Cruden Tale (Awakening Spin Off)

Cruden Tale (Awakening Spin Off)

L.T. Marshall

5.0
Comment(s)
909
View
31
Chapters

Leyanne Cruden is a very old yet powerful witch in present day who is dissatisfied with the world as we know it. An immortal who stopped ageing in her late twenties. She has lived through so much and lost so many that it has jaded her personality and she no longer knows if she is good or bad. A vision leads her on a purpose to find an awakening hunter who threatens the existence of all supernatural beings. Like her he's young, immortal and everything that can destroy her. His creation was purely for the purpose of wiping the earth free of supernaturals. To prevent this tragedy she must assemble a coven of mixed creatures and figure out how to avert the destruction of magic before it's too late. They do say that sometimes the one thing which is the worst for you is the one thing you want the most - Dante Torres, a hunter with the ability to end her life. She will need to let people in if she has a hope of succeeding, as even a witch as powerful as her can not do it alone. With a collection of supernatural characters, love and heartbreak.

Chapter 1 Leyanne's Journal

November 27th

My name is Leyanne Cruden, I have graced these lands for what feels like an eternity, although compared to humans I guess I have lived that. I have persevered through some of the worst and best decades and now I find myself in present day, the 2020's. I keep this journal wherever I go to record my thoughts and feelings, my memories, so that my mind can let go of the mundane yet never lose a way to reminisce because I have lived hundreds of lifetimes. I hope that one day all that remains of me are these memories and I would have finally found peace in death, although it seems unlikely.

I have practised in the magical arts since my birth to my mortal mother and always known I was different. I was born with a knowledge she never possessed and abilities that terrified her, terrified people around me.

My father was non-existent, a travelling high priest known as a Dru wit, but in modern times you refer to them as druids. Little is known about them, where they came from, or to why he chose to bear a child with a mortal human. What my purpose may have been in his design for me as a child, for along the way I have yet to find it.

I am alone.

Only one of my kind it seems and although I have travelled near and far in an effort to find others like me or even remnants of the druids, I find nothing but fakes and mimics. People who want to be what I am, who convince themselves they have gifts and powers, but when faced with someone like me they soon pale in comparison. Even among the immortal breeds, I stand out as something else.

Witchcraft is a dying art and those of you who still possess power have lost the knowledge to harness it in any meaningful way. Very few true witches of great power remain. So I have been forced to dampen what I do and limit it to appear as human as possible while I navigate this modern world.

The beings you were once so afraid of now hide in the shadows and the cracks out of sight. You have no idea what dwells in your world with your little fairy stories and movies about dark monsters you think stemmed from bedtime stories and folklore. I know better, I can see all that would rip your little world apart, yet I am untouchable. Nothing can harm me; I have been graced with a power that so far is unmatched in any realm of this little planet that I can't even find a way to commit my own suicide.

I have researched the lineage of my father and find nothing to point me in any direction that may be of help. Conspiracy theorists believed they were of another planet, who stopped by to grace us with knowledge and ideology, but I find nothing to back this up. My powers seem to follow witchcraft in many ways, but then I also have other gifts which no witch has ever harnessed through no amount of conjuring or spell work. I don't know what I am.

Here, now, walking among you in a small southern town in the United States of America; I have travelled from my birthplace in the highlands of Scotland many times, I have travelled the world and always find myself back here as though being tugged by an unseen force of destiny. My gut tells me that somehow, the something I have been looking for all this time is manifesting in the warmer climates and southern accents around me. My powers brought me across the sea yet I'm still searching for where I am supposed to go. I cannot shake the sense that I have missed that detail any time I have left these shores and gone elsewhere.

I'm staying in a small guesthouse run by a family called the Clairmont's. I have been here before, almost 200 years ago when this land was farmed by the Clairmont's of olde; I find it amusing to see the similarity in the faces that greet me now. How their genetics pass down reused features and colouring as though giving familiar comfort to those reborn into their new lives. My kind believe you will always return to something connected to you no matter how many lives you live.

