I don't own The Night World or seek to profit from the ideas or characters that belong to another. The Night World belongs to the wonderful L. J Smith. I thank her for creating such a wonderful series that I can borrow for the use of my characters.
The characters in this story are fictional and any similarities to living people are accidental. As this story contains sex between males, you need to be of legal age to be reading this story and if you don't want to be reading about sex between young men you might want to stop now. Feedback is very welcome, as is anyone who is keen to pre-read or edit for me. I hope you all enjoy!
Chapter 1
The Night World isn't a place; it exists all around us and you. We are a secret society of vampires, werewolves, witches, and other creatures of darkness that live among you. We're beautiful, deadly and irresistible to humans. Your teacher, your parent, or best friend or even your boyfriend could be one of us, you just don't know it, and if you did you'd be dead.
1998
My name is Liev, I am a shapeshifter and I was born this way. My full name and the black foxglove tattoos on my wrists tell other Night Worlders what I am. I am Scottish and French respectively, both my parents and older sister are also shapeshifters. Our clan name is very powerful in this part of the world and in the shapeshifter aristocracy we are ranked third in Europe.
I stalk the world as a lynx and like all Night Worlders I am a predator. I am the 6 foot, leanly muscled eighteen year old with the cold, hard green eyes, sensual angular face and glossy short tawny blonde hair. I have a dimple in my left cheek and a well shaped mouth that usually wears a small smile that subtly mocks or invites you. I move with a certain feline, predatory stealth and grace, you'll never hear me come up behind you as a lynx or human unless I want you to.
Its okay for me to toy with you, kill you, fuck you and break your heart, its okay by Night World laws for me to do pretty much anything I damn well like as long as I never allow you to find out the Night World exists or fall in love with you.
I am a kind of bodyguard; I work under Zach, one of the oldest made vampires in the Night World and am part of a team of four other Night Worlders. Our organisation is part of Circle Daybreak; we are an even more secret group of Night World members and humans who try to be a barrier between the rest of the Night World and the human world. We try to prevent too many bad things happening and we fight against the Night World by protecting prominent Circle Daybreak members.
At the moment both sides are on the hunt for the Wild Powers. We have a prophecy made by a powerful witch called the Maiden. She foretold that four special people born seventeen years ago will fight with blue fire in the coming millennium battle and they are to decide the fates of all of us. If even one of the four Wild Powers joins the Nightworld we are all lost, so it is a race to find them and pick your side.
So far two of the four Wild Powers, a half-breed girl and a lamia boy have been found and both are on our side. But there are two still out there that the Nightworld and Circle Daybreak are desperately trying to find. I am what you would call a good guy in the Night World, or as close as we get to being good guys and I don't mind you vermin. As Daybreakers we believe it is time that the world started to become aware that we and the rest of the Night World is here, has always been here and wants to stay here.
It was 3.30am in the middle of an ambush on a rainy, cold Thursday in Scotland when I discovered my soulmate. The soulmate curse keeps popping up among us Night Worlders like a fast striking plague as we drop like flies to the discovery of our other halves. Like many of us I was unprepared and I admit shocked to discover not only did I have a soulmate, but that he would be the last person in the United Kingdom who I would have thought of to be my other half. But it could have been worse; at least my soulmate is another guy, as I'm gay, a female soulmate would be no good to me. But I'll begin 4 months after I discovered my other half on that autumn night in Scotland and let you into what life can be like for us.
I was tired, wet, cold and sore as I walked in the door of our headquarters with my cell phone vibrating impatiently with yet another call in the front pocket of my jacket, a large, ordinary looking two story town house in an Edinburgh suburb. I headed through the open plan lounge and dining room to the stairs and began climbing up to the second floor aiming for my room, which was off the sitting room our team of four shared.
"So nice to see you after you disappeared on us Liev." Drawled the smooth, silky voice of my best friend and leader of my team from behind me, he must have come from downstairs.
I grimaced as I paused in the hallway to turn and glare up at the tall dark haired lamia, or born vampire to you, as he came up the stairs behind me waving his own cell phone at me. At 6'4 he is taller than me and has the build of a boxer, being that is his favourite sport and an exercise he uses to stay bulked up and fit.
"Jesus, what are you, my mother?" I replied wearily as I headed passed the sitting room our team shared on my way to my goal, my bed.
"You disappeared for two days and I saw you take that hit, I couldn't reach or find you." Damian retorted following after me as I unlocked my door, pushed it open and sat on the bed.
I checked my the glowing screen of my cell phone and see three miscalls, two from Damien and one from my soulmate.
