Blood Feud

Chapter One: Aegon

It was a beautiful day in Athens, Greece. It was spring and the trees were budding, the flowers blooming, and a soft breeze blew with the scent of new grass and freshly-plowed earth. Many of the city’s inhabitants were in the fields, plowing and planting in anticipation of a good year’s harvest. It was the year 1618, and life was beginning to renew itself after an Ottoman attack that had left the once-bustling city in ruin.

Though being out in the bright daylight of a warm spring afternoon burned his skin like an Irish redhead, he had errands to run, and so had left the seclusion of his modest stone-built home to make the trip into the city. His kind customarily held a select number of humans in thrall for these petty supply trips, but Aegon didn’t believe in keeping slaves, preferring to take care of himself.

He also chose a life of vegetarianism and only fed on animals he hunted in the vast countryside. It enabled him to hide in plain sight, so to speak, and remain in one place for a very long time, rather than having to move on when the humans grew too suspicious. He liked Athens, even though it was now such a small town that could claim less than 4,000 permanent inhabitants at this point in its history. Aegon wanted to stay for a while.