Draoithe Preview Chapters
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This blog features random scenes from works in progress within the Draoithe Saga by Ophelia Kee. These works are primarily urban fantasy and paranormal romance with magical realism, dark themes, and fated mates sprinkled throughout. Here you will find scenes which are yet to be published as of the time of posting, and these chapters may require further editing. It's a look behind the curtain, a sneak peek if you will, at scenes from stories Ophelia Kee is currently drafting.
If you want polished complete stories, this is not the right place. But if you enjoy bits and bobs of things yet to come, won't fall in love with a rough version, and want a taste of the dream before the magic coalesces, then you have found the spot.
January 22, 2025 Sneak Peek at General of the Horse
Warning:
This is a work in progress and
is subject to change at any time.
Read at Your Own Risk!
Copyright 2025
All Rights Reserved.
Opening Scene - Prayed
Logan Synner - Winter 1525
He tossed the sweat-drenched thin blanket on the floor and knelt on it before the single candle which burned in his cell. His monk’s robes hung on the wall peg.
It was the middle of the night. A cold wintry night, all too similar to the one which set him on his current path.
The nightmare of being eaten alive had terrorized him once more. The stress brought it back, but it was never far from him, even after so many years.
He was almost out of time and still had no clue what he needed to do. Logan needed another miracle.
Would he receive it? How many miracles could a sinner hope for?
He feared the manifestation of the miracle, but they only happened if he prayed. Whatever miracle might come, it had to be easier than what he currently faced. If not, things would change, and even that was preferable.
It was difficult to order his mind for prayer. The cold from the stone floor seeped into his knees. He breathed deep and exhaled slowly, watching the fog of his breath hang in the frigid air.
When he closed his eyes, Logan saw the fangs of the horse from his nightmare in his mind once again. They were bone white, sharp and hollow, equipped to deliver the paralyzing venom required to make a victim compliant.
A hundred years had passed, and he still remembered, as if it had happened only yesterday. He deserved what happened. It had been retribution for his perversions. He let himself relive the memory awake, so he could remember why he was Logan Synner.
He felt himself being trampled beneath the hooves only for a moment. The fangs sank into his broken body. He felt nothing else.
His blood left him. Time stood still, and he slowly gave up the breath of life with the blood the horse consumed. Logan weakened, but there was no pain. He would die. It was the end.
The stars twinkled coldly in the distance of space. No moonlight interrupted the gloom of the night. A silent wind moved dead leaves across the pavers as the bare branches swayed.
He prayed, even though a corrupted man had no right to pray. It was all that remained for him. Maybe some deity in the afterlife would consider his prayer worth something.
The memories of the life he’d lived offered him nothing but shame. He could have been a better man, a man worthy of life, but he threw it away to carouse and indulge in illicit pleasures.
Men who forced women should die horrible deaths. He had been that and worse. His end was a fitting one, a just one, considering his crimes. Men, such as himself, deserved nothing better.
Still, he received a miracle, albeit a strange one. Perhaps when a man lived in iniquity, the miracles he received held the perversion of his sins.
*****
Thundering hooves clipped over the pavers of the road at a speed no horse should be able to run. A second black demonic horse never slowed. It attacked the first.
Logan could only watch as fangs tore into the throat of the horse, which had been swallowing his blood. His broken body no longer moved, but his eyes followed the carnage of their own volition.
The two stallions fought as horses, rearing, kicking, and biting. Horseflesh, hair, and blood lay strewn upon the ground from the fight as sparks flew from their hooves, striking the street pavers.
The second horse overcame the first, and in a brutal frenzy, stomped the fallen stallion to death in the dusty lane with massive, steel-shod hooves. Blood covered everywhere, but Logan Johnson lived still.
The womanizer cicerone lay broken in the roadway, staring at a red-eyed demon warhorse from legend. The victorious midnight rider snorted and neighed his victory as he pranced around the fallen horse. It was a sight no one would believe.
Incredibly, the champion shifted.
Black fire traced over the body of the midnight rider. A man stood in his place. He was tall and dark, with the same midnight black hair as the horse’s mane and tail.
