as if her feet were running on air, not gravel, expecting to see her father slicing Victoria throat open. Father, turning toward her, arching his eyebrow and greeting her with one word that made her brain almost explode with anger...
"Help!" a girl's voice screamed.
"Victoria!" Rae called, tearing through the trees, in one direction, then another, listening wildly for the ba-da-bump of her heart. And then she saw her, standing shakily near a dark street lamp. Her face was as white as her apron, but she was alive. There was no blood.
"Victoria?" She asked, slowing down to a walk. Her feet crunched against the dry underbrush. The path in the woods had obviously, in happier times, been designed for a Sunday afternoon stroll. A small brick building, most likely a groundkeeper's cottage, long since abandoned, stood at the crest of a gentle hill. Victoria was staring at it, her mouth formed into an O of horror.
She followed her gaze, the sliver of moon providing just enough light that she could see red letters written on the side of the building, each oxidized character standing out against the muted brick as if it were illuminated from behind by candlelight:
HALE—I SHALL HAVE MY REVENGE, JUST AS YOU'VE HAD YOURS
She glanced at the words, feeling as though the wind had been knocked out of her. This was a challenge, as real as if she'd been dealt a blow by an unseen hand. Someone was after her. And that someone wasn't unknown.
She blinked. She'd only seen this gruesome message like that once in her infinite lifetime—back at her village in Beacon Hills, when Neolin, her father was trying to fulfill the desire for vengeance against her. Twenty years ago, she just narrowly escaped him. Could he be back for more?
If the immortal Neolin had returned, everything—her terrifying dreams, her unsettled feelings—made sense. She was in trouble. And like it or not, she'd heard the message and came running. She was a part of this now. There was no going back.
"Help! Anyone!" Victoria shrieked. She was starting to panic, her eyes wide.
Rae ran toward her and clapped her hand over her mouth to keep her from crying out again. She may have been hunting Neolin, but now she was the one being hunted by him—again. Now, she was just a fox, desperately darting through the city, unsure whether the hunter in charge of her fate was in front of her or behind her or lying in wait, ready to strike when she least expected it.
March 15, 1462
Before someone dies, their blood races, pounding through their veins, filling with everything that makes them human—adrenaline, fear, the desire to live. It's a sound like no other, a sound I used to listen for eagerly, in anticipation of the kill. But the pounding that echoed in my ears now wasn't caused by a human heart. It lacked that frantic sensation that made blood so irresistible. It was mine...and my long-lost brother, Lucius.
The only one that had managed to escape during the massacre—my massacre. Lucius was now cursed beyond his birth-right of being supernatural, in trying to find me he had a Maleficus, a sort of witch, give him eternal live by drinking the blood of a stillborn baby under the moonlight. He was playing with a dark force—black magic. Something everyone steers clear of.
We had both been at the very edge of death, again, and were now fleeing back to London where we had last seen our father.
The London I'd last seen was a city of deceit and destruction, where innocent lives were lost, and blood ran through the villages like water. And now, Lucius and I were headed there to stop it. I only hoped the price wouldn't be too high.
Mere hours earlier, I had been attacked and left for dead by Victoria, my father's minion and a truly cunning and vindictive Alpha werewolf. Lucius had saved me. It had seemed like a miracle when my brother burst into the cottage and dragged me to safety just before the entire structure burst into flames.
But I stopped believing in miracles a long time ago. What it had been was luck. And now I needed luck on my side more than ever. Relying on instinct wasn't enough. My instincts had failed me countless times, always leading to someone's death. And if they failed me again, I knew that the ensuing death would be my own. All I could do was throw myself into the battle against evil and hope that my luck hadn't run out.
— Raeven E. Hale
London, England, 1462
She'd spend the last twenty years on the run, always wishing she could stay in one place. Now, she was bound to London, the dark, dank city where blood ran into the Thames and creatures of the night made their home in its monuments. She was bound to Victoria, to Neolin, and to a complex web of deceit, blood, and threats. They were all entangled until one of them—be it strength or spells or intelligence—broke free.
And most of all, she was bound to Lucius. But it was about more than sibling bonds. Now, it was truly the age-old battle between good and evil. Except it wasn't that simple. Because all of them had sins that could never be undone.
