Rotten Apple

By Marilyn Barr

Rose has loved Fae Princess Orchid since childhood. Helpless to stop Orchid’s exile to Strawberry, she vows to avenge her death. If she had one more day with Orchid, would she have the courage to confess her love? It’s too late now…or is it?
Vampire Ryan’s myelodysplastic anemia has caught up with him. He fights in the Winter Solstice Battle for an honorable death but instead finds Orchid. While she’s not his ideal mate, she does offer him a trip to Magmell, where she promises their healers can cure him. Will he switch sides in the war against the Sluagh for immortality?
When Rose and Orchid are reunited, their passion burns out of control, but Ryan has already left his mark and changed the trajectory of Magmell forever. Royal alliances are built and destroyed, leaving Strawberry’s future in the balance. In a tale of villains, who deserves a happily ever after?

• Language: Unknown
• Publisher: The Wild Rose Press
• Release date: Jun 7, 2023
• ISBN: 9781509249558

Marilyn Barr

Biography Marilyn Barr currently resides in the wilds of Kentucky with her husband, son, and rescue cats. When engaging with the real world, she is collecting characters, empty coffee cups, and witchy things. She would love to hear from readers via her website https://www.marilynbarr.com/ where you can get a free book from her! http://www.marilynbarr.com

Book preview

Part 1—December

Chapter 1—Orchid, Sluagh Cells above Magmell, Fae Realm

It’s silly for a handmaiden to worry about her princess, but Rose’s forehead is wrinkled. The frown lines appear whenever I tell her of my plans with Oak. Rose is my only friend and confidant in the palace since Oak was exiled. She doesn’t understand the relationship between Oak and me, or else she would be happy. I am going to the Strawberry fortress with the other exiles. Oak and Maple are already there, preparing the building for my arrival. I can’t wait to leave Magmell and the rest of the Fae.

My wings are pure white, so you know I haven’t lied. Strawberry isn’t a crystal spa or cleansing pool. You will be hunted down by strange creatures and torn to shreds, Rose wails, clutching the bars of my cell. My parents assigned the beautiful fairy to bring my daily rations of nectar because they claimed to be too ashamed to look at my face.

They have been ashamed of me for as long as I can remember, so it is no big loss. Rose, always the loyal servant, has snuck silver leaf and chalk into my cell so I can draw while locked in the mountainside jail. With her gifts, I have been able to draw all of Magmell as I see it. The sleepy Fae city is dirty and ugly from my cellblock.

You are forgetting Oak is already there, Rose. He will protect me. He’s our general and my personal guard. We will join with a fertility flower and start our family in Strawberry. You should be pleased and making plans for your life after I am away, I say while running my fingers through her silky pale hair. She leans into my hand and sighs.

Despite her affection for me, Rose has stayed pure as glass. Had she been born the princess my parents would have been thrilled. Rose is not only crystalline white from her tiny toes to her glassy wingtips, but she can fence, sew, sing, read, and do all the things I cannot.

What if Oak has already been eaten? Orchid, use your head, Rose begs.

My head? What is the name the king calls it? Oh yes, my head is a soap-less bubble—full of air but lacks substance, I grouse.

Is it too late for you? Don’t you see how you can save yourself?

I don’t belong here. I’m not smart enough to keep up, but Strawberry will be easier. I have always been enough for Oak, I say, cradling her cheek in my palm. I draw her face to mine and kiss her gently. A tear slides down her cheek and I rub my lips along its trail to erase the mar to her perfection.

Oak and your parents had a deal…

Not this again! I won’t hear it!

Orchid, they let him corrupt you. You have blue swirls in your eyes and wings because of him. Do you remember the colors of his wings when he left? Your parents knew he was close to turning Sluagh and fed you to the monster. You must believe me. Please ask for a trial. I can’t live here without you, she cries into my palm.

You would have had to live without me, anyway. I am betrothed to Oak. The arrangement happened when I was a child—

No, you are promised to my brother, Redwood. Why do you think Redwood spends so much time with your father?

Oak told me that was a lie you made up to help my parents. They chose Redwood as their heir because they think I am too stupid to rule Magmell, I declare as I snatch my hand back through the bars. I pace around my three-foot-by-three-foot cave, stirring up a cloud of crystalline dust.

