Daring to glance behind me, I’m surprised to see the gates have slammed shut, locking me into this gigantic garden of the mansion. I frown at that for a second, but I don’t have time to dwell on it, to think about how the gates even shut themselves, when I hear branches cracking in the forest. They are getting close. It’s seconds before I’m standing in front of the massive oak doors that lead into the mansion. They’re slightly open, a small enough gap for me to slide through, and I don’t wait. With my heart racing, I grab the wood door and slowly inch myself through the gap, pushing with all my strength to get through. With a final tug, I fall out of the gap, inside the mansion, right onto hard, cold stone floors and my ribs scream in pain. The doors slam shut behind me, the bang echoing loudly.
My eyes shoot up as lights burn to life on the ceiling, magic held within crystals that form a chandelier that is bigger than me. The square room has beautiful mosaic walls, grey stone floors, and there are two other doors, both the same oak as the front.
This mansion is not derelict inside…and I don’t think I’m alone. A statue of some kind sits between the doors on the other side, and it’s a creature on all fours. It has massive wings spread out and a fierce mouth, baring rows of teeth. It’s familiar…I just can’t remember the name of the creature for a moment until it hits me. Dragon. An extinct creature from the old times. I saw a painting of one in the forbidden books my tutor gave me, only briefly, and it stuck with me how terrifying they look. The dragons and their dragon fae riders are nothing but a whispered fairy tale that the lessborn fae tell their children so they don’t run away into the forests.
How is that statue possible? Not only are dragons extinct, any mention of them is a death sentence. I crawl backwards until my back hits the door. I need to get out of here. I reach up, looking for a handle, finding none. I’m patting the door for some kind of way to get out when I hear a footstep behind me. I turn back to see a man standing in front of the statue, like he appeared out of thin air. The doors never made a sound. The stone wings of the statue spread out behind the stranger, making them almost look like they’re his wings, like this beautiful man could take off into the skies. He looks surprised, absolutely shocked. That makes two of us.
He watches me with pure astonishment for a long time until it’s just uncomfortable. Am I safer in here with this stranger or in the forest with the vampyres hunting me?
“Who are you?” His voice is thick, deeper and stranger than any accent I’ve ever heard before.
“I could say the same thing.” My voice is breathless as I ascend to my feet, plastering my back to the door. “I think I’ve walked into the wrong place. I should get going now, but I can’t find a handle. How do you open the door?”
The male’s eyes widen a fraction. “You’re not going anywhere. No one just walks into here. The dynasty royals will decide what to do with you.”
“Royals?” I dare to ask, my skin paling. There can’t be vampyre royals here. There can’t. I’ve just escaped them. What if I ran into one of their traps? Why would they be out here in the forest in the middle of nowhere without guards? I can’t breathe, I can’t move, as the male walks to me. He doesn’t move like any vampyre I’ve seen or look like them either. His skin is too warm, his hair too blond, too perfect. I do the best thing that I possibly can think of, I dart around him and run, heading straight towards the other doors. I barely get two steps before he’s roughly grabbed me from behind. Something hard slams into the back of my head just as my fingers graze the wing of the dragon.
Chapter Two
Page Two.
Dragons are beautiful creatures that should be feared by everyone but the one fae they choose as their rider. I fought the stones for my dragon, and if you keep reading, maybe you will be one too.
“Don’t worry. They’ll just do a test and then we’ll find out where you go. Okay?”
My mother’s soft words do little to settle the nerves in the pit of my stomach, no matter how many times she repeats herself. Maybe she has convinced her own heart to stop beating as fast as mine. Her long red hair is braided down her back, like mine, but she doesn’t have the blackness that crawls up my locks and makes people stare. Will my hair make me stand out today? Will how pale and curvy I am? Will the fact I have tipped fae ears, even when most don’t anymore? My insecurities are like a never-ending song in my mind, repeating over and over, until I’ve forgotten the point of the sweet song that I had begun listening to. Until my thoughts are as real to me as the vibrant silver moon in the night sky each night.
