Immortals After Dark 04 - Wicked Deeds on a Winters Night

even other Lore creatures into their kind through differing means, but the catalyst for change is always death, and success is not guaranteed.
    The Accession
    “And a time shall pass that all immortal beings in the Lore, from the Valkyrie, vampire, Lykae, and demon factions, to the phantoms, shifters, fey, and sirens... must fight and destroy each other.”
    · A kind of mystical checks-and-balances system for an ever-growing population of immortals.
    · Occurs every five hundred years. Or right now...

Love spells are a lot like platform diving. Once you start the process, there’s no going back, and the end will be fugly if you don’t know what the hell you’re doing.

    —Mariketa the Awaited Mercenary of the Wiccae,
    Future Leader of the House of Witches

    Witches are good for one thing and only one thing. Tinder.
    —Bowen Graeme MacRieve
    Third in line for the Lykae throne

Prologue

    The Forest of Three Bridges
Winter 1827
    It wants to mark my flesh... The full moon beat light down on a canvas of snow and barren trees, making Mariah’s hunter green dress glow as distinctly as a beacon for the beast pursuing her.
    Mark me with its teeth, she thought wildly as she leapt across an icy rivulet. When the beast’s frenzied roar echoed through the forest, she stumbled at the embankment. Frantically scrambling up, she continued her flight for home.
    Birch branches clawed at her hair and raked her cold-numbed face. As she twisted from their grasp, snow began to fall once more, blurring her vision. Another bellow in the dark silenced night creatures; the sound of her ragged breaths became deafening.
    Bowen, the man she’d loved since she was a girl, had warned her of the full moon, preparing her: “I will change, Mariah. I canna control it. And you are vulnerable to harm still... ”
    She’d insisted on meeting him this night, because she’d known how critical this time was for him—and because she was anxious to make up for denying his desires again and again. But then, at this last hour, her courage failed her. She’d looked upon the face of her beloved, and the moon had revealed a monster in his place.
    It had known she was horrified. Its eyes, glowing ice blue, had been filled with an animal-like yearning until they narrowed with comprehension. “Run... Mariah,” it had grated in an unfamiliar rasp. “Get to the... castle. Lock yourself away... from me.”
    She could hear him crashing toward her, ever nearer, but she was almost there. Reaching the edge of the forest, she saw her home in the snowy plain below her—a castle towering amidst the confluence of their kingdom’s three great rivers. So close .
    Mariah raced for the familiar winding path that would lead her down. As soon as she alighted upon it, movement exploded before her eyes. Suddenly the air teemed with ravens, shooting up all around her, wings batting her numbed face. Swinging at them blindly, she stumbled and lost her footing on the icy, root-strewn path.
    Weightlessness... falling... tumbling down the side of the ravine... The impact wrenched the breath from her lungs and made her sight darken. Falling still...
    When she landed at the bottom, it was to a sickening wet sound as some force punched through her stomach. Unimaginable pain erupted through her. She gaped in incomprehension at the sharp stump jutting up from her body. No... No... cannot be.
    As the pain dimmed to only a chilling sensation of pressure within her, she weakly grasped the remains of an axed-down birch, felled by one of her kingdom’s woodsmen.
    With each breath, blood bubbled from her mouth. It dripped from her face into the snow, as softly as tears.
    Mariah of the Three Bridges would die in the moon’s shadow of her own home.
    In a daze, staring at the sky, she listened while the beast crashed toward her impossibly faster, as if scenting the blood. Before it could reach Mariah, she recognized she was no longer alone.
    Just after she spied more ravens circling overhead, icy lips met hers. Emptiness and chaos seeped through her like a disease. As she writhed futilely, a voice inside Mariah’s head spoke of this night, a wintry eve brimming with purpose.
    “Die, ” the voice whispered against Mariah’s bloody mouth. Immediately, she perceived the stillness of her heart. Her lungs ceased their labors and the mask of pain on her face slackened.
    The presence faded, replaced by another. Mariah’s last sight was the beast, roaring in agony to the moon, clawing