Redeemed By You

By K.A. M'Lady

In Vranthia, The Wasting has claimed the lives of women, children, and warriors alike; many have fallen to this great plague. No one is safe from its darkness. Recklessness and subterfuge walk hand and hand amongst the Elders, as they seek a means to rule. With ferocity they intend to control the meek, with gluttony they will bleed the docile; destroying all who stand in their way.

But The Wasting can no longer be contained. What began as a dark elixir, stoked in the veins of hatred and revenge, from an enemy long thought dead, has spread beyond the great halls of the Vranthian Kingdom. And no one is certain when or where its darkness will end. Is the mystery and magic of the trion enough to save this great nation?

Kantella Balacjek is a lot of things, but a traitor to his people he is not. He needs to find the source of the darkness to prove his innocence, but the evidence against him grows almost daily. Lies told and enemies made have a way of shielding the truth from the light, even when the truth rages in the blood. Death and her harbinger await him. Will he succumb, or will The Wasting consume them all?

The Darengy grave-warriors have always walked in the shadows. But even they have their outcasts, the creatures that they fear. Onya knows what it is to be different, to be alone with the dying. The shadows and darkness hold their whispers and their pleas. Only she has the power to choose who crosses over. Enslaved by the resistance, she has learned the capacity for evil. Does her blood hold the power to seal the fate of many nations? Does she the courage to change that fate?

Mercenary, loner, wanderer – Traegar is one of the first among the Elders. He is a maker and destroyer of life. Time has jaded him. His people’s level of debauchery and power disgusts him. When the Great Wars ended he chose to walk away and hunt what he despises and loves the most; burying the pieces within him instead. Now his kindred are dying in droves. The Elders have grown unruly, and unstable in their bid for domination. In his dreams the whispers of the ancients fire his blood with the heat of the mating.

Will finding his trion redeem his faith in his people? Will their belief in each other be enough to set them all free? Strong are the Binds of Love, Faith and Magic.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Mojocastle Press
• Release date: Jan 1, 2014
• ISBN: 9781601800268

Book preview

http://www.mojocastle.com/

Also By K.A. M’Lady

Get Lucky

Song of the Wolf

Realm Book One: To Tell of Darkness

Realm Book Two: Shadow Slave

Realm Book Three: Illuminated Death

Faith Savage, Demon Huntress Series

Ramshackle Castle: Bent Poetry and Other Altered Verse

Rational Animals

A Walk in the Black Forest

Vranthian Vampires Series

Dedication:

For the readers, and the believers.

Because love heals all things

For my husband ~ Always my light, and my love.

Chapter One

The back corner of the club lay steeped in darkness, the shadows deep and the smoke thick with the scent of sex and blood-tinged alcohol. The noise level hummed a heavy bass of drums mixed with techno. Bodies swayed to the gyrating beat, anarchy and revelry thrumming in their veins. Anonymity was the guise and the seduction. It was the dance that fed the heat of the blood’s deadly game.

The lure of hot, sweaty bodies thinly dressed, grinding against each other on the dance floor, did little to pique his interest. This night his focus was elsewhere, the heat of the hunt burning deep within his veins.

Casually, he stalked through the crowd, blending with the shadows. Every step silent, each move obscure. The crowd parted, then consumed him, bodies swallowing him like a tide, flowing over his leather-clad form. Nearly-naked flesh swarmed and faded, consuming him into their wave as he made his way to the booth that sat in its deepest recesses like a dark yawning cove. The thirst rode the air, fangs flashing as desire and rebellion rose above the thunderous drone of the music.

The sight and scent of their writhing bodies, ripe with hunger and need, disgusted him. It was the same story time and time again. Blood traded for sex. Sex traded for blood. Centuries had passed, and still his people gathered in hellholes such as this, in search of donors. Some even craved the forbidden hint of darker magic; strange and evil powers that were only whispered about in quiet, darkened places.

He knew he’d find his target here; the lure of power was too much for him to pass over. It had become a game with them. For weeks he’d stalked this one, but Traegar was a patient man and an even more patient hunter. Time meant little. So he watched his quarry while he bounced from body to fluxing body, rubbing against each one he came in contact with. Male or female, it mattered little. Power had become a drug, as he searched for a source to fill his lecherous needs for the night.

Distractedly, Traegar watched him bound from one sorry victim to the next while his own thoughts wandered. The dream had come again, keeping him from the still, sweet calm the hunt usually provided. This time the visions had shown him far more of its vivid, bloody, and disturbing scenes than ever before.

Being one of the oldest of his kind, he’d seen much death and destruction in his long life. He had been the maker of much of that havoc himself. He was certainly no fool. Life was filled with betrayal and bloodshed. The Great Wars had proven that. But these visions…

If they were true, then great change was coming. But, was he prepared to do something about it? That was the question that haunted him.

If he cleared his mind of worries, he could still taste the sweet thickness of her blood on his tongue. He could feel the fire of her flesh in his hands. The carnal images of desire still thrummed in his veins, stoking the flames of memories and needs long thought dead to his jaded heart.

His people had shown him their capacity for depravity and power in the wars that had destroyed so many nations. The Darengy had been enslaved, bartered and traded for their blood. What was once seen as a gift had been diminished to nothing more than a commodity. Other races were wiped out entirely. The fractured few of the remaining cultures, the ones lucky or unlucky enough to survive, were marked as traitors