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Strayblood (Draev Guardians #2), page 1
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Draev Guardians
(book two)
by E.E. Rawls
Table of Contents
Title Page
Titles by E.E. Rawls
Get the free prequel bonus stories to STRAYBORN:
Prologue
Oracle
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
The White Ghost
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Bonus Story: Nephryte | Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Extra Bites: | Laundry Problems
The Legendary Weapons
An Old Friend in the Past
Music Class
Get the free prequel bonus stories to STRAYBORN:
Dragons & Ravens
Straypath
How You Can Help
OTHER BOOKS
Keep in Touch With Me
SNEAK PREVIEW:
1
Portal to Eartha
Madness Solver in Wonderland
Beast of the Night
About the Author
Titles by E.E. Rawls
Earthaverse:
Draev Guardians series
Strayborn (1)
Storm & Choice (0.5)
Dragons & Ravens (1.5)
Strayblood (2)
Alteredverse:
Portal to Eartha
Beast of the Night
Madness Solver in Wonderland
COMING SOON:
Frost
Straypath (3)
Find out when the next book is coming by following Rawls’s newsletter:
eerawls.com/newsletter
www.eerawls.com
Get the free prequel bonus stories to STRAYBORN:
STORM & CHOICE
STRAYBLOOD Copyright © by E.E. Rawls 2021
All Rights Reserved
Associated logos and art are trademarks of author E.E. Rawls. Draev Guardians and all related characters and elements are trademarks of author E.E. Rawls.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
This book or any portion thereof
may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever
without the express written permission of the author,
except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Cover art by C. Nadia
Printed in the U.S.A.
First printing in December 2021
ISBN: 978-0-9985569-9-4 paperback
ISBN: 979-8-9852392-0-1 hardback
https://eerawls.com/
To those who stand true,
even in the face of monsters.
Prologue
It was a dark fortress made of sharp edges and foreboding gloom, seated upon a rock island at the center of a deep, hollow crater. Its black towers rose like daggers toward the storm clouds overhead.
Ellefsen stood at the crater’s edge, examining the steep drop and the distance across to the island and its ominous structure. He brushed back his white bangs.
“The Morbid Dungeons,” he mused. “A terrifying prison, said to be impossible to break out of, or even break into.” He chuckled to himself. “It almost hurts my heart to have to ruin such a magnificent reputation.”
He let the final piece of a log drop to the ground beside his boots. A row of more than eighty log pieces now stretched out to either side along the crater, brought there by his power.
“Yes, that should be enough.” He clapped his hands together. “All right! Now for the fun part to begin...”
He squinted at the sharply tipped towers. He could just make out one of the lookout guards on a balcony. It was a nice spot situated away from the main gate and drawbridge, and less likely to draw someone’s attention.
Ellefsen smirked and raised his hand. “Switcheroo,” he commanded, and turned his palm inward.
...
The guard thought he saw movement over on the crater edge, and he squinted to better see. Not that it mattered much. If it was an intruder attempting to fly across the gap, the weapons installed in the towers would shoot them down.
He was about to comment to the guard beside him about it, when the stone surfaces and tower around him suddenly vanished, and he found himself standing on bleak grass on the other side of the crater.
He stared about his new surroundings and cried out in shock.
...
Ellefsen reappeared at the very spot where the guard had been on the balcony, and he turned to the second guard there, who gaped at him, eyes wide. “Burrr, it’s quite drafty up here, isn’t it?” Ellefsen commented.
Before the guard could shout an alarm, Ellefsen moved the rifle-axe in the guard’s hand with his power so that it swung up, striking the vempar in the head and knocking him out.
Ellefsen hurried off the balcony to the stairs, a skip in his step, and entered the tower while the guard collapsed to the floor.
The stairs ended at an indoor balcony ledge, and he paused to peer over the rails, observing the huge, hollowed-out center of the tower—a massive space of sculpted stonework and dim shafts of light, throughout which hung metal cages, rows upon rows of them, all the way down to the distant floor below.
Ellefsen hopped onto the rail, hands in his pockets, and stepped off.
He levitated down, taking his time, and peered into the cages that he passed by. Some convicts stared at him in open shock, not only because he was floating but because someone had successfully infiltrated the Morbid Dungeons. Others grinned with a malicious eagerness.
“This one, yes. That one, no. But definitely this one.” He tapped the cage locks of the criminals he chose, and their barred doors swung open. Heads, both grisly and conniving, poked out from the openings. But it was still a steep drop to the gray floor far below.
Ellefsen grabbed each of them with his mind and lifted them out of their cages and up towards the tower ceiling. Several yelped and cried out in fear, finding themselves floating through the air with nothing to stop their fall should they suddenly drop. “Quiet,” Ellefsen rebuked them. “Don’t be such wimps.”
