Twisted Fate (Unlikely Mate #1)

Prologue

Claremore Monastery

Abloodcurdling scream tore through the sulphur infused air, loud enough to slice through the chaos of battle. Alexander swung his sword with all his might, the blade cleaving through the demon before him. He snarled in its twisted face as the creature staggered and slowly collapsed to the ground.

He watched in disgust as thick, dark blood spilled across the cracked ground. It began to smoke where the blood touched it, hissing faintly before the soil seemed to swallow the blood whole, drinking it down until nothing remained but scorched dirt.

He shouldn’t have been disgusted.

He lived on blood too.

But this place—the hellish plains stretched beneath a red sky, within the veil yawning open between the underworld and the living world—was something far worse. It made even him, a creature who survived on the lifeblood of others, feel almost tame in comparison.

“They keep coming!” Drago shouted over the deafening clash of battle.

The air rang with the sound of swords striking bone, demons roaring, and supernatural beings screaming as the fighting grew more desperate. The demons kept coming, driven by a single relentless purpose to escape hell and invade the world of the living.

They were going to lose this fucking war.

Alexander’s gaze swept over the battlefield. Fallen vampires littered the scorched ground, their pale bodies scattered among the twisted remains of demons. Too many of them.

They were done for.

His eyes lifted to the veil—a colorless sheet suspended between worlds. It throbbed faintly, its edges shimmering with unstable magic.

Were the witches and fairies managing to close it?

He had no way of knowing.

The moment the war had begun, all who had gathered for the fight had crossed through the opening, choosing to fight in the underworld rather than risk the battle spilling onto earth. Everything the demons touched rotted. If they were allowed into the living world, destruction would follow.

Every supernatural race had come to fight for their survival.

Alexander had come for the same reason.

But there was another reason too.

It had been foretold that somewhere in this war, amidst the blood and chaos, he would find his bride.

He didn’t know how.

But Alexander had lived long enough to trust fate, even when it sounded absurd.

His gaze moved across the battlefield again. Vampires from every corner of the world fought in the carnage. Among them he spotted several female vampires moving through the chaos with deadly precision.

Alexander frowned slightly.

How exactly was he supposed to find his bride here?

It was madness.

There was no way he would…

“Look out!” Drago shouted.

Alexander barely had time to lift his head before a massive claw came swinging toward his face.

It struck him with brutal force. The demon’s talons ripped across his chest, tearing through skin and flesh.

Alexander snarled as blinding pain exploded through his body.

His grip loosened on his sword. It slipped from his fingers and clattered uselessly against the scorched ground as his arm went numb.

Rage surged through him.

Alexander turned on the demon, its red leathery skin glistening under the sickly yellow light of hell. Without thinking, he lunged forward and bit it. Viciously.

His fangs sank deep into the demon’s flesh. The creature shrieked.

“Noooo!” Drago screamed somewhere nearby, his voice sounding strangely distant. Alexander barely heard him.

Something moved across his chest from the deep gashes the demon’s claws had left behind. A scorching sensation began to crawl upward. It slithered across his skin like molten fire, creeping slowly toward his throat, then higher…toward his face.

“What the…?” Alexander rasped.

He lifted a hand to his cheek, touching his skin and immediately hissed in pain. The burn felt like it was sinking into him, as if something poisonous had been injected straight into his blood.

Then the sensation reached his head.

A strange, horrifying pressure exploded behind his eyes.

It felt like ants swarming through his mind—thousands of them crawling through his thoughts, feeding on his brains.

“Alexander… Alexander…hey, are you okay?” Drago’s voice came again, much closer now.

But Alexander didn’t answer. Instead, a snarl tore from his throat.

Pure rage flooded his veins, drowning out reason. He turned on his brother with feral fury, striking at him without hesitation.

“What the fuck are you doing?!” Drago shouted, barely dodging the attack.

“The witches are closing the veil!” someone shouted over the chaos. “Everyone, get out!”

Supernatural beings began rushing toward the glowing tear between the two worlds. But Alexander didn’t move toward it.

He spun wildly, slashing at anything that came near him. The battlefield blurred around him as the world tilted violently.

The air of the underworld choked his lungs, thick with sulphur and smoke.