I play with the end of my braid as we stand before the thin black doors that lead into the basement of the processing district. My mother kisses the top of my head. “Happy birth year, darling girl. I don’t think I got a moment to say that.” Happy birth year seems inappropriate, considering no part of today will be happy.
I’m fourteen this birth year, and for fae, it’s a cursed year. On every fae’s fourteenth birth year, you’re officially classed as an adult. At least the lessborn fae like me are. There are three places the lessborn fae are divided into, depending on the results of today’s test. The breeders—like where I live with my mother. I wince at the idea of returning there. My mum is classed as an unsuccessful breeder, being she only ever had me and no other children, despite many suitors. Every other family I know has five or six children, some as many as nine, and that is normal for female fae breeders. We were always outcasts because it’s just me and her, but I like that. I like that I get her attention all of the time. But it doesn’t mean I want to be there. What if I’m unsuccessful as a breeder? I don’t think I even want children, though I’m not sure it’s an option for me to want things, but being a breeder is the best option.
The second is a worker, sent to the mines to collect gold, silver or crystals for the vampyres until my back breaks or a rock crushes me. The third option…my mother won’t even speak about the third option, but I’ve heard it from the fae I grew up around. They whisper it around—the blood slaves. The blood slaves are rejects of society, the ones that don’t fit in with the workers in the mines because their bodies aren’t able or they’re not successfully able to be a breeder. Today’s check decides everything.
“Story Dehana, come forward.” I lift my hand, like she doesn’t know exactly who I am. There are four families here. The rest of the people my age are boys. The fae female waves her hand at us, her eyes drifting to my mother for a second, and she blinks in surprise. She is powerborn, like I’m told my father was before he died. The markings on her cheek tell me she is a healer, a flower wrapped around a star, and they match the many markings of power on her hands—all flowers, different ones, that move against her skin like they are alive. The powerborn fae get a choice in their careers, in their lives, but they rule nothing like the rest of us. Fae are slaves to the vampyres, no matter what you’re born as. “Come in, come in.”
My mother all but tugs me forward with her hand, leading me into the cold room. There’s a metal bed in the middle, with a single white cushion, and the walls are blank. The woman shuts the door behind me. “Go lie down, Story. I will be right with you.” Her voice is quiet as she addresses my mother. “It’s good to see you, Ylene. You haven’t aged a day.”
“You’re too kind, Blaire. How is your son?” my mother whispers back.
She touches her neck where another marking is. This one is a diamond, which marks the birth of a child. “Growing up fast. Too fast.”
My mother looks at me, light shining in her dark forest green eyes that are exactly the same as mine. “I know the feeling, my old friend.” She blinks a few times, straightening her back and smiling like she hasn’t got a worry in the world. “Shall we?”
Blaire faces me and rubs her hands together as she closes the space between us. “I only need to take a drop of your blood, and then I’ll be able to see where you’re suitable for. Your blood holds all the answers of your body to me, and it will show me what your fate shall be.”
“Okay.” My voice shakes. I’m not brave, not like my mother. I’m not a warrior like my father was.
“This will all be over soon,” Blaire gently tells me, tucking away her loose strands of brown hair. I’m not sure how my mother knows this powerborn fae, but I don’t have time to question her. I sit down as Blaire comes over, a small needle and a glass tube in her hands. She pricks my finger, and I barely feel the pain before a small amount of my red blood trickles into the tube.
I can practically hear my heart racing in my ear, like a constant drum, as I stare at Blaire’s back. Bright orange magic, a rare magic for powerborn fae, flashes in front of her, and she goes still. She seems to do it two—no, three—times before she looks over her shoulder. I’ve always been good at reading people’s eyes, and her blue eyes are screaming a thousand words, and none of them good.
She clears her throat. “Ylene, can I speak to you outside?” She points to a door. “Just out there?” Sensing my gaze, Blaire looks at me. “There’s nothing to worry about…I just need to speak to your mother for a second.” Of course, when adults tell you there’s nothing to worry about, there’s always something to worry about. I sit up as my mother goes out the side door with her, and they leave it slightly cracked open. I can’t help myself as I run over, hiding just behind the door so I can hear them.
