One Drop of Blood

One Drop Of Blood Book 1 of The Coven of Aster Series MAKAYLA HART Sanguinaria Ephemeralis Press All works in this collection are works of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. Copyright © 2023 Makayla Hart All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or used in any manner without written permission of the copyright owner except for the use of quotations in a book review. Book design by Makayla Hart Sanguinaria Ephemeralis Press Interested in learning more about future releases from Makayla Hart? Visit: https://sites.google.com/view/authormakhart/home Or email the author at [email protected] Chapter 1 Death was not on her schedule for the day. If it had been, Victoria would have penciled it in before the evening restock of the shoe department at Clearwell’s Department Store. At least then, she’d have been spared the indignity of picking up the discarded hosiery and abandoned, worn footwear. Or maybe she wouldn’t have gone to work at all. Scheduling it early would have saved her the trouble of getting out of bed and facing a world hell bent on destroying her. Yes, that would have been better than this. To die after spending all day on her feet was just cruel. And yet, here she was. Sprawled out on her back, staring into the infinitely black night sky, the life draining from her body, surrounded by strangers with hideous red eyes. Excruciating pain and terror aside, she wasn’t nearly as bothered by death as she thought she would be. Dying was relatively chill compared to everything else. Even now, lying in a pool of her own blood, she was relieved. Wasn’t that weird? She was relieved this nightmare was finally coming to an end. God, there had been so much. Her parents passed away three years ago, both within six months of each other from heart attack and stroke. The rest of her family went no contact after the wills were read and revealed that her “loving” parents didn’t particularly care for any of them a great deal. Their estate went to the state to cover taxes and all the other bullshit fees the government liked to tack on to the bereaved’s bill. Beyond that, she had been working as much overtime as humanly possible to cover hospital bills and student loans. So far, she’d paid off a pebble’s worth on both. At this rate, she would have to work until she was two-hundred and seventy-five years old before it was paid off completely. A true-life sentence if there ever was one. And then there was her social life. To be blunt, it was deader than Victoria was about to be. Friends? Non-existent. The ones she had drifted away after the twelfth consecutive month of her telling them she didn’t have time to hang out. She didn’t really blame them for that. What was the point of reaching out to someone if they couldn’t take the time to reach back? Would she have liked to be checked on every once in a while? Sure. Did she think it could have helped her feel less like she was drowning? Absolutely. Would it have soothed the ragged, jagged edges of her consciousness and made her feel more human and less like a lab rat near the end of a tedious experiment? Yep. Did she think they’d come to her funeral? Maybe if there was free food. Judging by her finances, her ashes would probably be tossed out with someone’s half-eaten leftovers from the week before. But that wasn’t Victoria’s problem anymore, because she was dying. None of that was her problem, and she’d be damned if that didn’t feel incredible. Almost as incredible as looking up at the pinprick stars and finding her favorite constellation shining above her as she slowly faded from life. All fuzzy and heavy. Almost cozy. Though the teeth sinking into her neck were a tad uncomfortable. A shrill laugh cut through the haze. Oh, right. She was being murdered by a group of nightmare creatures for their amusement outside of her favorite Chinese takeout place. Her vegetable lo mein painted the sidewalk next to her, and she shed a single tear in mourning. The food was fresh. Hot. Probably the best vegetable lo mein The Happy Duck had ever made. And she’d never get to drench it in duck sauce. All because a gaggle of psychopaths descended upon her; the last cruel joke The Universal Powers That Be had up their sleeve. To kill her at the end of a long day when the only comfort she could afford was cheap food and reruns of an old show she liked to watch. “How’s she taste, Jagger?” a nasal voice asked from nearby. She couldn’t move to pinpoint the owner of the awful voice, but she assumed it belonged to the redhead in generic punk fashion, complete with holey fishnets and studded black boots. Victoria remembered those boots because she was the one who stomped on her stomach after she was pushed on her back by… Jagger. Christ, she was being murdered by a douchebag named Jagger. “Sour, like her fucking attitude, I bet,” a huskier voice answered. Another one of Jagger’s minions. She wasn’t sure which guy was speaking; everything was getting hazier. She didn’t know whether to blame the blood loss or the beating she took before Jagger descended on her. He groaned into the side of her neck, and she wanted to puke all down his shoulder. But that would have required something in her stomach and the strength to retch. She had neither. So, she closed her eyes and prayed that it would be over sooner rather than later. A hand snaked across Victoria’s forehead and twisted her head to the side. Instinctively, her eyes snapped open, and she found a pair of those hateful, hideous red eyes burning