The pale powder coats my feet, legs, and the base of my dress, but it is not visible since they are also stark white. Most offenders have gray skin by the time they are placed in the cells and use the dust to appear white to delay sentencing. I have been wishing for darker dust.

It is not a lie, Redwood says as he flies onto the mountain ledge in front of my cell. I went to your father a year ago. I do not wish to join with you at the fertility flowers. I want the honor to go to Rose as she loves you more than I ever could. Your father told me he selected another for my joining and once you are gone, I will meet her.

Pain pierces my heart with his admission. Redwood has no reason to lie to me. Quite the opposite. I know Redwood’s secret he keeps from everyone, even Rose. If my father heard his secret, Redwood would be dismissed and eventually end up at the Brautlaha—a place I doubt Rose and Redwood know exists in Magmell.

They may be able to write and shoot arrows, but Oak taught me the true pleasures of life. More than the thrills of someone loving you, the lessons he taught me at the Brautlaha blur the lines of consent, and therefore, the power of my flesh.

Orchid, with time and love, your wings will clear, Rose pleads while clinging to her brother. In the cell, you have not become more colorful. It proves that you are not wicked, but only under the influence of someone else’s evil.

Did you just call Oak evil? Watch out, Rose, because lies like that will land you in a cell too. If they send you to Strawberry, I can’t guarantee Oak will protect us both, I say, wagging my finger between the bars at her. I stop my lecture when a tiny black claw protrudes from my index finger. Opening my fists reveals ten tiny black points where my white rounded stubs used to be.

Rose’s gasp is deafening. Her jaw hangs open. More tears cascade down her face as she takes in my deformity. Redwood grinds his teeth together and glares at me. Could Rose be right? Am I a Sluagh?

Mother and father must be behind my transformation and once I am in Strawberry, my wing coloring will reverse. I need to get away from them, even if it means losing you, I say to my feet. Rose and Redwood flutter to the bars so we can embrace.

We will avenge you, Orchid. This will not be the end of your story, Redwood whispers. In his eyes, purple flecks swim. My plight has taken its toll on him. I embrace them while clenching my hands, so I don’t accidentally claw them.

It doesn’t matter, Redwood, I whisper. Today I will be exiled. I will never return—

Because you will be dead. Please, Orchid, Rose sobs.

Please what? I have no options.

That’s right, Princess. The trials have been completed, and the portal is open. Time to go. Two sentinels stand proud holding chains and shock sticks behind Redwood. Just past them are similar pairs of soldiers, flanking Sluagh in various stages of transition. The prisoners screech and buck as the soldiers calmly glide toward the city’s perimeter.

I slide my arms off my friends. They hang limply at my sides. Rose cries hysterically while Redwood holds her against him. If she lashes out at the soldiers, she risks imprisonment. The guards poke their shock sticks through the bars, and I gently place their end chains around my neck.

I stand still while the sentinels gape in shock at me. My chin points regally in the air while the chains are tightened, my door opens, and I am led to the ledge. I flutter my stiff wings to stretch them. Proof of Sluagh transformation surrounds me as the light shines through them. Those blue swirls allow my parents to exile me.

A true lady, says one of my guards while the other nods in agreement. These two angelic soldiers haven’t met me in the Brautlaha, but they are a rarity in that regard. I have serviced more soldiers for Oak’s pleasure than I can count. Oh, how Oak would love to restrain these young sentinels with their own shock sticks while they babble about their honor.

Oak and I would then take turns touching them as they scream for help, but eventually, they screamed for more. Reducing young men from their stoic selves to their baser instincts was always a favorite game for Oak in the Brautlaha.

As I am lost in my thoughts of my beloved Oak, we fly over Magmell. The feathery soft buildings blend with the ivory sky and ivory carpeted ground. The moss needs to be polished to remain white but not all Fae have the means to hire caretakers. The stark contrast to the silver palace, my childhood home, is startling. Other mountain cellblocks obscured the palace from my cell, so this is the first time I have confronted it since my arrest.

