Once Upon A Midnight Drow Goth Drow™ Book One Martha CarrMichael Anderle This book is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Sometimes both. Copyright © 2020 Martha Carr and Michael Anderle Cover Art by Jake @ J Caleb Design http://jcalebdesign.com / [email protected] A Michael Anderle Production LMBPN Publishing supports the right to free expression and the value of copyright. The purpose of copyright is to encourage writers and artists to produce the creative works that enrich our culture. The distribution of this book without permission is a theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like permission to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), please contact [email protected]. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights. LMBPN Publishing PMB 196, 2540 South Maryland Pkwy Las Vegas, NV 89109 First US Edition, February, 2020 eBook ISBN: 978-1-64202-776-1 Print ISBN: 978-1-64202-777-8 Contents Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Chapter 15 Chapter 16 Chapter 17 Chapter 18 Chapter 19 Chapter 20 Chapter 21 Chapter 22 Chapter 23 Chapter 24 Chapter 25 Chapter 26 Chapter 27 Chapter 28 Chapter 29 Chapter 30 Chapter 31 Chapter 32 Chapter 33 Chapter 34 Chapter 35 Chapter 36 Chapter 37 Chapter 38 Chapter 39 Chapter 40 Chapter 41 Chapter 42 Chapter 43 Chapter 44 Chapter 45 Chapter 46 Chapter 47 Chapter 48 Chapter 49 Chapter 50 Chapter 51 Chapter 52 Chapter 53 Chapter 54 Chapter 55 Chapter 56 Chapter 57 Chapter 58 Chapter 59 Chapter 60 Chapter 61 Chapter 62 Chapter 63 Chapter 64 Chapter 65 Chapter 66 Chapter 67 Chapter 68 Chapter 69 Chapter 70 Chapter 71 Chapter 72 Chapter 73 Chapter 74 Chapter 75 Chapter 76 Chapter 77 Chapter 78 Chapter 79 Chapter 80 Chapter 81 Chapter 82 Chapter 83 Chapter 84 Chapter 85 Chapter 86 Chapter 87 Chapter 88 Chapter 89 Chapter 90 Chapter 91 Chapter 92 Chapter 93 Chapter 94 Chapter 95 Chapter 96 Free Books Author Notes - Martha Carr Author Notes - Michael Anderle Connect with The Authors Other Books By Martha Carr Books By Michael Anderle The Once Upon A Midnight Drow Team Thanks to the Beta Readers John Ashmore, Kelly O’Donnell, Mary Morris, Larry Omans, Rachel Beckford, Daniel Wiegert Thanks to the JIT Readers If I’ve missed anyone, please let us know! Angel LaVey Daniel Weigert Deb Mader Debi Sateren Diane L. Smith Jackey Hankard-Brodie James Caplan Jeff Eaton Jeff Goode John Ashmore John Ashmore Micky Cocker Misty Roa Paul Westman Peter Manis Veronica Stephan-Miller Editor The Skyhunter Editing Team Dedications From Martha To everyone who still believes in magic and all the possibilities that holds. To all the readers who make this entire ride so much fun. And to my son, Louie and so many wonderful friends who remind me all the time of what really matters and how wonderful life can be in any given moment. From Michael To Family, Friends and Those Who Love To Read. May We All Enjoy Grace To Live The Life We Are Called. Chapter One It was time to do the impossible. L’zar Verdys felt it coursing through him—the rightness of the moment, the tug pulling at his core to rise to the call and put into motion everything the soothsayer had predicted. For two hundred years, he’d waited for this night. “Lights out in five.” The night guard strolled down the walkway of cellblock Alpha, his boots clicking on the metal mesh. L’zar’s neighbor, Relaude, let out a low whistle. “Not gonna give us a pass for the new year, huh?” The guard’s rhythmic footsteps stopped at the cell on L’zar’s right, and the metallic ping of the man’s cattle prod for magicals echoed through the block, a light tap-tap-tap against the bars. “You don’t get a pass for another fifty years, Relaude.” “Forty-nine.” The weapon cracked against the cell bars, emitting a sizzling flash of purple sparks when it struck the cell’s magic-dampening wards. “We can double that if you want. Or you can keep your fat orc mouth shut.” Relaude let out a low, rumbling chuckle but didn’t say another word. L’zar Verdys stretched out on the thin mattress of his single bunk, slate-gray arms folded behind his head of white hair as the guard picked up his slow, rhythmic march down the cells lining Alpha block. It sounded like Richardson, and sure enough, there was Richardson’s bulbous nose lit up in perfect profile as the man passed L’zar’s cell. The guard didn’t pause as he swept his gaze over the drow prisoner’s tidy box of a room. He just lifted one eyebrow in contempt, then continued down the row. It’s the last thing these idiots expect. L’zar Verdys doesn’t make a sound, and it’s almost like he doesn’t even exist. They’ll notice when I’m gone, all right. And by the time they find out which direction I went, I’ll already have everything in motion. If the gateway between the borders of this world and the other couldn’t stop L’zar from crossing over a dozen times as he sought to fulfill the soothsayer’s prophecy, minor dampening wards and humans with low-tech tasers and fell darts didn’t stand a chance. Let them think I’ve got my head down for the rest of it. L’zar sniffed, shifted his head against his folded arms so his pointed ears could breathe a little, and crossed one booted foot over the other. Tonight, I’m getting out. Richardson’s echoing footsteps receded down the block. Silence settled over Alpha until the guard in the tower pulled a lever that looked like a breaker reset more than the light switch on a max-security prison. “Happy New Year, convicts. Way to break in the twenty-first century.” The lights cracked off with an echoing boom. Darkness blanketed Alpha block, punctured only by the red lights flaring to life above the guard tower. Red for ‘locked up tight.’ What a stupid human misconception. The block echoed with the coughs, grunts, snores, and farts of Chateau D’rahl’s inmates as a stillness settled over them for the night in their single suites of concrete and metal frames and high-voltage dampening wards. L’zar waited patiently through all of it until the symphony of bodily functions came to a standstill, then he pushed up on his bed, glanced through the bars of his cell door at that dauntless red light, and stood. “Hey, Verdys,” Relaude gurgled from the next cell over. “Stayin’ up to watch the ball drop?” L’zar moved toward the steel toilet at the back of his cell. “Man,” Relaude kept on, “what I wouldn’t give for some end-o’-the-year grog and a battle pit. Might be what
