June 25, 2025 Sneak Peek at Haunted Echoes
Draoithe Saga Scrying Pool
Introduction:
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.
Haunted Echoes is now available for purchase. See if the muse changed the script or kept it the same.
June 25, 2025 Sneak Peek at Haunted Echoes
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.
A Harbinger
Rorik, April 3, 2016
Late in the evening, invisible strings pulled at his magic, disturbing his revery. He glanced at Danika. She showed no signs of distress. He turned back to the book he hadn’t been reading. He peripherally studied her.
She sat in his hand-crafted chair with her legs folded beneath her on the down-stuffed cushion as she frowned at the text she attempted to decipher. Danika wore one of his shirts as a dress, with a blanket draped around her shoulders to keep the cold away from her chest.
She tied a piece of twine around her waist. She said it kept the shirt in place. He didn’t argue with her.
The shirt was too big. Her addition of twine kept the garment from swallowing her and somehow made his old shirt far more interesting to behold. It wasn’t proper clothing, but it was far better than the rags she arrived in.
She was a cute human, even with her face scrunched in concentration. Her politeness and quiet demeanor made her better than most of her kind.
Rorik admired her wearing his shirt, but he realized she needed clothes and shoes which fit her properly. He would need to go into town for her.
Going to her apartment in Chicago seemed too far. A quick trip to DeKalb would allow him to provide essentials for her. They could discuss Chicago later, when she was healthier.
She pushed her black wavy hair behind her ear with one hand. Her scribbling pen poised with uncertainty above the spiral bound page, which held her notes. Ink stained her small hand in a couple of places where she’d been careless or lost in thought.
He would be sure to heat water for a proper shower for her later. She seemed to enjoy that.
Rorik studied the scene, memorizing what felt like a living work of art without impolitely staring. He breathed in the picturesque feeling of peace and the scent of cherry blossoms.
Danika Klein was the picture of loveliness. She invaded his life, took up residence, and Rorik never wanted her to leave.
At that moment, she was awake, beautiful, and safe with him. He recognized her again as an attractive woman. Had she always been so beautiful? Maybe. But he’d been too concerned with her health to notice her properly. She was healing, and the woman distracted him without intending it.
Danika didn’t overtly flirt. He had trouble deciphering how she viewed him.
She didn’t fawn over him or hint at indecent ideas. She simply became what she always should have been, a beautiful, intelligent woman.
It was his fault, and he liked it. But did she like him?
If she hadn’t fallen into his home, he never would have met her. As it was, she reminded him he was a man.
Could she find an interest in him? If he offered her a place in his realm, would that matter to her? She was too sick for him to make an offer.
He left that line of reasoning because, either way, she hadn’t disturbed the balance. Something else caused an irritation in the magic which warded his realm. It remained, and that meant it might be a threat to her or his claimed forest.
It was odd how he thought to protect her first. His realm still needed his attention. But she was his ward until she healed and could safely return to the Domhain.
He wasn’t sure how to accomplish that and thought he might need to visit Lyella and Sinclair soon, as she was improving daily. The gryphon couple would know how a person reinvented themselves, and they might help with clothes and shoes and whatever else Danika might need.
Rorik shook the thought away and concentrated on the potential threat which pulled at his spirit magic. Had something with evil intent breached his sanctuary? An investigation was in order.
Images of the fire, which destroyed his home long ago, flashed through his mind. Danika would suffer. He rose from his seat at his reading desk and called leather armor from the dream to his body, and a sinister blade landed in the palm of his hand as his shield appeared on his arm.
Danika shrank into the chair in fear upon seeing him armed for a potential battle. Her body shook with her anxiety. He hadn’t meant to alarm her.
Her fear angered him. Anxiety impeded her healing and made her skittish for all the care he took of her. If whatever disturbed his home sought to undo his efforts to help her, then it wouldn’t survive his wrath.
He sheathed the sword on his back and reached out to caress her face and ease her fear.
“Stay here. Don’t leave. Be quiet. Something disturbs my sanctuary. I’ll investigate. The disturbance will end.”
She nodded, still fearful, but relieved when his ferocity had a focus other than herself. Hope for his protection and gratitude for a sanctuary showed in her eyes. Danika needed him to be skog vættr, even if that visage had frightened her.
Rorik stepped through the doorway she had fallen into nearly four weeks ago. The forest had melted since then.
It was early April. The deciduous trees’ leaves were fresh light green foliage. The scent of pollen hung in the night air as spring flowers bloomed. And the humid air weighed heavy with an impending rain he could almost taste. It was calm before the storm.
Rorik took the step-stone path away from his home and followed the dissonant pull into the trees toward danger. He looked back and saw only the old pine.
Danika remained hidden and safe. There was no flaw in the magical facade of his home’s door. Rorik left the anxiety he felt for Danika behind as he hurried toward the disturbance.
When he saw two men frowning over a strange glowing box, he paused. Perhaps it was a cell phone like the one Danika had described to him. Humans carried them with them to contact others.
