Chapter One

I don't know how lucky I have been to survive the culling at birth but I think my luck is about to run out as I see the soldiers head towards the mercantile shop I work at.  I heard the news of why they are here, everyone who steps into this shop is a gossip after all.

The garish dress uniform of red and blue attired and armoured clad soldiers that could be seen from a distance are here to search the town for any hidden threats amongst the populace. And those pretty scrolls of white parchment that they carry around? It gives them all the authority to strip search any citizen to look for the mark of the beast upon their flesh somewhere.

Some of the strip searches have taken a considerably long time for some of our small community that have been seemingly stopped at random.  Especially the pretty citizens it has been observed by us but eventually these soldiers will get through their list of names. 

A marked one cannot be suffered to live after all, they might fulfil the prophesy and overthrow the ones who invaded what was once our prosperous empire a century ago.  Whether the story's real or not, I just couldn't tell you. It's just something to cling onto, it's a secret hope that's harboured and never allowed to see the light of day.

The vampires who invaded this land, are also the ones who tells their human citizens that they rescued them from the claws of their old masters.  Probably a lie of course, but history is written by the winners I have been told. What's the difference between one master and another? You're still being mastered in some ways but which one was the more lenient of the two?

I was born to my mother nearly 17 years ago and escaped my infantile death because one my mother is blind and two we lived in the mountains until times got really tough and we were forced to live closer to town for safety's sake from the war looming over the territorial dispute of the local mountains.

The neighbouring kingdom doesn't seem to want to be marched over and owned by their recently new neighbours and are holding fast to their one advantage of the treacherous peaks looming over us everyday.

But they are matters that don't concern me, they would never lend aid to one such as I, they never helped the shifter race being slaughtered all that time ago. But the time I was old enough to ask questions as a child by anything that sparked my curiosity, I knew my fate was decided when I discovered the meaning of my markings of three red tattooed stripes on my left hipbone.  They were the mark of the beast I would one day become.

I had always noticed them but my mother did not have any similar markings upon her body that I could see whenever we bathed in the cold river during the summer months.  I just innocently asked her why that was one time long ago and my mother's countenance changed before my eyes from carefree and happy to equal parts of both shock and worry over this fact I had revealed but I still didn't understand why in that moment I was still ignorant.

My mother urged me to leave the river and go get dressed and then we rushed back to our home, the old log cabin, our long hair was dripping wet and soaking straight into our clothes right through to our skin in our haste to get back there.  I then watched my pretty and kind mother pace back and forth before the unlit fire hearth, lost in thought, until I started to sneeze violently and my teeth were chattering loud enough to be heard which made my mother pause and become aware of our surroundings once again.

She smiled kindly at me and held her hand out for me to come to her side and I jumped off the wooden stool that I had climbed to sit onto besides our little worn wood table.  I went to her and I held her big calloused but warm hand in my chubby child like hand, clinging on with to it with my growing unease.

My mother kneeled down before me, her patched and worn skirts billowing out around her and she searched with her free hand to pat my head warmly before she spoke to me, 'I'm sorry my child, I didn't mean to frighten you just now, let's make a fire together and put that stew onto cook over it ok?'  She asked canting her head to the side, waiting and I replied yes in my own way when my stomach growled and she smiled softly at me.  'I will explain things to you while we wait for our meal to cook,' she told me and I dipped my head yes and feeling the action under the hand that rested on my head, my mother smiled once again but this time though, more sadly at me.

My mother let go of me and began to put things in action for what we needed to get our meal cooked.  She reached for the place where the firewood was always kept and laid the beginnings of the fire and then she reached for the place where we always kept the matches.  She made me promise not to move things from an early age as it could be very troublesome for my mother and to also not to play with things either, especially the matches or we might not have a home anymore if I accidentally burned it down. 

To make her point clear to me, my mother walked me to a burnt up cabin that was nothing more than ashes and burned poles.  It was a devastating sight to see someone's home destroyed.  I promised to never touch those matches until she thought it was time for me to try to make our fires on the evening time when she thought I was responsible enough.
But that time back then for me was obviously not the right time to ask to try again as I watched my mother make that fire and saw the wood catch and smoke a little. 

My mother then stood up and brushed her hands clean of debris and proceeded to walk five precise paces to the table and felt around for our pot with a lid and metal handle, which she then lifted up and walked five paces precisely back.  I had returned to the stool and had not moved as I was taught, this was so I wouldn't get in her way and I continued to watch her hook the handle of the pot and the stew within it, over the fire to begin to cook for us.

My mother turned to me once again and lowered herself to the floor and sat cross legged and began to arrange the patched skirts of her worn dress, before she beckoned me to sit in front of her.  I lowered myself off of the stool and scurried over to her to stand before her and my mother reached out and spun me around by my small shoulders.  She made me sit in front of her like that, my back to her front so she could brush out my hair with her fingers before the crackling fire to dry it more quickly for me.  We continued like this for a little while in the quiet lull that had fallen upon us.

