Blood Rites
Warning: contains graphic descriptions of sex and violence
I first conceived of Isranon, the central character from Blood Rites, two years ago. He suddenly popped up as a character in the fourth book of the Path of the Sacred King saga. Isranon was Prince Mephistis’ only true friend in a culture of sociopathic necromancers. Because Isranon was a Dark Brother of the Light, those sa’necari-born who had reputed the terrible rites of rape and death called mortgiefan, he was the only one the prince could trust. Isranon was torn between his father’s utter pacifism and his lycan mentor’s warrior beliefs.
I went back and wrote Isranon into the first two volumes of the Sacred King as well and felt grateful in an odd way that the books had not sold yet. By then, Isranon was screaming for his own story and I began the Dark Brothers of the Light series.
Janrae Frank
The house stood in the tradesmyn's quarter, a large stone box, three stories high with a basement. Lord Hoon, demon-vampire of many names and guises, regarded the pattern of the blue rough-hewn stone shot through with grey, the stark white painted frames of the windows and the heavy white doors, considering whether to knock. Anksha the Beast stood beside him. Hoon's divinator and his officers had told him the exiled necromantic Prince Mephistis of Waejontor had acquired a handful of followers from the lower classes as well as his seven sa'necari soon after moving into this house.
Sa'necari, necromancers, were the only serious rivals within the ranks of darkness that the vampires like Lord Hoon had. They had stolen all of the powers and abilities of the undead that they could take or control, assuming them through their rites, mastering and perfecting them in addition to their native arcane talents. This had been gained at a price, for they also had the needs and cravings of the undead, the unnatural appetites for blood. After generations of sa'necari being created in the rites, their very genes had altered until more and more of their descendants began to be born sa'necari with those appetites and powers manifesting in puberty. Their rites of blood, rape, and death had become merely the means for increasing their powers through the shattering of souls.
Hoon moved with a polished elegance and spoke with an old-fashioned precision as crisp as if it had come from the pages of a book. His shoulders were broad and his hips narrow. The glow from the street lamps glinted on his black hair, grazed the points of his ears, and gilded his olive skin with golden highlights. A dangerous sensuality lay in the depths of his large eyes, exposed itself on the chiseled planes of his cheekbones with their hollows, and settled on his full lips. A sword hung from his hip in a black and silver scabbard. "What do you think, Anksha? Can we do this ourselves? Teach him a lesson?"
Her eyes narrowed in a sleepy feline expression, broken by a faint showing of her fangs. "He's taken the bit in his teeth and thinks he's free."
Hoon laughed softly. "Next time he should wear a check rein, perhaps?"
"Let's knock on the door."
Hoon smiled and did so.
A servant answered. "Lord Darmungaard!"
Hoon inclined his head at his alias. "I must see Prince Mephistis immediately."
The servant showed them into a parlor, indicating that they should sit. "The prince is engaged in a magical working at the moment."
"Mortgiefan?" Lord Hoon inquired, watching the servant flinch from the word. "I know what he is and what his proclivities are. We are old friends, are we not, Anksha?"
"Oh, yes," Anksha said, swishing her robes with her hands in a seductive little turn. He had dressed her for an outing at the theater, like a fine lady in silk and satin, fit to accompany a high lord, and it brought out her beauty. The tiniest bit of fur, so sleek as to be indistinguishable from the skin of her face, throat, and hands, showed beneath the edge of her neckline. A small, tightly curled tail poked from the back of her skirts. Except for that it was easy for her to pass for human.
Through countless centuries she had been known as 'the Beast' because no one knew exactly what she was, not even Anksha herself. She proclaimed herself by her deeds, 'troll-tamer', and 'demon-eater.' Lord Hoon had found her as a toddler in a forest and raised her as his pet. Anksha had the instincts of a cat that liked to play with its food and steal nestlings out of trees as well as claws, fangs, and a taste for blood and flesh-especially the blood of the powerful.
"Please," the servant gestured at the couch again. "They will finish presently."
Hoon wagged a finger at the servant with a feral smile. "No. You will take us to them now. Otherwise I will return with my people and be even more insistent."
"My Lord Darmungaard, please…"
Everyone here respected or feared Hoon-or more often both. "Now."
The servant walked away without a word. Hoon and Anksha followed. The servant made a tiny gesture at a door and kept going. Hoon grinned at Anksha. The vampire put his ear to the door and heard chanting. He turned to Anksha, his grin spreading wider. Very, very carefully he opened the door and they crept down.
Mortgiefan indeed.
Three bleeding tables stood in the center with victims bound spread-eagle to their surfaces while three sa'necari busily sated their appetites upon them and four more watched hungrily. The middle one was Mephistis, cursing and moaning, gripped by the ecstasy of mortgiefan, matching the movement of his cock in the dying woman's body with each thrust of the blade into her flesh. "Anksha. Anksha. Die you stupid Beast!"
Anksha's lips writhed back from her fangs at his words and she licked them as she slipped up behind him without anyone noticing her presence: they were all too caught up in the rites. Hoon drew his sword and came to stand behind the watchers.
"Wishing she were me, O randy prince?"
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