Were the men a threat? Or merely lost hikers? Had they called reinforcements, or did they seek aid? It might be a false alarm.
Rorik paused in the shadow of the trees, unknown to the two men, as he watched and listened for clues. His magic urged him to eradicate the intruders, but he refused to call fog to dispatch those only lost in the woods. He could use the fog to assume the shape of a bear or a panther and frighten them from his realm if necessary.
“If we can’t pinpoint her, then what?” the shorter man on the left demanded of his partner.
His greasy-haired partner shrugged and handed the glowing box to the sandy blonde man, who questioned him. He then reached into his pocket and pulled out a pack of cigarettes, along with a lighter.
Rorik frowned as the fool lit the vile stick made from tobacco. Smoking the plant’s leaves wasn’t evil, but humans laced the tobacco with addictive poisons, destroying its aromatic worth.
The dark-haired, taller partner pulled the smoke into his lungs and exhaled, but he stared at the flame the lighter produced for a long moment before letting the fluid shut off.
“Let’s burn it down. A small fire. If she’s dead, we’ll extract the tracking device from the ashes. If Danika Klein lives, she’ll run, and we’ll catch her.”
The fog rolled in as fury flooded his being. No one was burning his home. The past wouldn’t repeat itself on his watch.
Rorik knew the man referenced his journalist. They weren’t burning her or catching her. His home would never again be a funeral pyre for the damned. Celeste’s parting words echoed in his mind.
He’d offered Danika his protection. No warrior of the forest broke his oath, not even banished, useless ones like himself. He hadn’t broken it then, and he wouldn’t do so.
The thick fog confused the two men, who soon had difficulty seeing. Rorik had no such issue. He was a ghost, after all.
He became the draugr. His sword sliced through the fog as Rorik dispatched first one, then the other in only moments. Neither man screamed nor reacted.
Destroying evil should always happen swiftly. Justice too late was justice denied. He would never make that mistake again, either.
He might not be a member of the Vættr Council anymore, but he was still skog vættr. They could no longer strip him of his magic. Only a diamond dust dragon or Zanzar Ironwood could do that.
Rorik still claimed a realm and defended that territory. He had a new liege, and an old draugr had a comfortable barrow. Even alone, justice wouldn’t come too late in his home.
Blood spattered the low growth foliage when the heads rolled upon the ground as the bodies slumped down. Rorik claimed a coin from each and sent the souls to Thanatos with their payment to cross the River Styx.
The approaching storm would rinse the leaves clean in less than an hour. The little glowing box he snatched from the forest floor as he wound the fog tightly around the headless bodies and their macabre, loose heads.
He crushed the only evidence which would long remain of their existence beneath his boot heel as he sent the fog enshrouded dead into the Spirit Realm and ended any threat of a forest blaze by extinguishing the cigarette. Zanzar Ironwood’s lands held Geymsla Fyrir Blhölvaða a repository for the damned, a place for all who violated Velosian law. The two would-be arsonists would rest undisturbed for eternity.
Although banished from the Vættir Council, Rorik’s oath to his liege remained. All the magic which made him a forest warrior was his. He didn’t regret his long ago choice to serve. Rorik remained skog vættr.
He only regretted that diamond dust dragons no longer revived the corpses as soul dark warriors. For centuries, the repository simply filled with the rotting bones of those deemed to be villains of the trees. It seemed like a waste of resources, but it still offered a way to cleanse his realm of unwanted, tainted filth, so Rorik used it.
Sending the two dead men to Zanzar’s realm in the far north kept the human police from crawling through Rorik’s forest. No bodies equaled no crime and no investigation.
The issue he had was the reverberating released magic. He felt it when the two men expired. The men he killed hadn’t been human, and they definitely hunted the woman he rescued. Things were much worse than he believed.
The glowing box vibrated in his hand as he trudged back to the door in the old pine. Rorik was tired. It was after midnight. He needed food and rest to recoup his spent magic.
One thing was certain. He needed answers. The two fools had tracked Danika somehow. He needed to know how they did that and put an end to any further tracking. That meant he had to ask her those hard questions they both avoided.
He glared at the glowing box in his hand. Danika would explain it to him if he could ask calmly enough. Although he loathed bringing her further anxiety, it was the best solution.
Rorik knew the glowing box was a harbinger of further trouble and an end to the luxurious peace he’d enjoyed with Danika over the past couple of weeks.
Thank you for visiting the scrying pool of Draoithe Preview Chapters. I sincerely hope you enjoyed this glimpse into the future of the dream.
Haunted Echoes is available for purchase.
Thank you for your support! Welcome to the dream… Sincerely, -OK
Read the Draoithe Saga
Subscribe and Read it all as I Write.
https://opheliakee.com/order?link=KLJQS
Buy books:
Payhip https://payhip.com/OpheliaKee
Books2Read https://books2read.com/OpheliaKee