💥 This is rough draft and is unedited. Each word is battle-born. Read at your own risk, be kind, and enjoy. You may have read this already, so feel free to jump into the shared drive to catchup on the lastest chapters, but I'm posting them here as well with a little behind-the-scenes look. 

P.S. You can read the Darkborn Origin Story here. Be sure to click on the tabs on left-hand side to access each "chapter" section. 

*Author’s Note: I was originally going to write book one from only Sylas’s POV, but my brain would not let it happen. The story simply would not be told the way most people would say it “should” be. But that’s not what writing is about, right? I wanted to write what felt “right” and this format is it. Ari wanted a voice, so I gave her one. Then Thorne didn’t want to be left out, and so on. So, yeah. You get all the Darkborn POVs. Each Episode is a different character POV and within each Episode are a handful of “chapters.”

*A Wonder image I generated last year for character inspo.*

🫦 Read with caution. Vikings and spiciness ahead.

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Arless Episode: “Breakfast”

We are monsters, and though we have tried to rid the world of ourselves, we cannot. Blood is all we crave. It is what we need, what drives us beyond the point of control. Spilling blood, drinking blood, and, of course, sex.

-Arless, Huntress of the Darkborn

Their screams fill my head. The scent of burning flesh. The fear in their eyes. Every suffocating memory clings to me, unable to shake.

I fling a dagger at the knot in the rafter, and the wood splinters as the blade lodges on the mark.

Desperation is still too close to the surface, like it was only yesterday I watched my loved ones burned alive and there was nothing I could do to save them. Nothing any of us could do.

I toss another dagger, and my aim is true, perfectly centered above the last.

Stoneware scrapes across the table as Thorne growls. “Tastes like ash.” I glance at his mutton stew, the bowl still full. Lucian stares at his spoon, his eyes glazed over as he watches the slop drip back into the bowl before dropping his spoon altogether.

In the empty silence between crackling fire flames and heavy sighs, I can almost hear the unnerving silence when I woke in Hel’s underworld. The nothingness surrounding me. “You are the Darkborn. The only of your kind. You will thrive by night and become the shadows our enemies fear.”

I shake off the echo of heat searing its way from my insides out—from the middle of my chest and over my arms, ingraining themselves in my skin like fire burns. The runes, glowing like enlivened embers, painting the lengths of my arms from shoulder to each finger. Even now, it burns and the barely restrained power vibrates through me as I pull my daggers from the wood beam.

“Ari,” Sylas says gruffly from his statue-like position at the study window. Moose lifts his mastiff head from where his large, black body is curled by the hearth. Drool drips from his lips and I nearly laugh. “How is it you are less drooly as a hellhound?” I mutter. His doggy eyebrows lift and then we all look at Sylas.

He hasn’t left his wide-legged stance since he took up sentry duty after returning from the village at sunup. Had it been any of us venturing into human territory at the peak of our hunger, we would not have withstood the thirst. But Sylas . . . He clings to his humanity more desperately than we do—than we can comprehend, I think—because the memories of Milla and Letty will allow nothing less. Even if the thirst eats away at him. He looks stronger than ever and well-honed for battle, but I feel his thirst as if it was my own starvation, one of the many attributes of our heightened senses. But Sylas wouldn’t be “the Wolf” without his annoying capability to be the steadfast, strong one. The leader of our pack . . . even if it slowly kills him inside.

“Your guest has arrived.” I ignore Lucian’s eyes on me and stare at Sylas. His arms cross over his chest and body, acutely more pensive as he peers into the courtyard of the stone castle we’re hiding in. That’s what it feels like, a fortress in Frail Valley, like a cage with thick stone walls and dark corridors to provide reprieve from the scents and sounds. This is where we woke, a small gift from Hel, but a curse to the villagers who live here.

This place is foreign to us with its woven tapestries and silk linens. Even the air smells musty and less open, like it did back home. Everything is too confined—makes me itch. Just like the skin that no longer feels my own.

We don’t know what happened to the Jarl of the castle, but he is gone now, whatever his fate, and the villagers blame us for his disappearance.

Draugr. That’s what they whisper. Unearthly, undead spirits of death. And though they spit the word with fear and vehemence—the very people we protect—they are not wrong. I have never felt more alive, and yet, my soul feels ashen, a part of me empty.

Even now, as the hunger thrums through my body, my throat swallowing compulsively, every inch of me humming with anticipation, I worry I won’t be able to control the beast that’s awake and waiting inside of me.

