Vampire Swords: Loved By The Sword First Chapter









Hello,

Here is the first chapter of the modern spin off to my Victorian Vampire Fantasy trilogy, The Vampire Swords containing Knight of Swords, Ace of Swords & Queen of Swords.  Loved By The Sword is set in present day and is a Young Adult/New Adult adventure romance.

The Knight of Swords and Queen plus many other characters from the Victorian trilogy are also in the book and if this one is a success, there will be more as well as a continuation of the original trilogy and more Victorian novels.

Let me know what you think.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Victoria








Vampire Swords:  Loved By The Sword

Chapter One


It was three days before Halloween. A handsome tall fair headed young man with a lean athletic build in his final A-level year at the nearby private school walked along the gravel towpath in a black suit by the canal.  Carrying a long sword that bore a single large emerald in his ornate gold handle, he walked confidently but his vivid blue eyes betrayed caution as he scanned the path, canal and trees waiting for his enemy to strike and begin their ancient duel.

He passed by two moored narrow boats but saw no one and heard only the Canadian geese sitting near the water squawking and the wind ruffling the leaves on the trees as he passed by.  Just as he neared one of the locks across the canal, his urge for the fight to begin was satisfied.
    
From the trees, next to the towpath another young man also in a dark suit, the school’s sixth form uniform, jumped out brandishing a similar sword, again bearing a single emerald to denote their race and royal warrior status.  He struck the sword at his opponent, Ryan Alexander who quickly and effectively countered the blow making the swords clash noisily over the water. Both young men hissed and bared their sharp vampire incisors at each other as they commenced their sword fight like trained experts along the towpath.  Ryan’s skill was defined and honed more than his opponent’s that was chaotic and sloppy at times.  Ryan’s determination ensured he beat the boy back over the lock nearly sending him falling in to the water as he did so and he knew it would not be long before he would defeat his enemy.

“You can’t have her. She belongs to me,” the boy shouted jumping on to the towpath on the other side of the canal.  “She will never go with you.  I am her true mate.  You are just a pathetic challenger.

Ryan ignored him and continued striking his sword hardly out of breath forcing the young man perspiring with his effort to defend himself.  At that precise moment, a girl of similar age to the young men ran out from the trees towards them over the lock.

“Marcus, stop this.  You have to stop. I won’t let you kill him.  I love him.”


“The ritual is clear.  I have every right to challenge the bond between you both, Yasmin.

Yasmin desperately tried to find a way to get between them to stop the fight but Marcus and his opponent were equally determined not to let her and both feared for her safety.

“Stay back, Yasmin.  You will get hurt,” they almost chorused.

“I will never be with you.  Never.  I will always love him and there will be nothing you can do to ever change that.  Do you really want to be with someone who will never love you for an eternity,” Yasmin demanded.

But the duel continued.  Yasmin chased them as the sword fight intensifies along the path.  The boy was not as technically proficient at sword fighting as Marcus and as he was pushed backwards towards the canal and the lowered inside of the lock, he lost his balance and only managed to stop himself falling in.  He spun around and narrowly missed a expertly aimed stab of Marcus’s sword.  Once more he lost his balance and fell to the ground, his sword clattering down beside him.

“Tony,” Yasmin screamed his name covering her mouth with her hand as she willed him to recover in his head

 Marcus quickly kicked it away while Tony reached for it.  Before he could stand Marcus moved in to finish the job and remove his head as per the dictat of the ancient Taleian Hybrid Vampire mating ritual. But a scream from Yasmin stopped him midway when she put herself between Tony and Marcus’s sword.

“I won’t let you kill him. I am not meant for you.  If he dies then so do I.  I will kill myself,” she shouted angrily at Marcus.

“I won’t let you.  We will make this work.  We have to in the tradition of our people.  You know the rules of the ritual.  When I kill him, you will belong to me. Get out of the way before you get hurt.”

“For Godsake, Marcus, listen to how pompous you sound.  The Taleian ritual is archaic and barbaric.  It . . .”

Yasmin suddenly stopped speaking, her eyes flicking to the side. The others followed suit as they all sensed a presence.  A tall dark haired aristocratic handsome man of no more than 25 years old wearing a long black overcoat stood a small distance away from them on the towpath.   

“Marcus put down your sword.  You don’t have to kill him,” he spoke eloquently in clipped English tones as though he belonged another century.

“But the ritual demands . . .”

“Enough.  The Queen forbids death in a challenge involving young hybrids.  This argument must be settled another way for now.”

