Forgotten Heir: Realm Doors Book One

Chapter One

Part One: Awakening

A/N: This is a story I began over a decade ago, before I discovered wattpad. It's older even than Absolution, and in fact, you may see where parts of both the Alliance series and the Cohort series came from, in this. It needs a bit of editing before I upload each chapter, but I thought I'd see what you make ofsome much earlier writing.

The needle found its mark easily enough, sliding into her vein with only the slightest resistance. Blood flowed through the syringe, sloshing down the tube and into the waiting vial as she perched on the seat of the public toilet, obscured from view by thin, blue, melamine walls. Cara listened to the women at the wash basins as she waited for the vial to fill, vaguely amused that they could find the tedium of work and the search for the perfect man to be so important. They had jobs, homes, security, why couldn’t they just be happy with their lot? They weren’t hiding in a public toilet, drawing out blood to sell to desperate vampires, just so they could afford to eat tomorrow. They weren’t going to spend Christmas Eve asleep on the streets, cowering in some alley, behind a Sita bin or in a shadowy doorway.
They weren’t her.

She capped the vial and tugged the needle from her arm, not bothering to put pressure on the injury or stick a plaster over the seeping wound. Her supernatural ability to heal would quickly see to fixing the tiny hole in her flesh. Being of the elahdril had some benefits, even if Cara utilised very few of them. The value of her blood for example, that had increased exponentially over the last five years as the vampires had grown more desperate. As more and more of them strove to escape the brutal reality looming in front of them, even if their escape was through hallucination and addiction. She benefitted from their suffering even though she knew that when they finally succumbed to the wolves, when they surrendered to their fate, she’d lose that lifeline.

Thrusting her syringes and the precious vial back into her worn, leather satchel, she finally tugged herself to her feet. She retrieved her old, holed, woollen coat from the hook on the back of the cubicle door and wrapped it round her thin shoulders, resenting that she’d lost so many of the buttons that the stained wrap now had to be fastened closed with a mismatched belt. She’d have to raid the bags left outside charity shops again soon; she was in dire need of clothes. It was going to be a cold night huddled in the frost and snow with only her ragged overcoat, worn jeans, and threadbare t-shirt to protect her.

Maybe after she made the trade she could use her earnings to find a hotel room for the night rather than sleeping outside? But no, that notion was a foolish hope. She’d never manage a full night in a hotel.

Many times hotel receptionists took one look at her and called security. Those that allowed her a room often lived to regret it, and she was usually forcibly removed from any hospitality premises very quickly. It wasn’t her fault that she screamed in her sleep, that nightmares plagued her. It wasn’t her fault that her memories were grim enough to ensure a slew of horrific visions whenever she closed her eyes for longer than a blink. However, other guests didn’t like it when her screams kept them from sleep. And hotel managers didn’t like it when one guest caused a flood of complaints. It was easier to sleep on the streets than to pay for warmth and simply lie waiting to be tossed out into the cold.

Although it was also more dangerous, being outside.

Cara rested her forehead against the cool surface of the cubicle door, taking a deep breath for fortification and trying to push her fears away. Panic dug its icy claws into her chest as if it could tear her heart from her chest cavity, just as the werewolf had done to her father all those years ago. For a few moments she struggled, caught between hallucination and panic attack, and the grim resolve that had kept her alive all these years.