This wasn't a battle to be won by force. This was a battle to be won by intelligence, by power, and—she realized more and more, as her mind kept returning to the impossibly blocked door in London—magic.
No rules. No limits. The only certainty was death.
There was a moment after Neolin dragged an injured Lucius away when it seemed as though her spirit had left her body. It was how she'd felt when a blade slid across her throat all those years ago in Beacon Hills: a split-second of agony, followed by a blackness that radiated from the very core of her being.
A low-pitched moan echoed off the stone walls and caused her mind and her soul to snap back to the damp basement of the cottage, where their battle had come to its horrible end only moments before. The smell of Victoria's burning flesh still clung to the room. There was blood pooled on the floor and spatter against the wall, as though the subterranean office had become an impromptu butcher shop. Which, she supposed, it had.
Standing in the corner was Carla, a young maiden they had meant during the long year hunting Neolin. She moaned again, her hand clasped to her mouth. Carla was an innocent girl caught in a nightmare from which there was no waking. Only a fortnight ago, Victoria had turned her sister, Margaret into a werewolf. They had hoped to get closer to Neolin, to discover his new-found weaknesses, anything that could help them understand his restless vendetta. Because the murders weren't committed for blood.
In the process of their investigation, they'd lost Lucius. And Carla was losing hope. Carla had desperately wanted to believe her sister could maintain like her human-self and join them. But that wasn't the case. Not only had Margaret fought brutally against Lucius and Raeven moments earlier, but she'd hurt Carla, bitting a decent-sized chunk of flesh out of her bicep. She could only imagine the horrors Carla was reliving as she stood in the corner.
Suddenly, a creature darted past her feet. It was a rat, almost the size of a small cat. Carla's eyes widened and Raeven expected her to scramble away in surprise. But instead, she grabbed a large piece of a wooden chair that had been broken during the fight and threw it at the creature. The scuffling stopped.
Carla bent down, scooped up the dead rodent, and held it out to the Demi-Demon.
"You need to eat," she urged. The rat's head hung limply off Carla's palm.
"Thank you." She placed her mouth to its fur before piercing the skin with her fangs. The whole time, she was aware of Carla's unflinching gaze. But what did it matter? It wasn't like Raeven drinking blood was a surprise to her. She'd seen the immortal bare her fangs to feed, she'd seen her battle Victoria and Neolin. The liquid tasted bitter and oily, and yet she felt it calm her body as it ran through her veins.
Once she'd drunk as she could, she threw the carcass to the ground, wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, and smiled tersely at Carla. Their friendship was one she'd never experienced with a human since she'd become her own monster. Even when Lucius had discovered her need for blood over a year ago, she never fed in front of him. She hid her fangs and masked her yearnings, wanting him to only see the best in her. Just like when they were kids. But Carla was different.
"Was that enough?" she asked, sliding into a seated position and crossing her legs under her gray dress, now spattered with dirt and blood. Dark shadows surrounded her eyes, and there were smudges of grime on her cheeks. Both made her freckles stand out, as though her skin were chattering. It was cold all over London as a languid October had turned into a bitter November. And it was especially frigid in the half-burnt down cottage, where the walls were barely standing with several large openings burned in them.
"It was, thank you. How are you?" Raeven asked, feeling stupid as soon as she words escaped her lips. She'd just killed a rodent in an abandoned building. She'd been betrayed by her werewolf sister, and was on the run for her life. She'd witnessed friends dying, people torturing one another, and bodies burned to ashes.
"I'm alive," Carla said. "I believe that counts for something." She attempted a laugh, but it came out as a sputtery cough. Raeven patted on her back and was surprised when she leaned in and gave her a hug. She couldn't imagine why she'd want to get close to her after all she'd seen her do.
"I'm sorry I put you in danger."
"I think you should drink real blood," Carla said quietly, randomly. "It would make you strong enough to fight your father, right? It would make the fight even, like you said." Her eyes glittered like diamonds in the darkness.
"I can't!" She exploded, unleashing all the tension she'd held during the day as her voice echoed off the walls of the cottage, sending other rodents skittering to unknown spots. "I can't control myself. When I feed, all I want is more blood. I can't think logically or rationally. All I can think of is the next kill. I'm a beast on blood, Carla."
