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  Deathless

  Deathless

  PROLOGUE

  Midpoint

  DEATHLESS

  By SCOTT PRUSSING

  This is a work of fiction. All the characters or events portrayed in this novel are either fictitious or used fictitiously.

  DEATHLESS

  Smashwords Edition

  Copyright 2011 by Scott Prussing Publishing

  All rights reserved.

  This book is available in print at www.scottprussing.com

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  PROLOGUE

  107 years ago

  The volkaane Rave raced silently through the snow-filled woods. His long, dark copper hair streamed behind him as he flashed through the trees, his bronze skin seeming almost to glow in the gray twilight. Tiny blue flames flickered from his fingertips, the only outward manifestation of the magical fire blazing inside him.

  Despite his speed, footing was not a problem—the heat from his inner fire melted the thin carpet of snow almost as soon as his moccasin covered feet touched it, leaving steaming ovals of rotting leaves in his wake. A trail of similar marks stretched ahead of him, left by his friend Helm. But no steam floated up from Helm’s footprints, and Rave knew he was almost certainly too late to save his friend.

  Helm’s horrific screams still echoed in his ears. Only one thing could make a volkaane scream like that—the fangs of a vampire. And if a vampire had ripped into Helm’s throat, then Helm was almost certainly dead by now. Still, Rave had to try. If he couldn’t save Helm, Rave hoped he could at least avenge him.

  Too often of late, he had heard similar screams, each one marking the death of a volkaane. It was the cursed Destiratu, he knew. Normally, volkaanes and vampires maintained a kind of balance, each hunting and slaying only the weak or the foolish. But when magical energies in the earth and in the air combined to form the phenomenon known as Destiratu, everything changed. Somehow, in a way Rave did not fully understand and none of his elders could fully explain, Destiratu raised the killing ire in volkaane and vampire alike. Hunger and bloodlust raged, becoming uncontrollable for many. Fortunately, Destiratu arose less than once every hundred years.

  Understanding the phenomenon was not important now—surviving it was all that mattered. Part of Rave knew he should be moving more carefully, that danger was likely near, but the magic had magnified his hunger—and his anger as well. So he raced through the trees, moving with a speed even a vampire could never match, hoping against hope Helm was not yet dead. Rave was still young—only ten years past the four decade mark that symbolized volkaane adulthood—and still foolish. He did not even consider that this same blinding hunger was behind Helm’s demise.

  Up ahead, he saw the sight he had dreaded to see. Helm’s body lay crumpled on the ground in the center of a circle of still steaming leaves. Even in death, his inner fire had lingered, melting the snow around him. A few feet from his friend’s body, Rave spied a long pile of gray and white ash. Despite his grief, he allowed himself a small smile. Helm had managed to kill one of his foes before being slain. Leading away from the circle, Rave saw two sets of widely spaced footprints that could only have been made by a pair of vampires. Helm had had the misfortune to run into three of the creatures. He never stood a chance.

  Rave knelt at his dead friend’s side. Helm’s lifeless eyes stared skyward. His throat had been savagely ripped open, confirming what Rave already knew. There was no blood in the grisly wound or anywhere on the ground—no vampire would waste even a single drop of the glowing blue liquid, a treasure they tasted only rarely.

  Tenderly, Rave closed his friend’s eyes and then rested his palm Helm’s forehead. Helm’s skin was still warm, but the heat that was the essence of a volkaane was gone. Rave ignored the voice whispering in his head that the vampires might still be close, just as he ignored the training which taught him he should be directing his senses outward, letting his instincts feel any trace of vampire presence. Such was the effect of Destiratu, especially on the young and inexperienced. Rave was both.

  Had he followed the tracks of the departed vampires, he would have seen they had taken to the trees less than a hundred yards from where he knelt. He would have been alert to any danger from above.

  Instead, he was taken by surprise when two vampires thumped to the ground on either side of him. Despite his youth, Rave’s magical inner fire ranked among the most powerful of his kind. Rare was the vampire who could match his power, but even he could not hope to defeat two of the creatures at once. Still, he was determined to take at least one of his foes with him, just as Helm had done.

  The vampires probably expected him to flee. Perhaps he could have escaped even now, using his superior speed, but his Destiratu fueled hunger would not let him try. From his kneeling position, he lunged up at the vampire in front of him, wrapping his arms around its back and pressing his mouth toward the vampire’s face, ready to let his magical fire suck the life breath from the creature.

  Vampires were fast as well, though, and he felt the second creature fasten its powerful grip upon his shoulders from behind, ready to tear him from its brother. In a moment, its fangs would sink into Rave’s flesh. There was little Rave could do to prevent it, so he forced his mouth closer to the vampire in his grasp.

  Suddenly, he felt a blast of volkaane heat behind him, and the hold on his shoulders vanished. There was no time to wonder about it now—the vampire in his grip was trying to reach his neck with its fangs.

