Legends of the Destrati: Legends of the Destrati, #2
By Dina James
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About this ebook
Among Ethereals, Clan Destrati’s reputation and exploits are as renowned as the associates it boasts.
Within these pages are but a few of their legends.
With Great Power – Despite everyone’s obedience, deference, and assurances, Destrati Queen Katrina still feels like an outsider, especially since she’s still human – for the most part. Being the wife of a vampire has its perks, after all. When her husband the Sovereign is called away and the clan protectors bring in an abused fledgling, Katrina must own up to her title, or risk plunging the clan into a bloody war they might not survive.
Deliver Us From Evil – Marcos Aquino de los Santos is cursed with a hunger he can never satisfy. No human is safe from his obsessive need, until one night he meets a woman who stops the relentless ache for one blessed moment. Now he has a new obsession - to know what it is about her that brings him peace, and how he can keep it forever.
“James has put together a well-developed world populated with complex characters…” – Bitten By Books
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Titles in the series (3)
Legends of the Destrati: Legends of the Destrati, #1 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLegends of the Destrati: Legends of the Destrati, #2 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLegends of the Destrati Volume Three: Legends of the Destrati, #3 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
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Legends of the Destrati - Dina James
Legends of the Destrati
Volume II
Dina James
Legends of the Destrati: Volume II
Copyright © 2015 Dina James
With Great Power
originally published in Light in a Dark World, March 2012
Deliver Us from Evil
originally published in Love Bites: The Mammoth Book of Vampire Romance 2, August 2009
Both stories previously published in the anthology Light in a Dark World, March 2012
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Cover Art © 2015 by Skyla Dawn Cameron
All rights reserved under the International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the author.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
No part of this book may be scanned, uploaded or distributed via the Internet or any other means, electronic or print, without permission from the author. Warning: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000. (http://www.fbi.gov/ipr/). Please purchase only authorized electronic or print editions and do not participate in or encourage the electronic piracy of copyrighted material. Your support of the author’s rights and livelihood is appreciated.
Table of Contents
Dedication
Acknowledgments
’Author’s Note
With Great Power
Deliver Us from Evil
About the Author
Dedication
For My Husband, Robert
I couldn’t do this without you. Thank you for believing. And the fries.
I love you.
Acknowledgments
I have so many people to thank for helping get this book out there.
First, my Editor of Awesome, Skyla Dawn Cameron. Thank you for wanting to do this project with me and not thinking I was insane when I voiced a wish to have all my short stories available in one place. Not only that, but you did the most beautiful cover for me. You’re amazing, thank you.
Also, my husband Rob. As the dedication says, I couldn’t have done this without you. Thank you for believing in me and supporting my insanity, and understanding the words, I’m working!
Thank you for taking care of things when I’m in my own little world. Also, thank you for enabling my yarn addiction. I think you just do it to keep me sane so you don’t have to deal with any more crazy. I love you.
To Becky—you loved Kyle from the beginning. You loved him so much you outed me as a paranormal writer in that Japanese restaurant, and as a result, the rest of the world got to meet him as well. Thank you for that.
To Valtinen—Your help with music, language, semantics...so many other things I don’t have the room to list, I’m grateful to you for. Some of them appear in these pages. Thanks for the entertainment, Fauxtaire.
Thank you also to Trisha for loving Kyle, and asking for more. My immense gratitude to Jes and Rhea for their mad proofreading skills.
Last but never least, thank you to my readers and fans. Thank you to those who wanted to spend more of their time with Kyle (I don’t blame you one little bit!) and kept asking for the backlist of my books that I didn’t have. All I had was what they’d read. Hopefully this collection will satisfy Kyle’s adoring masses.
Author’s Note
This work differs a great deal from what you may have read by me. Three of the stories here were published in different paranormal anthologies years apart, so if they seem familiar to you, that’s likely why. Those previously published stories have since been rewritten, revised and in one case, re-titled. They now appear as they were originally written. In addition, these stories are different in that the reader sees everything from everyone's perspectives. Some might mistake this for head-hopping
or point-of-view shifts—I assure you they are intentional, not amateur or editorial mistakes. It's a style called omniscient,
and I prefer writing it (much to the annoyance of my editors). I, personally, think it gives the stories greater depth, which is important in shorts. With short stories, you have a limited amount of time and space to involve the audience, and this style is designed for just that. I hope you enjoy it.
Also, this work is a great deal darker than other things I’ve written. I will warn you now—there may be some triggering scenes in some of the stories. The world of the Destrati is very dark, hence the title. There are images of self-harm, sexual assault, violence and suicidal ideation (if you or someone you know is contemplating suicide, please call the suicide prevention lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255) or visit www.suicidepreventionlifeline.org).
If all that weren’t enough, some of the stories are based heavily on Judeo-Christian theology. Heaven, Hell, angels, demons, souls, priests—there’s a lot of Biblical stuff in these pages, and I realize this might upset some people. Rest assured, I’m not being preachy or religious in these stories. In my world, vampires are made by selling their soul to Lucifer—they trade their soul for immortality. They’re literal lost souls. The Destrati work to prevent others from sharing their fate as one of the damned, so there’s a lot of theology involved.
If you’re good with all that, read on. Just don’t say you weren’t warned. – DJ
With Great Power
Katrina stretched long beneath the black sheets of the king-sized bed she shared with her husband. Her brow furrowed as her hand met the cold emptiness beside her. She turned her head and opened her eyes. The darkness sundown left in its wake filled the room, but Trina was not only accustomed to little if any light, she could see perfectly well in it. Her husband was a vampire.
He was also up before her. She knew he’d come to bed this morning—oh yes, he’d come to bed, she remembered, smiling to herself as she took another deep waking breath. She pushed the covers off her legs as she sat up, looking around in the pale evening light of the bedroom for Nikolai.
Here, beloved, the words came in her mind. Though you know where I would rather be. It was torture to leave you to wake alone.
Trina smiled. Everything okay?
Mmm, came the reply. The Knights brought in an abandoned fledgling at last light. What about you?
Her smile widened. Nikolai was learning, slowly, to ask her about her thoughts and feelings instead of determining them for himself as he was more than capable of doing. It had been a long, hard battle, getting Nik to treat her as a person and not a possession. His interpretation of things she thought and felt left a lot to be desired at times. There was a time when Nikolai would have appeared instantly at her side upon feeling her awaken, there to ensure his chosen bride’s every whim and desire was seen to. Nikolai had been a terrible hoverer.
Fine, thank you, my love, she replied, putting every ounce of assurance she could manage into the words. If her heart rate raised even a fraction, Nikolai would appear, ready to defend her against whatever had elevated it. He knew everything about her, every moment of every day. She’d really had to exert herself to teach him the difference between concern and control, and to both give and respect her privacy. It had taken even