Blood Slave

By Laura Lago

The architectural talents and desirable connections of the Danish Grand Duke, Christopher Vita, granted him the golden opportunity of travelling to Paris, France, to make part of history along with Eiffel & Co's work team, bringing with him his only daughter, Beatrice Vita; an angelic girl with her blue eyes and golden curls that combine perfectly with her feminine charms.

With a vision that differs from the norm set by society at the time, Beatrice is eager to forge a career as a poetry writer, and determined to leave constraints behind in her native country of Denmark.

The idyllic setting of Paris becomes more personal when she meets one of the Eiffel project's investors: Count Francis Yannic; a man shrouded with an aura of mystery that captivates the attention of all who know him.

A politician skilled in diplomacy, he is able to convince one to think his way with just a gleam of his sapphire-like blue eyes. After allowing herself to be seduced by his charms and facing the fear of expressing her true way of thinking to her father, Beatrice escapes with Yannic to a place where she will discover that some mysteries hide not entirely good intentions; she will also understand that parental overprotection and suspicion, while seemingly unjustified, are more often than not accurate hunches.

This is a journey that will take us to the heart of 1884 Paris, where a girl tries to make understood at home the value of autonomy and of women, in a society opposed to accept the importance of these things; a tale of individual thinking and how it is able to change the world in the blink of an eye. Revenge and romance mingle with a touch of supernatural mysticism to endow Blood Slave with a charming aura, with characters and places that will always have a secret to hide.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Laura Lago
• Release date: Feb 26, 2021
• ISBN: 9781071590300

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# Nº1 author in Erotica and Politics (Spain) in under 7 sales days

Dedicated to;

Alba, for being the most successful woman I know.

My mother. Without her, this wouldn't be possible.

Introduction

Legend speaks of men who go beyond natural orders, those with the ability to outsmart the order created by the ancient gods, even mocking Chronos himself (in Greek mythology, he was the personification of time, according to pre-Socratic philosophical works), leaving his deathbed to be reborn with new life, with abilities and needs that exceed the limits of morality and the sacred. These deplorable beings travel the world, wandering and searching for their main source of sustenance, young virgins who provide them with the only thing they really need: eternal youth.

It is said that this group of people, known among occultists as the believers, worship a pagan deity who grants them the gift of life in exchange for their soul. No one knows exactly who was the first, or how the others came to be, but it is thought that the world is home to around two million believers, without counting those who remain in total anonymity.

Wherever one goes, disappearances begin to occur. They do not have one single identity, since they do not stay for too long wherever they go. They rob an innocent person and both disappear forever, leaving families devastated with losses.

However, it is believed that the immortality of these beings is merely a myth, that their life is not really prolonged, only renewed. Like an hourglass when turned over, the sand begins to fall, counting a cycle that is repeated over and over again until it is perpetuated. The only way to achieve that timelessness is by drinking the blood of the virgins they kidnap.

Many believe that this sect can be finished with, but the vast majority do not even know of its existence. For this reason, the believers have been regarded as a children's tale that is only used to scare those children who refuse to sleep. The general population knows them by another term: vampires.

Although the day is far away when this occult society comes to light, many of us are focused on making them pay for their crimes, and on putting an end to their rites and methods. Once and for all...

Chapter I

From the window of her modest, but very comfortable room, she could see a sky full of raindrops, as big as chunks of ice, illuminated by the lightning of the Parisian night in which the thunder and rain intoned a kind of evening concert. 

Beatrice had just arrived with her father from Denmark that afternoon, ready to live in Paris for the next few years while her father prepared to work on a project for the city, a 'milestone in modern architecture' according to what he had told her, the creation of the three-hundred meter Tower. However, she was not interested as such in the construction of buildings, but in the beauty of these, and the culture that surrounded them.

She would have to make do alone in her room, or by strolling through some of the unknown streets of that other part of Europe, while her father spent time meeting with Messrs. Koechlin and Nouguier, Sauvestre and Mr. Gustave Eiffel, the man who had invited him to take part.

That was without mentioning the crowd of investors with no greater interest than to multiply the money that poured out of their pockets, regardless of the means for it. Beatrice wasn't interested in that, as she was a fairly honest young woman and aware that work was the only way to obtain true satisfaction at the end of life; she was considering dedicating herself to what her mother had wanted to work as.

In life, she had always reproached her for the fact that she wanted to follow in her footsteps as a writer, steps that were thwarted by an illness that would end her life in just under a year.

Frustrated, she kept telling Beatrice that she would never make it; her old home kept that thought alive even many years after her mother's death, so Paris represented for her not only the chance to explore new horizons, but the opportunity to put aside the memory that prevented her from flourishing in what she hoped to make an honest living out of.

