Blood Possession

Blood Possession

by Tessa Dawn

A Blood Curse Novel

Book Three

In the Blood Curse Series

Copyright

Published by Ghost Pines Publishing, LLC

http://www.ghostpinespublishing.com

Volume III of the Blood Curse Series by Tessa Dawn

First Edition eBook Published April 15, 2012

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Copyright © Tessa Dawn, 2012

All rights reserved

ISBN-13: 978-1-937223-04-5

Printed in the United States of America

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in, or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher, is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials.

Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

Author may be contacted at:
http://www.tessadawn.com

This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this novel are either fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Ghost Pines Publishing, LLC

Acknowledgments

“Mersi.”

Lidia Bircea ~ Romanian Translations

Reba Hilbert ~ Editing

Miriam Grunhaus ~ Cover Art

Also, to my lifelong friend and cousin Carla, thanks for coming to my rescue; what a way to spend our birthdays!

The Blood Curse

In 800 BC, Prince Jadon and Prince Jaegar Demir were banished from their Romanian homeland after being cursed by a ghostly apparition:
the reincarnated Blood of their numerous female victims
. The princes belonged to an ancient society that had sacrificed its females to the point of extinction, and the punishment was severe.

They were forced to roam the earth in darkness as creatures of the night. They were condemned to feed on the blood of the innocent and stripped of their ability to produce female offspring. They were damned to father twin sons by human hosts who would die wretchedly upon giving birth; and the firstborn of the first set would forever be required as a sacrifice of atonement for the sins of their forefathers.

Staggered by the enormity of
The Curse
, Prince Jadon, whose own hands had never shed blood, begged his accuser for leniency and received
four small mercies—
four
exceptions to the curse that would apply to his house and his descendants, alone.

Ψ Though still creatures of the night, they would be allowed to walk in the sun.

Ψ Though still required to live on blood, they would not be forced to take the lives of the innocent.

Ψ While still incapable of producing female offspring, they would be given
one opportunity and thirty days
to obtain a mate—a human female chosen by the gods—following a sign that appeared in the heavens.

Ψ While they were still required to sacrifice a firstborn son, their twins would be born as one child of darkness and one child of light, allowing them to sacrifice the former while keeping the latter to carry on their race.

And so…forever banished from their homeland in the Transylvanian mountains of Eastern Europe, the descendants of Jaegar and the descendants of Jadon became the Vampyr of legend: roaming the earth, ruling the elements, living on the blood of others…forever bound by an ancient curse. They were brothers of the same species, separated only by degrees of light and shadow.

Prologue

800 BC

“Napolean, run!”

The ten-year-old child stumbled backward, his eyes wide with fright. His father’s commanding voice shook him to his core.

“Run, son, go quickly!”

“No, Father. I don’t want to leave you! Father, please—”

“Go now!” Sebastian Mondragon clutched his stomach and fell to the ground. His hands and fingers curled into two twisted balls, and his body contorted in an agonizing spasm. The transformation had begun. Writhing in pain, the once fearless warrior panted the warning a third time. “Napolean…son…please, run! Hide!”

Napolean heard his father’s words as if from a distance. He wanted to flee, but he was frozen in place. Mesmerized by the horror that surrounded him, he swallowed hard and simply watched as the thick, inky fog swirled around his father’s writhing body. Long, skeletal fingers with hooked claws and knobby knuckles clutched at his father’s throat, raked deep gashes along his chest, and dug mercilessly toward his innards. Blood seeped from Sebastian’s mouth as, inexplicably, his canine teeth began to grow, assuming the shape of—

Fangs.

But it was his father’s unrelenting cries of agony that finally forced Napolean’s retreat.

Napolean ran like he had never run before, his little heart beating furiously in his chest, the need for air burning his lungs. He weaved through the morbid courtyard, dodging fallen bodies and clasping his hands to his ears to block out the endless wails. All around him, males fell to the ground, cursed, and moaned. Some died immediately from the shock…or pain. Others drew their swords from their scabbards and took their own lives. Still others succumbed to the brutal torture, helpless as the darkness embodied them.