  With no help from its companion, the vampire was no match for Rave. Rave pressed his mouth over the creature’s nose and lips. The raging heat of his magical fire sucked the life force from the vampire, funneling it into Rave’s lungs. The sensation was beyond exhilarating, and Rave relished every moment of it.

  In less than a minute, it was over. He dropped the vampire’s limp body to the ground. The heat from Rave’s fire continued to consume the beast from the inside out. The vampire’s pallid face slowly grew lighter, becoming almost translucent. With a sudden, barely audible crackling sound, the creature shimmered and crumpled to a pile of gray and white ash.

  “Well done, young Rave,” said a familiar voice behind him.

  Rave turned and smiled at Balin, his friend and mentor. An identical pile of ash lay at Balin’s feet. Balin had destroyed his vampire even before Rave had finished with his. Tiny blue flames flickered from Balin’s fingertips. Rave glanced down at his own fingers. They, too, glowed brightly.

  “Without your help,” Rave said, “I fear the outcome would have been less pleasant.”

  “That’s precisely why I followed you. You must be more careful, young Rave. Destiratu is a dangerous time for all, but it is especially so for the inexperienced.”

  “I’m sorry, Balin. You taught me better than this. But when I heard Helm scream, I could not stop myself.”

  “Such is the power of Destiratu,” Balin said, “as well as the pull of anger.” He draped his arm around Rave’s shoulders. “I believe you
are destined for great things, young Rave, but for that to happen, you must first survive.”

  1. NEW BEGINNINGS

  Leesa Nyland was afraid to open her eyes. Not because she was scared she might see something frightening—though god knows she’d seen and experienced enough scary stuff her first few months at Weston College to last a lifetime—but because she was afraid if she opened her eyes she might discover she’d merely been dreaming all the wonderful things that had happened.

  She had every right to be worried about that, she knew. She had seen and done things in the last three months—could it really have been only three months?—that few people would believe, or could even imagine. Maybe it all was just a dream. Maybe there were no vampires. Maybe she’d never allowed herself to be bitten by the enigmatic Stefan, in a bargain to save her brother Bradley from an imprisonment far more horrible than death. She almost reached for her throat, but pulled her fingers back. What if she found no twin scars there? That would mean it was only a dream, and that Bradley was still missing. And that her mom was probably still a recluse, refusing to leave the house during the day, claiming sunlight hurt her skin because she’d been bitten by a one-fanged vampire. Leesa did not want to return to that reality.

  And she certainly did not want to discover that the comforting warmth she felt against her cheek was nothing more than her electric blanket. No, she much preferred believing the magical heat radiated from her amazing volkaane boyfriend Rave. She snuggled her face more tightly against the warm cloth and sighed.

  She could feel the hard muscles of Rave’s chest working beneath the material. This was no dream—no blanket or pillow would move like that. She opened her eyes and confirmed it, staring at Rave’s brown and purple flannel shirt, not her blanket. She looked up into his handsome face and smiled.

  He carried her effortlessly, racing through the woods along old game paths at speeds that should have been impossible, his gait so smooth she felt almost as if they were flying. She loved it when Rave carried her like this, cradled snug in his arms. It more than made up for his people not using cars or any form of transportation other than their feet.

  Volkaanes did not use any electrical or battery operated devices. They couldn’t. The energy from their magical inner heat simply shorted out any kind of appliance. Leesa had learned that the hard way, when she’d tried to use her cell phone while holding Rave’s hand. Even the indirect contact had destroyed her cell, frying the chips and the battery. And since Rave could not use phones, she had no way to contact him when she wanted to see him or even to talk to him. All she could do was wait for him to show up. While she wished that weren’t the case, it served to make any time they spent together extra special.

  Rave’s magical fire had one other drawback—a major, major drawback. If he lost control for even a moment when they kissed, it could kill her, burning the life out of her from the inside out. And that really sucked, because that same inner heat made his kisses beyond amazing. Most girls were merely waxing poetic when they said they “melted” at their boyfriend’s kisses, but with Rave it was almost literally true. So far, she and Rave had been able to share only the briefest of kisses, under the watchful eye of Rave’s mentor Balin, who could sense even the slightest changes in Rave’s heat. Balin and Rave were working on technique for controlling Rave’s fire that few volkaanes dared attempt, but it was still far too dangerous for Leesa to kiss Rave in the manner she longed to.

  She had given in fully to his kiss only once, when she thought Stefan had made her a vampire and Rave had come to kill her as he’d promised. Luckily, Rave had learned enough control by then and broke the kiss before she was harmed. But she still remembered how amazing that near fatal kiss felt, and how she thought what a wonderful way to die it would have been. She longed for the day when they could kiss without danger, without fear. Still, she was certain their brief kisses were far beyond anything other girls could even imagine, no matter how in love they might be.

  As if Rave was reading her mind, he bent his head and kissed her lightly on the cheek. She thrilled as the familiar warmth flowed through her. Kisses anywhere other than on her mouth were safe, though they would leave a mark if he let his lips linger too long.