When I don’t answer Sylas, he finally turns and meets my gaze. He’s as nervous about this as I am because we need this experiment of his to work. “I would say be careful,” he continues, “but—”

“But you know I don’t need the reminder.”

Sylas’s eyes are sad and dark and filled with regret. If we ever want our own people to fight with us, to follow us and defend these lands alongside us, we need their trust. And if they are to trust us, we must trust ourselves first. Until we can get our feedings under control, we’re useless to our own cause.

With a nod, I inhale deeply, uncertain how long I can hold my breath around the human. I’m not sure I technically need air to breathe anymore, but I grasp hold of the small, human habit all the same, not ready to admit I no longer know myself at all.

There are voices down the hall and Lucian stands, waves of hunger and sexual need flooding off him. My entire body perks to attention. Fuck. My body suddenly aches with the same need, just as it does every time I’m around him as a Darkborn. I don’t know if it’s because of the change or the history we have, but I don’t feel this way around Thorne or Sylas, only Lucian, and I hate it.

Glaring at the brute, I storm from the room. “Let’s get this over with.”

Lucian might be a man of very few words, but he’s been the bane of my existence for as long as I’ve known him. I may trust him with my life, but I don’t have to like him. And I refuse to give in to any pull I have toward him. Ever again.

“Wish me luck,” I mutter, glancing back at Thorne and Sylas, then I step into the corridor and head downstairs to the parlor where my breakfast is waiting for me.

“Is she as monstrous as people say?” A male voice, whispering three halls away, meets my ears.

“It’s not for me to comment on the mistress,” Constance offers, our one and only servant brave enough to work for us. “But I can offer you wine—or mead, perhaps— to take the edge off?” Though Constance is high in her years and moves painfully slowly, she’s a clever thing and wise to give us all a wide berth, if she can help it.

“Hmm. A veiled and vague reply,” the man murmurs. “She must be worse than I thought. Good thing I’m being paid handsomely. Have you nothing stronger to drink than wine then?” There’s a wryness I would not expect in the tone of someone who has come to the lion’s den to be fed upon, and it gives me pause. “Never mind, I’ll take whatever you have,” he amends.

I lean against the doorway, observing the two of them. Constance is slightly hunched with age, but her face is beautiful, or rather, it once was. Her green eyes are dull now, and deep wrinkles etch her cheeks. Though I never thought I would think such a thing, I envy the weathered lines of her features and the markings of fortitude she can wear with pride, for I will never look different than I do in this moment. Ever.

Constance’s gray hair is braided long down her back, silver against her black woolen dress. She looks like she’s in mourning, really, and I can’t say I blame her. This is her life now, stuck with the likes of us until she parishes in his realm.

Our visitor leaves his perch by the window and meanders across the room toward her. His curly black hair hangs around his bright blue eyes, and his face doesn’t boast a groomed beard as much as a square jaw that is a few days unshaven.

He reaches for the crystal goblet Constance offers him. “Best to have a mead-doused mind if I’m about to lose my life.”

“I’d prefer you didn’t,” I say, and both Constance and my guest look at me.

Constance has the decency to seem chagrined. My breakfast, on the other hand, looks pleasantly surprised as his gaze drifts over my braided hair to booted toe. His heartbeat ticks higher, and the scent of his arousal inundates me, which I try like hell to pretend I don’t notice. I, too, give him a once over. But try as I might, my body heats with need and the hunger to feed.

“I like my breakfast fresh,” I explain, none too subtly licking my lips. “Since we’re paying you handsomely and all.” I wave my hand absently, as if we’re only talking about a meal at the table together. I can’t help but play with my food just a little.

The bastard grins at me, and my pulse quickens. Constance glances between us.

“That’s all for now, Constance. Thank you.”

She averts her gaze and hurries out the opposite door, closing it behind her.

“I’m sorry,” I say and walk over to the cabinet that holds a jug of wine. Alcohol doesn’t affect me like it used to—trust me, I’ve tried to drown my misery since the change—but I can’t resist a nice pour for old time’s sake. I take a big, thick swallow, my guest watching my every move.

“I thought,” he says, tilting his head. The smirk on his face never falters despite the monster he shares a room with. “That we weren’t drinking before breakfast.” His eyebrows raise, and I take a few steps closer to him. It’s all I can do not to lift my nose to the air and let my eyes roll back into my head as I inhale the cloying richness of his blood.