Silver bells decorate the outside of the building—one for each living fairy soul. The palace is as large as the other buildings of Magmell combined. From this vantage point, it is a shining beacon of purity and light. Flutter closer and the ugly truth of the Fae can be seen. I doubt the portal has been set up close enough for me to get one last look at the black smudges on the palace. I counted them the day they sentenced Oak to the cells and every day until I could no longer visit them. From my observations, Oak has not transformed into Sluagh.

When a fairy transforms into Sluagh they lose their soul, and their bell explodes. The black dust left behind cannot be scrubbed off the walls. Believe me, my parent’s servants have tried. Legend says a Sluagh can restore their soul and reverse their transformation by harvesting the soul of a Strawberry witch. They drown the witch in the temple’s cleansing pool. A new bell sprouts on the palace side. I have only seen bells sprout when baby Fae are harvested from the fertility flowers at the Ostara New Moon festival.

My guards take a sharp turn away from Magmell to the surrounding forest. They are going to the May Day monument, far away from the civilized town center. The May Day monument is a ring of silver boulders used by the priestesses to perform solstice and equinox gratitude rituals. I had my coronation and maturity ceremony in the circle. An old hag-like priestess rubbed my body with oils, herbs, and salts while speaking in a language I didn’t understand. My tutors had given up on teaching me the ceremony’s meaning days earlier. This ceremony is where I first bared myself to Oak and noticed he liked what he saw.

Redwood had been furious that day. He also saw Oak’s interest in me and tried to step between us. Redwood said Oak was indecent, leering in a sacred place or thinking of my nudity sexually since I was so young. He had said I wasn’t ready, but Redwood didn’t know of my experimentation with Rose. I thought Rose and I had pleasure down to a science until I was taught properly by Oak.

Memories of Oak warm my insides as we drop to the edge of the monument circle. A swirling green pool ringed with purple clouds stares up at me. Repulsive. I shrink away until my guards hoist me forward to its edge. The colors are a bright reminder that only the rejected Fae with their brightly colored wings will ever see this portal.

Soldiers stand slightly behind the boulders as if they too are afraid of the garish mass. Their shock stick collars are empty, so I can only surmise I am next to fall. Over my shoulder, another cellblock of prisoners is being led to their last moments in Magmell. They will be soldiers under Oak. If anyone can lead them, he can.

One priestess holds the portal open with her arms extended. Incantations spill from her lips in a guttural language from Earth. Her flowing hair whips around her head as the portal sputters with magic. She stands strong, but a worried expression wrinkles her flawless complexion. Hurry, there is magic on the other side. I cannot hold the cloud ring open much longer. We will drop her if I can’t hold the beams. Birch, go to the temple and get the other priestesses. I fear I cannot do this alone, she cries over the crackling of the failing portal.

Are my parents here? Of course, their majesties wouldn’t come to say goodbye to their mistake. My collars are removed with a yank. A foot is planted in my back. I haven’t the chance to scream before I fall into the green swirling goo. I am suspended in magic. Then a jolt drags me through the cloud and my organs climb within my body with the force downward. Goodbye, Rose…

Chapter 2— Ryan, Strawberry KY, USA

Sire, what can I do to keep you from the battlefield? Perhaps we could play cards at my place or travel to Louisville for a guy’s night out? Dr. Van Dijk washes his hands in the examination room sink for the tenth time during this conversation.

Dr. V, I will not leave Alison to lead the army against the Sluagh alone. If I am truly honest, I am itching with the need to tear someone limb from limb. I don’t feel like a dying man, I say.

But you are a dying man, my dear friend, and Alison is a powerful witch. If you break a bone, it will not heal. If you get a laceration of considerable size, you don’t have clotting factors. You could bleed out, Ryan. I know you feel like yourself, but your first misstep will be your last.

I would rather die on a battlefield than a hospital bed. I will have Lucien at my side so his coagulating saliva can patch up small cuts after the battle. Alison can do her magic mud healing. I will not come back to you injured. I will be whole. Alive or not, I say, sliding off the chiropractic bed to my feet.

Darts of pain shoot from my heels to my hips as my body jars on impact. I grind my molars to hide the pain. As a vampire, I can smell his sadness and pity. His innovation has extended my life beyond its intended thirty years. At fifty, I am a vampiric dinosaur.