“Oh, Ylene, I’m so, so sorry,” Blaire is exclaiming.
My mother seems to pause before she asks a question that determines my entire future with barely a whisper. “What are you sorry about?”
“She’s not eligible for the breeders or the workers, and I’m just sorry. So sorry. Story has problems with her ovaries and uterus, a rare condition. We don’t even have a name for it, not anymore. I could sense it in her blood,” she begins to explain, and my stomach drops. “Her uterus is scarred, her ovaries full of cysts, even now before her monthlies have begun. It must be a birth defect of some kind; the offspring of mixing lessborn and powerborn fae like her…sometimes results in this. She will have difficult monthly cycles, intense, awful pain. She will be weak, and her body will betray her with pain every month and sometimes in between. She will need healers sometimes, and she cannot go to the workers like that. I can’t recommend her to either.”
I hear my mother move forward. “Yes, she can. Just lie for me, for her father! Please, send her to the breeders. I’ll just hide her symptoms. She won’t get pregnant, but it happens. It happens all the time. She’ll just be kept there. That’s how it is.” Her voice is spinning into desperation, more panicked, higher pitched by the second. My heart races as I listen to them deciding my fate.
“I can’t, Ylene. I wish I could. For him,” she answers, and I believe her, believe the soft tone. She liked my father. “I wish I could, but I cannot. They would just send others to check her, and then they’ll find what I did, and she’ll still go to the same fate. It would be cruel to attract that much attention her way. They might even kill her for breaking the law. They’d certainly kill both of us.”
“No…NO!” my mother shouts. “You’re not sending my daughter to be a blood slave for those—” Her voice skyrockets off the walls.
“Keep it down before someone hears you. The vampyres are always listening around here. I’m so sorry, there isn’t another option. I’m going to have to send her to be a blood slave,” Blaire firmly states, her voice cracking. “She’ll be okay. They’re gentle with their blood slaves when they’re young. When she gets older, she’ll make her own way.”
“And I will never see her again. They’ll keep her here in this godforsaken city until one vampyre takes it too far and kills her for her blood, like she is nothing more than an animal. That’s all we are to them: lessborn or powerborn, we are just blood,” my mother hisses with pure venom in her voice. “If her father was alive—”
“Well, he isn’t, and neither is my brother. They both died that day! We all live with the consequences of their deaths,” Blaire angrily snaps. I wish I knew more about my father, but my mother never speaks much of him. He was a warrior for the fae, and he died fighting for us all. My mother repeats that line anytime I ask her about him. She never tells me anything more, and right now, I wish she’d told me everything she knows so I might be prepared for what is coming.
Silence, thick and empty, echoes between them. Her voice is softer, kind, when she speaks next. “I’ll watch out for her myself. I vow it to the deities. I’ll make sure she gets a good vampyre master. I’ll pick someone to look after her, who won’t take it too far. Ever. Not all of them are like the king and royals, Ylene.”
My mother’s weeping fills the corridor, and I walk away, back to the bed. I lie back on it, looking up at the plain white ceiling, knowing my future is completely and utterly over. I lift my finger, seeing a drop of my blood run down my finger, down my wrist, like it’s marking me already. I’m going to be a blood slave, and after today, I’m never going to see my mother again.
The room is spinning when I wake up, and I first see a dome made of pure glass and past that, a million stars burning across the night sky outside. The moon is shining down on me, the silver light so bright. Everything is hazy for a minute as I remember the mansion in the forest, the dragon statue, and the male who hit me over the head when I ran. The room is silent, but I can feel eyes on me. That deep sense that I’m really not alone. Now I’ve tasted freedom, I’m not sure I ever want to give it up and I think I might like being alone. I don’t care what I’ve walked into here; I’m leaving for the life I want the first chance I get. I lift my head, propping myself up on my elbows, and my mouth drops.