Carla opened her mouth as if to say something, then thought better of it. "All right. But Raeven," she said, grabbing her wrist with a surprisingly strong grip, "this is a war, and I won't have you lose on principle."
"What do you mean?" Raeven yanked her wrist away as she pushed herself to her feet and paced up and down the room. "It's more than principle—it's survival. I don't drink human blood."
"I know you don't. All I meant was that I'd do whatever it took to stop Neolin from taking more innocent lives. And I hope you'd do the same. Maybe drinking human blood would be different for you now. Maybe you could try."
"I can't," she said sharply. "You don't know what blood does to me. And I don't want you to find out."
Carla looked at her indignantly, but she didn't want to push the subject further. "We should get some sleep," Raeven said. She settled on the hard ground on the opposite side of the room. She heard Carla's shaky breathing, but couldn't tell if she was shivering or crying. She didn't ask.
The immortal closed her eyes and pressed her hand to her forehead, a move that did nothing to ease the relentless pounding in her skull. Carla's suggestion echoed in her mind: Drink human blood.
Could she? She hadn't in five years, not since she was in New York, where she'd sometimes drank the blood of four, five, ten humans a day with little thought to the consequences. She often dreamt of it, the moment when she was bent over a victim, smelling the rushing liquid iron, knowing it was about to run down her throat. Sometimes the liquid was bitter, like strong, black coffee. Sometimes it was sweet, with traces of honey and oranges. It used to be a private, perverse game of hers: to guess the taste before the blood touched her tongue. But no matter what the flavor, the result was the same: with human blood in her, she was stronger, faster.
Ruthless.
And in a way, Carla was right. In the short term, blood could be the fuel to power her in their fight against Neolin. But in the long run, it would destroy her.
November 23, 1501
It has been almost forty years since we had defeated my father, taking him back to Beacon Hills—to a place where he will rot forever.
Death does not come to us all, nor does the passage of time dim our memories and reduce our bodies to dust. Because while I was considered dead, and a sacred tree had been stained with my blood, in truth my life was just beginning. It was as if I'd been asleep these many years, slumbering in the darkest night, only to awake to a world that was brighter, wilder, more thrilling than I'd ever imagined.
The humans and werewolves I used to know continued their lives, just as I once had, spending their days going over hunting parties, tending to lone wolves, stealing small portions of territory from rival packs when the sun went down. Push them to their limits. They were merely shadows to me now, no more significant than the frightened squirrels and rabbits that scampered in the forest.
But that night in 1462, all those years ago in London, Carla had been right. I needed the blood to beat my father, but I had also been right...it destroyed me, bringing back to where I started.
I was no shadow. I was whole — and impervious to their worst fears. I had conquered death. I was no fleeting visitor to the world. I was its monster, and I had all of eternity to bend it to my will...
— Raeven E. Hale
Beacon Hills, 1667
Excitement coursed through his veins as he stole out of the house, across the dew-dropped lawn, and toward the carriage house. He slid past Beth, who held the door open for him, and bounded up the stairs. He no longer needed the candle to find his way to Raeven. There, in the bedroom, she was wearing her simple cotton nightdress and absentmindedly swinging a crystal necklace that sparkled in the moonlight.
"I think my Father may allow you to stay longer than he originally let on," he exclaimed, twirling her around the room.
He expected her to clap with glee, for her smile to mirror his own. But instead, Raeven disengaged herself from his grip and placed the crystal on her nightstand. "I knew he would warm up to me eventually," she said, not looking at him.
"Better than this Daniel person you've spoken so much about?" He asked, unable to resist.
Finally Raeven smiled, but not at him — at the fond memories of her Ideale Altro. "You need to stop comparing yourself to a man you've never met." She stepped closer to him and grazed his cheek with her lips. He shivered with pleasure as Raeven pulled his body toward hers. He held her tightly, feeling her back through the thin cotton of her nightdress.
She kissed his lips, then his jaw, running her lips, feather light, down the curve of his neck. He moaned and pulled her even closer, needing to feel all of her against all of him. Then she plunged her teeth into his neck. He let out a strangled gasp of pain and ecstasy as he felt her teeth inside his skin, felt her draw blood from his body. It felt as though a thousand knives were piercing his neck. Still he held her more tightly, wanting to feel her mouth on his skin, wanting to fully submit himself to the pain that fed her.
