Crossing Acheron

Copyright © 2023 by HG Birde All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. Crossing Acheron is a work of fiction. Certain real-life places and events are mentioned, but the characters within are wholly imaginary. While the references to Jure Grando are based upon legends surrounding his life and death, the events in this story surrounding him and his children have no factual basis. ISBN 979-8-9880154-0-6 Beta Readers: Susan McKerns, Gemma Blair, & Veronika Cover & interior decorative elements designed by MiblArt www.hgbirdebooks.com About Crossing Acheron “ My blood calls for yours, and yours mine.” Malachy Donovan was born human. But after waking up in a pool of his own blood, he knew that fact, which once felt so certain, had been changed forever. After being freed from imprisonment by Acheron and his elite unit of bodyguards, Malachy quickly learns the truth of his condition: he is a dhampir, a rare and powerful creature born half-human, half-vampire. Forced into a blood bond with the vampire prince—the same man who rescued him from captivity—to leave his side would be the same as being hunted down by the armies at Acheron’s command. Now caught in a war between the prestigious vampire High Clans and the vampire anarchists who abducted him, Malachy finds himself at a crossroads: should he fight to retain his humanity among the creatures who would see him become a monster? Or give in to the growing attraction he has for the beautiful yet manipulative Acheron…and the dark allure of the underworld said prince would do anything to protect? Crossing Acheron is the first book in the LGBT+ dark fantasy series, Kin & Kine. This book features MM enemies-to-lovers, slow burn over high heat, promiscuous vampires and Machiavellian royalty, dragon-shifters, werewolves, and witches. Kin & Kine contains content some readers may find distressing and, as such, is intended for an adult audience. You can find all content warnings on my website. If you’d like more in-depth warnings, feel free to reach out via social media or by email: [email protected] This is a fictional book about monsters. It is not intended as a manual on how to be a monster yourself. To my friends who help me see the forest for the trees and the wolves that lie within. Contents Epigraph 1. CHAPTER ONE 2. CHAPTER TWO 3. CHAPTER THREE 4. CHAPTER FOUR 5. CHAPTER FIVE 6. CHAPTER SIX 7. CHAPTER SEVEN 8. CHAPTER EIGHT 9. CHAPTER NINE 10. CHAPTER TEN 11. CHAPTER ELEVEN 12. CHAPTER TWELVE 13. CHAPTER THIRTEEN 14. CHAPTER FOURTEEN 15. CHAPTER FIFTEEN 16. CHAPTER SIXTEEN 17. CHAPTER SEVENTEEN 18. CHAPTER EIGHTEEN 19. CHAPTER NINETEEN 20. CHAPTER TWENTY 21. CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE 22. CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO 23. CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE 24. CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR 25. CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE 26. CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX 27. CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN 28. CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT 29. CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE 30. CHAPTER THIRTY 31. CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE EPILOGUE Afterword Also By About Author flectere si nequeo superos, Acheronta movebo - Virgil, The Aeneid 1 CHAPTER ONE By the time he realized he was still alive, Malachy Donovan had been dead for several weeks. He could still feel how his head had been slammed into the floor of the cell, the impact reverberating behind his eyes. He was somehow still alive—still breathing, at least—but when his skull shattered against the concrete, he knew something within him had died. He didn’t know what it was that had been changed, only that it had. Well, shit. Reaching up to feel the back of his head, he prodded at the edges of his cracked skull. Where there had once been a clot of sticky tangles was now a mat of unwashed hair beneath his fingers. The dried blood gluing it together flaked away beneath his unclipped nails. He must’ve looked like a pile of absolute dogshit and felt about the same. He pushed himself to his feet and saw the blood that had dried on the floor beneath him. The sight of it made his stomach turn. Was that really his? Malachy stumbled to the edge of the cell, memory dragging him toward the industrial shower head installed into the stone wall. He remembered his captor forcing him beneath the unheated water it spewed. To keep him clean. It was laughable now, having woken up in a puddle of his own brains. Here he’d been, left to rot in it. How much time had he lost? Days, he had counted, but it’d been weeks he spent unconscious. Dead? He didn’t know how he knew this, only that he did. His head throbbed, and Malachy wanted nothing but the cool relief of the water against his face. Fumbling around for the mechanism that would turn it on, he came up empty. “You shitting me?” There was no valve on the pipe to start the water flow. It must be on some sort of timer or otherwise controlled outside of the cell block. He poked at the black mold growing along the edges of the drain with his toe. As he contemplated what to do, the door to the cell swung open with a telltale brassy creak. Malachy turned to the sound, already knowing what he’d see. The man with the one golden eye. When they had first met, he’d introduced himself as Marcellus. He’d bought Malachy a drink and chatted with him about the unknown bands that were playing in the bar that night. But when they first met, he also hadn’t known monsters were real. Malachy wasn’t prey. He was the one to make the first move, ghosting his touch along Marcellus’s arm. The rest, he couldn’t remember no matter how hard he tried. It didn’t really matter, he supposed. No matter how it went, it always ended up here. Alone in a cold, damp cell. Changed into something that wasn’t human. Murdered. “You’re alive,” Marcellus said, the