It's 1897. Jonathan Harker has left behind a decorated British military career that took him around the world and ended in a secret that both he and the army are determined to hide. As a civilian in London, he has fallen in love with the delightful and sweet Mina Murray and into an unexpected new career as a wyer, sponsored by Mina's adoptive father, good-hearted solicitor Peter Hawkins. Jonathan has just passed the bar and is on the eve of his wedding to Mina. Then Jonathan's soon-to-be father-in-w's firm is abruptly brought to the brink of ruin by an act of betrayal. Jonathan must find a way to save the firm and Mina's family. His solution? To sign a wealthy foreign client: Count Vd Dracu. Jonathan departs in a race against time to travel to Transylvania and sign the man before the firm fails. He also needs to get back in time to stand at the altar with the woman he loves. But he has no idea of the supernatural world he's about to uncover, and the terrifying vampire he's about to unleash.

  Meanwhile, Mina's best friend, the gorgeous Lucy Westenra, finds herself the target of three incredible men pursuing her hand in marriage at the same time: the alpha bad boy with a heart of gold, the charming pyboy next door, and the gentle and intellectual professor. Tough-as-nails cowboy Quincey Morris is a roguish gunslinger, adventurer, and dies' man. One of Lucy's childhood friends, young Arthur Holmwood is the impossibly handsome son of a lord and part of one of the wealthiest and most influential families in Britain, making him one of Engnd's most eligible bachelors. Brilliant and highly progressive Bram Seward is a caring doctor of the body and mind, freshly minted head of a new mental hospital despite his retively young age.

  Dracu: Journey to Transylvania is the first arc in a slow-burn, historical supernatural epic that will feature more action, drama, monsters, and mayhem with each book in the series. Eight lives are woven together by friendship and love, fear and betrayal, as a great and ancient evil is awakened and sets its sights on conquering the greatest nation in the world. There are no sparkly vampires here, only cssic predators and other legendary monsters who are no longer satisfied with lurking in the shadows.

  Be the first to read, only on PATREON. The series is currently in development. 20+ chapters are up so far, with many more coming. The prologue is avaible for Silver patrons, the rest of the story for Gold patrons.

  ARWIN

  She took a deep breath, perhaps recalling memories. “This was my mentor’s castle. She was a magicist too, one of the pioneers in our field. I studied mage-style magic when I was young, in a school. But I went through…dark times. I lost my way, walked away from the community, from colboration, became a wild witch. I suppose this is the period where my negative reputation and the name Dark Enchantress became widespread, thanks to certain awful, jealous people. But she saw something in me, took me in, taught me much, allowing me to become her apprentice. We lived here together for many decades. We were…like family.”

  “So, she had the castle built?”

  Orchid shook her head. “No. That was my mentor’s mentor, Rose. Mine used to tell me tales of her. Wild Rose the Heartbreaker, as she was called ter on, was the original builder of the castle. She was the most feared female magic user of her time. She was fabulously powerful, surely far more than I am. She wasn’t a magicist but a primal witch, deeply and instinctively in tune with the use of magical energy. She thrived on raw power and emotion. She raised this castle from the very ground, stone by stone, all by herself. Well, the floors below and that tower.” She pointed to one of the three. “The south tower was built by my mentor when she took over the castle. And I built that one.” She pointed to the tower with her bedroom.

  “So, the castle is quite old.”

  “Yes. I’ve been here for, oh, a few hundred years. My mentor, Silvarina, lived here for several hundred more. She was an elf, well over a thousand years old when she was murdered.” The memory, though surely distant by now, caused Orchid some visible pain. “I don’t know exactly when Rose originally constructed this pce, but she was half-human, half-demon, and very long-lived. She lived here until the end of her life. I once asked Silvarina how old Rose had been, but she didn’t know. Rose herself apparently didn’t know. She’d been born in the wilderness and lived the life of a wild creature for hundreds, perhaps thousands of years, before becoming ‘civilized.’ History books say she was a major figure in the city of Onyxsia and the source of the Heartbreak, hence her moniker. That was before my mentor’s time, let alone mine.”

  “Heartbreak?”

  “An apocalyptic event that destroyed the Onyx Empire, which was the most powerful human empire of its day. It was a magical cataclysm that began the empire’s fall and created the Bleeding Rift, the huge, jagged scar that has torn eastern Heartstone in two. The Heartbreak is quite the legend.”

  Arwin leaned forward, curious. “What happened?”

  She took a moment to recall the tale and sipped her wine before speaking, “I suppose it’s a simple story, in a way. A boy met a girl one day, and they fell in love. He was a fabled padin, a hero of legend both famed and loved. But the girl, Rose, was, to many, darkness incarnate. She was intelligent and unpredictable, emotional and carefree, often violent and dangerous. She was half-demon, after all, and a wild creature who’d existed since before the Onyx empire had even been born. This made the public afraid. She herself was absolutely fearless, bowing to no power. This also made the great and powerful afraid, for she could not be controlled nor turned to their own ends. Her ends were always her own. When it was learned that the great padin had fallen in love with her, the empire’s champion, she was not popurly received. People of every css thought she’d bewitched him and sought to corrupt him. They rejected her. So she built this castle as a pce where the two could depart society and be alone and happy and raise a family. But they never had a chance to live here together. There was a conspiracy. She was poisoned.”

  “How tragic.”

  “The padin did not take her death well. His love had been deep and true. He became emotionally unstable. He found out who was behind the plot against Rose. People died. Then he took his own life.”

  “Oh no. That’s so sad.”

  “But it gets worse. Rose wasn’t mortal the way others are, though no one knew it at the time. She was reborn, like a phoenix rising from the ashes. When she found the man she loved dead, it broke something already fragile within her.” Orchid paused. “She destroyed the entire city of Onyxsia.”

