Chapter 2

Snow and ice blanketed the airport as Ryodan sat in the terminal waiting for his British Airways flight to Dublin. As if the failure of his mission wasn't enough, a freak late season blizzard caught the whole Northeast Region unprepared. Here he was with two of his men, stuck for more than four hours in god-forsaken Newark, New Jersey, one of the ugliest places in this whole damn country. Their big bodies were crammed into the tiny seats of the boarding area. Ryodan cursed the fates that brought them here.

Ryodan had never liked the U.S. He hated the "melting pot" concept which gave the Americans no true indigenous culture of their own. He hated the people and their flat accents. He hated the crowds and the dirtiness. He hated the bigness and the openness of this country. He hated the smug attitude of Americans who thought they were God's gift to the world. He hated how stupid they were: they had no idea of the danger that surrounded them.

Like most humans, they were blind to everything except the physical world around them; they believed only that which their puny human eyes could see. There was so much more out there; so much danger that their limited minds could not comprehend. Elements of the Tuatha De Danaan, the Fae, a powerful immortal race, so far evolved that mere human eyes could not see them, was even now preparing to take over this planet and enslave them once again as they had millennia before.

In truth, Americans weren't the only ones blind to the dangers of the Fae; no human, except a sidhe-seer, could see or comprehend the Fae. Still the people of British Isles were at least civilized, and many knew of the old legends and some still believed. Ryodan felt a physical need to leave this blasted country behind. He wanted to be in Dublin, the city he had called home for many years.

As he sat staring at the passengers crowding the terminal like so many rats in a maze, anger at Daegus MacKeltar consumed him. His leader, Zigor, who called himself Jericho Barrons these days, would be furious when he found out how close they had gotten to obtaining the singing stone at the auction on Sunday night. In the end, they lost it to a higher bidder. MacKeltar won the bid. How he had managed that, Ryodan would like to know. MacKeltar was wealthy, but the Fae relic went for over five million dollars; he never thought the Scotsman had that kind of money; he certainly had never bid that high before.

He, Lor and Angus had tried to steal the stone from MacKeltar's New York penthouse last night. The human druid had been infected by their own Draghar magic, but his puny wards could not keep them out. They were not human, they were pure Draghar. Their magic was older, stronger and so much more powerful, but that didn't matter; the stone wasn't there. They had found out from the doorman at his apartment building that MacKeltar had left for Scotland almost immediately after the auction and more than likely had taken the stone with him. They searched his apartment anyway, trashing the place. He wanted Mackeltar to know that he couldn't keep them out, no matter what.

In Dublin, Zigor already had one of the stones. They would just have to find another way to get the remaining three. They had been lost for centuries, and were now just surfacing. They would help Zigor get the magic book too. With the four stones, they would be able to de-cipher the Sinsar Dubh, the most powerful book of black magic that ever exishted. They would use its magic to set things right again.

They would bring their loved ones back, and they would kill the Unseelie king. He, who was once one of their kind; he, who had once been their king. He was a being they had once loved above all others; a being they had lived to serve; a being they had killed for and would have died for. But their powerful, immortal king had betrayed them. He would not say the name of the Unseelie king, because names had power, and Ryodan would not give the king that power.

The Draghar were an ancient race of shape-shifters; their natural form was that of a horned beast. Their race was powerful and could manipulate the laws of nature and physics to their will, and they were immortal. Thirteen thousand years ago, five hundred of them had come to this planet through a portal before their own planet was destroyed. There were females among the them, but they had all died soon after arrival.

This planet was only one of hundreds that their scientists had thought would be able to sustain their lifeform. Scouts had sent to investigate the planet years before and stayed a few days before they returned home to Zaghar.

Their group was the first of many that were scheduled to colonize the earth, but the portal had been destroyed in the bloodshed and riots that had afflicted their dying planet. They were the first, but they were also the last. Too late, they realized that the scouts had not spent enough time here to realize the dangers they encountered.

When they got here, they assumed the form of the most intelligent species on the planet: that of human beings. The cautiously tried to intermingle with them, but they soon discovered that this yellow sun's ultraviolet rays affected them much differently than rays of their own blue sun. Until they acclimated, a part of each daylight period had to be spent in the dark in their natural beast form to regenerate. That left them somewhat vulnerable, although their beast form was fierce and almost impossible to destroy.