Speaking of your nephew, Lucien, have you talked to him about succession? Prepared him for your heroic death tonight?

What is there to say? I’m king. He’s a prince. I die. Guess what?

There’s your house, your stock portfolio, your important documents, your interment, your funeral, and the colony back in Moldova.

Tension fills the room as I take my time answering him. I pretend to become interested in the space-themed décor in the aging examination room. An oil painting of an astronaut meeting little green Martians stares back at me. My mind wanders back to my alien adventure to America in search of something to extend my life. I got twenty more years. Would a trip to Mars buy me twenty more?

Lucien is not ready for me to die, Doc. Your concerns are practical, but without my protection, he will have more problems than access to my money. He has a mother and sister who will be threatened by those who aspire to the throne. Last time Lucien was in Moldova, he was a skinny twenty-year-old kid, failing his way through an accelerated graduate program. There will be a line of challengers waiting to tear him apart.

Can’t he video chat with the colony and show them he’s grown?

With his stutter? Come on, Doc. I have been trying to match him with someone fierce, like a shifter, for a few years now. A shifter wife would scare off some challengers who want to take on one vampire, not a pack. Exchanging blood with a shifter wife would also extend Lucien’s lifespan like my great-times-six Aunt Molina’s experience with lion-shifter Brad. Lucien would rule for the next eight hundred years.

Then why abandon that quest for a battle tonight?

Because if he dies tonight, I will never forgive myself.

If you are determined, let me inject some stem cells. We can try one more time to replace your bone marrow—

No, thanks. Do not waste your resources on a dying man.

Ryan, you—

Give that injection to Lucien. He’s overdue again, isn’t he?

Yes, he is. When he comes to fetch you, I will inject him, mobilize the cells through his joints, and get you on your way.

No time tonight. We are already late.

Then I will defer to your timetable. Just know he is playing with fire when he goes for long stretches without injections.

Please take care of my nephew. Lucien is the best part of my legacy and the only gift my brother left when he shit all over my life.

It will be my life’s work, your highness. Dr. V backs out of the room. He’s sniffling, and his eyes are ringed with red. We started his stem cell program to fight my myelodysplastic anemia nearly twenty years ago with appointments like these every six to eight weeks. We have extended the lives of the thirty vampires who immigrated to America to work at Bergan, including my nephew. My appointments with Dr. V have been a rollercoaster of emotions, ranging from hope to joy to anguish. If the man had wings, I would leave the colony to him until Lucien matures.

With a sigh echoing off the sterile walls, I dress in my battle suit. When fighting the Sluagh, I need easy access to my wings and lots of fabric to make my body cavity appear bigger. The best armor I have found over the years is a boxy tuxedo. Folds in the jacket easily conceal wing slits, allowing my wings to unfurl in a snap.

The American vampires go on weekly flights in our suits, where I lead them through training exercises. All of us can unfurl our wings and take off from a standstill in seconds, but none of them can keep up with Lucien. His wingspan is an astounding twenty feet from tip to tip.

The square jacket with reinforced buttons gives the Sluagh a large hollow target. The strategy is to ensnare their claws in the fabric weave. Without claw retraction, they are immobilized within striking distance. The claws at the end of my wings rip them apart from behind if we are on the ground. If we are aloft, I will be forced to use the retractable claws on my hands while avoiding their acidic drool. I don’t mind cuts and bruises, but that black drool singes the skin and hurts like a bitch.

I square myself to the mirror on the back of the exam room door. Besides the gray at my temples and the lines by my eyes, I haven’t changed since coming to America. My biceps strain the tuxedo jacket, and my neck fills the collar of the Kevlar undervest. I have always been a bruiser, but Lucien never filled out. Unfortunately, my brother and I had different members of our father’s harem as mothers. My mother came from a healthier stock.

My brother, Lucien Senior, was gaunt and thin, but he was fast and fought dirty. He would swipe at a challenger during the initial bows. If you didn’t bow to the current king, the guards would execute you. Lucien Sr. used this to his advantage in combination with his extra-long wingspan. My nephew inherited the wings, but not the killer instinct to go with them, which is my real reason for going into battle tonight. No Sluagh is going to harm my legacy and live to see tomorrow.