I often wonder if I resemble the man who never stayed to lay eyes upon me and burdened me with this eternal life on a lost path. I know I never looked much like my mother or other clan members of my family name. I never knew him, saw him, or have evidence beyond my mother's brief tales.

I reached an age of maturity along the way; I cannot say when I stopped ageing as I am not sure. I don't know if it was something I did to myself or something I was destined to always be. I look young, yet old enough to be a mother. I guess you humans would put me at thirty or thereabouts. I'm tall and slender and have dark hair that hangs down my back with light curling of the ends. I am of ivory skin and dark brown eyes with green flecks that dance like a ring of fire around my pupils.

I am neither beautiful, nor ugly. I'm average, considering the abilities I possess. I have a plainness that suits my longing to blend into my surroundings. Maybe I could have changed how I look if I was so inclined, but maybe I am meant to stay invisible and unmemorable as the druids faces seem to have been in artworks across the globe. Either way, I gain enough male attention on my travels, yet not so much as to be a hindrance. I prefer it this way.

I have a darkness inside of me that translates to humans as sexuality, if only they had the sense to take it as a warning to steer clear instead of flocking to me with hopes of amour.

I can wither plants and trees with a look, I can bring about a tornado with a glare. I can heal but I can also take life away if I see fit and I have a heart that can do either without remorse. I have no idea which path they would consider me to be on, light or dark, as I do not even know myself if I'm someone you would call good or evil.

I don't kill unless I have to, I heal when I feel compelled. I do nothing unless I feel like it. Emotions are not my strong point and up until now I have been happy with my solitary lifestyle. Taking on tasks from immortals when I feel it benefits the peace and sanctuary of our secret lives.

Don't get me wrong, I am no sweet innocent virgin. I have had companions in my past who taught me a lot about love and pain and loss. Those who followed me and did as I asked, teaching me about seductive persuasion.

I have never needed to form stronger bonds other than physical with men for what would be the point? Anyone who links a life to me soon withers and dies over the years and I am left alone once more. My last lover died some 30 years ago, and I have grown bored of watching it. He had grown old and tiresome and although he confessed to love me, I felt nothing but relief when I walked away.

I left him when he no longer appealed to me and years later when I learned of his death, I felt no sadness for his passing. I know I'm cold and unlikeable but that's what fate gave me. I can't push myself to have emotions I don't think I possess and if I ever did, then they are so far in my past that I no longer remember them.

I think there is maybe a part of me that is broken inside and what I see around me of love and happiness never seems to touch me. Maybe this is how I am meant to be for when my purpose reveals itself maybe I need to be the one with a foot on each side of dark and light to be able to do what needs to be done.

Maybe I was created to be this way so when the hard decision hits, I'll be the one who can make it.

Continue Reading

Other books by L.T. Marshall

More
The Carrero Effect (Carrero series book 1)

The Carrero Effect (Carrero series book 1)

Billionaires

5.0

Emma Anderson has everything in her life worked out. She has her perfect job in a Manhattan empire allowing her to live a quiet and organised safe existence. A necessity to her, after a childhood filled with bad memories, abuse, and a mother who was less than useless. But, with it comes a problem, one that could derail everything she thought she needed in her life. Her promotion sends her straight into the close employment of young, gorgeous, playboy billionaire, Jacob Carrero with his formidable reputation for being a player. Stuck as his right-hand man, every waking moment of every single day, she realises he is exactly the type of person who could drive her crazy, and not in a good way. Like chalk and cheese, he is everything she's not. Compulsive, confident, laid back, dominant and fun, with a seriously laid back attitude to casual sex and dating. Jake is the only one with an ability to steamroll over her manicured ice maiden exterior, who is not phased by the closed in demeanour and cool manners, but as much as she wants to, letting him in is another thing entirely. A past that made her man wary and no desire to ever let one close enough to hurt her again, Jacob Carrero has his work cut out. He is not someone who takes NO for an answer and will have to learn how to break through if he wants more than the mask she shows the world. Jake needs to show her that even some one like him can change when that one girl that matters breaks through. Love-able sexy characters and deep emotional topics.