Just as suddenly as she bit him, Raeven broke away, her dark eyes on fire, guilt etched on her face. A small stream of blood trickled from the corner of her lip, and her mouth twitched in regret. Her body may have needed other peoples' blood to survive, but she wasn't a vampire. Raeven never enjoyed draining bodies of their blood — resenting everything she was.
February 1, 1688
Everything has changed. My body, my desires, my needs, my appetite.
My soul.
In the two-hundred and forty-nine years after my death, I've borne witness to more tragedy than anyone should — and been cause of far too much of it. With me I carry the memory of my death, and that of my brother and Daniel. The sound of Daniel's last breath in the dense woods of Beacon Hills haunts me. I see my brother's lifeless body on the ground right in front of my feet—eyes wide, glazed over with certain death as his blood and guts littered across the dirt. I still smell the charred flesh where I burned my pack's bodies. And I can almost taste the blood I took and the lives I stole out of sheer hunger and indifference after my...transformation. Most clearly I see the curious dreamer of a girl I once was, and if my heart could beat, it would break for the vile creature I've become.
But through the very molecules of my being have morphed beyond recognition, the world continues to turn. Children grow older, their plump faces thinning with the passage of time. Young lovers exchange secret smiles as they chat. Parents sleep while the moon keeps watch, wake when the sun's rays nudge them out of slumber, eat, labor, love. And always, their hearts pump with rhythmic thuds, steady, loud, hypnotic, the blood as alluring to my monster as a snake chamber's tune is to a cobra.
I once scoffed at the tediousness of human life, believing that the power that ran through my family's blood made me more. But I become divorced from it, living from moment to moment, moving from once carnal pleasure to the next with no fear of consequences.
But now the strength I have is a burden, the constant thirst for blood a curse, the promise of immortality a terrible cross the bear.
Now, as I remake myself up North, far from anyone who's ever known me as either a human, a Pheanix or a Demi-Demon, the only demon I have to battle is my own hunger.
— Raeven E. Hale
Naples, Italy, 1717
She picked out a heartbeat, a single life, in the near distance.
The other noises of the city faded into the background as this one called to her. She had wandered away from her friends and left the well-worn paths. The sun had just set over the forests of Naples, where she had exiled herself since arriving in Italy three long months ago. The colors in this expanse of wilderness were softening, sliding toward one another, shadows blurring with the things that made them. The oranges and deep blues of the sky morphed into an inky black, while the muddy ground dimmed to a velvety sienna.
Around her, most of the world was still, paused in the breath that comes at the end of day; humans and their daylight companions lock their doors and creatures of the night like herself come out to hunt.
Raeven walks in the daylight like any normal, living human. But as it's been since her transformation, it's easier for her to dine during the uncertain hours when day slowly becomes night. Dusk confused those who aren't equipped with the eyes and ears of a nocturnal predator.
The heartbeat she now pursued began to sound quieter...its owner was getting away. Desperate, she took off, forcing her body to move quickly, her feet to push off from the ground. She was weak from lack of feeding, and it was affecting her ability to hunt. Added to that, those woods weren't familiar to her. The plants and vines were as alien as the people on the cobbled streets a quarter mile away.
But a hunter transplanted is still a hunter. She leaped over a twiggy, stunted bush and avoided an icy steam, devoid of the lazy catfish she and her brother used to watch as children, until her foot slipped on a mossy stone and crashed through the underbrush, her chase growing far louder than she intended.
The bearer of the heart she followed heard and knew her death was close. Now that she was alone and aware of her plight, she began to run in earnest.
What a spectacle Raeven must have made: dark curls askew, skin as pale as a corpse, eyes starting to hue-over as the beast in her came out. Running and leaping through the woods like a wild man, dressed in finery, the white silk gown now torn in several places.
The girl picked up speed. But Raeven wasn't going to lose her.
Her need for blood became an ache so strong that she couldn't contain herself any longer. A sweet pain bloomed along her jaw and her fangs came out. The blood in her face grew hot as she underwent the change. Her senses expanded as the beast's power took over, sapping her last bit of Demonic strength.
