Chapter 14
Bayla
All Of This
The Naked And Famous
Lost in thought, I walked down the corridor beside the Blair cousins.
When I’d heard from Julian on the way to the university this morning that Mady’s brother had been found dead, I’d sat in the passenger seat for ten minutes, shocked and speechless. Julian had told me it was an animal attack, and he had assured me that it had nothing to do with the Senseque, but the shock had stayed with me until now.
Full of hope, I had looked for Mady, but of course she hadn’t been on campus or in the English seminar.
Her brother was dead. And I had only found out after four days.
Mady was probably at home and I could only hope that she would answer her cell phone soon because I couldn’t visit her. Julian had withdrawn as usual, Larissa was still missing, and Grace wouldn’t drive me to see her. She had made that clear.
“I’m sorry for her, but it doesn’t change what she did to us.”
Grace’s words sounded heartless. And that bothered me more and more. Then, there was my missing best friend and the fact that the Quatura didn’t want to look for her.
I felt helpless and alone, consumed by worry.
And then there was Julie. Even though she had completely lost it in the temple yesterday, she was now back to being the same quiet person who didn’t say much. She hadn’t spoken a word today, neither to me nor to Grace. I would probably be as shocked as she was if I found out that I was the granddaughter of Gloria Westcode and had inherited a rare gift from my father, whom I had only just learned about.
Out of nowhere, Julie crashed into Grace and me.
“Watch it, you bastard.”
Vivienna had shoved her, looked at her disdainfully, and turned to walk on along with her two bully sisters, followed by whispering female Quatura unknown to me. Anyway, they all wore traitorous – if barely noticeable – crystal necklaces.
Julie stared after her, perplexed.
“Shut your bloody mouth, Vivienna!” Grace shouted loudly after her, earning the middle finger from said person, who finally disappeared in her white luxury coat among the other students.
I helped Julie up, and we walked on, but the silence was getting too awkward for me. Larissa usually lightened up any conversation. Julie not talking was almost normal, but Grace? What was her reason? Was she still angry with her cousin for interrupting her first ceremony? Or was it because a DeLoughrey had signed up to campaign, along with Emely Copeland.
“What’s that weird woman doing here? I feel like she’s stalking me.” I started to turn the conversation to the red-haired Madam. Just this morning, she had strutted into the lecture hall without any warning, winked at me and caused all hell to break loose with her angelic smile. I had thought I had gotten rid of her. False alarm.
“You’re not the only reason Rebecca Harlow showed up here,” Grace said, and I could have sworn her eyes had wandered to Julie.
I couldn’t help but think about the animal attack. What if it hadn’t been an animal? What if Mady was in danger?
“Gloria must have noticed that there was some conflict between us and the pack,” Julie said without looking at us.
She seemed cooler, her words matter-of-fact, as if she was physically there but emotionally absent. Her voice didn’t tremble as much as usual, either. She hadn’t been there at lunchtime, and Grace had made a fuss about it. As if Julie needed a babysitter.
“Nonsense. Director Copeland has sorted it out and...”
“Director Copeland doesn’t seem to be very good at sorting things out,” Julie interrupted her cousin, and Grace and I looked at her in surprise.
She wasn’t usually like that. Well, she’d never frozen the temple before, either, as far as I had gathered now.
“Someone must have said something to Gloria. Someone who doesn’t belong to us or the Senseque.” Julie sounded absorbed in her thoughts.
We walked through the large entrance hall, down the stone stairs and finally out onto the campus where the sun was shining unexpectedly bright in my face.
Wasn’t it supposed to be fall? It was the beginning of November, but today it looked more like summer. Even if the wind was icy on the back of your neck and the leaves were whirring across the campus as if they were all birds gathering to fly south. And then there were the real birds. Fluffing themselves up, ravens hopped across the campus or shot low over our heads.
I was surprised that no one here had ever died from a bird attack.
“Someone who wants conflicts to arise between us in order to profit from them himself,” Julie finished her train of thought.
As far as I knew, it wasn’t just the Quatura and the Senseque who were at enmity with each other. There was a third party involved, with whom everyone seemed to be at war. One that I had already made the acquaintance of involuntarily.