You'll also like

Too Late: The Spare Daughter Escapes Him

Too Late: The Spare Daughter Escapes Him

SHANA GRAY
4.3

I died on a Tuesday. It wasn't a quick death. It was slow, cold, and meticulously planned by the man who called himself my father. I was twenty years old. He needed my kidney to save my sister. The spare part for the golden child. I remember the blinding lights of the operating theater, the sterile smell of betrayal, and the phantom pain of a surgeon's scalpel carving into my flesh while my screams echoed unheard. I remember looking through the observation glass and seeing him-my father, Giovanni Vitiello, the Don of the Chicago Outfit-watching me die with the same detached expression he used when signing a death warrant. He chose her. He always chose her. And then, I woke up. Not in heaven. Not in hell. But in my own bed, a year before my scheduled execution. My body was whole, unscarred. The timeline had reset, a glitch in the cruel matrix of my existence, giving me a second chance I never asked for. This time, when my father handed me a one-way ticket to London-an exile disguised as a severance package-I didn't cry. I didn't beg. My heart, once a bleeding wound, was now a block of ice. He didn't know he was talking to a ghost. He didn't know I had already lived through his ultimate betrayal. He also didn't know that six months ago, during the city's brutal territory wars, I was the one who saved his most valuable asset. In a secret safe house, I stitched up the wounds of a blinded soldier, a man whose life hung by a thread. He never saw my face. He only knew my voice, the scent of vanilla, and the steady touch of my hands. He called me Sette. Seven. For the seven stitches I put in his shoulder. That man was Dante Moretti. The Ruthless Capo. The man my sister, Isabella, is now set to marry. She stole my story. She claimed my actions, my voice, my scent. And Dante, the man who could spot a lie from a mile away, believed the beautiful deception because he wanted it to be true. He wanted the golden girl to be his savior, not the invisible sister who was only ever good for her spare parts. So I took the ticket. In my past life, I fought them, and they silenced me on an operating table. This time, I will let them have their perfect, gilded lie. I will go to London. I will disappear. I will let Seraphina Vitiello die on that plane. But I will not be a victim. This time, I will not be the lamb led to slaughter. This time, from the shadows of my exile, I will be the one holding the match. And I will wait, with the patience of the dead, to watch their entire world burn. Because a ghost has nothing to lose, and a queen of ashes has an empire to gain.

The Ghost Wife's Billion Dollar Tech Comeback

The Ghost Wife's Billion Dollar Tech Comeback

Huo Wuer
5.0

Today is October 14th, my birthday. I returned to New York after months away, dragging my suitcase through the biting wind, but the VIP pickup zone where my husband’s Maybach usually idled was empty. When I finally let myself into our Upper East Side penthouse, I didn’t find a cake or a "welcome home" banner. Instead, I found my husband, Caden, kneeling on the floor, helping our five-year-old daughter wrap a massive gift for my half-sister, Adalynn. Caden didn’t even look up when I walked in; he was too busy laughing with the girl who had already stolen my father’s legacy and was now moving in on my family. "Auntie Addie is a million times better than Mommy," my daughter Elara chirped, clutching a plush toy Caden had once forbidden me from buying for her. "Mommy is mean," she whispered loudly, while Caden just smirked, calling me a "drill sergeant" before whisking her off to Adalynn’s party without a second glance. Later that night, I saw a video Adalynn posted online where my husband and child laughed while mocking my "sensitive" nature, treating me like an inconvenient ghost in my own home. I had spent five years researching nutrition for Elara’s health and managing every detail of Caden’s empire, only to be discarded the moment I wasn't in the room. How could the man who set his safe combination to my birthday completely forget I even existed? The realization didn't break me; it turned me into ice. I didn't scream or beg for an explanation. I simply walked into the study, pulled out the divorce papers I’d drafted months ago, and took a black marker to the terms. I crossed out the alimony, the mansion, and even the custody clause—if they wanted a life without me, I would give them exactly what they asked for. I left my four-carat diamond ring on the console table and walked out into the rain with nothing but a heavily encrypted hard drive. The submissive Mrs. Holloway was gone, and "Ghost," the most lethal architect in the tech world, was finally back online to take back everything they thought I’d forgotten.

Chapters
Read Now
Download Book