The atmosphere was different too, and some of them sickened and died within months, including most of their females. Those females who survived were sterile and died out within years. Slowly their bodies become more acclimated to the sun and the atmosphere. They needed to spend less and less time in their natural form. Today they only needed to spend a few hours a month as a beast, although sometimes they did it for much longer for the pure animal joy it gave them. It was in this form that they slept and took sustenance. They killed their prey like the animals they were and ate their fill.

They had landed in what was now Ireland. For a time they kept to themselves and lived deep in the forests away from the indigenous tribes. After their females died, they moved out and lived among the humans. Their human form was perfect compared to the men of the tribes. They were all large, immensely strong men, well over six feet tall. Their black hair, slanted obsidian eyes and golden skin stood out among the natives. Their bodies were thick and well muscled without an ounce of fat on them. They covered their human bodies with tattoos that sparked with the electricity of their magic.

They were warriors of unparallelled fierceness and strength. All humans lived in fear and awe of the Draghar. To their unsophisticated eyes, they were mighty, all powerful gods, and they worshiped them. They were immortal; they could not be killed by spear, or sword, or fire, or disease; their bodies healed fast. They never tired, and they never needed to eat or sleep. They could move faster than the wind; they could hear a leaf drop in the forest ten miles away. They could coerce the humans to their will by merely using their voice, and they seem to read minds.

The Draghar soon found that the human body was possessed of emotions and passions that were unlike those of other species they had encountered. The human females especially attracted them. They not only felt lust, but they felt love for these women, an emotion that was unknown to them in their natural state.

To satisfy these emotions, Draghar males mated with human women, but the begetting of progeny was very rare. It happened only with certain females who had magical powers of their own. These women were almost always high priestesses in their clans. In later years, many of these women became sidhe-seers: those who can see the fae.

As the years passed, they taught some of their magic to the human druid priests. The druids were bound to them by this magic, but the relationship was mutually beneficial. In return for magical knowledge, the druids performed rituals to them and honored them. They watched over them in their beast form.

The Tuatha De Danaan, also known as the Fae, came to this planet three thousand years after the Draghar. They called themselves, Seelie. They came by the millions through their own portal just before their planet was destroyed. They were shapeshifers too. Their natural forms were pure energy, and as such, they could not be even be perceived by humans beings without blinding them.

They were also immortal, magical beings of immense power, but their magic was not as powerful as the Draghar. The Draghar could kill the Fae, but Fae could not kill Draghar. The Fae came in many different castes and intriguing forms. The highest caste took on human form; their hair, skin and eyes shimmered in iridescent colors. Still, they could not be seen by most humans, only those females known as sidhe-seers. The sidhe-seers had a power that saved many humans lives after the Fae devised the Great Hunt. Fae in all their forms hunted down humans and used them for their pleasure until the humans died or killed themselves.

Unlike the Draghar, the fae were indolent, corrupt beings who lived only to feel physical pleasure in all its forms. They considered themselves immensely superior to the humans who lived on this planet. The humans were not considered sentient beings to the Fae; they little more than insects. Earth became their playground, and the humans became their toys; humans existed only to give the fae pleasure of all sorts.

The Fae were intrigued by the humans and their emotions, especially the females. They hunted them. The highest caste possessed such sexual power, they drove the human women mad with insatiable lust while they were raped in every way imaginable. They addicted human females to sex; they became pri-yah. The Fae were soulless monsters who were endlessly entertained by this.

Once pri-yah, these women lived only to give and receive sex. Since most human women could not even see the Fae as they were being raped, other humans thought they had gone insane. Even after the Fae were done with them, the women were still addicted and needed unending sex. The affected humans often attacked others. They eventually died of starvation and thirst, by being sexed to death, or by being killed by other humans.

The Draghar could see and interact with the Fae, but except for the king, they could not abide these disgusting creatures. The Fae were all beautiful beings, especially those of their highest caste who could take on human form. The Draghar king was captivated by their beauty. Eventually, he met and fell in love with their beautiful queen and married her.

Their king began to immerse himself in Fae ways and customs, taking on many of their characteristics and attitudes towards humans. He learned their magic and added it to his. He began to change; he became as possessed and controlled by his passions and lusts as the fae were. It was as if he became Fae himself and forgot about the Draghar. He became dark and self centered, and many Draghar began to consider him evil.

