I'm excited to be the last stop on the Drake Chronicles Scavenger Hunt! This week there’s plenty of hunting going on in the Drake Chronicles by Alyxandra Harvey! Humans, Hounds, Vampires...
And with the last book in the series, Blood Prophecy, coming out Alyx & Co. thought they’d let you do some hunting of your own. In fact these past two weeks you might have seen some quote cards flying around. Have you been collecting them?
If not, you still have time to collect the ones already out. Then come back to this blog and the other 4 blogs to collect the last cards remaining. We have exclusive content from the characters in the series just for you! In the letters or poems or journals from these characters you’ll find links to the rest of the quote cards.
Collect the cards we’ve already posted, the ones hidden in the letters and email them to Alyx at alyxandraharvey (at) yahoo. ca to be entered to win a Kindle Fire.
Confused? Want to play? Check out the details on Alyx’s website! Alyxandra is also giving away a set of signed books and other goodies.
a Rafflecopter giveaway
The RULES:
US, UK and Canada Only
Must be 13 years of age
Contest for Kindle Fire ends Monday Dec 10th.
For the set of books it ends Dec 17th
The Books:
And for a limited time Hearts at Stake will be $0.99 as an ebook from Nook and Kindle. Also, the first omnibus of the first three books in the Drake Chronicles, Ruling Passion is $1.99 for the ebook. What a steal! Pick up the first copy and join us at the end of January for a video chat with the author!
Visit these other blogs this week for more fun goodies!
Monday: Pageturners Blog
Tuesday: The Story Siren
Wednesday: Ellizie Books
Thursday: Novel Thoughts
Friday: Mundie Moms
All you Isabeau fans, this is for you! And it's a long one!
A Moment Under the Stars.
I am on a rocky ledge overlooking the Blood Moon encampment. There are canvas tents, painted banners, torches, and a vast weight of stars above us. It reminds me a little of the country fairs in France centuries ago when I was little. It’s the same feeling of celebration and community, edged with the threat of violence.[http://
It has a certain beauty I suppose, but only with my back pressed to the cold stone of the mountain. I trust stone, blood, dogs. I do not trust vampires, even though I am one. Perhaps especiallybecause I am one.
Logan Drake has managed to breach my defenses in his frock coat and combat boots. He has the manners and dress of the boys I knew at court, before the Revolution changed us all. He claims to have loved me since the first moment he saw me staking a guard outside the royal caves.
I do not believe in love at first sight.
He says that make us even since he never used to believe in magic either.
He is lying on the hard stone beside me. He has been lying there so long and so still, my dog Charlemagne licks his ear inquiringly. Logan opens one eye, green as moss. “I don’t think this is working, Isabeau.”
“You must be patient.”
“I am patient,” he grumbles. “You’ve met Lucy, right? And my brothers?”
“Yes,” I reply, drily. “In fact I think I see Quinn down there surrounded by belly dancers.”
He smirks. “They follow him around. He’s terrified Hunter will get the wrong idea.”
“She knew who he was before she chose him.” I shrug. I do not understand the dramatics people, both alive and undead, feel compelled to play, nor do I care to. You love, or you do not. Anyway, I cannot say anything about it. I know very well that the vampires at the gathering below do not think a Hound, even a Shamanka’s handmaiden such as me, is good enough for a Drake brother. But we have greater worries.
Solange is wrong.
And I’m still not entirely certain how, which is infuriating.
More infuriating is the fact that I do not need to throw the bones to know that it will get worse. And that Logan will get caught in the crossfire. He needs to learn new ways to defend himself, and cement his ties to my tribe. Magic is how he will accomplish both.
“I thought I was already an honourary Hound,” he says, opening his other eye. “I distinctly recall having my ass handed to me for the privilege.”
When he looks at me, I could swear he is touching me, even when he is not. Something in my expression must give me away for his smile is slow and wicked. “You know, it occurs to me that we’re wasting a perfectly good moment under the stars.”
He pushes himself up on his elbow. I rest my boot on his chest and push him back down, but I am smiling too. “Kissing me won’t save your life.”
His hand closes around my calf. “Shows what you know.”
