Divine Blood (Vampire Love Story #6) (21 page)

Tommy ran from the room to go find
Lena.

I looked at my son and
said, “This is a hard life that you desire, Joshua. And it is a
permanent transformation. If you take this step, and I not only
allow it, but enable it, nothing, and I mean
nothing
, will ever come easy to you
again.”

Then Joshua said to me, “I don’t crave
the easy life. I saw much of it at the prestigious private high
school, how many of the rich boys had everything handed to
them.”

“
Your mother should hear
this.”

“
Not this part, Dad,
because she would feel slighted. I love her, too, and I want to be
like both my parents. But I especially want to be like you, my
father. You are my role model. My sounding board. My teacher. You
are the greatest Mani who has ever existed. Those who forget what
you fought for, what you suffered for on Krull’s mechanical cross,
should be ashamed.”

“
And what did I fight for?
What did I suffer for?” I asked. Not that I had forgotten. I was
just surprised that he knew so much.

“
You didn’t fight for the
blood glory of winning a battle. No, not ego and not a power play,
but you fought for the honor and freedom of who Mani are in the
world, as a race, as a people, as a culture. I want to become fully
Mani, so that I can begin where you left off. Your work is not
done, Father, but I need to be a full Mani to continue the good
that you have started.”

I was so choked up, I
didn’t know what to say. Philosophically, Joshua was more Mani than
I had been in years. Obviously, he’d been thinking about
this.
Hard.

Tommy and Lena came into the library
and the room was silent as they waited for me to speak. I gathered
my thoughts. It was silent for far too long and we had so much to
do. I had one son missing and another one who was on the cusp of
making the biggest decision of his life.

Everyone’s eyes were on me, as they
waited for me to speak my piece. Lena’s eyes were moist and she was
already overwrought because Jason was being held hostage by
Brock.

The question at the present moment was
simple.

Would I provide the third
bite and turn my 18-year-old boy into a new kind of Mani as a fully
manifested
Son of Josiah?

I began, “This is about more than
getting Jason back safely. Because of Brock turning his appointed
governor post into a dictatorship and flooding his island with
violence backed by big money to gain support for his evil agenda,
the future of all Mani people is again at stake...this evil will
soon spread if Brock is not stopped.” I paused. “And now, Joshua
wants me to pass him the torch.”

Lena gasped.

To be continued in:

Vampire Love Story #7

Coming soon!

~~~~~

And look for:

Entwined Series #4

by H.T. Night

Available now!

~~~~~

Also coming soon:

The epic series begins!

by H.T. Night

(Look for it in
What the Night Brings: Three Novels
)

~~~~~

Also available:

An epic romance novel

by H.T. Night

(Look for it in
What the Night Brings: Three Novels
)

~~~~~

Now available:

A Vampire and Werewolf Love Story

by H.T. Night

(read on for a sample)

Chapter One

I looked over the Lady’s sleeve and drank in
my beautiful city. The stunning fireworks had finished, and once
again, I was left overwhelmed at the majestic magnitude of the
city. The party boats had left the harbor with their floodlights,
raucous cheers, and commotion that commemorated the first
anniversary of the renaming of the city. What was once named
Manhattan had been replaced by the name Verona.

I stood by the silent, virtuous Lady, just
on her left shoulder. Balancing my feet on such a great statue was
always tricky. I could taste her overwhelming wet, coppery scent in
my nose and mouth. The aroma was reminiscent of fresh blood, not
altogether unpleasant.

I looked up into the dark cold night. It was
unusual to see stars over our city, but the night was crisp with
them, twinkling sparks on a black velvet nightscape, such a clear
night that diamond rays from starlight illuminated the night sky
like Jacob’s ladders extending from deep sky to tall buildings. It
was a radiant night.

We were fortunate to have most of our land
bought out for re-gentrification by a billion-dollar Prince. Prince
Escalus. His very surname as a visionary developer was a legend in
his own time. Not only was he rich, he was powerful, and masterful
at rejuvenating entire cities. His approach into developing cities
and remaking them was that his philosophy was simple: Keep the
peace.

There was no place that needed peace more in
this time than New York City. More specifically…Manhattan.

As I looked out from my 300-foot-high perch
in the night shadow of the bosom of the lady, I marveled at the
beauty of my Verona. My city was like a beautiful woman to me and
my city had two competing lovers and a divided heart. I was
reminded of which immortal species ruled these parts. Vampires and
werewolves were as legendary and infamous in these parts as
celebrities. In fact, we even had our own media network.

Verona was run, in part, by the two immortal
families: the Capulets and the Montagues. They couldn’t have been
more different in their culture and in their immortal forms.
Montagues were from the wrong side of the tracks: a ruthless,
cutthroat band of scorned misfits who succeeded anyway, with all
the odds against them. They were crass and abrupt, and they always
needed a shave, a bath, and a good haircut. But that came with the
territory. The Montagues were cursed by a comedy of errors but
brazenly got to their feet, every time.

Now the Capulets, they were cultured and
liked the finer things in life: big houses, expensive cars, and
especially, flaunting it to the Montagues.

As different as the two sides were in
culture, they stood even further apart in their unlike immortality.
The Capulets had chosen to live their remaining years here in
Verona—it could be a million years, as they were long-lived as
vampires. It fit their smug elitist attitudes to be so long in the
tooth and aggravated the Montagues that there was no way to get rid
of them.