“I can have as much wine as I wish.” I take two more gulps, my eyes never leaving the man’s dark blue ones. And when I get as close as I dare, my body thrumming with a need that enlivens every fiber of my being and grips me from my very core, I stop a few paces away.

“You don’t look like a monster,” he says bemusedly.

“And you don’t look like the village idiot, yet here you stand, knowing full well you may be dead in moments.” Taking another sip from my glass, I look away. That my words are true still sickens me when I allow myself to think about them too deeply.

But as the frenzied memories of days past resurface and that feeling of desperation returns, I know this is better than any other outcome, and I set my glass down with a click on the table beside us.

“You don’t cower or shy away,” I think aloud. “Which means you are not from around here.” My eyes flick to his beaded belt and the crusted sand on his boots. He smells like a virile male, the wind, and the sea. His skin is tanned, and the lines around his eyes are a welcome sight, a sign of laughter when all I’ve known for weeks is people’s misery, terror, and fear.

“I am from a temple in Soothlund—originally, anyway.”

My eyes narrow on him. “You are not only a southerner, but one of the most staunch believers of Krosses?” I chuckle heartily. Why, Sylas, you do have a sense of humor.

The southerner’s head tilts slightly. “A southerner by birth,” he concedes. “I was sent to live at the temple as an orphan until my fourteenth winter, when I ran away.” He shakes his head. “Why do you laugh?”

I shrug. “I understand why Sylas picked you.”

“Oh?”

I nod. “You need money, or you would not be here. That much is obvious. And as my enemy and the very reason for my existence—” He tilts his head at this, but I continue, “I will not feel the slightest bit of guilt when I kill you.”

He holds up his calloused finger. “If you kill me,” he volleys.

I grin, offering what’s left of my glass to him. “You will need it.”

The southerner watches me over the brim of the crystal and takes a hearty gulp.

“So tell me, stranger,” I start, and needing distance from him, I walk to the window, eyes closed as I inhale the scents outside to clear my head. The manure and horsehair and the rotting foliage that litters the ground in the apple orchard. “What have you heard about us? And what makes you so desperate for gold that Sylas could convince you to come?”

“Well,” he says, inhaling a breath. I hear his footsteps behind me. He must know well enough to keep away from me, at least for now. He stops at the globe and gives it a spin. It creaks and groans as if it hasn’t moved in years. “I won’t bother lying to you. I have a feeling you’ll know if I do. I sailed north five years ago when my home burned to the ground during a raid. By your people, actually.”

Closing my eyes, I listen to the cadence of his timbre. The promise of his blood stirs the need hotter inside me. And the daringness of this man only adds to the anticipation of the thrill I know will come.

“If it was my people, you would be dead,” I counter. His heartbeat is loud in my ears, a juxtaposition to the languid thud of my own. “And you would not be brazen enough to come into our home, especially not alone. Unless—” I glance over my shoulder. “Unless you mean to kill us. Is that what you’re here to do, southerner? Kill the monsters of Qisp Keep? I hear we have quite the reputation.”

“Cries that fill the air from these halls during the night,” he confesses. “Bloodied trails left on the streets. Screams in the woods. Innocent people who have crossed your path in the moonlight, never to be seen again.”

I tilt my head. “Only partially true.”

“And to answer your question, I need the money because my crew ousted me and left with my ship. There was a traitor among us, and I’ve been traveling the north shore for two months now, doing what I can to secure another boat to return to my travels.”

“And that includes whoring your body to a Darkborn,” I breathe, and though it’s a pithy reply, I feel sadness I can’t ignore.

“I have seen monsters, mistress.”

I scoff. “I doubt that.”

“I have seen men and women drawn and quartered.” His words are grave and give me pause. “I’ve seen children stoned and villages burned by Nordmen and southerners alike. There is little you could do to me I have not seen before or that I might not deserve. So it is a chance I’m willing to take.”

I meet the southerner’s gaze and my brow furrows. “You were a soldier in the Summer Lands, too?”

He doesn’t have to answer. I smell his sorrow, thick and full of regret.

“You should know,” I tell him, voice harder than before. “I made a deal with Hel to kill the southerners who threaten our homes and kill our people—who have murdered my people. Men just like you.”

“And I vowed to protect my king and all of Soothlund—that I would fight for Krosses,” he says just as bitterly. “And yet, here I am, on your shores, having fled my own kingdom. So as you see, mistress, things change.”