She leaped, moving at a speed beyond human and animal. With that instinct all living creatures have, the poor thing felt death closing in and began to panic, scrambling for safety under the trees. Her heart pounded out of control: thump thump thump thump thump thump.
The tiny human part of her might have regretted what she was about to do, but the Demi-Demon in her needed the blood.
With a final jump, she caught her prey—a large, greedy squirrel who'd left her pack to scavenge for extra food. Time slowed as she descended, ripped her neck aside, and sank her teeth into her flesh, draining her life into her body one drop at a time.
She'd eaten squirrels as a human, which lessened her guilt marginally. Back home in Beacon Hills, her and her brother would hunt in the tangled woods that surrounded their village. Though squirrels were poor eating for most of the year, they were fat and tasted like nuts in the fall. Squirrel blood, however, was no such feast; it was rank and unpleasant. It was nourishment, nothing more—and barely that. She forced herself to keep drinking. It was a tease, a reminder of the intoxicating liquid that runs in a human's veins.
An owl hooted in the elm that towered over her head. A chipmunk skittered past her feet. Her shoulders slumped as she laid the poor squirrel down on the ground. So little blood remained in its body that the wound didn't leak, the animal's legs already growing stiff with rigor mortis. She wiped the traces of blood and fur from her face and headed deeper into the woods, alone with her thoughts while a city of nearly three thousand people buzzed around her.
Since she had gotten off the ship three months ago, she'd been sleeping in the middle of the park in what was essentially a cave. She'd taken to marking a concrete slab with the passing of each day. Otherwise moments blended together, meaningless, and empty. Next to the cave was a fenced-in area where construction men had gathered the "useful" remains of a village they had razed to make the park, as well as the architectural bric-a-brac they intended to install—carved fountains, baseless statues, lintels, thresholds, and even gravestones.
She pushed past a barren branch—November's chill had robbed nearly every tree of its leaves—and sniffed the air. It would rain soon. She knew that both from living in around a bunch of werewolves and from the monster senses that constantly gave her a thousand different pieces of information about the world around her.
And then the breeze changed direction, and brought with it the teasing, cloying scent of rust. There it was again. A painful, metallic ring.
The smell of blood. Human blood.
She stepped into the clearing, her breath coming rapidly. The thick stench of iron was everywhere, filling hollow with an almost palpable fog. She scanned the area.
There was the cave where she spent her tortured nights, tossing and turning and waiting for dawn. Just outside it was a jumble of beams and doors stolen from knocked-down houses and desecrated graves. Farther in the distance there were the glowing white statues and fountains installed around the park.
And then she saw it. At the base of a statue of a naked man was the body of a young woman, her white ball gown slowly turning a bloody red.
She felt the veins in her face crackle with bloodlust. Her fangs came out quickly and violently, painfully ripping through her gums. Instantly she became the hunter again; balanced on her toes, fingers flexed, ready to claw. As she made her way closer to the woman, all her senses become even more aroused—eyes widened to capture every shadow, nostrils flared to gather in the smells. Even her skin prickled, ready to detect the slightest change in air movement, in heat, in the minute pulses that indicated life. Her body was more than ready to slice into the soft, dying flesh and lap up her essence.
The girl was small, but not sickly or dainty. She looked to be about sixteen. Her chest jerked as she struggled for breath. Her hair was bright, with curls highlighted gold in the light of the full moon. She had been wearing silk flowers and ribbons in her hair, but these, along with her tresses, had come undone, trailing out behind her head like sea foam.
Her dress had a dark red slip buoyed by frothy white cotton tulle. Where her petticoats were torn, slashes of scarlet silk showed through, matching the blood that was seeping from her neck and down her bodice. One of her doeskin gloves was white, while the other was nearly black with soaked blood, as if she had tried to stanch her wound before she'd passed out.
Thick, curly lashes fluttered as her eyes rolled beneath their lids. This was a girl who clung to life, who was fighting as hard as she could to stay awake and survive the violence that had befallen her.
Thud...
Thud...
Thud...
Thud...