“Be serious, Logan,” I say, mostly because I want to kiss him as much as he wants to kiss me. [http://www.alluringreads.com]
“What makes you think I wasn’t being serious?” He settles his head back down on the uncompromising ground. “But fine, show me how to go all Harry Potter on those undead asshats.”
“You’ve dreamwalked with me before,” I say.
“Accidentally,” he reminds me, closing his eyes again. I move my foot off his chest.
“You just have to let go,” I tell him again. “I’ve given you magic to do the rest.” There is a dog bone wrapped in copper wire at his head and another at his feet. I’ve scattered mint, cloves, peppercorns, and other herbs. The dog tooth amulet around his neck is the real tool though. It has been dipped in silver and accented with garnets and bells so that I can track him if anything goes wrong. I push my own magic at him showing him where he must let go.
I feel the exact moment when Logan relinquishes the fetters that bind his spirit to his body. It is an odd disorienting feeling at first, a cross between falling and flying.
He sits up slowly, though his body remains stretched out beside Charlemagne. The only reason I can see him is because I am trained in such things. He is leaking light around his edges, like paper catching fire. He will be exhausted when he returns to his body. It takes considerable practice not to squander one’s magical energy that way. And it takes concentration to force yourself away from the safety of your body. The spirit wants one of two things always: to return or to travel further than is wise.
But never let it be said that, as a Drake brother, Logan is anything but reckless and unique. He floats towards me, grinning that charming grin that is so very difficult to resist. I have never told him so. He would use it as ruthlessly as I use my sword.
Already he is at my side, his lips on the back of my neck. I only feel them lingering because I have felt them before when he is flesh. It tickles. He laughs softly.
“Oh go on,” I turn away with my own smile. “Kissing is not a weapon with which you require more practice.”
“But it’s so much more fun.” He winks and drifts away, dangling over the precipice of the mountain. His hands clench, betraying his nerves. It is a primal fear that burns in the veins when you first leave your body. He is doing well. I should not be surprised. He is often underestimated. He says it’s the lace cuffs he wears.
Lace cuffs or sharpened sword, neither will protect him from the Bloodsingers.
There are two of them, drifting toward him, glowing bright as moons. They have long since learned the trick of dreamwalking and they do not leak even a spark of light. They are vampire witches who work magic like my own tribe, only they use it for money and personal entertainment. They specialize in blood magic of course, and sell their spells to the highest bidder.
We do not get along.
They must have arrived recently since I have been down to the camp and I did not notice their magic. Now it is all I can smell, the stink of copper, mint, and blood to particular to their work. The bloodstones and garnets they wear flash and pulse with energy. They smile at Logan, fangs delicate and sharp. He does not smile back, but he does not move either.
He cannot.
Logan has no experience in this kind of fight; only enough to know that weapons are useless on a dreamwalk. They will drain his essence before he knows to be on his guard, and then he will be lost forever. I need to bring him back. It is simple enough, I only have to whisper his name three times in his ear.
A lot simpler when there aren’t more Bloodsingers floating down the side of the mountain, fangs flashing. Floating is a cheap parlour trick. But it hides a multitude of more dangerous charms. There is an older lady, a girl, and a boy who does not look old enough to shave.
“He is mine,” I say, sword in one hand, dog-tooth amulet in the other. Charlemagne growls.
“There is only one of you, dog,” the older lady taunts. “And if you stay out of our way like a good little girl, we might even let you keep what’s left of his spirit.”
I smile grimly, baring my set of double fangs. The fleu-de-lys tattoo on my neck and the Celtic dog on my upper arm flare briefly in warning. The boy blanches. “She’s a handmaiden,” he whispers.
“And he’s a Drake,” the girl snaps. “Do you have any idea how much his blood is worth?”
I have Charlemagne bite her first on principle. A flick of my fingers and he stands over Logan’s body, hackles raised and jaws snapping. Logan’s spirit is more vulnerable, and the two Bloodsinger girls are circling him now, like a sinister child’s game. Around and around they go, faster and faster, until he begin to blur at the edges. His essence is being stolen, that leaking light wavering like summer heat.