The Montagues lived their days as
werewolves: meat-eating, ass-kicking, moon-howling werewolves who
lived day by day, close to the earth, as close to raw passion as
creatures could ever get. Montagues were warm-blooded and
therefore, had passion soaring through their veins. The Capulets
had to take their blood from others, like the leeches on society
that they were, by virtue of their curse. Most of them, save her,
were passionless, elitist, and cold. Only she was different. I
swore inside of me that I had never laid eyes on a wonder of the
world more captivating than she.

The problem was twofold. Immortality,
dominance, and bloodlines separated Verona into two sides, nearly
split right down the middle at Times Square. There were two
immortal families in my city, bloodthirsty rivals who gave each
other no quarter, and none was asked. They mostly kept to their own
turf, and to their own kind. The two families were split along
Times Square.

To the north of Times Square in the Upper
East Side, the Capulets had bought out mansions that were turned
into apartment buildings…that were now turned back into mansions.
The family owned just about every building and had turned the
section of the city into a place that turned up their noses at the
Hamptons.

To the south of Times Square, and all the
way down to the Financial District, was where the werewolves
roamed. They were definitely not as rich as the Capulets, but they
lived better than most folks. If werewolves were roaming, then one
would likely see a Montague in their midst. Nearly all Montague men
had chosen to live their days as werewolves. Montague families were
spread out pretty evenly among Chelsea, and the East and West
Villages. One could even find families in SoHo and Chinatown.

Until now, there had only been small
skirmishes between the two dissonant factions, but my extraordinary
senses of premonition and danger detected that all hell was about
to break loose in a populous that was deep in celebration about the
rebirth of art, culture, education, and creativity. A resurgence of
passion for the city swept like a fiery new religion into the
corners of every borough. It was as if people were crying out for a
deeper purpose. I knew I was.

Things in this part of the world had been
quite different for some time. In reality, the entire world was
different. A hundred years ago, there had been a technology
revolution that spurred the inevitable. We’d touched the moon and
the planets with our humanity and our machines shot into outer
space, and could go no further without bankrupting every country. A
realization set in that we now needed to get in touch with our
mortality, our inner space.

It was time for the world to turn on its
fulcrum. I felt it. Time for the immortals to take their rightful
place as the world’s muscle and minds. Religion and politics tried
to prevent it from happening, but eventually, immortality reigned
over mortality. Now, just two immortal factions stood at the helm
of society, glaring at each other from opposite corners of the
city.

In the madness, I had been given a gift from
the gods. I had been given visions of a wondrous place. A place of
peace, of hope and love. I had only seen it in my dreams, but on
this night, I felt that my special place was near, as if I could
almost touch it with my hands. Of late, something had come over me
and it was only intensifying. I looked up at the stars and the full
moon that pierced my mind’s eye with a pull that I knew well. I
howled into the night sky. I howled from my deep place, where I had
only seemed to been able to howl from as of late. I had been told
that my howl was unique in that it had both the sounds of music
playing and the reverence of a man crying out in prayer. It was a
howl that had reduced some to tears when they heard it, such was
its unique vibration, timbre, tone, and range. It was a yodel from
across the Alps, a chorus of angels with one harmonized chord. My
howl is my prayer and my song of all that I was, all that I am, and
all that I shall be. Inside of me roiled a yearning for something
more, hungering for something more. I howled in agony and ecstasy
until tears dripped from my face and wet my body like scorching
rain.

When I was finished, I looked over my city
of Verona and cried out so loud that my throat roared, “My name is
Romeo Montague and I am a Werewolf!”

Romeo & Juliet: A Vampire and Werewolf
Love Story
is available in:

What the Night Brings: Three Novels

Also available:

A Young Adult Series

by H.T. Night

(read on for a sample)

Chapter One

It was the last day of summer and I was
going into the sixth grade. I woke up feeling pretty impatient, as
I always did on the day the school posted the classroom lists. Each
year, the day before Wenchester Elementary School began, the school
posted a list for each classroom so that the students could see
which class they would be in during the year.

For some reason this had always been a huge
event in my life. I anticipated it the way little children
anticipate Christmas morning.

This year would be a tad different. I had
finally made it. I was at the top. I was a sixth grader!

At Wenchester, there were two sixth-grade
classrooms. The teachers were Mr. O’Neil and Mrs. Phyllis. Mr.
O’Neil was tall, slender, and non-threatening in his appearance. He
had a reputation of being real strict. Mrs. Phyllis, on the other
hand, was simply young and beautiful. She had blonde hair and blue
eyes that hid behind red glasses that made her look like a
secretary. So, given the two choices for having a teacher, I
thought it was fair to say I would rather be in Mrs. Phyllis’s
class.

“Wake up!” screeched a female voice outside
my room.

“You actually thought I might be asleep?” I
yelled back.

“Mom wants us to walk to the store and get
lunch.” With that, she threw open the door. It was my sister,
Carrie. Everyone said we looked alike. We would both argue to our
deathbeds that we didn’t. She was a year younger than I was. The
sad part about it was we were in the same grade. I was held back a
year by my mother. She said it was for emotional reasons. If you
ask me, I thought my mother wished she had given birth to twins.
She figured that even though we didn’t come out at the same time,
she would make us go to school at the same time.

I used to live in Arizona with my mother and
father. My parents divorced when I was three years old. My dad
moved to Texas with his girlfriend a year later. I would only speak
to him about four times a year. I saw him once at Christmas time
when I was seven years old. We didn’t have much of a father-son
relationship. I was supposed to love him because he was my dad. It
was hard to love someone you never saw, especially when that
someone chose not to see you.