The king was arrogant and proud. The Fae were a matriarchal race and did not recognize the king as their ruler, only as the consort of their queen. The Draghar had always been a patriarchal society ruled by males. The arrogance of the lesser race grated on him. He became obsessed with bringing the fae to heel. He became jealous of his queen and began to hate her. He schemed against her and the other fae; he wanted to take her power.

Using his own magic, he created a new army of vile beings to help him. The unspeakable Unseelie were his new warriors. He also created the Unseelie hallows and the book of dark magic, the Sinsar Dubh, to help him in his quest.

After a huge battle, the Fae were eventually driven from earth, but that did not stop the king. Once his affection for the Seelie queen had faded, he frequently returned to earth and turned his attention to back to human females to satisfy his deep lusts. Still, Zigor and his Draghar army loved and followed their king, until he committed the ultimate betrayal.

Like the Fae, the king toyed with his human women until he tired of them and cast them away. One day the king saw and became obsessed with a beautiful sidhe-seer named Ariel. She was both a princess and a high priestess with great natural magic of her own. Zigor was the head of the king's army, and Ariel was was his human wife, but the king did not care.

Considering her a worthy vessel for his pleasure, the king kidnapped her to be his concubine. He stole her from her home, while Zigor was sent away by him on a useless mission. The king cruelly left their infant son alone to starve and die. He took Ariel to Faery where he kept her for centuries until his queen found out about her. Ariel did not love him, but he used both his Draghar and Fae magic to keep her bound to him. Zigor came home and found his dying son only moments before the child took his last breath.

Zigor hated the Fae, and he hated the king for what he had done and vowed revenge. He hated him as much as he once loved him. His men also hated the king for what he had done and what he had become. Zigor, along with his men, tried to take his Ariel back from Faery, but she died in the attempt. The king was so distraught with the loss of his concubine that he destroyed most of the Draghar and their human families. Now there was only nine of them left. That was three thousand years ago.

Tall, dark haired and beautiful, a veritable amazon among human woman, Ryodan's beloved wife, Zayida, was killed along with the others. She was also a sidhe-seer and eight months pregnant with their son. Roydan hated the king as much as Zigor did. He swore that Zayida, would live again, as would Zigor's wife and son, and the wives and families of the other men.

Ryodan had taken many human women to his bed over the centuries, using them to slake his lusts. He sometimes kept them for years, but he never fell in love again, and he never married again. Only Zayida was his true mate. The same was true for Zigor and Ariel.

Led by Zigor, they would use the stones and the Sinsar Dubh to turn back time and change history. They would bring their wives and families back to life. They would return this planet back to the way it was when they arrived here, when it was a lush, verdant Eden. It would be cleaner, without the masses of people and the technology that polluted the air and the water.

They would use the very book of dark magic created by the king himself to destroy him and all the Fae. Both Seelie and Unseelie, would be completely destroyed, even if it meant completely destroying this world and most of the humans on it.

The Zaghar would reign supreme once again with Zigor, their leader, as their new king. The druids would worship and protect them again. They had waited patiently for millennia for this chance to correct the horrible mistakes of the past. According to Zigor, the end was in sight. But for right now, all Ryodan and the others could do was wait.

Ryodan sat in his seat and looked on the humans milling about the terminal with boredom and contempt in his ancient eyes. His dark eyes fell on a small, blonde woman about ten yards away talking animatedly on her cellphone. She looked young, barely older than a high school student. He watched as her wide violet eyes flashed in anger; he could hear that she was clearly arguing with a man. For just a brief second, she looked up; her eyes met his, and then she looked away.

Ryodan felt disappointed when the girl looked away; he wanted her to keep looking at him. A familiar feeling of electricity surged through his big body, causing the hair on his arms to raise. That hadn't happened in a long, long time, so long, in fact, he could not remember the last time. He wondered if things were about to change.

"British Airways Flight number ... to Dublin is now ready to board..." The flight attendant announced in a tired voice.

When the First Class passengers were allowed to board, Ryodan and his two men lifted themselves out of their seats and headed up the gangway. They took their seats in the front row. He was pleased to note that the blonde was sitting beside him next to the window. She seemed different from other women somehow.

Curiosity about the little human female consumed him; he wanted to get to know her. For the first time in centuries, Ryodan felt a stirring of interest.