I sighed as I ran my fingers through my short hair and met his tired dark blue eyes. All vampires had telepathy to some degree, but Damien's was particularly strong, so strong in fact he could use it as an effective weapon and there wasn't much that escaped him. His dark, exotically handsome face was a perfect blend of Spanish and English with his clean, sharp bone structure, large hooded eyes and thin well shaped mouth and at the moment it was just as tired as his eyes. He really did worry like my mother sometimes!
I grimaced again and shifted on the bed, rolling my shoulders to relieve the strain and soreness I could feel from my healing injuries. Injuries obtained on Thursday night's job, which had been a routine exercise that had involved escorting a pair of high profile Daybreakers to a new safe house for a meeting. But we had been ambushed on arrival, the fairly routine, easy job turning to shit. Damian stayed to protect them, as the rest of us split up to lead the attackers away.
"If you promise not to laugh your ass off I'll tell you." I reluctantly said when the silence stretched between us all but vibrating with Damian's curiosity and worry.
He raised a dark eyebrow for me to continue as he sat on my desk and folded his arms across his well muscled chest a move that caused his black hair to fall forward to shield his face. The movement also caused the stylised black rose design on his bicep to peek out the sleeve of his t-shirt. Like the foxglove was a symbol for a shifter, the black rose was a symbol for a vampire, as was a black dahlia for a witch.
"I spent the time stuck in a tree, okay, stuck as a kitty cat." I finally said, which was the truth, I had spent a cold, miserably rainy day and night stuck up that tree.
I am a big cat, I don't like water and I'm not a leopard so climbing trees isn't that easy, I'd had to shift back to human and climb it naked, then change back to lynx to protect myself, all with injuries to my left shoulder and back.
"But why didn't you just give them the run around and come home?" Damian wanted to know, downstairs we heard the door open and slam shut as somebody else came home. There were three other teams, besides our foursome working for Zach, so there were a few of us coming and going.
"Couldn't after I led Lily Redfern's crew on my merry fox hunt, I let them chase me into that forest, I was pinned there. Couldn't get out of that tree till they got bored and lost interest, bloody 'wolves and vamps most of them! I was weak and dazed, had to wait for my back and shoulder to heal a bit, they hit me with silver. They couldn't quite locate exactly where I was thanks to Tien's spell, it served to hide my scent, so I just sat tight. " I explained mentioning the third member of our team.
Damien whistled through his teeth long and slow, no hit of fang showing as a smile twitching at lips. He absently brushed his hair off his face; it was just long enough that it brushed his collar. "Sounds like a shitty couple of days; you haven't passed Chay have you? He's been gone too, not that that's unusual for the bastard!"
A typical leader Damian always wanted to know what was happening and where everyone was at all times, like I said, he's the worrier in our team.
Chay the final, newest member of our team sauntered passed my doorway, tall and leanly muscled he brought in the scents of fresh cool air, wood smoke, rain, feathers and a warm musk that was his own.
His tight dark jeans, tight black t-shirt and black boots did not hide anything, especially wet and that along with the predatory stalk he had betrayed him for something not human. It was a typical crisp, rainy winter Scottish evening and he wore no jacket, he wasn't even shivering. His shoulder length white blonde hair was damp and tied up; keeping the silky stuff away from his high cheekbones. What could almost be a fine boned classically handsome face with perfect full pink lips was flushed with the cold, but was ruined by the cold, proud cast to his features and brooding anger. Icy, hard penetrating dark eyes regarded us and a smirk appeared as he noticed and acknowledged us on his way to his own room.
Chayton or Chay as he preferred was half Finnish and a gyrfalcon shifter Zach appointed to our team to replace Mikasi, our coyote shifter. She had left us a month ago to follow her soulmate into hiding. Her soulmate had been a prominent lamia lord, and it was forbidden naturally for our two battling sides to form relationships.
"Good to see you came down out of the sky to bless us with your presence." Damian called out to him sarcastically, worry a thing of the past, Damien lived to bait and ruffle him.
I glanced between them as they sneered at each other before Chay slammed his bedroom door shut.
"Wanker!" Damian muttered loud enough that Chay would still hear him. "If he wasn't such a useful bastard in the sky and on the ground, I'd pluck and spit roast him. How I miss Mikasi, next time I see her, I'm going to offer to singe her tail for leaving with that soulmate of hers."
I smirked at Damian. "I wouldn't worry Damian just be glad you've already got a soulmate or you might have ended up with him yourself."
Damian snorted and smirked back.
"Gotta be grateful for small favours it's already enough of a challenge being soulmated to the only male witch in Scotland. Besides we already know who got stuck with him." He admitted wryly.
"Where is Tien anyway?" I asked curiously male witches were very rare and his clan was one of the most powerful witch clans in the Night World.
