Brotherhood of Blood: PULSE Vampires Beginnings Book 1

By Kailin Gow

Octavius, the powerful Roman General who became a vampire, tells the tale of his life as a vampire from the days of his turning to the time he turned the Greystone Brothers Jaegar and Stuart Greystone into vampires. It is a tale of heartache, triumph, and brotherhood... the story of how one vampire have emerged from the depth of despair at his turning into the Master Vampire, leader of the Consortium of Vampires, and love to the most exquisite Life's Blood carrier Kalina Calloway.

From the award-winning bestselling PULSE Vampire series by Kailin Gow.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sparklesoup.com
• Release date: Dec 5, 2017
• ISBN: 9781386364344

Kailin Gow

It's official! Read about Kailin and her books being adapted into films and tv series here: https://filmdaily.co/obsessions/kailin-gow-loving-summer/ FIND OUT MORE ABOUT KAILIN GOW AT: https://linktr.ee/KailinGow including how to get a free book from her! Kailin Gow is a million-selling international and USA Today Bestselling author of over 680 published books! She writes in many genres under her name and other pen names. She has been an invited speaker on Book Expo America, appeared on CBS News about writing books with social issues, and the Top 15 National radio regularly on women's issues, women in film and Hollywood, and leadership. She holds a Masters in Management from USC and degrees in Social Ecology, Criminology, and Filmmaking. She is an author influencer on Instagram, owns a podcast network with multiple channels, is a multi-award-winning filmmaker, screenwriter, producer, actress, and host. Her books have been made into games, animated short films, and series. Currently, a number of her book series have been optioned, are in development, or pre-production, including her YA Fantasy Sci Fi Thriller FADE (which has been optioned) and Red Genesis (also optioned) by Netflix producers. Kailin Gow is a regular guest in radio and television on women in Hollywood and filmmaking, naming the top Women Execs to Watch. She is a judge in film festivals, writing contests, and is also a voting member in the Academy Awards. AWARD-WINNING INTERNATIONAL MILLION-SELLING AUTHOR, PRODUCER, AND TV PERSONALITY Kailin Gow is an internationally-recognized multi-award-winning multi-genres USA bestselling Asian American author and woman director/filmmaker who has written and published over 400 books under Kailin Gow and her pen names. She is both traditionally-published as well as indie. Considered a digital publishing pioneer, her books have been downloaded over 10 Million times around the world. She is known as one of the most prolific authors internationally who not only writes novels but screenplays fast, but of world-class quality they win prestigious awards like the ALA YALSA Awards and Los Angeles Film Awards. Besides having gone to law school, she holds a Masters Degree in Communications Management from USC and Drama/Film and Social Ecology Degrees from UC Irvine. She has also been a longtime member of TED Talks. She is the first Asian American author to have sold over 1 million books and to be featured on Amazon.com's homepage as an indie Author Success Story. Her success as an Indie Author and advocate for Indie authors during the early Kindle days has inspired many to take a plunge to become authors. The first Asian American woman who is independently published to appear on Amazon's homepage as an Author Success Story, she also represented Amazon as an author spokesperson during Amazon's Kindle Family Launch press conference in Santa Monica and at Book Expo America where she was an invited speaker. A digital publishing pioneer, she was one of the first authors and publisher to publish digitally back in 2001. Prior to becoming a full-time author and filmmaker, she worked as an Exec in Legal and Production at Walt Disney Company, a writer/producer for Cable Television, an Exec at high tech start ups, and Exec at Fortune 100 Hotel and Travel Corporations where she has managed and trained hundreds of employees on world-class service and operations. She has also been a professional model, a tour director, journalist, re-organization consultant, a secret mystery shopper/consultant for top brands, and professional speaker who has been an invited speaker at Book Expo America, Girl Scouts, Asian America Heritage Week, and more! FUTURIST AND SOCIAL INFLUENCER A social influencer, she has over millions of views on her YouTube channel and her Vimeo channel with over 1.5 million views on her Bitter Frost trailer and award-winning animated short film alone. She is a judge on writing contests for writing incubator social sites, has been a member of TED Talks, and is one of the most quoted modern living authors today. She has also been regularly published as a contributor on Fast Company magazine on articles about publishing, leadership, business, and social issues. https://www.fastcompany.com/1800256/social-media-and-future-publishing-industry

Book preview

DEDICATION

The PULSE Series is dedicated to all the hard-working blood donors and volunteers who help people around the world survive by donating blood to those who need it at times.