'My child,' my mother began to say to me, 'your markings speak of a heritage that is all but stamped out across the land,' I canted my head to the side to listen more carefully to her words.  'Normally anyone found with such a mark is executed under the law because it declares your beastly nature, the current rulers will not suffer their enemy to come back ever in any form even generations later,' she told me and I jolted forward in fright but my mother held me firm and close to her by my small thin shoulders. 

'You see they kill the beast kind while they are young, it's easier and more merciful to kill a newborn who is unaware of what's happening.  That's what people tell themselves to live with what they have done in name of the law,' my mother sounded bitter and sad all at once to my ears and I wished I could see her face at that moment.

'If a beast kind was ever allowed to reach full maturity and awaken their powers, I'm sure that one could stand toe to toe in a fight against one of the new nobility,' my mother says and hugs me tightly, 'but the problem is, it would be one beast kind against an entire army and that path in life would end very badly,' she whispers in my ear and then straightens back up and pulls away from me a little.  'It's best to just hide my little one,' my mother said sounding regretful.

'You must never tell another person of your markings and you must never let another person see them,' she told me and carried on speaking, 'you must never be with someone when you're older, fall in love and get married, you can never have a normal life as no one can be fully trusted to not let your secret slip,' my mother's long speech was a never ending onslaught of 'never' to me and some part of my small, childish, hopeful heart became saddened and shattered inside of me, I think back then in that moment it was mourning a future that I hadn't fully grasped yet as a child.

'You must do all this if you wish to live and survive in this world,' my mother warned in a severe tone and shook me a little for emphasis until I answered her
'Yes mother, I must never show anyone or tell anyone,' I repeated and promised in my childish voice and she sighed fretfully for me, not quite believing the words of a child and she held me close in a tight hug that was almost crushing in its ferocity.  I could feel that my mother was fearful for me and not of me because of that hug alone, her arms trembled but they held fast onto me, that action conveying more than mere words could.

'Let's hope that will be enough my little one to keep you safe from those people who think they're are either doing it out of duty or for the money offered on discovery,' my mother shuddered and I could feel the action of it in my body, 'it never ends well for those that are caught.'

~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~

That memory was from years ago and as I got older my mother taught me more about the importance of hiding what I was but I feared that my luck had finally run out today as the quaint bell hung over the entrance way tinkled, jolting me from my thoughts of my past and announcing the presence of the Empire's soldiers and their precious scrolls were in the shop that I worked in. 

The soldiers had gathered at the front of the store near to where I was and I could see that all the shopping patrons amongst the store's goods had frozen in place, their errands were forgotten as they watched the soldiers with trepidation.  The soldiers didn't care about all of that though, they set out to unroll their parchments straight away and then each one began to read out loud from their list of names to see if anyone they had been tasked to look out for today were in here.

My heart began to beat wildly in the spaces of silence between each name called out and I hoped with all my might that my name would not be called out right here and now on those lists but I fear that I am someone who is never that lucky.

'Peter Blackfriar?'  One soldier called out.

'Amelia Silkwater?'  Another one called.

The names kept echoing in my ears but none of the patrons in the store stepped forward yet to claim any of them as their own but they still dared not relax and listened attentively in case one of the soldiers called out their own name from their lists.

'Sara Beechson?'  My body jolted out of alarm and I ended up knocking over a basket of small items on the counter and drawing everyone's attention my way as I busied myself picking up the scattered pieces and putting them back into the basket that I had spilled them from.

'Sara Beechson?'  My name was asked again in confirmation by the soldier that had called my name out before.  The soldier now stood before me and gripped my chin in his hands to see my face more clearly and then he leered at me, obviously liking what he saw there.

'Yes?'  I answered and my body began shaking as I had signed my own doom now.

'Come with me into the back room,' the soldier ordered of me and then he adjusted his crotch with his other free hand, much to the amused chuffs of laughter from his comrades.  I trembled in the stranger's grip and more laughter ensued when the soldiers saw that but I wasn't shaking from what they thought I feared was going to happen to me.

'I think not,' a well spoken male voice drawled out from one of the dark corners of the store that had gone unnoticed until now.  Everyones gaze snapped to that corner in surprise to watch a well dressed, tall man stalk out of the shadows and then unhurriedly approached myself and the soldier who was still roughly accosting me.

For a second I wildly hoped that I was still somehow lucky until the soldier who was holding me, straightened up in kind of recognition and let go off of me to only end up offering a smart salute to the handsome stranger.  My heart sank once again at the soldier's uttered astonishment of, 'Sir?!'

'I think I will search this one myself,' the stranger said as he glanced at me slowly from bottom of my booted feet right to the top of my very head as he continued to peruse me lazily with all the time in the world. 

I was rooted to the spot by eyes so dark they were almost devoid of colour in that moment, then he blinked and they were a pretty forget me not kind of blue.  What had I just seen there?  The man stepped into my personal space and comfortably wrapped his arm around my waist to guide my unresisting body to where he wanted me to go.

'Yes, you soldiers have been having far too much fun lately,' the stranger announces with a pointed laugh as he guides me from behind the counter to the back room with a smile aimed towards the grinning men.  The sound of the door shutting soundly on the answering chortles from behind us announces to my ears that my end is finally here.