Caris Roane Blood Rose 01 Embrace the Dark

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.Another team member, Jason, telepathed the battle frequency.The southeastern sector is clear tonight.Gerrod, shall I join Derek?Yes, Gerrod pathed.Rest of the team, report? A world of pathways and frequencies had tremendous advantages.Long distance communication with those powerful enough to telepath, was a tremendous blessing.All Guards of the Realm could path.The Invictus were ruthless combatants and never fought with anything resembling decency or honor.A decade ago, Gerrod had lost a valiant vampire Guardsman when an Invictus wraith threw a jug of gasoline on him and set him on fire, laughing all the while.In the poorer southern regions, drug addicts and prostitutes, even in his realm, often went missing, never to be seen again.Training had become more rigorous because of the increasing activity.Each Guard now knew to anticipate the unexpected, and training camps had been established for the purpose of evaluating any young vampire, fae, troll, shifter, or elf, who wanted to try for Guard status, male or female.The effort had brought some talent into the castle Guard.Muscle for muscle, however, vampires still had the advantage over other realm-folk so that most Guardsmen were vampires.One by one, the remaining five Guardsmen gave an all clear for the rest of the realm, at least for now.Yet he felt uneasy.He lifted his chin and issued the orders, All except Jason, join Derek now.Jason, come to the castle grounds and patrol here but keep a low profile.And Jason, have the head of the patrols get the rest of the Guard out tonight, emergency levels.Done.His sense of uneasiness grew.At least his men had speed.They could lock onto their traveling frequencies better than all realm-folk.Though Jason was over a hundred miles away, he would arrive in less than twenty minutes.Not half-damn bad.His gaze never stopped moving over the crowd, or into the forest, or even high into the night sky which was clear, star-studded, and just a circle of dark surrounded by the tips of ponderosa pine trees.He loved the forest and the dark.Each realm had some manner of forest and dense woodland attached.Vampires needed a place to shelter if caught outside during the day.Tree canopies were necessary to those who had difficulty tolerating sunlight.Even faeries and elves didn’t tolerate sunlight well.The realm world was, for the most part, a world of the night and of the dark.He shifted his gaze to eye-level and bored his vision deep between the trees, hunting for the peculiar red-wind Invictus sign.Sweet Goddess, but his land was in trouble, as all the Nine Realms of North America were, if the Invictus engaged in yet another uprising.At least for now, the wedding party was safe and he could share in the joy of Gillet and his woman.Abigail chuckled once more, which brought Gerrod’s attention sharply back to the woman who had been tormenting him for an entire year.Her laughter glided over his nerves like a fine oil, which simply sent his temper into the top of his head all over again.Why did the human have to be here and why, by all that was worthy in his world, did he have to be drawn to her?He cast about for the source of her laughter.She looked off to the right so he followed her gaze.One of the trolls had imbibed far too much wedding punch and was listing about.He had already bumped into a few of the guests.Next he jostled a large vampire, who in turn picked him up by the lapels of his lavender silk coat, and glared at the troll face to face.The wedding guests drew a combined gasp.Vampires were not known for their sweet tempers.Fucking understatement that.But the troll smiled sloppily and kissed the vampire on the nose.The vampire grimaced, called out a loud growling ‘ack’, spat off to his left side, but released the troll.The guests breathed again and many chuckled, especially Abigail, as the troll turned and shambled away.By all the elf-lords, the damned woman laughed too much.More than anything, he wished he had never heard of Abigail of Flagstaff, a mere human, a bakery owner, the latter being the why of her presence in his realm.He had opposed the Merhaine Council approving her partnership with a elf to open a bakery in the nearby county of Hollow, one of Merhaine’s seven counties.He had believed from the first it was a mistake [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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