Marcus frowned.

“We are old enough now to understand the ritual.”

“Marcus, do not make the mistake of disobeying the Queen’s order or myself.”

There was stark warning in the man’s voice that made Marcus’s heart beat a little faster.  He wasn’t stupid enough to make an enemy of the Taleian Queen’s protector and leader of her army not to mention his uncle, the Knight of Swords.

Still he would take it that he had won their fight and when he came of the age of twenty-one he would renew the fight to claim Yasmin. He remained in position a while longer and then lowered his sword with respect.

“No uncle.  Please forgive me.”

He turned to bow his head to his Uncle.  The man nodded in return and walked away in to the night.

“I never knew your Uncle was the Knight of Swords,” Yasmin gushed to Marcus helping Tony up from the ground.  “He is as handsome as everyone says.”

Marcus shook his head and frowned.

“Every woman thinks that.  It is because he is the Knight of Swords and all women whether a hybrid or not are spellbound by his looks.  It comes with the job,” Tony sighed.  “Nice work if you can get it.”

“Don’t think this is over just because he stopped me,” Marcus glared at Yasmin then began leant towards Tony until he was in his face.  “I will come to claim her again when the time is right.” He pointed his finger at Tony, “And this duel will be renewed.”

“Maybe before then, you will have found your own mate and have to fight challenges to your own bond by then.  Maybe then you will leave us alone,” Tony shouted at him.

Marcus ignored him and started to walk away along the towpath.  As the young couple hugged, Marcus wondered if there would ever me a mate for his angry soul.  He’d lost so much of his family he had been left with a hardened heart and a yearning to join with a mate to stop the loneliness he felt in his heart despite all of the love and care he was given by the beautiful Taleian Queen herself and the Knight of Swords who masqueraded as his Aunt and Uncle after raising him when his human mother allowed the Druids who were hell bent on engineering the destruction of the Taleian and Hybrid race to murder his father, sister and brother.

The Druids had erased his family line in its entirety over the centuries and recent times.  Now he felt the weight of revenge on their behalf.  He was the last of the aristocratic Alexanders who had flourished since the middle ages throughout England and Europe assisting heads of state, kings, Queens and the Taleian Royal line when it was re-established with the present Taleian Queen in the late 1800s.  If it hadn’t been for his aunt and uncle he would have been next. 

But, he guessed he would be denied a mate of his own as he had been so cruelly denied the love of his own true family.  His Aunt and Uncle were loving, kind and protective giving him everything he needed and so much more but they were not his blood kin and as a result he felt the loss of his line and the family knowledge and skill from centuries past that were inherited by every family member.  He was most likely destined to always be a challenger in the ritual rather than the true mate and he would have to be content with the disapproving spoils of war instead of the opportunity to find love and restart his family line in years to come.






Chapter Two



Marcus continued walking home taking a road filled with large residential houses in the leafy suburb just outside the small market town of Kingsted not far from where he lived.  As he passed one of the houses at the late hour of 11.30pm, a sudden sharp severe pain to his head sent him to his knees.  Clutching the side of his head he immediately looked in the direction of the house he had stopped outside of and up to a bedroom window in the large house behind the wrought iron gate that closed its long drive from the road.  He could sense the source of the pain was inside the house.  Although the pain took his breath away he couldn’t help but want to rejoice.  He grinned.  For once the Universe was actually smiling down on him.  It was his mate.  He had found her.  Somewhere in that house was the young woman he had been decreed to be bonded to for an eternity.  He relaxed his body and mind as much as he could and waited for her thoughts to automatically flow through to his own mind so he could find out more about her.  But it didn’t happen.  There was some sort of block and it was beginning to intensify his pain.

A light was turned on in one of the bedrooms facing the front of the house.  A young woman of his own age appeared at the window.  Recognising her from school immediately, he quickly moved in to the shadows towards the pillar at one side of the gates and watched as she began rubbing her temples.  Quietly he called her name softly in his mind hoping she would answer his call.

“Victoria, Victoria.”

It was unfathomable that he could not be heard yet he felt his call hitting the block imposed on her mind locking him out.  He doubted it was of her own making.  It was almost as though someone had cast a spell over her.  He sensed she did not know of her true heritage as the hybrid vampire daughter of a Taleian father and a human mother.  She appeared to know nothing of her female hybrid gifts or the mating ritual.  She clearly felt pain from the initiation of her bond but did not know why.  Something had to be done or the pain for both of them would increase the longer they were kept apart and she would be vulnerable to challenger seeking to usurp their psychic bond and establish his own so Victoria could be taken from him.