“Julie, you’re not really saying that the...”
Slow Rock
FreshmanSound
“Ruisangors...” I interrupted Grace and looked straight ahead, where a shiny black Ferrari squeaked its tires as it parked next to the matte gray Lamborghini. Two young men whose sunglass-covered faces looked all too familiar opened the doors and got out at the same time in their tailored suits.
I felt like I was in a movie again. As usual, they enjoyed being the center of attention.
However, my attention wasn’t on them, but on Miles DeLoughrey – who had appeared out of nowhere – or rather on the person he opened the car door for: a girl with dark blonde waves who was also wearing sunglasses, a leather jacket and a skin-tight wine-red dress underneath.
“I don’t believe it,” Grace gasped, startled, and – like half the campus – stared at the men… and at the girl, who seemed to be looking at the DeLoughrey with the brown undercut man bun.
Strangely enough, I could see it through the sunglasses.
For a moment, she didn’t seem quite herself, then she walked around Miles, letting him close the door quickly and casually.
“Is that...” Vivienna appeared next to me, but I could only focus on the girl.
“Larissa,” Julie finished all our thoughts.
I stared transfixed at my best friend, who was walking toward us with the DeLoughrey men as if she were one of them. Her walk was elegant, like the others’. She had always had a hot figure, indeed, but it was particularly noticeable at the moment. Maybe because of the skin-tight dress?
“They’ve transformed her,” Julie remarked dryly, and my heart skipped a beat.
What? Transformed?
“That’s going to cause a lot of trouble,” Vivienna added with a bitter tone.
“Shouldn’t we leave? They seem to be coming straight for us.”
Kelly, who was standing between Vivienna and Amber, didn’t seem to like the situation because she looked like she wanted to disappear, clinging to Amber’s arm.
“They’re coming straight for us,” Amber corrected her in a panic.
They all seemed to be afraid of the Ruisangors. I should be, too, because one of them had attacked me and my best friend. My best friend who was now walking around with the incredibly attractive, mysterious and arrogant Ruisangor guys as if she belonged to high society. She looked at the blond who had said something and laughed, taking off her sunglasses and looking straight at me, her expression stiffening.
“We should really go, Vi,” Amber said nervously.
Vivienna laughed softly. “This looks like drama, girls. And I’m certainly not going to miss it.”
Larissa looked changed. Her hair seemed fuller, shinier. Her lips rosier and her skin paler. She was wearing subtle make-up, as usual, but this time it emphasized her dark amber eyes more. Eyes that pierced me curiously.
“And I thought she was dead.” Vivienna laughed, just before the four of them came to a halt in front of us.
Enough Is Enough
Christopher Tyng
“Do I look dead to you, Vivienna?” Larissa asked ironically and gave Vivienna a fake smile, which she returned speechlessly.
Then our eyes met.
I didn’t really know what to say.
“Why didn’t you contact me?” was the first thing that came out of my mouth.
I had to admit that it sounded harsh, but could I be blamed? I had been worried and here she was, as if none of this crap had happened. Along with the rich men whose people had attacked us.
“Aren’t you happy to see me?” she laughed and put a hand on my arm, but pulled it away again immediately.
“You could have been dead!” I continued. The anger was there, and it just had to come out.
“I’m not, and now relax. We survived... that,” she said with a smile.
It was a fake smile. She seemed to want to say so much to me, but didn’t.
Damn, what had they done to her?
I looked to the men beside her, who seemed to be waiting impatiently for her. Adrian looked particularly grim.
“I’m sorry, okay? I lost my phone,” she said, and it sounded more honest than her last answer.
“You could have come to me. Where have you even been?” I continued.
I didn’t understand what she had to do with them, but I eyed the three next to her carefully, like they eyed me.
“With the bloodsuckers, where else?” Vivienna laughed mockingly. “Just watch out until the Councils find out. Because then you’re screwed.”
“She’s a Legacy Ruisangor, not a Transformed,” the blond guy sighed dryly, and I didn’t understand a thing.
Larissa seemed a little startled, then she looked at Miles. “They know...”
He just nodded, and Larissa turned back to us.
“Ouh, it seems your new friends have a lot of explaining to do.”
