Amalgamate

Chapter 57

Declan wanted to speak to the hunting party directly because Rowan's safety was paramount and that would be crystal clear if he delivered the message himself. Each of the men needed to understand who she was to him.

If an elder, like Declan, found his bride she would be eternally safeguarded. His people would defend her to their last breath, but they had to find her first. Some of the vampires descending from his blood line lived together in groups while others preferred their solitude. But, now that Declan had found Rowan and declared her his bride, his people would band together and protect her.

Every species had their specific, innate, strengths and weaknesses. Vampires couldn't create portals between realms from nothing, like a sorcerer could. Vampires needed physical portals often times referred to by humans, unknowingly, as dolmens.

Declan knew the location of every dolmen around the globe, and they were on every continent. Humans believed them to be portal tombs or portal graves. For thousands of years, they were hidden from view, but now because of erosion and drought many of them were no longer hidden beneath pieces of the earth. Instead, only the stones remained, making them more visible.

Some dolmens were erected as early as 7000 B.C.; however, even today the humans still couldn't explain who, when or why they were made. The oldest dolmens were in Western Europe, and many of them were still being used by elder vampires, amongst others, to travel between realms, unbeknownst to the humans.

These portals were created thousands of years ago by powerful sorcerers, but when the history books were written, the humans referred to them as gods. There was a reason history wasn't documented in writing in this era but rather passed down orally. When stories were told orally, they would be exaggerated upon to strike fear into the hearts of others as a means of controlling people in a time when there was no way to control them other than to make them believe there was something out there. Someone watching them. And over time these stories would morph into something so unrealistic that no one would ever believe magic or monsters ever really existed.

Ancient fictional stories about mythological gods and creatures as well as present day horror movies and fictional writing about monsters were all that remained. Humans no longer believed that such fictional creatures could ever walk the earth or that other realms even existed. Humans had become a blindly overconfident species- which made living around them, hiding amongst them, and feeding off them much easier tasks.

Declan preferred to use a tomb that was erected about 3200 B.C for several reasons. First, it was made especially for him by a good friend which meant there were no sorcery traps hidden within. Second, because it allowed access to multiple realms from within one portal tomb. And third, Newgrange Tomb was in Ireland, his home. A magical place rich with lore history, his history.

He still couldn't believe that Newgrange was a damn tourist attraction today. If the humans entering had any idea how close they were to finding out the truth about their world, that they weren't alone, that other realms existed, that their nightmares really did walk amongst them...Earth would be on fire.

The reason they had been able to live amongst the humans for so long without being detected was because they respected the secret, allow the humans to believe they are the dominant species on the planet. And the truth was, it behooved the lore to stay hidden amongst them, because every superior species needed an inferior species to do the work they deemed unworthy. Even more importantly for them, humans were the main food source for vampires, and with a steadily growing population and human longevity, the vampires were sure to always have a buffet.

Because the tomb was on a schedule and locked up tight at night they could move in and out without anyone even knowing they were there, which made it both convenient and private for him to meet with his vampires. No one needed to know he'd invoked his hunting party.