The Savage Principle Read online

  The Savage Principle

  Book Three of the Savage Series

  by Tamara Rose Blodgett

  The Savage Principle

  Book Three of the Savage Series

  by Tamara Rose Blodgett

  Copyright © 2013 Tamara Rose Blodgett

  http://tamararoseblodgett.blogspot.com

  ISBN-13: 978-1482631630

  ISBN-10: 1482631636

  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer's imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.

  All rights are reserved. This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to a legitimate retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  For:

  My principal girls: Beth, Dianne, Lori and my secret Beta

  I love you guys~

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1 5

  Chapter 2 14

  Chapter 3 23

  Chapter 4 30

  Chapter 5 37

  Chapter 6 45

  Chapter 7 54

  Chapter 8 61

  Epilogue 69

  The Savage Vengeance- Chapter 1 74

  A Love Letter to My Readers: 83

  Acknowledgments: 84

  Books available now: 85

  **Future Titles: 85

  Connect with Me Online: 86

  Chapter 1

  “Rowenna!” Adair called after her wayward daughter. She watched as the lithe form with plaited golden hair and dressed in a tightly bound warrior's tunic escaped more discussion of duties. Adair huffed an exasperated sigh and slowly let down the tarp that covered their summer dwelling. She would have Ronan speak with her again when he returned from his patrols with the Band.

  Rowenna sprinted into the deepness of the woods, anything to escape the future obligation that she must bear on her young shoulders. When she reached the spot that none knew, she planted her back against the worn side of a great tree trunk, sank down on her haunches and bit her lip to keep from crying.

  They could not ask this of her! All knew that the sphere-dwellers could not make a life in the Outside, that is why they dwelt in the hot dome of gases and odd clothes. Rowenna sighed, a hot tear swiped away before anyone should come upon her and take note of her sadness.

  A twig snapped and Rowenna leapt to her feet, her dirk free and ready as a huge figure advanced.

  She knew that walk, the movement of one of the Band, a grace which moved with contained power, the roiling energy came off him in waves.

  Rolland. Rowenna smiled through her frustrated sadness and sheathed her dirk, moving forward to greet him.

  “Rowenna,” Rolland said in greeting, his eyes scanning the surrounding woods, deep pockets of shadows lay like eyes who spied on them.

  He did not like to see a young female select by herself in the woods, ready for the fragment or a rogue faction of Red Men to take a fancy to a lone female. They were too rare by far. Most males were above reproach. The fragment Rolland did not count as such. They would take any female who was not protected for trade with other scum such as they.

  Rolland felt the frown form before he could stop it.

  Rowenna pressed a finger to his lips, though she was a tall female she had to reach up to lay purchase.

  “Do not say it, Rolland,” Rowenna implored softly.

  He captured the finger that lay against his mouth and said the thing she liked to be reminded of the least, “You cannot run off beyond the confines of sanctuary the Band affords, Rowenna.”

  Rowenna sighed, facing away from him; she was most tired of rules.

  Finally, she turned.

  Rolland saw the defeated set of her shoulders and instead of the lecture he had intended he asked instead, “What say you?” His eyes searched her face.

  “I am shamed beyond what I can speak of,” Rowenna said, her eyes cast to the ground.

  Where was the fierce lioness that he was accustomed to sparring with?

  He strode forward, gently tilting her chin up until their gazes locked. Her eyes were the color of faded violets as they succumbed to the heat of summer.

  In those eyes he saw despair and his fingers forced her chin in the position, not allowing her face to move. Rolland would get to the bottom of this. “What has happened?” His face darkened. Rolland would go to the ground for her.

  “It is the Travelers.”

  Rolland jerked his head back and his hand involuntarily dropped from her face. “I have not heard their name mentioned in some time...”

  Rowenna gave a snort of disgust. “I have been chosen.”

  Rolland looked at Rowenna in horror. No, not his betrothed, the one true mate for himself.

  “It is as prophesied. That there be one of the select that shall be called upon to save us.”

  “I do not believe it.”

  “'Tis true, Rolland,” Rowenna said with the barest catch in her voice.

  “I will not allow it!” he said, his hands curling into fists.

  She came to him, touching the hardness of his chest and his features softened. His tightly bound inky hair lay against a neck thickened by the hard life of the Band and revealed a face that was almost hawkish in its features.

  “They think to make you a whore... and for what?” he ground out, her hands captured in his. “So we might believe their promise of safety from the fragment?” he scoffed. “They are called the Travelers only in the east,” he stated, then added, “Our other clans have a more apt name for those who meddle in our lives. The Evil Ones.” Rolland wrapped her in his embrace. “They shall not have you.”

  But they did.

  Rowenna knew that it was no use. The threat of the Travelers funneling more of the criminals from the world whence they came frightened her, the clan's very survival would lay in the balance. For she was the daughter of the sovereign leaders of the Clan of Cape Cod. Her father, Ronan, and her mother, Adair, would not see fit to ignore the obligations of the clan. Their daughter would be a sacrifice for the many.