Vivienna crossed her arms over her white blouse in amusement.
Larissa looked up in confusion. Her gaze lingered on me. For a good five seconds, she looked at me, stunned. Then her eyes narrowed.
“You...” she whispered and her glowing red eyes made us all take a step back.
She had become one of them…
Shock spread across my face.
“You!” Larissa blurted out and I flinched. “You knew ... and you didn’t tell me?!” She got louder and Miles grabbed her wrist.
“Larissa, there are humans here.”
“Let go of me, Miles!” She broke free of his grip and took another step toward me. “I thought we were friends, damn it, and you’re keeping something like this from me?!”
The shock inside me was mixed with disappointment. Was she seriously accusing me of making a mistake by keeping her away from all this?
“Oh God, I can’t believe it!”
She looked stunned and Miles tried to calm her down, but couldn’t manage it. Whatever he had to do with her, he didn’t know her like I did.
“I wanted to protect you,” I blurted.
Didn’t she see what a mess she was in now? Her eyes... and that she showed up here with them.
“Protect me? From what?”
“From what you are now!”
She looked hurt for a moment, then drew her brows further together, her eyes glowing red. “Don’t you think you would have protected me if you’d told me everything?!”
That was going too far. I knew she would have done it either way. She would have gone to them, would have kept spying.
Now it was me who closed the distance between us considerably so that we were only a hand’s length apart. I glared at her angrily and felt a relieving tingle on my skin as I fixed her gaze. “You’re reckless, Larissa. And now you trust these people? Look what they’ve done to you!”
She backed away as if I’d scared her to death and her eyes lit up even more intensely.
“What the hell is going on here?”
I jerked my head around and looked Professor Copeland straight in the eye. He also widened his eyes in shock, which made me hold his gaze.
He looked briefly at the DeLoughreys, but then immediately back at me, as if I were a child he couldn’t take his eyes off without it doing something stupid.
Then I spotted Vivienna, who, like the professor, was standing in my field of vision, staring at me with equally wide eyes. Only there was more terror in them than in Professor Copeland’s.
Before I knew what was happening to me, he grabbed me by the wrist and pulled me through the huge main entrance of the main building with a “Please, all of you, go to your lectures!” to the others behind us.
Hysteresis
Angus MacRae
I sat on the dark leather couch in the professor’s office, both perplexed and inwardly upset. His presence made me feel like a child getting caught by doing something forbidden because I had read his letters only a few days ago. Letters that were probably addressed to my mother. And that could mean a lot...
“Could you please explain to me why I’m here?” I started the conversation a little too upset. I felt strangely frantic, energetic, and… aggressive. The last emotion was new to me.
“Could you please explain to me what just happened out there?” he returned my question demandingly, ran his fingers through his hair in stress and noticed that the water had just boiled.
The fine electric yet elegant vintage kettle hissed and steam rose. He rushed over and poured a cup, into which he had just put a handful of herbs. A stinky smell immediately hit my nose.
“I don’t get it.” He turned the pages of a book, but then looked up again. “Diana should...” Alarik shook his head before reaching for the cup somewhat absent-mindedly, looking at me and deciding to come over to sit in front of me and put the cup down under my nose. Some tea spilled over, and the smell stung my nose, making me flinch.
“But then you’d have to be a boy.”
I didn’t have the faintest clue what he was talking about.
“Could you maybe enlighten me? I don’t understand any of this.”
Why was everyone here so incapable of expressing themselves clearly?
“And why isn’t Larissa here? That’s a bit unfair, don’t you think? And anyway, do you know what they’ve done to her? She’s become one of them! Who knows what that does to her body…”
I realized how upset I was, and finally Alarik Copeland responded to me.
“It’s rare, but it does happen. She seems to be a Legacy.”
“A Legacy? That creature bit me, too, and I’m the same person I was before.”
“It takes a special gene, a father who passes on this genetic material, and when the offspring is born, all it takes is a bite to activate it. If a human is transformed by a Legacy, he is a Transformed and Quatura and Senseque cannot be transformed by them.”
I widened my eyes. “Her father is a Ruisangor?”
