The Moon's Heir - Book 1

Chapter 1

1:45 PM – Ada

'... "You don't give a damn about anything! How can you act so calm you jerk?!!" . . .'

Zeraverto opened his eyes, Zertorio's words ringing alarmingly clearly in his head.

Seated languidly on a park bench, bathed in whatever rays of sunlight managed to filter through the trees, he thought with absent irritation that Zertorio had the keen habit of getting on his nerves even without needing to be present.

Zertorio, his younger brother, had said – (screamed) – that to him three years ago, on the day their youngest sister, Rozaria, had been kidnapped right in front of them . . . But it still came back to him at odd times.

Zeraverto could never figure out why it was that particular phrase that kept coming back to him...

It was past one-thirty in the afternoon in the almost deserted park – barring a lone young girl with reddish-brown hair who was reading under a tree about ten feet to his right. This observation was one that he deemed unnecessary the moment he made it. But unfortunately, even if he did consider most of the species on this side of the world to be undeserving of his attention, ingrained habits aren't easy to switch off.

Zeraverto rearranged his long limbs as he tried to relax again, tried to immerse himself in the way the wind danced through the leaves, swirling, dying, and then picking up again . . . But apparently, he'd reached his "relaxation limit" for the day.

Damn Zertorio.

To anyone who might have watched Zeraverto from the outside, all they would see was a young man with a good form, a strikingly alluring yet intimidating presence, and a face as aloof and unreadable as marble.

The clothes he wore were casual, if decidedly monochrome in theme: A navy blue shirt under a black jacket, black jeans, and sneakers. But he'd noticed on his much earlier visits that it seemed to be a common enough style among the natives that looked around his age, and he was absently grateful for the simplicity of it. He'd come here to escape for a few hours, after all. He did not need more tedious preparations.

However, realizing that it was almost two in the afternoon now, he decided he should probably return to his own world, Cameo. For, if the routine of the last two months held, he'd likely have an hour more of peace here at the most before people and traffic claimed the outdoors more prominently.

And the racket wasn't one he relished.

Adans – what Cameans called this particular specie of human – were known, in fact, for being intolerably loud. But, as he had no idea how to access any of the other human realms on the planet on his own, he didn't really have a lot of options. And, at least here, he wouldn't be tempted to let his frustration transform into bloodlust; the weakness of the Adans killed any sort of interest he had to get into a fight.

He finally sat up, brooding for a few moments before he left for his world, allowing his mind to think of his sister. It was preferable to brooding on his brother. (Zertorio always had a knack for getting under his skin; something no one else could boast of with such a rate of success.) And it wasn't a good idea to switch worlds while feeling that level of aggravation. He just might teleport himself off a cliff.

Raven tresses, brown eyes, and a small, mirthful face flashed through his mind as he thought of the small girl he remembered. 'Three years today,' he thought silently, his expression betraying nothing. They still hadn't found her or seen any sign of her to date. 'Rozaria would be twelve now.'

He knew for a fact that Rozaria was alive. But none of them – neither he nor his other two siblings – had been able to find any trace of her for the past three years in Cameo. And, finding in the last year that he almost desperately wished for a change, wanting to go someplace where nobody knew him, where nobody would notice him, he had started visiting this world — or Ada, as Cameans knew it.