Magic snaps the air like a whip. It slaps at me, recoiling and returning with painful precision. My shields burn brightly, shooting off elf-darts of energy. The boy is the first to fall, bristling with darts and bleeding from several bites. I stab at the others with the dog-tooth amulet. It leaves a trail of sparks which they try to avoid.
Logan’s spirit has lost its phosphorescence entirely. He no longer glows but hangs grey and pale as a body on the gallows. Only his eyes are alive, flaring like green fire. I know what he was trying to tell me.
But I will not abandon him.
A lash of energy tightens around my wrist, a vitriolic acid-yellow that sears down to the bone. It sends lines of that same yellow along my veins. I throw a stake but a yank on the ropes hampers my aim. It misses the heart and slams into the lady’s shoulder, just under the collar bone. It’s not enough to stop her. The ropes leave welts of dark energy that only I can see. My fingers go numb, and the dog-tooth amulet clatters to the ground.
“Non,” I order Charlemagne, torn between protecting Logan as I commanded and myself. More ropes of light bind me until I am a fly in a spider’s web. The lady tugs and I fall to my knees, on fire with pain.
Finally, a bit of luck.
I sprawl forward as though I am too weak to stay upright. I turn my head, the rock digging into my cheek. “Logan,’ I whisper. “Logan.”
The spirit-girls screech when he twitches. The lady brings her dagger down on my head. I jerk out of the way and it scrapes the stone between us. Sparks flare. Behind his lids, his eyes are moving frantically.
“Logan!” I call his name one last time, flipping to my feet. There are still ropes of Bloodsinger magic lashed around my ankles, left wrist, and throat. But all of my weapons have been rubbed with salt and crushed bloodstones. They will cut through spirit as well as flesh.
Logan’s eyes open abruptly. He is too drained to fight properly but he is also more than just a weapon forged by circumstance and family history. He pulls the dog-tooth amulet from around his neck and slashes at the ropes tightening around me. He can’t see them now, but he would have seen them before he returned to his body. He remembers were they are. They sever slowly, throbbing with thorns and shards. I am bleeding energy.
But finally, finally, they fall away.
Freed, I abandon stakes for my sword. The Bloodsingers will expect stakes, will protect their hearts out of instinct. They expect a killing blow, especially from a savage Hound vampire with an extra set of fangs.
I am happy to oblige.
Only death wears many faces. Any vampire can tell you that.
I lunge, thrusting with my sword as though it is a slender epee in a fencing hall. I avoid the obvious targets. They are so busy protecting hearts and throats that they don’t notice what I am really aiming for. Their amulets shatter. Bloodstones crack, garnets spill like seeds across the stones.
With their talismans broken, they are just vampires. Their magic is not a natural thing and it cannot last without a container. They have never learned how to make their entire bodies a vessel for magic, as I have.
I toss the girl over the side of the mountain. The boy flees, still prickly with elf-darts, before I even glance in his direction. The lady is better with spells than swords. It only takes a single cut across her arm to break her. Her blood wells to the surface, a precious commodity that will have the other Bloodsingers turn on her if she does not bind it with special herbs. To do that, she has to run as far from them as possible. She is a blur of pale skin and broken bloodstones.
Logan is trying to prop himself up. “Behind you!”
The two spirit-girls press down on me, snarling.
I launch into a dreamwalk, even though I am still covered in magical wounds from the ropes. They are taken my surprise. It takes them the same kind of preparation as it took Logan to dreamwalk. My hands are full of glowing dog teeth. I whip them and they fly like angry hornets. Then I gather every last ounce of magical power inside me and fling it out of my body until I am a falling star, a comet, a moon bursting in the sky. Light shoots off me like arrows and daggers.
The spirit-girls fall back, seared blind. They dart away, clinging to each other. I do not know if they will make it back to their bodies. I do not care. I might not even make it back to mine. There is almost nothing left of me.
I have been here before.
Logan whispers my name three times.
I collapse back into my body, utterly drained. When I open my eyes, he is shielding me with his body, even though he barely had the strength to shift himself into position. He lips brush mine when he speaks.
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