A guard patrolling below heard the noise and looked up.
“See what you’ve done?” Ellefsen grimaced at the criminals. He splayed his palm toward the guard below.
The guard bolted through a doorway and escaped just before his power could reach him.
Ellefsen made an irritated sound in his throat and continued carrying the large criminal group up to the highest balcony. There, he shoved them through the door and outside onto one of the tower’s wide balconies.
An alarm bell began sounding from somewhere beneath them, followed by more bells in the adjacent black towers. Guards outside shouted, and some pointed at them once they spotted his group.
Soon the large guns would be aimed their way.
“My, my, things just can’t ever be easy, can they?” Ellefsen huffed. He turned, facing the distant logs he had set up on the other side of the crater. Then, facing each of the criminals, he motioned with his hand and said, “Switcheroo.”
One by one, the convicts vanished, as if into thin air—then they reappeared down at the crater’s edge, where the logs had been, while the logs appeared in their place up on the balcony beside him.
A loud gun shot sounded, and Ellefsen watched as a heavy bullet came speeding through the air towards him. He flashed a smirk before he, too, vanished—just before the shot reached where his forehead had been.
“Toodles!” He waved at the towers from the crater edge.
The drawbridge lowered and guards spilled out, but Ellefsen and his new group of lackeys were already gone.
Oracle
(Part 1)
Chapter 1
Cyrus tried to shake off the image swimming through her head: of the human girl dying in the cemetery that dawn, her hair as red as her own. But the girl’s body had disappeared; and though Cyrus had run to tell Master Nephryte about it, in the end, she hadn’t been able to bring herself to say anything.
A dying human rambling about some secret group called the Impure Nights, claiming they were hunting for red-haired girls in a vempar city? How could any of that make sense?
No, Cyrus must have been so tired from the past few days that she’d started hallucinating or half-dreaming or something. That would also explain why there was no trace of the girl left, even when Cyrus went back to check.
Either way, she now shoved the incident out of her head and put the Draevensett coat-of-arms on her olive-green shirt back and headed out of her room. She rubbed her forehead, which suddenly ach
The air in Harlow’s dorm floor felt hot today...or was it just her?
Achoo!
She rubbed her nose.
“What was that? Did you sneeze?” Aken appeared behind her.
Cyrus jumped in her shoes. “Can you not sneak up on me all the time?” she reprimanded him.
Aken cocked his head, not understanding, since any other vempar would have heard his light footsteps.
He wore a V-neck blue shirt, the lace strings loose down his chest. The color brought out his sky-blue eyes and sun-blond hair. He peered at her closely, and she leaned away.
“What?”
“You look like you’re burning up. Are you okay?” He pressed his hand to her forehead.
She blushed and pushed away. “Of course I...ah-choo!”
Aken flinched. “Why are you sneezing? There’s no dust around.”
Cyrus fanned a hand to cool her face. None of Harlow knew about her being a girl. Only Master Nephryte, Doctor Zushil and Gandif knew the truth—as far as she was aware—and a warning voice in her head told her to keep it that way. It was a real pain. But if the warning was from Lord God, then she would listen.
Just then, Bakoa came trotting past them. “Wow, Cy, you look terrible! Your nose is all red and puffy and dripping.” He paused and gasped in horror. “Wait a minute, Cy’s got a cold! It’s that weird illness that non-vempars get, and it makes them all sweaty and red before they die.”
“Die?!” Aken exclaimed.
Cyrus tried to box Bakoa’s pointy ears. “That’s not how it works.”
Aken grabbed her shoulder. “We’ve gotta get you to the doc, now! Why didn’t you say something sooner? I can’t let you die!”
Cyrus tried to pry his hand off. “I told you, that’s not—achoo!”
Aken and Bakoa both shouted in alarm and started shoving her towards the stairwell doorway, ignoring her angry protests.
Master Nephryte emerged from his dorm flat just then and, without bothering to ask, he grabbed both boys by their shirt collars, freeing Cyrus. “What on eartha are you panicking for? Because I am sure it has nothing to do with you about to be late for class.”
“Cyrus is sick!”
“He’s gonna die!”
The Master gave them both a skeptical look, and then Cyrus sneezed again.
“See, see?” Aken insisted.
Master Nephryte refrained from rolling his eyes. “Cyrus seems to have caught a cold. But it won’t kill him. Stop being so dramatic.” He released the boys and they dropped to the floor. “Cyrus, stay in bed for a few hours and rest. I’ll see what medicine the doctor can bring for you,” he ordered.
She complied, dragging her suddenly heavy feet back to her room...
