Blood Solstice: Part Three in the Tale of Lunarmorte Read Online Free PDF Page A

drawing the
bed coverings over herself nervously.
    Kirios shook his head. “I’m not sure I understand,
Saffron.”
    Saffron sighed. “I was captured within the stronghold of the
Midnight Coven when I was spying. I was careless. Or maybe I
wasn’t. He was a Cassandrian after all. He knew I was there. He
told me to call him the Prophet. That he had seen me in his
visions. That I would play a part in bringing the war to an end…
700 years in the future.” She shook her head in amazement. All the
time she had been speaking Kirios’ heart had been racing. He
stumbled over to the bed and plunked down beside her, his eyes wide
with excitement. All these years and nothing. He had almost gone
crazy with frustration because nothing had pointed him in the right
direction. Finally, here was something.
    “ Only the strongest of us live that long now, Kirios. He says
I am strong too.” She smiled a little shyly.
    Kirios chuckled and stroked her cheek affectionately. “I’m not
surprised. You’re just a baby and already you’re one of the
greatest spies the Coven has.”
    She blushed. “You really think so?”
    He tut-tutted. “No more compliments for you until you tell me
what else he said.”
    “ He told me about you. Nothing more… just where to find
you.”
    “ Why didn’t you tell me this when we first met?”
    “ I was afraid. I didn’t know if I could trust you.”
    “ And now…”
    She laughed. “Kirios, I brought you all the way to France with
false information in order to speak with you about
this.”
    He snorted. So that was why things had been so quiet around
here; why they couldn’t find any signs of an imminent attack from
the Midnights.
    “ Why did you not speak with me in Scotland?”
    Saffron bit her lip and ducked her head, her long silver
blonde hair falling in front of her stunning face. “I wanted to be
on home ground for such a declaration.”
    Kirios struggled not to laugh at her logic. “Of course. How
silly of me.”
    She shrugged off his teasing and looked up at him with wide
pleading eyes. “Why did he tell me to find you, Kirios?”
    He sighed heavily. “Because he once visited me
too.”
    With that he told her all he could, about the Prophet, about
his visions, of what he thought Kirios’ help would do. And now
Saffron too,
    “ So.” She frowned in thought. “What does that mean for
us?”
    “ I think it means that you and I are stuck with one another
for a very long time.”
     
    ***
    St. Petersburg, Russia, 1725
     
    Kirios waited impatiently for Petrovsky, burrowing into his
fur coat. He wasn’t cold. He was never cold. But the city was
charged with apprehension. Peter, the Emperor of Russia, had died
the night before, and with no heir apparent a sense of foreboding
hung above St. Petersburg like an omen of what was to
come.
    His ears perked up and he spun around at the sound of
approaching footsteps. Petrovsky.
    “ Reuben,” he whispered, coming towards him. Kirios had caused
a lot of suspicion over the years, legends of a vampyre who
couldn’t be hurt by magik had begun to circulate. He had found it
necessary to change his name and stay out of the magiks’ way so the
legend could die. For some reason his instincts told him he should
remain a shadow until the time was right.
    “ What took you?”
    “ Anna’s father. He thought we should properly mourn the
emperor.”
    Kirios frowned. “I forgot he’s quite involved in human
affairs.”
    Petrovsky nodded. Theirs was a strange and unexpected
friendship. A few years back, when Kirios had been on a hunt in St.
Petersburg, he had come across this young Midnight trying to help a
Daylight. At first he couldn’t believe what he was seeing so… he
stalked him for a while. Petrovksy was of lower class descent
amongst the Midnights and seemed to go out of his way to find
Daylights; spending his nights searching the underworld of St.
Petersburg with the determination of a bloodhound. Finally, Kirios
actually concerned for