Dark Possession - Aja James Page 0,1

and research organizations.

The bribing and threatening of Dark noble houses. (I’d do the same with Pure Ones, but the boring goody-two-shoes are more difficult to persuade).

The facilitation of the Pure Blood Slave trade.

But honestly, little help from me is needed there. Greedy, bloodthirsty vampires are perfectly capable of stirring up old trouble by themselves.

And of course, my endless search for, and consumption of, more power. Like the animal spirits and their Kings.

I have successfully destroyed the Snake King, after failing to coerce him to join forces. But the Tiger King has not been neutralized, and the Eagle King is still at large.

I don’t like loose ends.

Though the animal spirits’ numbers are even more anemic than the Pure Ones, reduced to ghosts of shadows of their former glory countless millennia ago, they are still the most fearsome predators on earth. If I cannot bring them into my mind-controlled army, then I must eliminate the threat.

And then there are the Elementals, the Pure and Dark Ones with the unique Gift of controlling one of the four primary elements on earth—water, fire, air and earth. I have been acquiring their powers too over the past four millennia, not the least of which is my own ex-Blooded Mate, Enlil, Lord Wind.

Just like my dear departed mama, the most powerful Dark Queen that ever lived.

Myths and legends have it that my sire, Dark Queen Ashlu’s Consort, had the Gift of an Elemental. His strength was unparalleled, as was his beauty and sexual prowess. (Naturally, dear mama would have accepted nothing less than the best of all males. I paid avid attention as part of my own education, you see).

No one knows what happened to him. He disappeared from all written records shortly before I was born. I’ve never even met him. There were no images in his likeness anywhere in the Ivory Palace where I grew up. The Queen never spoke of him.

I know as much about the male who tied himself to my mother for thousands of years, my own sire, as I do about the Pure Blood Slave she took before my birth. There were speculations that this was the reason my sire disappeared, enraged by the Queen’s preference for a Pure One over him.

I do not even know my sire’s name.

But I feel him in my blood, even as diluted from its original makeup as it is.

He is out there, this powerful, ancient Elemental Dark One.

He will either be my greatest ally or another potential threat.

I must find him.

And when I do…

One way or another, I will consume his strength and make it my own.

“This is not a true account of events past. This is a retelling of rumors, whispers, and observations that might never have been observed. They are colored by the perspective of the writer—and there will be many, for these Scrolls existed before us and will outlive their Scribes long after we’re gone. They are interpreted through the lens of the reader, for what is written is not always understood. These are stories, after all. Nothing less, nothing more.”

—Preface to the Zodiac Scrolls

Chapter One

It was a cluster fuck of a night.

Quite literally.

And the evening had only just begun.

Alend Ramses, the first-ever Dark King of the New England vampire hive, clenched his jaw and resisted the urge to roll his neck and crack some of the tightness out.

His Chosen was scattered to the four winds having all the fun, while he was stuck at the Cove, detained by political maneuverings.

Rhys and Anastasia had their hands and claws full breaking up fight clubs all over the city.

Ryu was abroad intercepting the latest shipment of vampire-killers, and eliminating those responsible as only a shadow Assassin could.

Maximus and Ariel were away at the Great Plains Hive to placate an increasingly irascible queen who was a hair’s breadth from declaring war on the humans and Pure Ones in her territory.

Devlin and Grace were dealing with the latest round of cyber-attacks from Medusa. Their nemesis’ new tech leader was good. Very good.

Not to mention, the Hunter still had Rogues to eliminate. And unfortunately, the number of violent, law-breaking bloodsuckers were on the rise, directly proportional to the number of untraceable human disappearances in NYC over the last few weeks. The last few years, in fact, across the New England territories.

Coincidence? Most likely not.

The Cove and its inhabitants were protected only by Sentries, with Enlil—or rather Eli, as he was now known—acting as their reluctant leader.

The good news was, Lord Wind didn’t really need vampire soldiers