But with the decision to advance came another decision, this one harder to accept. Her younger brother, Anton, had decided to stay in Denmark to finish studying medicine. He dreamed of becoming a surgeon, and his father was thrilled by the prospect. However, he could not say the same of his daughter.

Her father, Christopher Vita, firmly believed that women held an important and inviolable role in society. Unfortunately for her, Christopher Vita wasn't a progressive thinker, like her mother had been before her illness, and Beatrice's wishes to become the first female author to publish an internationally renown novel, had sounded like blasphemy to his ears.

Despite being understanding in some aspects, following the dream that Beatrice had was, in the end, what would drive her mother to the grave, depressed and frustrated at not having achieved anything in life except birthing two children to abandon.

Beatrice tried not to focus on that thought, because deep down, like the mayority of women her age, she wanted to marry a marvellous man, have a couple of beautiful children and live in a house far away from all the disturbance of the modern world, in which she could sit down and write novel after novel, and achieve her dreams both for herself and her mother.

Suddenly, a lightning bolt split the sky in half and tore her out of her thoughts. She saw her young face, with plump and rosy cheeks, reflected in the windowpane.

The color of her brown, open eyes appeared lighter, while her dark blonde hair framed her features and covered her shoulders. The image of her face reflected in the window remained in her retina, even when the outside light became less intense than the hotel's electrical light.

France was one of the first European countries to have electrical power, which is why it had become the favorite location for some immigrants who wanted to discover what it was like living in the midst of the Energy Revolution that Edison had set off in America.

She felt lucky, back in Denmark she didn't have those sorts of luxuries. To think that a lightbulb and a cable that crossed the street were capable of achieving what only the oil and fire inside one of her old lamps back home could do was astonishing. Something that would seem unthinkable, but it was no less than what could be expected when you were in one of the capitals of the world, and there the future was now.

Under the rain, which had taken over in just a few minutes, she saw a couple of carriages crossing the street, and felt slightly sorry for the driver and the horses that were taking some important person back to the safety of their home.

She also saw a few modern motorcar vehicles, which she didn't yet see the meaning of. What would they want something mechanical doing the work of a couple of steeds for? It wasn't clear to her. Horses could walk for days without needing to be given anything more than some food from time to time, while those motor vehicles consumed too many resources and provided little benefit.

Three knocks on her door distracted her from those thoughts. She got up from the window ledge where she'd been observing the streets, and went to open the door. Outside, one of the hotel maids awaited her, with a set of clean towels and an extra blanket. She hadn't noticed it until then, but it was terribly cold in her room. She thanked the woman by nodding, since her French was not very good, and closed the door behind her, leaving the things on the bed.

Once back by the window she noticed an extravagant carriage, big and painted in white and blue, and which was pulled by three horses as white as the snow that drifted closer before stopping in front of the hotel.

It looked like one of those carriages described in fairytales, which is why she thought that now a tall man would come out, with clothes that matched the carriage's color, his hair tied into a perfect bun on top of his head, and an expensive outfit.

She was much surprised to see that, in fact, those same features were what defined the man who had just got out of the carriage: he appeared to be over six feet tall in the heeled shoes he was wearing.

He wore a blue jacket with a long cut, reaching below his waist and closed by three buttons on his stomach. Underneath, a white shirt with a balled up handkerchief inside a greyish waistcoat whose color she couldn't wholly distinguish.

The man arranged the folds of his suit, ran his hand through his ash blonde hair and walked over to say something to the driver. A second later, the driver departed, leaving the man under the rain. A new blaze in the sky caused their gazes to meet for what seemed like an eternity, leaving her to see his face in detail.

His nose was thin and turned up, and his skin was perfectly white and smooth, as if it were ivory. Eyes of a rather peculiar blue stared at her with a burning intensity, the light from the entrance made the color flash like sapphire, and a smile emerged on that thin-lipped face before disappearing into the hotel's entrance.

Beatrice remained observing the street, which was lit by lampposts, her heart racing at a mile a minute, and feeling warm despite the cold temperatures that night. She tried not to think of that man, and after closing the curtains and changing into her nightclothes, she brushed and braided her hair, removed the makeup from her face and got into bed.

Her eyes remained fixated on the ceiling, looking at, but not taking in, the intricate plaster design that surrounded the chandelier hanging above her. Those blue eyes were still staring at her with the same intensity, with the hint of something she couldn't name. And despite the chill, and the lack of sleep that had invaded her, Beatrice closed her eyes, rolled onto her right side, closed her eyes and forced herself to sleep.

* * * *

The next morning, during breakfast with her father, she was absent-minded. Her