Blood Trials by Iris Kain

Author:Iris Kain
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pirate Farm Books
Published: 2022-06-30T00:00:00+00:00

MAYSUN SCRAMBLED TO her feet and dashed to a mirror hanging over a small rectangular sink along the far wall. Gathering her courage, she pulled her lips back from her teeth and stared in disbelief. An image she’d become familiar with from the dark days she’d spent with the Shévet ha Dam stared back. Maysun Khatri—vampire.

The words of God in the garden of Paradise came back to her: I have to allow a measure of darkness to enter the world... This darkness would fall on you. Your role would not have to be a sinful one.

She was not playing the part of a vampire as the Balance anymore. She’d become a genuine descendant of Cartephilus, her blood the same as the man who’d been cursed by Christ.

Goddamn it.

She snorted at her unintentional pun and stifled the urge to vent her anger. Yes, she’d have to subsist on blood, but God had their reason. If it meant being a bloodsucker to find her daughter in order to shelter her from the Blood Tribe, she’d do it. At least God hadn’t made her body on the verge of death again. It seemed she’d be forever in her mid-thirties. Or at least until she died for good.

She looked around the pristine studio. Was it Amara’s? Was this white-walled high-ceilinged room in her daughter’s home? For all she knew, Amara was in the next room. Her fingernails, longer now than she remembered, pushed forcefully against her palm.

Am I the same vampire I was before? Or did he make me a newborn? Am I powerless, or am I as strong as the vampire I once was?

She eyed the sunlight streaming in through the window, noted how it hit her skin without incident. A small smile made its way to her lips.

Not the same as a newborn, then.

She focused on the fountain of power that had imbued her with strength in her past and found that it repulsed her. An acid taste came to her mouth as she concentrated, her stomach clenched uncomfortably, and her face screwed up in distaste. The idea of tapping into that for strength—

No. Of course not. That’s the Maleficence. The old Maysun used the Maleficence to fool Jude when she was a vampire. You aren’t the same creature you once were, so you don’t have to use the same resource for your power now that Jude isn’t looking over you.

She might be a dark being that needed blood for life, but at least God hadn’t made her dependent on the Maleficence. She was grateful, and tension she didn’t know she’d held eased from her shoulders and clenched jaw.

That the Source was hers to use now stirred emotions in Maysun she’d never experienced as a vampire trapped in the emotionless Balance. Relief. Gratefulness. Excitement for life that she hadn’t known was missing.

Closing her eyes, she trusted the Source as if she were falling safely into the arms of a trusted companion, as if she comprised every positive force in the universe: light, music, bliss.

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