  Rowenna had never been more afraid.

  Or more brave.

  *

  “I will not speak of this again, Adair.” Ronan's eyes pierced hers and Adair put her face in her hands.

  “She is but ten and five... Ronan, we cannot. Rowenna is right, she is meant to be with Rolland, not with some...” Adair could not bring herself to say it, speaking between her fingers.

  Ronan did, “Sphere-dweller.” His deep cerulean eyes followed his mate and he offered the conciliatory observation, “He is a prince amongst their people.”

  He palmed his chin, to withhold his regular comfort from his mate was killing him. Yet, it must be done. If Adair witnessed or intuited how much it grieved him to hand over Rowenna for the purposes of viability of the clans...? She would never let it go. Adair alone was able to wheedle him into submission.

  He could stand it no more. Her silent sobbing felt like ground glass in his brain; Ronan bled inside for her. He strode to Adair and wrapped her against him. “She will not be treated badly or abused, my heart.” Ronan tipped Adair's face back, cupping the soft triangle of her chin, brushing the tears from eyes so startling a blue they rivaled the ocean at their feet. “He is a fair leader of their sphere.”

  “It does not matter what t
he character of the man may be. Aye,” she pressed her cheek more deeply into his palm, “it matters not for he will simply lay with her and leave her with the babe. There will be no love.”

  They did not speak of what might occur after the event. Yet, they both thought it: would Rolland still mate with Rowenna? When she carried the babe of another deeply within her?

  The answer was Nay, they thought not.

  It was not the life they would have chosen for their child.

  *

  Rolland was quiet, as was his way, while he and Rowenna made their way back to the clan, she upon the steed that he guided. He would look back occasionally as her tall and elegant body undulated with the gait of the horse underneath and wondered upon her state of mind.

  When they rode over the last hill that was part sand dune, the ocean greeted them with her azure brilliance, the sun a great ball of heat at the apex of the sky. Rolland shielded his eyes and determining that the evening meal would be five hours hence he made a plan to take Rowenna's mind off the happenings of one day past. A faint whistle sung as the seagrass mingled together in the breeze coming off the whitecaps of the ocean.

  “Let us swim,” he said suddenly and Rowenna gave the first smile he had seen this day. The slits at her throat expanded as she breathed deeply in preparation. Her melancholy mood would not leave her, the talons of her future sprung and deeply piercing the armor of her heart.

  “Come, forget all this for a time and swim with me,” he said, waving his palm toward the vastness of the water.

  Rowenna slid from her mount and Rolland caught her, swinging her to a gentle landing upon the white sugar-like sand underneath their feet.

  They shucked their outer tunics and leather, calf-length laced shoes before wading into the sea. Though summer was at its height the water remained nearly icy on the eastern seaboard..

  Rolland took Rowenna's hand and they swam deeply. They swam so far beneath the cool blanket of the ocean that when they swirled in the water to look back at the surface, their backs to the ocean floor, the sun was but a dim ball of opaque fire, viewed as through a glass, darkly.

  As they floated beneath the waves, Rolland thought of another man touching Rowenna, his promised, and the need for violence rose up inside him like it did for all Band. They were fiercely protective of the small female population they had, and would kill for their mate.

  Rolland circled Rowenna's waist and sucked her against him as his powerful legs kicked in a steady flutter until they burst the surface where they floated, neither speaking.

  There was nothing to say.

  And everything.

  *

  King Raymond

  “Your majesty,” King Raymond's manservant called to him.

  Raymond raised his head, sighing. Another duty awaited him and he had been about attending the fields. He so wished to even now be rolling up his sleeves and dirtying himself with the harvesting of oysters. He felt certain that he was not meant to be King.

  Of course, he was not yet King. The coronation was one month hence.

  “Yes, Peter, do come in,” Raymond invited.

  He put the note from the Kingdom of Virginia under the glass weight. It was deeply convex and magnified everything due to its shape. He glanced at it and saw the most troubling word of all that lay on the stiff parchment: Wedded.

  He would be crowned King of the sphere on his day of birth. He would be ten and eight. He dreaded it, he welcomed it. Raymond had many ideas of leadership that were different than those of his great uncle, who had been ruling monarch these forty seasons past. He now grew frail with age and the royal blood stopped with his own.

  “King Ferrell awaits you, my Lord,” Peter announced.

  Raymond turned at the waist, his long arm fully wrapping the back of the ornately carved chair, a holdover from the Rococo era, a time from Before the Rocks Fell. Or as they thought of it here in the Kingdom of Ohio, just before. Raymond had often pored over the volume of: Asteroids, Before the Rocks Fell. He had been frustrated by the study of it. It manufactured more questions than it answered.

  He tore his thoughts away from those of introspection and back to the question at hand. “How does he fare this day?”

  “Might I speak freely, my Lord?” Peter asked, his expressive eyes holding the sadness that spoke more plainly than the stilted conversation of their disparate stations ever could.