Lucien Jr. bows when I exit the examination room into the cluttered lobby. Empty blood bags fill the room with the delicious scent of old blood. Dr. V doesn’t smell it, but to a vampire, his lobby smells like a low-rent cafeteria. Papers litter every space-themed surface like a scene in a sci-fi movie after a spaceship goes warp speed. I half expect to see actors in bad rubber masks emerge from behind the strange furniture. Dr. V has recovered his composure, but sadness still seeps from his pores. Good thing Lucien’s nose is as weak as his constitution.

Are you ready, Lucien?

Y-yes, Uncle, Lucien says with another bow. He was sleeping at his desk an hour ago when I found him. I had hoped he would have stepped into Bergan’s locker room for a shower and borrowed some of my clothes when I asked him to take my car back to my house. I was giving him the subtle hint that he looked and smelled like he’d slept in a dumpster. My hint turned out to be too subtle. Sigh.

I have returned your car to your home and verified that Alison is on her way to the battlefield as we speak. Hawk shifter Patty flies overhead to warn of our arrival. But he didn’t take the time to freshen up at all.

Oh, perfect, I say while rubbing my hands together. Being impressive to Alison was once my mission. As a beautiful witch and shifter, she would have made the perfect queen for the colony. She was my last hope for a longer lifespan, but her love for her undeserving husband, Grant, got in the way. As much as I hate to admit it, I let myself fall for her in my clumsy attempt at an alliance. We aren’t meant to be, but it would have been fun for a while.

Until we need injections again, I say with a parting wave to Dr. V. His half-hearted salute plants a knot of dread in my belly.

The rest of the immigrated vampires greet us in the parking lot. Thirty fearsome creatures go to their knees as we emerge from the office with clouds of condensation rising from the mass.

December in Kentucky is not the snow-covered greeting card it was when I moved here. Climate change has brought warm winds and a gray period between autumn and true winter. The season smells of rotting leaves and seasonal depression.

Stay behind me. I mean it, Lucien. I may be old, but you are the future. I glare at him before unfurling my wings. The whoosh of Lucien’s wings astounds me each time they open.

I will stay beside you, Ryan. The colony needs both of us to lead, he retorts.

Lucien glides lazily, using the dwindling thermals to keep pace with me. He could travel at twice the speed but doesn’t aspire to lead. I chuckle at his poor attempts to go slow enough for the old man at the front.

If only he flew ahead. I would love to see if the clan would follow. If I had one glimmer of the leader inside him, I could die in peace. The promise I made to my brother to love his children was an easy one to keep. Lucien has the son I always wanted, buried deep in his mild-mannered ways.

If only I could find something to dangle in front of his nose to make his inner strength unfurl. He’s a Von Popescu. There is a king inside that is as impressive as his wings. Will he emerge to be my successor before my time runs out, or will I need to find immortality? Both scenarios seem equally improbable.

****

Green. So much green. The green ooze of the portal coats my clothes, my hair, and my skin with prickly dust. The portal tints my wings a pine color, with the blue swirls darkening to navy. I am overcome with the urge to scrub my skin raw. A well-used prostitute would have green swirls in their wings, so my nearly opaque wings resemble those who have fallen from grace the furthest.

Suspended above the earthly realm below, I dare to take my first look at Strawberry. Even in the dark of the new moon sky, colors assault my fragile eyes. I waver between wanting to shield them and take in as much as I can stand. Just when my heart begins to pound, a sweet stillness washes over me.

Bathed in the green light, the hypnotic particles of the Fae will deliver me safely. My limbs are as heavy as the May Day monument’s boulders. The gentle rocking motion of my travel soothes my senses, and the colors no longer bother me. The fear evaporates…

Screech! The beam is ripped. I bounce from one pocket of photons to another, jostled to fearful awareness with each breach of the beam. A terrible sound pierces my ears repeatedly as black shapes approach the beam from below. The shapes have souls so disturbed that their wings are black.

A shape flies toward me and deafens me with its hideous sound. Large black eyes threaten to swallow me whole. Long white fangs curve from their top lip over a cavernous mouth to their chins. Claws reach out of their arms and the tips of their deformed wings. Instead of four clear