Page 1 of The Taking of House Westwood

Prologue

Every time Commander Valery beheld the stark beauty of it, the cold fear of death shivered down his spine.

From far up on the rocky, windswept promontory above the vast, dark canopy of the treetops, he had no real reason to dread the lights of the Border Road. But sometimes the long memory of a nocturne was both a blessing and a curse.

Like a great serpent, it snaked through the inky blackness of the impenetrable forest, the otherworldly brilliance shining bright every fifty paces, bathing the roadway in light that rivaled the noontime sun. It should have been a comfort, a refuge, a welcome guide — and for the humans, it was.

For the nocturne it was quite another thing indeed.

He’d witnessed with his own eyes what the humans had done to his kind behind the protection of that cursed barrier.

“What’s next, Commander?” Taidon spoke in tones hushed not only by the cold, moaning wind. His lieutenant felt that same unease, though he was no doubt too young to have known the reason why.

“Now, we wait. We stick with the plan.” Valery flicked a glance toward his subordinate, noting the way the wind whipped the open breast of Taidon’s long dark coat back and forth upon his chest. “You’ve never seen it before, have you?”

“No, sir.” Taidon’s eyes shone a faint orange-crimson, like the last embers of a dying fire.

Bloodlust?

“Tell me, Lieutenant, what would you do? Assuming you had leave to deviate from the plan.”

He didn’t hesitate. “Men are foolish to leave such undefended sectors on their border. March straight through. The element of surprise would be on our side. Kill any humans we encounter.”

Valery chuckled at the young officer’s rashness. “I suspect such a plan might not be… optimal.”

“Why, Commander? Meaning no disrespect — we would smash any patrol that happened along. There are no fortifications along this entire section of the road. It’s almost too easy.”

“Precisely.” Valery extended an arm, sweeping it before him. “Do you know what that is down there? That blasted light?”

Taidon didn’t answer, his gaze transfixed by the dramatic display far below.

“Every fifty paces there is a torch — but it’s one that never burns.”

“How…?”

“Essence of Sol.”

Taidon cursed under his breath, that faint crimson suddenly gone from his eyes.

“Destroy them from a distance then — a ballistae firing chain shot would work nicely, would it not?”

“Indeed,” Valery said, with a slow nod. “Except the destruction of even a single lantern causes an explosion of starlight sufficient to incinerate any nocturne within two hundred yards. Then if that weren’t enough, every other lantern then flares as bright as the Sun. Worse, they flare in sequence, like a wave down the road in either direction. Within moments, the zone of death either side of that road is tripled — and that signal notifies every human garrison within five day’s ride that there’s been a breach in their Border Road. And tells them where to find it.”

“But it’s not the impenetrable barrier it’s said to be.” The lieutenant murmured it, as if speaking to himself, the words barely audible over the whistle of the night wind. “It can be overcome, with care and planning.”

“So it can — for a tiny group like us. A few larger units could too, perhaps even a whole company. But it wasn’t built to keep us completely out of their lands — they know that’s impossible. No, that, my young Lieutenant Taidon, was built to keep out a nocturne army. And for twenty winters, keep it out it has.”

The sound of faintly clinking chains was carried upon the wind, and both figures turned toward it. The wind had blown her thick cloak over the kneeling woman’s shoulder, revealing a heavy breast, the purple and azure tattoos decorating her flesh rendered into shades of black under the starlight. The pale column of her throat was clasped in a thick collar the color of obsidian, the numerous rings embedded within the leather only hinted at in the low light. Dark strands of her lavish waist-length hair waved in a chaotic storm about her face, a lock caught at the corner of her generous lips. Her big, luminous eyes reflected the ghostly white of the crescent moon high above.

“Your slave’s going to freeze in this wind, Commander.”

Valery gazed upon her for a moment longer, his cock stirring as he relished the steel hardness of her exposed nipple, the gentle curve of her belly suggested under the faint shadow of the cloak. He could smell her fear — and her cunt — on the wind. As if they had a mind of their own, his fangs were already extending.

But there wasn’t time for that. Not now.

He looked back at the road, the brilliance of the deadly lights below searing themselves into his eyes.

“Take her back to the wagon, Lieutenant. I’ll join you shortly.”

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