  Rave carried her for another few minutes before setting her gently to the ground. Leesa sighed, wishing the journey was a longer one—a much longer one. But they were just going to her aunt and uncle’s house for Thanksgiving dinner, and they were almost there. With no more trees to hide their passage, they would walk the rest of the way. Leesa rose up on her toes and kissed Rave on the cheek.

  “Thanks for the lift,” she said, smiling.

  “Anytime, beautiful.”

  Leesa fluffed her fingers through her long blond hair, trying to work out the tangles caused by her “ride.”

  “This is far and away my favorite way to travel,” she said, “but it sure does a number on my hair.”

  Rave laughed and plucked a few pieces of forest debris from Leesa’s heavy dark blue sweatshirt. “I imagine it must be a bit like riding in a car with your head stuck out the window—not that I’ve ever had the pleasure.”

  “Ha! Exactly,” Leesa said, grinning. “Only this is a lot more fun.”

  “Does that mean you no longer mind having a boyfriend without a car?”

  “Well, I wish you could at least ride in one now and then, but no, I don’t mind at all. I do wish you volkaanes would figure out some way you could use a cell phone, though.”

  “Maybe Balin and I could figure something out. But we would have to stop working on the kissing thing while we did.”

  “Ha! Never mind. Number one priority: the kissing thing. Number two priority: the kissing thing. Number three priority:…”

  “Let me guess. The kissing thing?”

  Leesa laughed. “How’d you guess?”

  Rave grinned. “Just a wild hunch.”

  Leesa grabbed his bicep in both her hands and snuggled against him. “Mmmm, strong and smart. What more could a girl want?”

  She felt her stomach quietly rumble, reminding her she was hungry. Wanting to save plenty of room for Thanksgiving dinner, she had eaten only half a bowl of cereal for breakfast.

  “Hungry?” Rave asked.

  Leesa blushed. She couldn’t believe he had heard that, but Rave’s hearing was far more acute than any human. She shook her head—there were more than a few downsides to having a supernatural boyfriend, for sure. She wondered if he could hear her heartbeat, too.

  “Yeah. I didn’t have much breakfast. Aunt Janet’s a great cook, so I wanted to make sure I left plenty of room for dinner. And for Uncle Roger’s pies, too. They’re to die for.”

  “Well, what are we waiting for, then? Let’s get to your aunt and uncle’s so we can get some food into you.”

  “I’m down with that, for sure,” Leesa said. She let go of his arm and began limping toward the street. Rave fell into step beside her.

  Leesa had been born missing a small piece of bone in her lower leg and had limped all her life. It didn’t hurt, and she proudly maintained she could walk as fast and far as almost anyone—anyone who was not a volkaane, that is. She seldom even thought about her limp, unless someone asked her about it, or sometimes when she was with Rave and noticed how noisily she walked compared to him. But everyone walked noisily compared to Rave, who seemed to be able to walk over any surface, even dead crinkly leaves, and scarcely make a sound.

  She reached out and took his hand. As always, the warmth of his skin thrilled her. She smiled, thinking back to the first few times they’d held hands, before he’d revealed his magical nature. Rave had kept his gloves on, so she wouldn’t notice his unnatural warmth. She’d made the mistake of telling her friends about it, and they had teased her endlessly. Thankfully, the days of gloves were long gone.

  Nobody else in her life knew Rave was not human, and that was how she intended to keep it, for awhile, at least. Her mother and brother had suffered enough from supernatural creatures—t
hey didn’t need to know she was in love with one, even one who was a sworn enemy of vampires. Rave could control his heat well enough now that something like a quick handshake would not give him away, so she expected no problems keeping his secret.

  When they reached her aunt and uncle’s house, a pale yellow Colonial set back from the street behind a wide yard dominated by four leafless maple trees, Rave gently grabbled Leesa’s arm and drew her to a stop.

  “I think you should bring their dog outside to meet me before I go in.”

  Leesa looked at him with a puzzled expression.

  “How come? Max is a really great dog. He likes everybody.” A sudden thought flashed through her brain. “Uh, oh. Don’t tell me dogs don’t like volkaanes.”

  “No, it’s not that. They like us just fine. Better than fine, in fact. Volkaanes have a special relationship with many animals, especially dogs. But Max may act a bit strange until I introduce myself to him, and I do not think we want your family to see that.”

  “Oh… okay. But what am I going to tell everyone when I show up at the door without you?”

  Rave thought for a moment. “Just tell them I am admiring their beautiful neighborhood for a few minutes.”

  “Okay. They may think that’s a little weird, though.”

  “Trust me, it’s better than what they might think if Max meets me inside.”

  Leesa did trust him, implicitly. She kissed him on the cheek.

  “Back in minute,” she said.

  She turned and headed for the door. Max came rushing to greet her before she even got the door open. He was a four-year-old golden retriever with seemingly endless energy and the friendly demeanor common to his breed. Leesa stepped inside the house and gave him a quick but vigorous chest rub, one of his favorite things.