Page 1 of Blood Coven

PROLOGUE

THE YEAR OF THE MOON

The eyes of the Mørke Forest bore into the man as he traversed the unkept pathway from town to his mother’s home. It was as though the trees stretched their slender bodies to loom over him like curious spectators. Victor kept his eyes on the path; he did not trust the woods, for all manner of creatures dwelled within.

The steps to her house groaned and creaked as he climbed them. Though the house was newer than any in town, it had never been well-maintained. Its builder, his grandfather Adam, succumbed to madness before Victor was born. He did what he could to keep the roof patched and the walls from caving in.

“Mother?” he called into the shadows. The moon shone dimly above, offering only faint light through the windows. No candles were lit; there was no sign of life.

He heard the shuffle of shoes on the warped floorboards and the clunk of wood being moved. He opened the door and followed the sound to find his mother kneeling with her hands beneath the floor. Beside her was the floorboard she had removed. She lifted out a small locked box and offered it to him.

When he tried to take it, she refused to let go. Instead, she offered him a warning: “The cost of this curse. Do you know what it is?”

“Yes,” Victor replied. “A daughter.”

His mother scowled. Her face, barely visible in the faint glow from the filthy window, was withered, her lips curling and shrinking with age. Her brown eyes narrowed, appearing nearly black in the shadows. “Not just any daughter.”

“This family was once in its prime. Your mother and father ran this town until that vampire-whore came and took everything, cursing us again, then fleeing back to Osleka…” he trailed off. “One small sacrifice, and the Wolf will do my bidding. He’ll slaughter Fischer and his entire family. In one single night, this town will again be ours.”

His mother smiled and released the box.

Victor grinned. Contained inside was a scroll bearing the incantation that allowed one to control the Wolf. One simple sacrifice and a bloodline would be massacred, allowing them to rise again.

“Kill the mayor’s family and bring back the glory to our family name, my son.” She placed her wrinkled, ring-clad hand on Victor’s cheek. Then she stepped back and handed him the key.

Her motherly kindness warmed him as he opened the box and studied the dust-covered scroll inside. It was nearly four hundred years old, yet it remained in impeccable condition. Witchcraft might have been forbidden, but it had preserved the scroll so it could be used forever. Their family would have it until time stopped. Over the last four centuries, it had fallen into the hands of others, but it always found its way back. His ancestors never knew how it happened.

Unrolling the parchment, Victor read aloud: “‘Hatred consumes; feed this craving once and for all, end the reasoning for my enmity. End the blood that drips from the family, end their reign. I sacrifice my living, breathing daughter; yours to take as you will. Take that which I love to end that which I hate.’”

“Do what I could not,” his mother said. For she had a son instead of a daughter, and the curse could not be enacted with the sacrifice of a male child. But Victor had been granted a daughter—a seventeen-year-old daughter named Rose.

PART I

THE GIRL

1

OCLEAU

THE YEAR OF THE CURSE (400 YEARS BEFORE THE YEAR OF THE MOON)

MATTHIAS

He crawled along the edges of the wilderness, fingers digging into the frozen dirt. His nails broke off along the way, leaving them jagged claws. His groans of agony echoed in the silence. No one was around to hear him, for he was miles away from any town. Though the sun appeared over the horizon, the moon still lingered in the lilac sky, taunting as it smiled down at him. Bright amber filled the treelines, making the condensation glitter like jewels.

The sensory onslaught caused him to squeeze his eyes shut in a desperate attempt to control the pounding in his temples. He curled into a ball, clutching his cold, naked body as the transition between wolf and man completed. Matthias whimpered, the childlike sound emerging involuntarily from his throat. He lay there for what felt like hours, thinking he would surely die of cold if the shock from the last twelve hours didn’t kill him first. And yet, the morning sun rose and thawed the frost surrounding him, giving him the energy he needed to rise on shaking legs.

It was mid-afternoon when he finally arrived at the property he grew up on. It brought not a feeling of welcome but one of childhood horror. His rigid body slowed as he forced himself closer to the house that had never felt like home. Scant sunlight broke through the canopy, shining on a basket of linens on the porch. Desperate for heat and something to cover his fully exposed skin, he pulled an off-white sheet from the basket and pulled it around his shoulders. It offered him little warmth, and his mother’s scent lingered on the fabric.

He could see the reddish glow of firelight through the thick, animal-skin windows, but he sensed no immediate movement inside. From the second-story roof, the chimney puffed out smoke in great plumes. Dread filled him as he mounted the steps. In moments, his presence in Ocleau would become known to the person he despised most in this world. There was still time to leave, to turn around and knock on someone else’s door. But no one in town would open their doors to him, not if they knew who he was. Even if they did not recognize him, they certainly wouldn’t welcome him stark naked and covered in dirt and blood.

Nearly to the door, his energy diminished, and he stumbled. The wooden steps cut into his bare shins, bruising them as he crawled, unable to get back on his feet. Despite the cold, a sheen of sweat coated his neck and back. The thump of his body falling should have caused alarm within the home. He slammed his fists into the door, feeling the peeling wood against his skin as his hands slid down its length. If no one answered, he had nowhere else to go.

When it finally opened and a pair of women’s shoes appeared in sight, he tasted regret like bitter bile on his tongue.

“I always knew you’d come crawling back to me, Matthias,” Azalea Luca said smugly.

“Spare me your lectures,” he spat back at her, but his voice failed to maintain his hatred. Instead, it sounded strained. The words scraped his throat as though they fought to come up.

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