Reign of Nightmares (Blood Throne #1) - Quinn Arthurs

Prologue

Elsie

Blood was life, but spilling it was just for fun. Waves and waves of it would fill the room, the scent thick and heavy enough that I could taste it when I entered before a single drop ever touched my tongue. Even the heat radiated, lingering for a time after it was spilled, warming my skin wherever it splashed, leaving sticky, lingering patches against the ivory of my skin. Cackling laughter echoed off the stone walls, mixing and flowing with shrieking screams and pleading voices. It didn’t matter what they promised or how they begged, they wouldn’t leave the chipped rock walls of the castle alive—the only remainder of their existence the drips of crimson that escaped our reach and stained the cracks of the stones.

I stepped from the tower, licking the blood from my fingertips with a shake of my head. I didn’t see the necessity of scaring the living daylights out of my victims before their sacrifice, nor did I understand the point of the mess. It wasn’t as though blood was easy to remove from my clothing after I fed. There were far more civilized ways to have a meal or to gain the advantages of blood against my skin. I did not appreciate the grit that tended to embed itself there as well, no matter how much the servants scrubbed the dirt away. Part of that could be due to lack of motivation, since most were unsure if they would end up as the next visitors to the tower, their own blood spilling over the icy stones, adhering to the rock as it cooled.

Traditions were traditions, however. From the time of my great-great-grandmother, the vampires had fed this way. Most of us enjoyed it, the fear and despair fueling something in us just as the blood we consumed nourished us. Others believed that fear was what contributed to the healing effects of the blood, as that emotion was so rare for our kind. Family lore stated that as we lost the ability to feel fear, it hardened our skin, cracking and peeling it, turning us into something more monstrous than human, preventing us from mingling with our prey and acting as the predators we were. I had experienced the painful cracking, peeling skin myself, which was one of the main reasons I still partook in “family dinners.” I knew they were termed as such with mockery, a mere nod to the humans we may have once been, a method of luring our victims in with a sense of pride. Only the washing of the affected skin with blood would soothe the weeping sores and cure the loss of use that would occur in the limb if blood was not imbibed.

It wasn’t that I liked being a vampire, it was merely my existence. I had too high of a level of self-preservation to let myself rot away, though I had considered it on occasion. The passing of time tended to lower the thrill of killing and expand my knowledge about other subjects, amongst which was my prey. Much experimentation had followed, and I learned, rather painfully, that only human blood would suffice to keep me strong and whole. While I didn’t see humans as chattel, the way many of my kind did, I also wasn’t made of strong enough moral fiber to allow myself to die in their stead.

My suggestion of not bleeding our meals entirely, of only taking minor amounts that could be replenished from our stock, was met with nothing more than mockery and disdain. This was our life, and the traditions would not be changed—not for me, not for anyone. My mother called it my “rebellious phase,” though I figured something that had evolved over a decade was far from a phase. My father merely sneered when the issue was brought up, commenting that the disintegration of my skin must have traveled to my brain, and he suggested a more frequent feeding schedule to combat the issue.

The blood on my flesh had cooled enough for me to know it had done its job, so I increased my speed toward my chambers, intent on washing the offending stain away. “What is with you vampires?” Scorn was clear in the cool, clipped voice that spoke from the shadows, and I raised a brow, pulling my lip back to expose my fangs. We were inside the walls, no one was able to enter whom we did not allow. It wasn’t as if they would be able to do