History
For the last thousand years, the vampires have reigned over the supernatural world unchallenged, establishing themselves at the top of the food chain while regulating everyone else as “lesser”. This, however, was not always the case. Once, vampires were just as disbursed and unorganized as the werewolf packs and as weak as the witch covens are today. As time passed and their numbers grew, vampires clustered together in colonies to secure their numbers and ensure their survival. This gave them power, influence, and the ability to hunt safely. Before their long regime, vampires could be ruled by a being of magic consisting of both light and dark that walked the line of life and death. Power permeated in this being’s blood to absorb and manipulate magic to its own choosing so strongly that it would become the embodiment of all magics. The vampires called this being Fertiri after their fabled golden Goddess.
The first Fertiri to live long enough to come into her immense power was Diana the huntress. She used her magic to war with the vampires and werewolves, bringing both to the brink of collapse. Her ferocity and her determination to rid the world of her enemies won her a place among the Gods. As the God’s lost favor and humans forgot about the power those Gods wielded, Diana found refuge with the Fae. Crossing the veil into Faerie, Diana, as payment for sanctuary, left the mortal world and her magic behind.
Almost 800 years later, another Fertiri rose to power, unbeknownst to the vampire colonies littering the cities of antiquity. Not until she met the men who would change her life and would ultimately mean her demise, would anyone suspect how dangerous she would be. Cleopatra used her magic to entice the most powerful vampire in her sphere, Julius Caesar, to do her bidding and Mark Antony, a powerful werewolf, to devote himself to her. As both Julius Caesar and Mark Antony fell to her charms, each saw the possibility of aligning themselves with her. But absolute power corrupts absolutely, and reigning over vampires and werewolves was not enough. They waged war to rule not just the realm of the supernatural but the entire world.
After Cleopatra’s catastrophic demise and destruction, the vampire colonies and the oldest of them vowed to never be subject to the whims of a woman like Cleopatra again. It was decreed by the emerging vampire council that all Fertiris were to be killed on sight. As time passed, the vampires discovered the power of organization, politics, and money. They rose to the top of the supernatural world, destroying their enemies with a vengeance. In the dark ages, werewolves were hunted and feared throughout Europe and Asia. During the Renaissance, the vampires targeted the witch covens and brought them to the point of hiding in the shadows for half a millennium to stay alive.
More than a thousand years of hunting and killing Fertiris had left the vampire council, now the Lebensblut board, feeling impervious to harm and quite smug. But somewhere in the Midwest, living in Ohio’s capital city, a woman is coming into her own and discovering that she is much more powerful than she ever thought possible. Dahlia Sabin is Fertiri.