When Cyrus woke sometime later, it was to Doctor Zushil and Master Nephryte entering her room. The doctor measured her temperature and her pulse before nodding. “A simple cold, yes,” he declared, and dug through his bag of medicine bottles. “This should boost your immune system to fight it off.” He set a bottle of yucky green tablets on the nightstand.
Cyrus’s tastebuds wanted to protest, fearing what manner of green stuff might be in them. They looked like something plucked from a rotting bog.
The door to her room flung open again.
Nephryte moved to intercept whoever it was, when a shoe showed through the doorway and kicked Aken into the room—the boy falling into the Master head-first.
“Deal with this blubbering student of yours, Master Nephryte!” demanded Professor Kotetsu, the owner of the shoe, his wing-like eyebrows flapping. “I’m normally a patient teacher, but even this is too much for me.”
The Master straightened his blue tunic collar, embroidered in golden crescent moons. “My apologies. I will take care of—” he began, but Kotetsu had already left.
The Master looked down at Aken, only to find that the boy had dashed over to Cyrus’s bedside, his face all worry lines. “Aken-Shou, he is not going to die.”
Aken shook his head. “I’m staying right here anyway.”
From the pillow, Cyrus squinted, irritated by all the commotion. She wasn’t some fragile baby bird for everyone to fret over!
“Fine,” the Master relented. “As long as you do your homework.” He exhaled and left the room for a bit.
“One tablet every six hours,” Zushil instructed her, and he picked up his bag of medicines to leave.
“Will he really be okay?” Aken started to ask, and Zushil looked down his nose at the boy.
“Cyrus will recover soon enough. I’ve treated many a human slave over the years; I am well familiar with their anatomy,” he said matter-of-factly. “One would think owners would Heal their own slaves, themselves, but I suppose it’s too much effort for the lordships and moneybags. Instead, they pay me to use medicine.”
Aken’s ears perked, and he glanced at the empty doorway. “Say, Doc, can I ask you a strange question?”
Zushil gave him a look that said he would rather him not.
Aken proceeded anyway. “Is it dangerous for a vempar to taste someone else’s blood?”
Zushil’s eyebrows slanted inward. “Always full of weird questions, aren’t you?” he muttered under his breath. “Boy, hardly any blood is dangerous for a vempar. In fact, some say we were once created to be the Healers of the world: curing illnesses and mending all manner of injuries, though much of that knowledge has since been lost. There are limits to Healing, of course. Not every single problem can be cured—that girl, Cherish, for example.” He frowned. “I’m rambling now, but the idea of blood being dangerous is absurd.”
“So, let me get this straight,” said Aken. “You’re saying that it’s completely safe for a vempar to Heal others—blood isn’t dangerous to them in any way?”
Zushil nodded absently, “Yes. Exactly. Unless it’s dwarf blood—that stuff will make you sick for a good while. But otherwise, most blood is just fine. Why do you even ask?”
“Master Nephryte told me it wasn’t safe. I don’t know why.”
The doctor raised one wiry eyebrow. “Hm? How odd of him. You must have heard him wrong, or perhaps he was preoccupied and misspoke.”
Aken frowned to himself while the doctor left.
Cyrus listened, pretending to be asleep, curious what that talk was about and what Aken could be thinking.
An hour later, Master Nephryte returned to find Aken doing some history homework while Cyrus dozed, nose red and stuffed with tissue.
Aken looked up and met his gaze.
“Cyrus is sleeping well?” the Master inquired.
Aken closed the book and stared at the cat clock on the nightstand. “I asked him,” he said instead, ignoring the question.
Nephryte tilted his head to the side.
“I asked Doc if blood could be dangerous. And he said no,” Aken furthered.
Nephryte’s mouth pressed into a grim line. “For other vempars, perhaps. But not for you.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
The Master regarded him, then shifted his focus to Cyrus. “Just trust me on this,” he said.
“But why? I bet I could Heal Cy of this stupid cold in seconds, instead of waiting for some silly medicine to do the job. Don’t fangs attract and draw out bad virus cells—or whatever you call them?”
“Do you know where the main artery is? Or where any veins are, for that matter?” Nephryte eyed him sideways.
Aken’s cheeks reddened but he persisted. “I want to help Cyrus get better. You can show me how to...”
Aken’s sentence trailed away, and Nephryte looked back to see why.
The bed Cyrus had been sleeping in was empty.
They both went still. No trace of the half-human was anywhere in sight.
“Uh...did my mention of fangs freak him out?”
Cyrus bolted past the entryway and down the stairwell.
Fangs? They wanted to Heal her with their fangs? She screamed inwardly, her feet tearing down the stairs, ignoring her pounding headache.
At the ground level, she dashed into the first-floor hallway, heading for the nearest exit.
She took out a pocket tissue to wipe the snot and blew her nose. Several students she passed by flinched away, with grossed out expressions on their faces.