  Raymond inclined his head in encouragement and Peter answered, “He but awaits your coronation to pass into the next realm, my Lord.”

  Raymond palmed his chin, glancing at the letter that had held wax just moments before Peter's entry into his chamber.

  He stood, buttoning his light summer weight coat with tails at the back, his manservant rushing forward to grab his hat and ornately carved cane, the head shaped into the likeness of the oysters the sphere cultivated.

  Raymond held his palm up. “Please, Peter, you know how I feel about my clothing.”

  Peter nodded. “Aye, I do know the spirit of you, my Lord. Yet, I respectfully add that I will be out on mine ear if King Ferrell discovers me loafing at the execution of my duties.”

  “Blame me, then,” Raymond said dryly.

  Peter got a twinkle in his eye at Raymond's words. “Aye, that I will.” He caught his master's gaze, a fair and just man, far too serious for Peter's taste and repeated, “That I will.”

  Peter followed the future King of Ohio out of his chamber, the sconces against the faux walls of the sphere hissing as they released their steam and heat. The gaslight provided a glaring but low-burning light which illuminated their slow progression to the sick bed of the current King.

  Who lay dying. Waiting only for his great-nephew's coronation. And the fulfillment of a promise uttered by the Guardians themselves.

  *

  King Ferrell watched Raymond enter his dwelling, the door a solid two feet above him, framing him as he paused through the threshold. All doors inside the royal manse were eight feet and King Ferrell thought perhaps Raymond was not yet done gaining his adult height.

  He abstained from dwelling on what would happen to Raymond when he did as the Guardians instructed.

  They both knew that it would abbreviate his life. Yet, if a child came from the immoral union with the Savage, then all was not lost. Ferrell knew the dangers of the inbreeding that was becoming pervasive in the neighboring spheres. The Kingdom of Kentucky was a prime example. His lips puckered, making a strange popping sound of distaste as he thought on it.

  Ferrell was parched. The disease that no doctor could cure had taken him, the very spit in his mouth lay like dirt that had never seen rain.

  Age was the enemy.

  After all, his father had been the first generation of those within the sphere.

  Ferrell was one hundred years old. There were many of the sphere that had outlived him. Aging had been greatly slowed by life inside the sphere, though they knew not why. Ferrell heard the timed release of steam and welcomed the heat, it was comforting as his circulation was so depleted of late that it was sometimes the only thing which allowed him to feel at all.

  “Come in, young Raymond.” Soon to be king, he added to himself.

  Raymond walked to his bedside and Ferrell thought how much he seemed to resemble his long-dead ancestor, Stella. She had looked as he did, with gray eyes and dark hair. Eyes like a storm. Those eyes gave him away. Stormy in anger and light whilst happy. Yes, he would be an excellent leader... for his short life.

  “What say you?” Raymond asked softly as he sat on the edge of the large bed, filled with feathers from the geese that were kept for their down in a pen halfway across the sphere.

  “I am the same, as you see.”

  Raymond looked over the slack and ashen skin of his uncle and felt a pang of sadness. Yet, he was one hundred years, an excellent and long life lived in stewardship over his people, a man that actually heard firsthand stories of what it had been like Outside from before. A life of such length would neve
r be Raymond's future because of his coming sacrifice.

  There was no wallowing allowed and Raymond cut the feeling even as it rose inside him, causing an unrealized ache in his breastbone at the squashing of it.

  “Did you receive the announcement?” Ferrell asked quietly, then a kerchief rose like a poisonous flag as he had a coughing fit that lasted a full minute. Raymond waited through it, knowing that there would soon be less breathing and more coughing as the time of his passing drew nearer.

  Peter came forward and Ferrell's eyes flicked to the royal manservant. “I am fine, it is but a spell, dear Peter.” Peter's eyes clouded. His love for his King standing like a fine and true fire which lay banked by force.

  Raymond waited until Ferrell came to himself, the coughing under control and lifted the creamy parchment envelope, a remnant of blood-red wax clinging stubbornly to the lip at its back.

  Their eyes met and King Ferrell's slid to Peter's. “Peter, if you would give Prince Raymond and I a moment.”

  “Yes, your Majesty,” Peter said, leaving in a graceful backward walk to the entrance then swinging the great thick door, closing it almost soundlessly.

  King Ferrell began the business at hand without preamble. “You will meet Princess Ada at the coronation and the Wedded Joining shall be three months hence.”

  Raymond attempted to school his face but failed.

  “I know it is not of your choosing.” Ferrell looked into his great-nephew's eyes. “None of these circumstances are ideal. However,” he pointed a gnarled finger at Raymond, “the Guardians' prophecy has come full circle. There will be redemption. You will couple with this Savage, she will bear your heir and Ada will be the pseudo mother of the babe.” Ferrell's eyes became fevered, bordering on the narrow fence of zealotry. “The heir shall save the sphere... all spheres,” Ferrell sputtered, the next coughing fit making the first look like a wild animal tamed.