This dedication is also for my family for everything.

Prologue

Gaul, 65 B.C.E.

Rome had never felt so far away as now. The gleaming marble, the bright polished roads – newly-paved – leading through the Forum, the house of the Pontifex Maximus with the smell of incense mingling with the aroma of the day's fresh vegetables – the bleached-white togas and the chattering of the old men before the Senate hall – the dark eyes of a woman...No, Octavius reflected. Such pleasures were not for him, not now. He saw before him not shining cities and elegant boulevards, but only the sickening smell of bodies and decaying leaves – the unwashed excesses of battles. This too was Rome – in a manner of speaking – for if Octavius succeeded, this would one day be part of the Roman Empire, beneath the eagle standard he so adored, to which he was so devoted. But, Octavius sighed, surveying the hoarde of blue-painted Gauls that were rushing forth to meet his soldiers, their spears held high in the air and their faces contorted masks of fury, it would be a while still before these barbarian lands were refashioned in the image of the Republic.

One more battle, he told himself. He had heard rumblings from the Senate – messages delivered on horseback. If this tiny sliver of land could be conquered, if he could push back the Gallic rebellion a few hectares further, his tenure as general would at last be ended. He could give up the military life – the taut muscles and the aching flesh, the filth of battle that no amount of slow-heated water could wash off. He was not like that arrogant upstart Gaius Julius – always angling for more and more power – rather, he was content to be called home, to take up a governorship in some spice-scented province with good weather and better food and make a tidy income off of taxes. And he could take Drusilla with him, carry her – her hair studded with the traditional orange-blossoms worn by a bride – and whisper into her ear the sacred marriage vow that every Roman male whispered to his bride: where you are Caia, there I will be Caius. (And so she would whisper back to him "where you are Caius, there I am Caia). And then he would carry her over the threshold of their new home, and there explore with her all the mysteries of love.

Octavius was weary of fighting, weary of bloodshed. He did not revel in the victory, the way some of his soldiers did, rushing to fill their hands with the spoils of war: handfuls of gold and the flesh of beautiful women. He did not enjoy salting the earth to prevent life from springing up once again in their starved-out fields; he did not enjoy the rape of women, the killing of children, that he saw every day on the battlefield. He could not control it – he could not stop it, though it sickened him – for he knew that these soldiers of Rome were a mad and terrible mob when the intoxication of victory had seeped into their nostrils. He knew that these were the ways of battle. But for Octavius, war held little glory and little excitement. It was a duty – like the daily rites one performed at the altar dedicated to one's household gods – a duty to Rome, a statement of his pride in being a citizen. He loved his country, his patrias, the land of his ancestors and of the great heroes of the Republic, who knew the value of duty in the face of selfishness and self-love. If it were not for his belief in the power and the grandeur of Rome, in Rome's right to conquer and control all the lands surrounding the Mare Nostrum - our sea - those wine-dark waves – he would be home already, cradling Drusilla in the shadows of the bright Roman moon, speaking those marriage-vows already and adjusting the bridal garlands that she wore.

Even amid the stench of battle – the decay of days-old corpses and animals that had starved for lack of easy grain – he could still smell the orange blossoms in her hair. That fantasy had sustained him many a night in this cold and dismal place; if only it could sustain him further. But as his eyes scanned the horizon, and he heard the blaring of the trumpet signaling war, he felt a sudden pang in his heart. He felt suddenly, with a surety that seemed to be the sacred voice of Fate itself, that he would not go home again, that Drusilla and her flashing eyes were never to be his. The barbarian army that advanced was larger than he had expected – larger than messengers' reports had led him to believe. No, there were thousands approaching, each one armed to the teeth with flint spears and flying arrows. Each one willing to die to save this patch of earth over which they warred. Their weapons may not have had the strength of those forged in Rome – as strong as if the god Vulcan himself had forged them – but they were many – too many. Even the strongest of shields succumbs eventually, Octavius knew, and he swallowed hard.

The battle had already begun on the front lines. He heard the screams – at first the crowing bravado of battle-cries, and then the agonizing whimpers of terror, the cries of the dying for their mothers and for their wet-nurses and for their sisters and daughters and wives, too – for women they had not seen in years, and whom they had sought fruitlessly in the unwilling charms of yellow-haired slave girls, the spoils of war.

