04 - Rise of the Lycans Read Free Page B

them for their disdain. Despite his best efforts to prove that he was not an unreasoning animal like
his savage forebears, the taint of the wolf still flowed through his veins….
    “What do you think, Sonja?” Viktor’s voice carried from the balcony as he
addressed his small daughter, who stood beside him behind the railing. The
girl’s birth, eight winters ago, had been a time of both celebration and
mourning. Her mother, the Lady Ilona, had perished giving birth to Viktor’s only
child. “Shall we make more?”
    “Of him?” The little girl was spellbound by the handsome youth below. Curly
brown locks framed the child’s angelic features. A black satin kirtle clothed
her diminutive form. A crest-shaped pendant, centered around a polished
turquoise gemstone, dangled on a chain around her neck. Wide chestnut eyes
peered down at Lucian.
    “ Like him,” Viktor clarified. “Lucian will be the first of a new breed.
The first of the lycans.”
    Sonja nodded absently, seemingly more interested in the boy himself than her
father’s machinations. “Lucian,” she repeated, trying the name out in her mouth.
“Lucian…”
    Pure-born vampire children were rare in the castle. Lucian wondered what she
would be like when she grew up.
     
    Lucian crouched nervously in his humble den in the castle’s sprawling
dungeons. A straw pallet rested in the corner of the cell, but there would no
rest for him tonight. Viktor had other plans for him, plans that filled the
boy’s heart with trepidation. His stomach rumbled unhappily; upon the Elder’s orders, he had not been fed for hours.
His eyes were fixed on a narrow window cut high in the moldy stone wall before
him. Naked, he waited apprehensively for what was to come. A capital V for Viktor was branded on his bare right arm.
    He felt the full moon rising outside even before the first silvery beams
invaded his lair. His brown eyes dilated, shrinking down to tiny black
pinpricks. Blood pounded in his ears, like a tide crashing against the shore.
His heart stampeded wildly beneath his hairless chest. Teeth and nails tugged at
their roots. His skin felt hot and feverish. A sudden sweat drenched his body.
    No, he thought, just as he did every month when the moon waxed full. Not
again!
    He wanted to shrink away from the moonlight, yet that would have been
contrary to Viktor’s expressed wishes. Iron bars trapped him inside the cell,
making retreat impossible. There was no escape from the rising moon—or the beast
it awoke inside him.
    His face contorted into a hellish mask of pain as his innards twisted within
his gut. Bulging veins throbbed beneath his skin. His eyes glazed over into
inhuman cobalt orbs. Jagged fangs clenched tightly to keep from screaming.
Convulsing, he collapsed onto the straw-covered floor and rolled into the pitch
blackness at the rear of the cell, as far from the open window as he could get.
He huddled upon the floor in torment, praying for deliverance.
    Why must I be so cursed? I never asked for this!
    But despite his prayers, the moonlight found him out. A beam of cold white light slashed his arm and the slender limb turned
dark and sinewy. His splayed fingers degenerated into claws. His bare skin
thickened, becoming coarse and leathery. Muscles rippled across his back as his
youthful frame seemed to absorb weight and substance from the moonlight, growing
larger and more imposing. Bristling black fur erupted from beneath his febrile
hide. Dark hair spread over his body, hiding his nakedness beneath a thick sable
pelt. Bony talons scraped at the damp stones beneath the straw. His vision
blurred, the color fading from his sight as the dungeon around him dissolved
into fuzzy shades of gray. Tufted ears twitched atop his skull. His nostrils
quivered, suddenly alive to myriad new smells. He choked on the overwhelming
stench of dungeons, even as he bit back the howl forming at the back of his
throat.
    No! He fought against the almost