The rest of the world was silent. It was just Raeven, the moon, and this dying girl. Her breath was coming slower now. She would most likely be dead in mere moments, and not by Raeven's hands.
She ran her tongue over her teeth. She had done her best. She had hunted down a squirrel—a squirrel—to state her appetite. She was doing everything she could to resist the lure of her dark side, the hunger that had been slowly destroying her from within. She had refrained from using her power.
But the smell...
Spicy, rusty, sweet. It made her head spin. It wasn't her fault the girl had been attacked. It wasn't her who had caused the pool of blood to form around her prone body. Just one little sip couldn't hurt...she couldn't hurt her more than someone already had...
She shivered, a delicious pain fluttering up her spine and down her body. Her muscles flexed and relaxed of their own accord. She took a step closer, so close that she could reach out and touch the red substance.
Human blood would do far more than sustain her. It would fill her with warmth and power. Nothing tasted like human blood, and nothing felt like it. Just a mouthful and she would be back to the Demi-Demon she'd been: invincible, lightning fast, strong. She'd be able to drink away her guilt and embrace her darkness. She'd be a real monster again.
All was lost, and she was drawn mindlessly to the source of her agony and ecstasy.
She knelt down in the grass. Her parched lips drew back from her mouth, pearly fangs shining in the moonlight.
One lick. One drop. One taste. She needed it so badly. And technically, she wouldn't be killing the girl. Technically, she would die because of someone else.
Narrow streams of blood ebbed and flowed down her chest, pulsing with her heart. Raeven leaned over, her tongue reaching forward...one her eyes fluttered open weakly, her thick lashes parting to reveal clear green eyes, eyes the color of clover and grass.
The same color eyes Daniel had.
In her last memory of him, Daniel was lying on the ground, dying, in a similar helpless pose. Daniel had died of a blade wound to the back. Her father didn't even have the decency to let Daniel defend himself. He stabbed him while he was distracted, telling Rae how much he loved her. And then, before she could feel her own blood and save him, her father threw her aside and shoved the blade into Daniel's neck.
With a tortured scream, she pulled her hands back from the girl and pounded the ground. She forced the bloodlust that was in her eyes back down to the dark place from which they came.
She took a moment longer to compose herself, then pushed the girl's hair aside to view her wound. She had a large bite wound on the side of her neck—several precise teeth marks were cut into her skin. It was something she had seen more times than she could count.
The girl had been bitten by a werewolf.
June 9, 1832
As a Pheanix, I'd thought it was my brother's death that had shaped the person I would become. I'd hide away from the rest of the pack, even Father in the initial days after my brother had been torn apart by a neighboring pack on a full moon. I felt as though my life had ended at the young age of twelve — that had been when I experienced my first death. I hadn't told Father of my mysterious abilities knowing what a superstitious man he was. Daniel had been the one to comfort me. He'd go walking with me, let me join his sibling in their games. Daniel had become the strong one, my protector.
But I was wrong. It is my own death that has shaped me.
Now the tables have turned. I am the strong one, and I have been trying to protect everyone in Daniel's absence. Absence. His death. And as I had also realized earlier this evening as I stood just outside the dim glare of the gas lamp, the body of the dead nurse at my feet: I am alone. An orphan after I killed my parents during my quest for revenge on all of them for my untimely death.
So that's how immortals do it, then. They exploit vulnerability, get humans to trust them, and then, when all the emotions are firmly in place, they attack. I mean, I've never met another immortal — this is just how I go about it. Needing to keep the purling beast inside my belly under control. I don't want another repeat of last year, completely massacring an entirely village after going several weeks without a feeding.
So that is what I will do. I know not how or who my next victim will be, but I know, more than ever, that the only person I can look out for and protect is myself. Daniel is dead and on his own on the other side, and so am I.
— Raeven E. Hale
Beacon Hills, 1918
It was October. The trees of the cemetery had turned a decayed brown, and a cold breeze had whistled in, replacing the stifling heat of the California summer. Not that she much felt it. As a Demi-Demon, her body registered only the temperature of her next victim, warmed by the anticipation of their hot blood coiling through her veins.
Her next victim was only a few feet away: a chestnut-haired boy who was currently climbing over the fence of a vast estate, which ran adjacent to the cemetery. It had been so long since she had been in Beacon Hills that she had forgotten how tightly knit the town was — being able to walk from place to place without even breaking a sweat.