They were being punished.

Changed.

Transformed into an aberration of nature by the ghostly spirits of their victims.

The Blood Curse was upon them.

Napolean focused his eyes straight ahead, never losing sight of his destination: the imperial castle, a would-be fortress. He and his friends had hidden there so many times in the past, playing hide-and-seek, avoiding angry parents, hoping to catch a glimpse of a member of the royal family. Napolean knew the grounds like the back of his hands, and so he pressed on, desperate yet determined to get there, resigned to hide as his father had bid him.

At last, he arrived at the familiar gray castle gate.

He scurried into a small hole beneath the fortified wall and drew himself into a tight little ball. He tried to become invisible. Although he could no longer see the carnage in the village, the haunting cries continued to batter his ears like thunder against a stormy sky.

Napolean shook, remembering the moment Prince Jadon had emerged from the castle, his dark onyx eyes glazed with fear. He had gathered his loyalists to his side to explain the pronouncement—their punishment—what was soon to become a new way of life.

With so little time to prepare his men, Jadon had tried the best he could. Napolean had understood none of it, save one thing: The followers of Jadon needed to pledge their loyalty to the twin monarch as quickly as possible, before the transformation began, or they would meet a much worse fate.

Though Napolean’s father had served for years in the royal one’s secret guard, fighting to defeat the ever growing armies of Prince Jaegar, Napolean had been too young to join. Consequently, it had been imperative that he formally align himself with the
right twin
—for those who followed Jaegar were to receive no mercy.

And so, like all of the others, Napolean had knelt to kiss Prince Jadon’s ring—recited the sacred pledge of loyalty before it was too late—and braced himself against what was to come…

Napolean shivered, bringing his attention back to the present moment.

He wanted to be brave, but fearful tears stung his eyes.

Then all at once, he heard cruel, disembodied laughter, the sound coming closer and closer, assaulting his ears.

“No. No. No,” he whimpered, drawing further into the hollow cavity for protection, quivering so hard his bones rattled in his skin.

The fog swirled into a miniature cyclone, rose up from the ground, and dipped low as if it had eyes that could see…

Him.

Hiding.

“You think to escape, child?” the ghostly aberration hissed, laughter ricocheting through the small cavity. Flames exploded from the center of the darkness. “Die, little one! And be reborn the monster that you are!”

Napolean screamed so loud the sound became a cosmic explosion in his ears, yet the fog kept coming. It wrapped itself around his meager body, entered his mouth, and descended into his chest.

And then the pain began.

The excruciating, unrelenting, unbearable pain.

Acid flowed freely through his veins. Fire consumed his internal organs. Bones reshaped. Cells exploded. His entire composition changed, transformed…died.

He heard his own shouting as if it belonged to someone else, someone wretched and pitiable. He clawed at his skin, hoping to tear it from his body. He bit through his hand and pounded the ground. He writhed, thrashed, and tried to crawl away, but nothing stopped the assault.

Dear Celestial Gods!

He prayed for death, but it wouldn’t come.

How much time had passed before the agony subsided, he had no idea. Had it been minutes? Hours? Perhaps days? It could have been a lifetime for all he’d endured before it had ceased…and the craving had begun.

A gnawing, all-consuming, primal thirst.

For blood.

It was the craving that had brought him out of the hole, crawling along the ground like an animal, stumbling through the darkness, searching for his father.

Now, as bitter tears stung his eyes, he absently wiped them away, only to find smears of blood on his hand.

Great goddess Andromeda, what had he become?

Finally reaching the village square, he staggered to a halt beside an aged stone well. As his vision adjusted to the darkness, he caught a shadow out of the corner of his eye: No, it couldn’t be.

Please gods, no!

The grisly scene unfolded in slow motion as Jaegar Demir, the evil prince, hunkered over his father’s body. The prince’s eyes were wild with insanity as he bent to Sebastian’s throat, tore into the flesh—as if it were mere parchment—and drank his fill of…blood. Napolean could neither move nor turn away as the macabre scene unfolded before him. As the evil prince drained his father’s already gored and tattered body of life.

And then…