His eyes hold mine, and I see a loneliness in them. But when his gaze shifts to my throat and then lingers on my lips, I know what thoughts fill his mind, and it isn’t his god or his king. He’s looking for marks. For fangs. A sign that I am more than a mere woman standing in front of him so that, like me, he might hold on to the hate in his heart.

“Can I ask you something?” he finally says.

I lift an eyebrow in answer.

“If there are four of you who are indeed unnatural,” he says carefully, “am I here for your pleasure alone or for theirs as well?”

“What did Sylas tell you?”

“That you were beautiful, if a bit rough around the edges. But that would be no hardship for me . . . Should I live.”

I can’t help but grin and try to find fear in his gaze, but there is only curiosity and a frustrated determination. “You are an experiment,” I confess. “And while there are four of us, as you say, it is only I who he has brought you here for. Sylas thought I would be more appealing and less terrifying.” The corner of my mouth quirks of its own accord. “Was he correct?”

The southerner shakes his head. “You are wholly terrifying,” he admits, swallowing thickly. “I think the villagers might be right—you are otherworldly in more ways than one. Disarmingly beautiful and perhaps even a witch because I find it difficult to care that I might lose my life before this is over.” His eyes shift over me again, lingering on my curves and exposed skin.

He crosses his arms over his chest defiantly, and his throat bobs as he swallows. I smell his arousal mixed with his fear, and my body tightens with need. My fangs ache and my core pulses violently with the need for release.

I don’t want to wait any longer. The sexual pull I have to him and the need to lick his skin and drink his blood is overpowering—release and ecstasy are all I anticipate.

“You are right to be terrified,” I say, stepping so close the silver strands of hair mixed with the dark curls at his temple shimmer in the daylight. “I make no promises, only that I will try not to bleed you dry and take only what I need.” I lick my upper lip, exposing one of my fangs.

His lips part, his warm breath feathering against my cold skin. He smells of sweet wine. “What are you really?” he rasps.

“Darkborn. Birthed from the shadows of Helheim itself.”

“Your gods are not real,” he rasps, but I know he doesn’t believe that. I hear the awe in his voice and his racing heartbeat.

“Whatever makes you feel better,” I rasp and trail my nose up the column of his neck and along his jaw, inhaling deeply, letting the scent of his arousal and desire adhere to every fiber of my being.

I’ve never felt the need to fuck and feed so badly at once. Until now, it’s been animalistic and uncontrollable, but without the chase, it’s easier to control the frenzied emotions. Instead, I await the moment that I might actually savor the heady feeling, knowing at any moment, I can take my fill.

I don’t know which is stronger, the ravenous desire to fuck or the hunger to feed, and the pulsing, all-consuming monster inside me is purring and wet to the core.

My tongue traces the vein on his neck, and the southerner exhales, rough and uneven. “Do you want to know the name of the man you are about to kill?” He asks wryly.

I shake my head. “Having not fed in three moons, my ability to restrain myself is not in your favor. I do not want your name to plague me afterward.”

“And if you kill me, I think I might die a happier man than I was before I arrived. Besides,” he lets out a ragged breath, and when I look up, his eyes are closed as if he welcomes his fate. “Your man told me your cravings are worse at night, so at least I have that going for me.”

Listening to the southerner’s heartbeat is the most tantalizing and torturous melody. The sound engorges my fangs, making them full and achy, and I have never wanted a cock inside of me more than I do in this deliciously painful moment.

“I will not be gentle,” I croak.

“I don’t think—” He gasps as I draw my fang along his pulsing throat. “I want you to be.”

I smile against his neck, nipping at him to sate myself. “You will regret saying that, Southerner.” And as I imagine him so deep inside me, it hurts. The monster takes control.

______

Well? Do we like Ari so far? She and Thorne are the most accessible in my head. Their voices feel the most natural to write out of the four. Just wait until you see where this story is going!

There’s more Darkborn coming next week!

Until then….

xo, Scarlet

P.S. If you want to read ahead in the Darkborn’s story, you can find more chapters here in my Scarlet Hearts After Dark reader community. 

The places:

💋Learn more about Scarlet St. James

💋Join the Scarlet Hearts After Dark Community

Alter Ego:

❤️‍🔥Learn more about Lindsey Pogue

❤️‍🔥Join Lindsey’s Rogue Reader Community