The Kingdom of the Nine; The Vampire Legacy IV by Dawn Gray Page B

were tangled in his
hair.
    * * * * *
    “Okay, wait a minute.” Ashley said, sternly.
I looked up at her from where I sat staring at the wall. “Could you
hold the graphic details; this is my boyfriend you're talking
about.”
    “He wasn't at the time; remember this was
before you came back to them.” I smiled.
    “Still, would you, please, try to be less
descriptive when it comes to your personal affair with him?” She
asked.
    I smiled. “What you think might happen,
doesn't.” But, I had found something that upset her and, to me,
that was a good thing.
    * * * * *
    His lips moved from mine, kissing across my
cheek, down to my neck and, slowly, over to my vein, where he
latched on to me like a baby to his mother's breast. The feeling,
at first was a fiery pull on my vein as if they were going to be
sucked out those two small holes, then the pain subsided and a
chilling feeling of ecstasy washed over me, I could feel Julian's
hands clutching at my robe, hungrily searching for skin, which he
found as he placed two warm hands flat against my back, pulling me
hard against him and holding me there as he laid me back on the
bed.
    In the swirling mist that seemed to cover my
eyes, a white light slowly seeped through, and with it came a
voice, one that I knew and felt I had known for an eternity. It
called out my name as the mist became places, different forests,
castles, barren wastelands, and exotic islands, stopping, somewhere
in time, in a small village, in a remote part of a foreign
country.
    This is where your ancestor was born.
Julian's voice echoed through my mind. He name was Larado, and he
was a prophet.
    So I was the descendent of someone who
thought he knew the future, no big deal.
    This is not the beginning of your life,
only a mile stone for Larado wasn’t a Christian prophet; he was a
vampiric one. This caught my attention and I watched the life
of this sickly child flash by me, until his death much later, when
he burst into flames. Larado was the first of your line to have
mixed blood, pagan and vampire, and it gave him a great wisdom that
no one believed. Vampire blood runs in your veins, through eons and
countless generations, starting with the first child to be born
both mortal and immortal, two thousand years ago, after the
creation of vampires.
    I watched the scenes changing, as if we were
at a movie being quickly rewound, stopping in front of a large
castle in the middle of what looked to be a desert. I could feel
myself walking through the hundreds, maybe thousands of people that
lined the streets, speaking a language that I didn't understand at
first, but slowly, began to hear in English.
    “It has begun.” An old woman, hunched back
and missing an eye, whispered to me as she grasped my arm. “The
first of nine has been born.”
    “Are you a prophet, old woman?” I asked
her.
    “Nah, kind stranger, just a reader of the
written words of Imar.” She replied.
    “Imar?” I questioned.
    “The first King.” She replied with a crooked
smile.
    The first vampire . Julian's voice told
me. I was beginning to think that maybe Julian was the prophet. The
answers are buried deep in your mind. I can see them before you
can. Now, go up to the castle, and don’t worry, you won’t be
seen .
    The gates and the guards were easy enough to
pass, but the closer I came to the room where the first child was,
the thicker the air became. I could hear the cries behind the door
and slowly, floated through it, as if I were a spirit. I looked
over the room, at the blood on the floor, and on the girl that lay
on the bed. She was the one crying, asking for her child, who was
being held and checked over by a few members of what looked like
the priesthood.
    They mumbled to themselves, and then one
snatched the baby and ran out of the room. I could follow him
without any problem and I watched as he led me to a graveyard,
where others of his organization were waiting in a circle, with a
small sacrificial alter in the middle of