"Thomas Williamson, whatever are you doing out of bed so late?" Her playful demeanor was at odds with the hot, heavy thirst coursing through her greedy body. Thomas squinted into the darkness. She could tell from his heavy-lidded expression and wine-stained teeth that he'd had a long night.
He took a step closer to her. "Am I supposed to know you?"
"Yes, I attended your funeral." She cocked her head to the side. Thomas didn't seem too concerned, though. He was practically sleepwalking, heady from sips of wine and stolen kisses. "It was a beautiful service, indeed. Lots of crying and screaming, some blood was spilled and I think a couple of heads rolled."
"Is this some sort of joke to you?"
"No, not a joke," Raeven said huskily.
She grasped him by the shoulders and pulled him close to her. He fell against her chest, and the loud drum of his heartbeat filled her ears. He smelled of pine leaves. The monster inside craved and demanded every drop of blood — never satisfied with just a snack here and there. She hated this, constantly wondering why the Nemeton gave life back to her body if she just stole other lives from their bodies.
She ran one finger along his chiseled jaw. She put her lips to his ear. "It's more of a sad story than a funny joke."
Before he could even make a sound, she sank her teeth straight into his jugular vein, sighing when the first scream his her mouth. Unlike what his name might suggest, Thomas' blood wasn't nearly as sweet as her monster had imagined. Instead it tasted smoky and bitter, like coffee burned over a hot stove. Still, she drank deeply, gulping him down, until he stopped groaning and his pulse slowed to a whisper. He went limp in her arms, and the fiery beast that burned in her veins and her belly was quenched.
Ever since she had risen from the dead she had been hunting at her leisure, having discovered that the new-found monster inside her required two feedings a day. Mostly she just listened to the vital fluid coursing through the bodies of the residents of each town she passed through, fascinated and disgusted by how easily she could take it from them. When she did attack, she'd done so carefully, feeding on guests at boardinghouses or taking a soldier or two. Thomas would be her first victim the people of Beacon Hills would actually miss.
Disengaging her teeth from his neck, she licked her lips, allowing her tongue to clean up the spot of wet blood at the corner of her mouth. Then she dragged him out of the cemetery and back to the forest where she had been originally sacrificed by her father.
Memories flashed through her mind: of that night, the coarse ropes rubbing her wrists raw, their torches bright in the moonlight, the thunderous chanting as they marched toward the Nemeton. The sound of her screams filled her ears, a sharp pain shooting up her spine as they threw her against the tree. Her father leant down in front of her, face level with hers as he pulled a large blade out of his skin-pouch. The mistletoe steel glistened with a certain malice; the sharpe edge begging to be pressed into her flesh. She now understood why he had killed her, why he had done all he had. He was scared. Scared of his own daughter — flesh and blood.
Thomas moaned in her arms, one eye fluttering open. Were it not for the blood seeping onto the white collar of his wrinkled, dress shirt, it would seem as if he were merely in slumber.
October 7, 2011
It has been so long since I've wanted to write of my life down in this small animal skin journal I've been carrying around since I died.
But, something has changed. Maybe it is merely age, a sort of hyper-maturation into the role of an adult Demi-Demon. Maybe it's the fact that I am faced with an actual challenge, a death-defying challenge, and I simply know I can't expend my energy killing for sport. Whatever the cause, the result is the same. Though the scent of blood is still everywhere, I no longer feel compelled to hunt for sport. Hunting is distracting. My hunger is something to be sated quickly rather than enjoyably.
Of course, the question is, how will I find this Caterina? Go to all the Banshees and witches I can find? Attacking them if they don't tell me what I need to know?
But Banshees and witches seem to have a power all their own. That much is clear to all supernatural creatures, and to me.
Of course, my power is stronger. I have no doubt that I'll persevere. I'll find Caterina Hale, and cease the flow of the Pheanix bloodline...it has to end with her. And then I'll reward myself with a drink from her neck.
— Raeven E. Hale
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omfg, ive been working on this for sooooooo long; trying to piece a bunch of different fragments of Raeven's life. i tried to have a moment of her life from each century.