He still had red eyes and seriously sharp fangs. Even as a man, he was a demon horse, hard, heavily muscled, and dangerous. He’d come for Logan.
Logan knew it was time he finally paid for the rapes, the perverted acts, and the nights of debauchery. No man could live as Logan had lived without paying the price. But the price was far different from anything Logan had imagined.
The Cheval Mallet took pity on him.
“Consent to be turned, and you’ll live like my kind.”
Logan consented in a wheezing whisper. He feared the horse, who was a man. Becoming a demon horse was scary, but he wasn’t sure he had a choice, as death wasn’t something he felt prepared to face.
He might not have been a fully evil man, but he sure as hell was a sinner. After the life of debauchery and revelry in the bawdy houses he lived, he needed far more time to be the man he would have liked to be.
“Drink not from humans as the bloodlust will take you, and you’ll be less than that one.”
The man pointed at the fallen horse.
“Don’t make me return to end your life as I did his. I’m Vale Orobai, General of the Horse at Talamh Marcra. All Cheval Mallet outside of the Dorcha answer to me.”
Vale slit his wrist and forced Logan to drink the blood. Pain rippled through him as his body repaired itself. Then darkness overtook him.
When he blinked awake again, he was a horse staring up at the cold stars in the sky. He knew hours had passed because the stars had shifted. Vale had kept the vigil.
A large gypsy horse painted black on grey with feathered fetlocks lay in the path's dust in the place he had fallen as a man. Logan was lying down and immediately wished to rise. The horse-mind wanted his feet beneath him.
When he rose, the solid black, red-eyed stallion that had shifted into a man pawed the ground, demanding his submission. Logan dipped his horse-neck below the head of the stallion, bending one foreleg at the knee.
He offered submission to the horse who saved his miserable life. The stallion whinnied and snorted. Black fire traced over his body, and the dark man stood before him once more.
“Focus your mind and think that you wish to be as you had been. Envision yourself as a man. Magic is a product of the mind. If you can think, you can wield the midnight flame.”
Vale commanded him. Logan snorted and nodded his horse-head, trying to do as instructed.
He closed his eyes and felt the tingling black fire ripple over his horse-body. He stood in the pre-dawn dark, naked on the dusty lane beneath the stars, a mile from the monastery he had hoped to walk to when it grew dark the evening before.
He was a cicerone. Logan Johnson should speak with the abbot about selling the monastery’s lager, Guinness, and ale.
He was that man once more, at least in appearance. Forever changed, he left his human life behind and acknowledged he was a sinner with a second chance. Logan changed his name.
“I’m sorry for what happened to you. If I could have gotten to the rogue sooner, I wouldn’t have allowed it.”
Vale held out his right arm. Logan clasped it. Vale hunted the ones of his kind, which attacked and killed humans. Would Vale have saved him if he had known how worthless Logan was?
“Thank you for helping me. I can never repay you.”
Logan felt a kinship with the midnight rider. It was strange to feel unafraid of a demon warhorse, but he was one, too. That idea would take years to get used to.
“The thirst will rise the hour after dusk, known to vampires as the blood dark. Food and water won’t erase it. Seek the wild animals. Deer are best. Drink only what you need, and you won’t draw attention to yourself.”
Logan nodded and shivered.
“Don’t fear. Your speed will overcome the wind. The hunt will always be successful. Heed my warning, or the gift you received will become a curse. Take this.”
Vale handed him a small bracelet made of black ironwood.
“I will allow you the privilege of claiming an honorary position in my harem. Should you ever need me, wear the bracelet, and think of that desire. I’ll come in the dark. I have claimed you as one of my own.”
Vale nodded, let the black flames trace him into the imposing black stallion, and streaked away in a blinding blur. Logan had entered the Leaindeail, no longer the man he’d once been, but a sinner still.
Many years had passed. Time had passed as he learned to be what he was and lived safely ensconced in the monastery, but that safety no longer existed. His circumstances once again turned grim. Life and death hung in the balance, and only another miracle could change things.
Logan Synner prayed.
Thank you for visiting the scrying pool of Draoithe Preview Chapters. I sincerely hope you enjoyed this glimpse into the future of the dream. - OK
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