Excerpt of Beneath a Blood Red Moon by Shannon Drake

Prologue

New Orleans

1840

"There is nothing wrong with Comte DeVereaux," Magdalena said. She sat upon the settee in the grand parlor of her father's great-columned plantation house in the city of New Orleans. Her feet were firmly on the floor, her back determinedly straight.

Watching his only child, Jason Montgomery sighed and shook his head sadly. He hated to hurt her, but the hurt was necessary. In fact, seeing her there, her rich dark hair with its glistening hint of red piled atop her head, only a few delicate tendrils escaping, he felt a sudden shudder of fear. He must be firm. She was his only child, and he saw her through a father's prejudiced eyes, but she was beautiful. She had the classic perfection of face and figure that belonged to legends. Her soft skin was as smooth and perfect as alabaster; her eyes were a flashing hazel-gold. She had incredible dignity, a will of steel, and a startling intelligence, yet she had the grace of a gazelle, her every movement was naturally elegant, and at unguarded moments, she could appear as soft and tender and sweetly seductive as the most naive of innocent lasses. She was young, impressionable, passionate. He had taught her to be strong; she was his daughter, his heiress, and she must be so. He, Jason Montgomery, was ruler of all that surrounded him here in their plantation world, and he was respected by all men in Louisiana, men who were now Americans--be their ancestry French or British. He was a wise man, a learned man, indeed a powerful man, and he had tried very hard to give his daughter all of the things that made up what he was.

Now, she used them all against him. "You do not like the comte because he is French," Magdalena accused her father with quiet reproach.

"I do not like the comte, not because he is French, but because he is--" Jason broke off just in time. He would not have her thinking him a madman, he would have her respect his opinion and his dictates because he was her father.

"I have chosen to live in this place where my associates are most likely to be French!" he sputtered. Yes, he had chosen this place for just such a reason. There were men and women here of Colonial American descent; there were the French, the British. There were the islanders, the Creoles. There were people of mixed blood, coffee-colored ancients, younger, powerful dusky beauties who knew ... about the darkness.

This would not do. He raised a fist before him, shaking it toward his daughter. "I am your father. You will not see Alec DeVereaux again. I have decided that you will marry Robert Canady and that you will do so in the next few months, as soon as a ceremony can be arranged."

"No!" Magdalena cried, leaping to her feet. Passion and fury filled her eyes. The beauty and grace of her motion were never more visible than when she was angry like this. 'Tll not do it, Father." Suddenly she was choking, sobbing. "You have never treated me like this! You have taught me to think and feel--"

"But you are not thinking!" Jason cried. "If you were thinking, you would wonder about this man, Comte Alec DeVereaux. You would want to know his parents, you would want proof of who he is, of where he has come from--"

"Papa, you are sounding like such an arrogant fool!" Magdalena exclaimed. "Listen to yourself! You have told me that this is now the United States of America. We do not bow down to kings and queens, a man forges his own destiny- -"

"And silly girls still swoon over mysterious men with high- sounding titles!"

"Papa, I am not a silly girl, I have never swooned, and I am not impressed with titles. Why, my own father is called Baron of the Bayou, and that is enough for me!" she tried to tease. But then she grew serious. "You don't know him, Father. Alec is so well read, Father! He opens the world to me. He makes me see faraway places, he makes me understand history and men and women, and things that have been, and things that will come. I am in love with him because--"

"No!" Jason gasped.

"I am in love with him because he is brave, because he is sometimes so serious. Because he can be fierce and so tender. Because--"

"He seeks to seduce you!"

"Papa, he is an honest man, he wishes to marry me."

"Never!" Jason vowed staunchly. "Never, do you hear me? Never!" Jason roared. "Tyrone! Come escort my daughter to her room. She is not to leave it!" he commanded, raising his voice to call the servant who hovered unhappily in the hallway, listening to the argument. Tyrone was an extraordinary black man, born in the bayou country, a free man. His parents had hailed from the islands, and before that, his ancestors had come from the far south section of Africa. He stood well over six feet tall and was pure sleek muscle from head to toe. He strode to Magdalena sadly. "I am sorry, Miss Magdalena," Tyrone told her.

Magdalena stared into the handsome, sorrowful face of her father's right-hand man. Tyrone's one fault was his absolute loyalty to her father. He would carry her bodily upstairs if need be.

She turned back to her father, still unable to believe his unwavering hatred for the young man she had come to love. "No kings, no queens, Father! No all-powerful men or women to command us, this is America. I will not bend down to another's will!"

She spun fiercely about, heading for the stairway with Tyrone close behind her.

"Magdalena!" her father called.

He was her father. Before this, her darling, her best friend. She turned back.

"What about love, child? Would you bow to my will because it comes with a father's love?"

"I will love you all of my life, Papa. All of my life. But there must be other love, and it is for that I must defy