Read Sanctuary (Forsaken Realms Trilogy) Online
Authors: Lillian Sage
Sanctuary (Forsaken Realms Trilogy)
SANCTUARY
Book One of the
Forsaken Realms
Trilogy
By:
Lillian Sage
By
: Lillian Sage
Published By Avery & Co. Publishing
New York, NY USA
ISBN
0-9725604-6-7
First Edition
Copyright ©
Lillian Sage and Avery & Co. Publishing
http://www.
LillianSage.com
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He waited.
..
It was well past the time when he should be safely underground for the night yet something compelled him. The distant sky flickered eerily with the hint of dawn; but still Alexander waited...
In the distance a glimmer of movement caught his eye, and a scent...that scent...caught in his nostrils. The smell stirred something long dead within him, like the hint of something lost, or something never fully held.
At that moment the first rays of dawn broke majestically across the skyline and Alexander instinctively ducked behind the nearest building, protecting himself momentarily from the deadly sunlight that meant instant death to his kind.
Unhurriedly, he pulled out his smartphone and tapped a few times, sending the signal that would quickly bring safety.
Within moments a long silent limousine pulled up and the door opened.
"My Lord Graves..." intoned the slight figure from within.
As he ducked into the protective walls of the limo, Alexander cast one last furtive glance towards the warehouse across the street but it now appeared completely empty; no trace of the haunting scent remained.
He nodded the command to depart and the car glided away.
---
His name was Alexander Graves and he was the powerful head of the House of Graves, which for over 400 years had ruled both the Elder Council as well as his own Medai Clan.
Tall, broad-shouldered, athletic, and eternally young; Alexander resonated an air of command that one felt as soon as he walked into a room.
The burdens of absolute rule had not taken a toll on him; quite the opposite, centuries of authority had merely made him sharper, wiser, and more deadly.
As the car pulled into the underground garage of the massive glass and steel high rise building that was both his home and business headquarters, Alexander pondered the previous night's work.
It was folly, he knew that. Now was the absolute worst time for this sort of nonsense...
The global economy had been in recession for several years affecting virtually all aspects of his sprawling business empire, and the Clans had begun to grow restless.
As of yet, no outright rebellion had reared its head, but the grumblings had become imperceptibly louder and Alexander would need to take steps soon to quell the ranks or face almost certain destruction from within.
Only the powerful came to rule their own House, and only the most elite Houses came to rule their Clan. Few could fathom the ruthlessness needed to maintain supremacy over the entire Council.
Yet lately the maneuvering for power seemed less important to Alexander and for the first time in his long life, he knew uncertainty.
"It's just boredom," thought Alexander. "The curse of the long-lived".
But now he knew it was something else. Something far more deadly that could topple everything he'd spent centuries building. That scent...
The thought troubled him.
By now the sun would be fully shining and Alexander needed to rest. The Council was scheduled to meet tonight and he'd need all his energy to maintain order, and bend the Elders to his will.
Although they may be more or less civilized today, the Council was still made up of creatures who's base instinct was to slaughter and devour everything in their path. A killer in an Armani suit was still a killer.
Vampires, like humans, vary from person to person. They all share a certain capacity for cruelty that could manifest itself in many unexpected ways.
To be sure, the Elders respected a certain etiquette whenever they gathered together for Board meetings, but no one ever truly knew what would happen...
The thought made Alexander smile as he closed the door to his luxurious sun-proof sealed apartment.
With a quick look around to make sure everything seemed to be in order, he climbed into bed and drifted off to sleeplessness, haunted still by a scent...
tonight." whispered Tym.
For several months he'd been complaining about an uneasy feeling to anyone who would listen.
"It's just hunger, Tym has always been superstitious." thought Natalia.
"Don't worry, when have I ever not been careful?" she murmured over her shoulder as she crawled out of the sewer and into the dusky beginning of night.
She was one of the Forsaken; Clanless wanderers forced to live on the fringes of Vampire society. Hunted by the other Kindred, they maintained a desperate life wherever they could.
Natalia's family lived deep within the sewers where they survived on the blood from rats and whatever else found its way deep beneath the ground.
Lately the rats had grown few, and Natalia needed to venture out to hunt for something more substantial or her family would starve.
Any trip above ground was dangerous, but rumor had it that the Elder Council was in town for a Board meeting tomorrow, so wandering out tonight could prove fatal...yet her family needed food.
As she moved warily down the street, she silently cursed the Medai and their war that had unified the Clans centuries earlier by forging a common cause against the Forsaken.
Natalia was young when the war had started over 400 years ago, but she remembered. She remembered the night when most of her family were systematically wiped out without mercy.
She remembered the shame that burned as she fled; knowing that everyone she knew and loved had died to make sure she could escape.
Her "father", the vampire who had originally turned her, was a powerful leader and Natalia had been his heir. Emotion was rare in most Vampires, but the Forsaken had always been a little strange by Vampire standards and Natalia's sire had treated her like a true daughter.
She missed him fiercely.
Now she had a new family made up of a handful of straggling Forsaken who had banded together out of desperation and forged themselves into a sort of family.
They relied on each other and they survived.
There were other Forsaken out there, but no one was really sure exactly how many or where. At most there were only small groups spread throughout the wide world here and there. Most Forsaken lived alone and scratched out their meager lives as best they could.
Natalia didn't want to accept the fact that her own father was partially responsible for the war.
For centuries he had been gathering other clanless Vampires into a sort of loose knit society that had grown stronger, richer, and more politically powerful...strong enough to begin openly threatening the interests of even the powerful Medai Clan.
But the Medai were not to be threatened... and eventually they acted.
The Forsaken, as they became known after
the culling
, had grown too powerful for any one clan to destroy which was why Natalia's father had been caught unawares.
No one dreamed that the Medai could unify all the Clans against the Forsaken because their interests were too widely disparate and their feud's too ancient.
But that is exactly what had happened, and without a whisper of warning.
The only solace that Natalia had was the fact that her father had killed Ruark the head of the Medai Clan, who had been maneuvered into leading the final assault on the Forsaken by the other Clans who eventually came to make up the Elder Council.
But it didn't really matter in the end. Natalia's father was so greatly weakened during his final combat with Ruark that he was quickly dispatched by Medai foot soldiers afterwards.
And anyway, destroying Ruark had only elevated his son Alexander to command, and no Vampire before or since was as brilliant, deadly, and ruthlessly competent as Alexander.
In the years following the culling, he managed to forge his father's original loose alliance of Clans into the world-wide powerhouse that it was today...The Elder Council.
And the scattered remnants of the Forsaken were all but swept away.
But tonight was not the time to sulk. Her family needed food and the Council was in town which meant all their retainers and support staff would be out looking for entertainment.
And hunting Forsaken was a national sport to Council members...