Octavius felt his heart begin to beat faster, fear rising like bile in his throat. These were his men dying – he was responsible for them. He was responsible to those wives and daughters and sisters – it fell to him to render their sacrifices worthwhile. These soldiers may have been as barbaric as the Gauls they were fighting – fond of their looting and their slaughter – but they were his, damn it, and he owed them a good death. It was fruitless to retreat – these hoardes would slaughter them all before morning.

And Octavius knew his duty. He would die with them, fighting to the end, hoping for a warrior's funeral and a noble fall from his horse when these blue-faced barbarians had at last overtaken him. He would not leave his men to wander the cloistered labyrinths of the afterlife alone. He would lead them to the Elysian Fields – those mythic lands of the Greek heroes in which a few traditionalists still stubbornly believed – himself.

Goodbye, Drusilla, he whispered, and prayed that Venus – the goddess of love – would turn Drusilla's heart to another, that she might not suffer too long or too needlessly at his death. Fight on! he cried, his voice hoarse, no retreat! The standard of the eagle would remain standing high as long as he was alive.

They fought until dawn, each wave of soldiers falling before these hoardes that seemed to swarm like ants from the bowels of the earth, devouring everything in their path. And Octavius found himself drawn ever-closer to the front lines, the men around him – men he had dined with and broken bread with and drunk wine with from the same bowl – they were lying dead at his feet, their skulls trampled by frightened horses, and at last he could see past the sea of blue into the eyes of the leader of the Gauls himself – a pale turquoise gaze fierce with fury. Octavius’ horse – spooked by the assault – reared up, and before Octavius could grip his battle-hardened thighs tighter around the horse's flesh he felt himself falling, his body hitting the earth with a sickening thud – the breaking of his bones.

So, this is what death would be like, Octavius thought, as the Gallic king rode forth, his spear held high above his head. Roman scum he spat - the Latin was heavily accented, even halting, but the hatred in the words was clear. You will not have this land.

Octavius closed his eyes, waiting for the release of the end, the end to this battle, this ache, the smell of death. The scent of orange blossoms – a melody from a dream – once more seeped into his nostrils. It was time – he was ready. He would die as he had lived – a good soldier, a good Roman. Proud. Restrained. Without emotion. Without blubbering.

A haunting high-pitched scream shattered the silence of death, and Octavius’ eyes flew open. Someone – something – had thrust the Gaul from his horse, and had set upon him, pouncing like a jaguar, covering the yelping Gaul in its fur. Some beast, Octavius wondered, propping himself up on his elbows, scrambling for his sword. The thing looked up at him, and Octavius gasped.

For despite the fangs, despite the blood-covered jaws, dripping as they contorted into a smile, that which stared him in the face was unmistakably human in form. It was a man's face – the face of a mere youth – with curly black hair and piercing black eyes. What had appeared to be fur at first sight revealed itself to be a cloak – the hide of some animal – which covered tight, strong muscles.

Octavius searched his memory, recalling all of the mythic beasts his Greek tutor had told him about as a reward for good Hellenic conjugation. Satyrs, furies, snake-headed women – yet what he saw resembled none of these. Was this the god Pluto, agent of death, come to escort him personally to the land of shadows?

I have an offer for you, said the figure. His voice revealed him to be a foreigner, but his command of the Latin tongue was strong. You have about nine hundred men left alive. I can save them all – in exchange for yours. He held out his hand. I've been watching you, Octavius.

How did you...? But in his exhaustion, his delirium, Octavius found that his tongue failed him.

Do you agree?

An image of Drusilla flashed once more before his mind – her long dark hair, her rosy flesh. While other Roman ladies of high birth wore wigs made from the hair of Gallic slaves, and primped and pampered themselves with all kinds of unnatural rouge, Drusilla never needed any aid to make her beauty plain. With a final pang, Octavius made his choice – fixing Drusilla's image ever more firmly in his mind. He wanted her face to be the last thing he saw as he died.

Save my men, he whispered, his voice croaking out the words. Please.

The figure nodded. Instantly, what seemed like a swarm of hundreds of these fur-covered, fang-bearing creatures descended upon the Gauls – one by one, they let out screams of agony in that incoherent Barbarian tongue.

Am I dreaming? Octavius wondered to himself, trying desperately to stay conscious, to make sense of the world around him. The earth itself felt as if it were shaking.

The dawn is coming, the figure said. I must go. I will give you one week, Octavius – one week to return to Rome, to tell Gaius Julius Caesar of your exploits, to say goodbye...and then I will come for you. Mark me, Octavius Brutus Junii. Mark me.

That