Shadow Land

Let's try this again...

Dear Reader,

You deserve a sequel that has more twists and turns. You deserve a book that is steamy and keeps your wanting more. So I apologize for my previous attempts at this. Thank you to those that have stuck through those other versions and given me critical feedback that has helped me as a writer.

These characters helped me when I was in my darkest of days. They were formed because my own plot twists that I didn't see coming in my own life. These characters kept me company and became a world I'd escape to when my reality became too much for me. But just as our heroine has been through the ringer and feels as though she is finally catching her breath and seeing where all this craziness has landed her, I too have been in transition after transition with little time to settle down, let alone create the story I had originally planned to carry on.

This page will be updated - a living document...this isn't how I saw the prologue starting, but I think it has to be this way - for now.

Thank you very much for reading Middle Ground and wanting to continue this journey with these characters and me!

PROLOGUE

Shadowland

shad·ow·land
/ˈSHadōˌland/

Noun: shadowland; plural noun: shadowlands

• A place in the shadows. "She also offers 'Shadowland,' presenting herself not as self-righteous doomsayer but as a mortal woman wandering a hard place, 'a heartbroken pilgrim in the shadowland.'"
• an indeterminate borderland between places or states, typically represented as an abode of ghosts and spirits. "voices laughing in the shadowlands of my recall"

Evelyn's a druídecht (Old Celtic Druid magic) sometimes referred to as a dryw which translates to seer. She's the daughter of one of the most beloved Fae kings in Tír na nÓg. Evelyn never met her real father since he was murdered by his brother who had fooled most of the faeries into believing he was his brother.

Evelyn, aka Evee, was turned by her mate, the gorgeous royal viking Prince Oisin, into a vampire hybrid of some sort.

Evee is the first of her kind and the only of her kind. She also had an obligation as the only living faerie to bring peace back to her realm. Her mate Oisin doesn't want to find out what Evee's weaknesses are. He knows that that knowledge would be dangerous in the wrong hands. Oisin can't lose her, he just got his mate back. She had survived the crazy and cruel outburst in the fae's world on the brink of a war, one not meant for other the vampires to get caught up in. Evee had come back and picked him over Rian. She chose him over a King. Over his forever blood brother. And the satisfaction he wanted to bask in felt like it came and went in a blink of an eye.

Oisin just got his soulmate. After centuries of loneliness and the only real company thought he had a connection with turned out to be a lie, how could he lose Evelyn? Even though they basked in the moonlight sweaty and breathing heavily from their umpteenth round of lovemaking, he began to mourn her. She had a target on her back in the supernatural worlds. He had no right or safe space to hide her away; but he so desperately wanted to keep Evee safe, even if it meant locking her away and waiting out the violent war had already begun. Her home was a coveted kingdom. Tir na nOg, the land of youth and beauty and all things indulgent, a magical mysterious uncharted land that hid the various types of Fae people: from pixies to Banshees.

If Oisin was being honest with himself he would know that Evelyn has never been safe. She was born into a bloodline that had an ironclad agreement with him and his siblings. And although they had burned the contract, he worried Rian might be playing nice now because he was playing the long game.

That contract was nothing but ash now, since King Rian and Prince Oisin burned it. It was the agreement for al females in her bloodline were to produce an heir that would serve as an oracle for the demons of the night, aka vampires.

Why?

Because way back during the Roman's second military campaign trying to invade Scotland and gain influence over Ireland, or Hibernia as the Roman empire called it, a brave group of young nomadic Vikings, who also were looking to invade the same land, decided to help the Celtic Druid tribe of people to fight off the British invasion. These courageous warrior Vikings fought in many bloody battles that helped to keep the Roman military from occupying Ireland and parts of Scotland. After many battles and power struggles between all 3 groups, the Romans pulled back their army to focus on Britain.

The fighting had taken place over many moons and there were Viking men getting closer with the Celtic woman. One woman, secretly a Celtic Druid Goddess living among mortals, was as fair as any maiden, as nurturing as any mother, and as wise as someone who had lived a hundred lifetimes. It had been her gifts as an oracle seer and beautiful woman with the ability to sway any man or woman to her desires that chased the Roman's off the shores of Ireland and out of Scotland. Now all that was left was a debt to be paid to the Vikings for giving up their lives and fighting alongside the Celtic people.

There were 2 things that the Goddess did not foresee:

1. She was with child, a daughter that she had from being intimate with a leader of the Viking warriors before any men were turned into vampires.

The Goddess knew through her gift of sight that her lineage must be protected for centuries, or the creatures of the night she created would not allow a possible threat to their own safety to survive. She loved them all so vary much and in so many different ways that she couldn't stand to see them become monsters and her daughter become a meal. So instead she used her feminine wiles and charm to save both her child and her daughter so they would have full lives and succeed in the multiple mysterious worlds that they could travel through once they had been changed.

2. Creating vampires.

These changes only happened to the ones who were close to death after nighttime raids that kept the Roman's off their shores. The Celts called upon the Goddess that was among them to save the lives of these dying men. She heard their call and used her blood to create some of the oldest vampires. These are who were to collect the debt and so she made a deal with the leader of the Vikings, her lover, to create another binding contract so that her not only her daughters life, but her entire lineage beyond that would live on. Service as royal oracle to the King, Prince, and Princess of vampires in exchange for protection of 1 female from her bloodline to live and reproduce and then become the oracle.

It was crazy but if anyone could do it, it would be the daughter of a Celtic Goddess, herself, the high priestess. Their linage was able to live on. But she didn't want her linage to live forever. She didn't want to see her family become vampires.
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And this is where you, dear reader, come in. Who do you want to know more about. Which characters perspective do you want to read from more often?

Let me know in the comments please!