Victoria stared out of the window searching the driveway prompting Marcus to retreat further in the shadows.  Unable to find anything she stepped away and turned off the light just as Marcus heard a noise coming from beneath her window.  With lightning speed he mounted the gate and jumped from the top landing in the driveway, raising his sword as he prepared to do battle with the first of the challengers he sensed attempting to take Victoria from him.

A depletion of female Taleians and hybrid women because of the slave trade where their own people sold women to the humans for positions of power and wealth to integrate themselves in human society and control it.  The female Taleian gifts of immense psychic power and shapeshifting was equal only to their ability to heal humans from many cancers and other terminal illnesses.  Unfortunately, this was achieved through the consummation of their flesh which was capable of regenerating.  They had been ripped away from their families and held in makeshift prisons being mutilated for their very flesh to feed to ungrateful humans to heal them for a large price.  Despite the Queen’s advance to wipe out the slavers and its success even now some groups still managed to snatch girls and women from their homes and the street usually murdering the rest of the family in the process to take her for breeding experimentation.  The only way a Taleian or hybrid could conceive a child was when a Taleian vampire bred with a human woman.

Many of the female hybrids and pure Taleians had been stolen or killed across the world through the later centuries leaving the males heartbroken and desperate to find a mate.  They were so desperate they would use violence to secure a female mate and forcibly make her commit to the full joining by raping her and viciously branding her with their bite before their true mate could complete the mating ritual.  Once joined to another through lovemaking and the bite, the mate belonged to that male.  She could never be retrieved by her true mate.  It made the male hybrids incredibly protective and dominant with their mates regarding their safety.  And, Marcus was to keenly feel this right now.

As he approached the flower bed next to a tall conifer reaching past the upstairs window, he saw a young man not much older than himself beginning to climb the tree leading up to Victoria’s window.  Marcus’s eyes narrowed as he easily read his mind.  His intention was to break in through the window and rape Victoria to secure her.  He too was confused she could not feel him but it had not deterred him from his cruel plan.  Rage coursed through Marcus’s body as he imagined Victoria’s violent violation.  He hadn’t felt anger this strong since the death of his family and he had to fight to keep control.

He moved in a blur of speed towards the tree knowing that the hybrid ready to snatch Victoria from him and pounced on to the hybrid pulling him from the tree and against the wall of the house to pin him there. The young man bared his teeth but instead of hissing he growled like a wolf.  His strength was considerable and his Lycan bite would be vicious if he was given the chance to attack Marcus.  But Marcus was highly trained in combat by the Knight of Swords himself and after going out with the Knights to defend their people when needed in the last year he knew exactly how to handle the Lycan/Vampire hybrid.

Marcus responded with his own hiss and bare teeth.  The hybrid grinned at him in the moonlight.

“So, you are her mate and the man I must fight to take her.”

“You were just going to take her without obeying the ritual.  Have you no honour? Leave.  You have no business here, wolf.”

“Lycan.”

“She is guarded.”


“But not claimed.  I can take her when I want.”

The Lycan hybrid grinned when Marcus got in his face to threaten him.

“There are no second chances.  If I catch you here again I will kill you.”

“You’ll do nothing.  The challenge has to be met before you are allowed to become her destined mate.  I have every right to take her and I intend to.”

The Lycan pushed him back and snarled.  Marcus reacted quickly as the hybrid moved away from the wall and slammed him back there.  Using his formidable strength he held him there by the lapels of his suit jacket.

“I won’t let you violate her.”

“Victoria is fair game.  Consider the challenge on. Remember I am just the first of five challengers.  If you can’t protect her and the psychic bond created between you and your mate then she’s mine.”

The Wolf hybrid pushed back hard and gained his freedom when Marcus read his intention to leave ready to continue the fight at a later date.  He moved out of the way watching him walk to the gate and easily climb o
ver it and disappear down the road.   He could sense no other danger in the grounds around the house but he wasn’t taking any chances.  Victoria was his mate whether she knew it or not and it was his right to protect and secure her as his own. 


Marcus gazed up at the window for a moment feeling relieved Victoria was now in bed and on the edge of sleep and safe.  He rubbed his temples feeling his head ache again.  Resolving not to leave her alone unprotected, he moved away from the window to a quiet shaded spot in the garden with his sword to watch the house guarding the girl against any intruders for the rest of the night.

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