And the rage…

It flooded every corner of his mind until it was the only thing he could feel.

He wanted to destroy everything. Kill them all. Even his brother.

“Calm down, Alex,” Drago grunted, struggling to hold him back.

Alexander swung wildly, his fist connecting with Drago’s face with a sickening crack.

“We don’t have time for this,” Drago growled, stumbling but refusing to let go of him. “We have to go!”

“Come on, everyone!” someone shouted across the battlefield.

Drago hooked an arm around Alexander’s shoulders, half dragging him. A white-haired fairy darted in beside them and helped pull Alexander forward.

But the opening in the veil was already shrinking.

“Fuck,” Drago panted, breath ragged. “We’re not going to make it.”

For the first time, there was fear in Drago's voice. Somewhere inside the storm raging in his mind, Alexander clawed his way back to himself. The madness receded just enough for him to understand what was happening.

The rift was closing. Drago was still inside the underworld.

“No,” Alexander rasped.

With the last shred of strength he had, he shoved at Drago, trying to force him toward the slowly narrowing opening.

But Drago shoved back, harder. Before Alexander could react, the ground beneath him lurched. The veil swallowed and spat him out the other side.

He slammed into the ground, air rushing from his lungs as the impact rattled through his bones. For a moment the sky spun above him, his ears ringing.

Then he was on his feet.

“Drago!” he shouted, lunging toward the veil.

But arms wrapped around him from behind, locking tight around his chest and dragging him back.

“Let me go!” he snarled, thrashing violently.

Alexander lashed out blindly, the madness surging back into his veins like poison. He felt it swallow his thoughts again, burning away reason as the image of his brother trapped in hell flashed through his mind.

He’d left him there. Left him to die.

The realization broke something deep inside his mind. The last fragile thread of control dissolved into rage.

After that… he didn’t know what happened.

***

The coffin sat in the center of the cellar, its iron surface gleaming dully beneath the flickering torchlight.

Shadows slithered over the metal like living things.

Father Claremore trembled where he stood, clutching a wooden crucifix so tightly between his fingers that his knuckles had turned white.

Boaz hauled the last of the chains into place, looping them around the metal coffin with grim determination. The scrape and clatter of iron grinding against iron echoed through the cavernous chamber, each sound a reminder of the nightmare they had barely survived.

Father Claremore’s gaze darted nervously to the small trapdoor built into the lid of the coffin, the narrow opening through which they could still see the vampire inside.

A cold shudder crept up his spine.

If only they had found a coffin that would plunge the creature into complete, merciless darkness.

It deserved nothing less. But the blacksmith had only this one.

A grotesque iron display coffin once used to show the strange preserved bodies the church shipped in from distant lands—lands they had no business disturbing in the first place.

Raising curses from the dead to the living. That was what they had done.

No wonder the world had almost ended.

Father Claremore crossed himself quickly, his lips moving in a silent prayer.

“That should do it,” Boaz muttered at last, stepping back. His massive shoulders rose and fell with exhaustion.

The fight had drained them all. But it wasn’t the battle with the demons that had nearly broken them.

No. It was the fight with the vampire… the moment he had suddenly gone mad, turning on everyone around him like a wild beast, forcing them to battle the very being they had just fought beside.

Father Claremore couldn’t remember how many souls he had ushered into the afterlife before the vampire finally fell.

Too many.

The demons pouring from the veil had been terrifying… but nothing like the vampire. The vampire’s red eyes were burned into his memory. And the blood. God help him, the blood dripping from its white fangs. A sight he knew would follow him for the rest of his life.

“Do you think that’s going to hold him?” Manlius asked quietly.

He stepped closer to the coffin, his long white robes whispering against the stone floor as they rippled around his tall frame.

The veil that had torn open in Claremore had brought creatures into their quiet valley that Father Claremore had never imagined truly walked the earth. Beings he had once believed belonged only in old tales now stood in his church cellar.

Manlius, the sorcerer whose presence hummed faintly with power. In the flickering torchlight he looked almost regal and otherworldly. Boaz, a hulking werewolf with the scent of wildflowers and soil clinging to him

And they were not the only ones.

Outside, beyond the stone walls, others waited in the night, waiting to hear what would be done with the vampire.