And so it begins.... PROLOGUE I NEVER WANTED TO BE A VAMPIRE. By that, I mean I didn’t wake up one morning and think how cool it would be to be a vampire, nor did I ever daydream about becoming one of the undead. It never crossed my mind. In fact, when it occurred, I tried my best to prevent it, but that is a tale I will get to presently. Make no mistake, I’m thrilled that it happened, and I would never undo it even if given the chance. I love my vampire existence. It’s not perfect—not yet, anyhow, but it’s better than anything else I can imagine. It is especially preferable to being dead, buried and forgotten. My name is Stefan de Kula, second son of Count Ramon de Kula. I am now more than three hundred years old. I am the last of the de Kula line, and have been for more than two centuries. I do not miss my family at all. I have a new father now—Ricard, the vampire who turned me—and a new family, my coven, here in central Connecticut. How did the second son of an Italian count end up as a vampire in New England? That, my friends, is a long and interesting tale. CHAPTER 1 MY CHILDHOOD WAS PRETTY STANDARD for the second son of a mid-level noble. During my early years, I was close to my older brother Antonio, two years my senior. We played together, took our lessons together, and practiced sword fighting and archery together. Though I was the younger, I was the more physically gifted, and by the time I was six I could hold my own against him with the sword and outshoot him with the bow. Soon after that, things began to change. Our tutors began teaching us separately, and we spent much less time together. As the heir to our father’s title, Antonio received many hours of lessons in politics, history, manners and related subjects. Since those things would be mostly wasted on a boy who would not inherit a title, I received far less tutoring on those topics—just enough to give me a foundation so that I would be able to catch up should something untoward befall my brother. Instead, my lessons concentrated on fencing, archery, hunting and other such practical subjects. All this was just fine with me. I enjoyed the physical pursuits far more than the academic ones. My favorite teacher was Donatello, a grizzled tracker and hunter who took me under my wing on extended trips from the castle where he taught me everything he knew about the forests and hills that made up much of the land belonging to my father. The difference in lessons was not the only thing that changed between my brother and I. Antonio began to grow aloof and then condescending to me, exerting my supposed superiority over me in any way he could. We stopped practicing weapon play together because I had become so much more proficient than him and he could not bear to be bested by my younger brother. Our stations meant that I had to obey my every command, no matter how foolish or demeaning it might be. The older Antonio became, the more petty and demanding he became toward me when neither our father nor our mother was around. More and more I avoided him, and came to cherish my trips into the wild with Donatello and the other hunters. In my early teens, I must confess to frequent fantasies of setting up an “accident” for my brother, but my moral fiber would not permit such a horrific act as fratricide, no matter how much it might benefit our land. In some fiefdoms, such a thing was not unheard of, but I could never do it. Even my father knew I would be a far better successor to him than Antonio, but Father was as bound by the laws and customs of our land as I was. So I stoically suffered my fate, until one fateful day, everything changed.
Posted on: Wed, 18 Sep 2013 00:39:09 +0000