  Arwin gaped. “She destroyed an entire city?”

  “Laid it to utter waste, including causing a single, massive explosion so powerful that it broke the very nd itself, deep below the surface. A crack split in the ground, reaching from the city all the way to the Eastern Mountains. Left a gaping chasm full of monsters and magma that we call the Bleeding Rift. Other cities in the empire were id half in ruins from the bst, despite their distance. Their capital city in shambles and leaders dead, chaos reigned, there were power struggles, and the Onyx Empire fell apart in months. There were magical wars and a spell pgue, famine and more. Now, but for a couple of towns and a single city that managed to hold out, there are only monster-infested ruins strewn across the Great Pins, and the people of the once-great empire have been reduced to the Onyx Tribes, a nomadic people with little technology and a fierce distrust of magic, outside of their own shamanic voodoo. Of course, they despise demons and witches even more than they used to.”

  Arwin leaned back, trying to absorb the story. “Wow. The Heartbreak.”

  “Named for both the padin’s great heartbreak and hers and because of how it affected Heartstone. If you look at a map of our continent, you’ll see it is shaped much like a heart. The Bleeding Rift is a terrible wound in its side as if a heart has been broken.”

  “Poor couple. The pain they must have felt, losing the one they loved most.” He could rete. Hadn’t gone on a killing spree over it, though.

  She agreed with quiet bitterness, “Yes.”

  “You’ve lost someone?”

  “I have.” She ran a finger around the edge of her gss, eyes looking into the wine but seeing something or someone else. “A couple of people. Given how many centuries I’ve been around, it should probably be a lot more due to old age, if nothing else. Maybe I should be thankful I haven’t lost more.”

  “Why haven’t you?”

  “I haven’t been loved very often.” She sounded hopeless at the prospect. “There haven’t been very many people to lose.”

  “Really? That seems improbable.”

  “Does it? How long have you been in Heartstone?”

  “Uh, days?”

  “And had you heard of me before coming here?”

  “Yes…”

  “And what did you hear?”

  “Not the most fttering things.”

  “Not exactly the kind of thing that brings a woman hordes of viable suitors, is it?” A sadness had come over her. Talking about her own loneliness was only making it worse.

  The sight of her being sad felt utterly wrong to Arwin. He tried to cheer her up. “Still, you don’t have to sit around waiting for others to come to you. Have you ever gone looking for love yourself?”

  “I’ve tried. It didn’t go well.” She didn’t seem inclined to eborate.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Whatever.” She sank deeper in her seat and took a long draught of wine.

  He couldn’t help himself; he felt drawn to her vulnerability. He experienced an innate protectiveness that urged him to reach out and comfort her, to hold her and make everything better. “Don’t give up. Maybe…maybe love will come when you least expect it.”

  She slumped, visibly upset. “Will it? Or will I just end up with my heart broken again?” She put down her wine and pushed off the couch, moving away towards the railing.

  Arwin put down his own wine and rose, going after her. They stood at the railing and looked out over the swamp. He decided to open up. “I was in love with someone until recently. Well, I probably still am. She cheated, left me for someone else because he had more money. Broke my heart.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  “I get the bitterness. The depression. I’ve been there too. It is so tempting, sometimes, to give up on other people. Just hate everyone for what one person did to us. Not believe love is possible anymore.”

  “Yes. It’s very easy to do.”

  “I don’t think that’s who I want to be though. I don’t want to give up on love. On finding someone worth loving.”

  “Mmm.” It was a vague response, neither agreeing nor disagreeing. But after a long stretch of silence, she sighed. “I suppose that would be nice. But trusting people is hard.”

  Their shoulders lightly touching, body warmth melding into each other, the moons above, the wine in their blood, the growing intimacy. Arwin became fully aware of this moment in time and the critical decision before him. Did he make a move on her right now, or not? In a situation like this, it would really mean something serious. It would signal a strong desire, even a commitment, to something more.

  This weighed heavily on him. Was he in the right mindset to be doing this, or was he on the rebound and making irrational decisions? Or did it even matter?

  Should he really be trying to develop a romantic retionship with anyone right now before fully recovering, especially this woman, who he wasn’t sure he could trust?

  This point in a potential retionship had always been nerve-wracking for him. What if he was choosing the wrong person? What if things went wrong? This was especially true when dealing with a person who could vaporize you with a flick of their fingers. More importantly, he hated the idea of hurting someone else. What if he ter decided this wasn’t the right match, but they wanted to continue? It would be best if two people could take their time in really getting to know each other, become friends first, then ease into romance once both felt it was a really good match.

  But life didn’t work that way most of the time. You didn’t have logic and time to ease into anything. You had chemistry and moments like this on which so much hinged, in which at least one person was waiting for the other to commit. Taking things slow might be considered weakness or rejection, so it felt like a poorer choice.

  He felt something for Orchid. There was a connection there. Part of him strongly wanted to give in and go for it with her, right now, despite his wariness. It would be a huge gamble.

  She gnced over at her.

  Orchid resolutely wasn’t looking at him, just staring out into the night. She was attractive, smart, and strong in spirit.

  He couldn’t let the situation just pass by. He wanted her. He slid an arm around her lower waist, forcing his body to remain rexed but tense inside lest she not want this.

  She didn’t react, didn’t encourage anything, but certainly didn’t stop him either.

  He turned his body to her and pulled her to him.

  At st, she turned away from the view and looked at him, meeting his eyes. She allowed her body to be pulled in close, to be pressed up against him. When he leaned in for a kiss, her eyes closed, and her lips willingly met his.