I tried to block out the rest of his sentence. Because it said as much as I would be a vampire now if I had been human... but only if our attacker had been a Legacy, right?
I tried to process all the information.
“From the looks of it, yes.”
Where on earth did Alarik suddenly get this deep relaxation from?
“That still doesn’t explain why I’m sitting here now,” I snorted indignantly. “She provoked me . And anyway... we didn’t make a scene.”
And yes, I took that personally, Alarik.
“That’s not the point, Bayla.” Seriousness spread across his face, mixed with... concern?
“Then what is it?”
Now, I was curious.
“Out there, you almost turned.” His gaze rested calmly on mine. “Into one of us.”
“No...” I started to laugh. He had to be joking. I jumped up and continued laughing, shaking my head. “No, maybe my mother can say that, or that absurd Circle, but this is too much.”
“Sit back down, please.”
I shook my head.
“Bayla, please.”
“You’re all crazy.”
Alarik took a deep breath, then exhaled and rose to walk toward me. I didn’t know why I didn’t back away and why I let him lead me by the arm to the dark-gold-framed mirror in the corner of the room where we both stood, he slightly behind me.
“If you don’t believe me, at least believe her.”
He pointed at the mirror and I saw his eyes turn yellow, as if he were a dangerous animal.
I backed away a little, but then remembered Julian’s words and that he was one of them and hopefully not interested in hurting me or uncontrolled.
Alarik pulled me back to the mirror, where I watched the veins on his neck and then on his forearm standing out in black, just like when I used to have my seizures.
I couldn’t stop staring at him. My gaze wandered back up to his yellow eyes. He smiled and nodded at me. Then I looked at my reflection... and froze.
Yellow eyes blinked at me, widening. I lifted my arms a bit – the dark veins standing out – and held them in front of my reflection’s eyes.
My skin tingled, and I could feel the blood pumping through my arteries. I felt my body with the same intensity as when I woke up from my coma, only even more intense. Every bit of life in my cells, I seemed to feel it.
“Do you believe me now?” Alarik asked calmly. I looked at him. His eyes were still glowing. “You belong with us and not with the Quatura.”
I looked at him, dumbfounded.
Nothing made sense. At first, I was supposed to be a Quatura, like my mother, but now? A Senseque? A goddamn werewolf ?
There was no need to deny what I saw in front of me. My nightmare had come true.
“I think I need a minute.”
I was on the verge of a mental breakdown.
Alarik smiled. A smile that made me stare at him for a moment because it reminded me of someone else, then the thought faded, and I ran to the couch to let myself fall.
“I don’t know what to say right now. Maybe I really am dreaming. It’s just that I’ve never dreamed this long before, and it’s so absurd... I’ve never read any werewolf books and...”
I still couldn’t believe that had just been me in the mirror.
“And you’ve never turned before. Am I right?”
I looked at him. He had sat down again, supporting himself with his elbows on his knees. His eyes were the soft green again.
“I think I would remember that,” I said quickly.
My knees were shaking a little.
I was a werewolf. Holy shit?
“Something may have blocked your transformation, but I can’t be more specific about that.”
“I thought I was sick. These veins standing out... I thought they were part of my disease.”
“Disease? What disease?” Alarik raised his eyebrows.
“I always had headaches and then these veins appeared.”
“Very peculiar...” Alarik replied with a strained look.
What was even more peculiar was that I hadn’t had the pain until today. “...since the bite.”
“The bite...” he murmured thoughtfully. “You being one of us explains why you survived it. Senseque are extremely strong, especially females.”
“It still doesn’t make sense. My mother is a Quatura, so shouldn’t I be one, too?”
“Apparently not necessarily. That’s the part that’s concerning me the most right now.”
I was about to ask a question when he hastily continued. “You should get training, immediately. That works best at our place.”
My expression darkened. “No... I’m not leaving Mum.”
Alarik interlocked his hands, his expression serious, yet thoughtful. “I could train you.”
I listened in surprise.
Was that an offer?
“But if the others find out I’m not a Quatura, they’ll want me to leave my mother.”
Panic spread through the pit of my stomach, and I remembered that I hadn’t eaten anything today. That was strange. Normally my stomach would have been growling by now, especially after lunchtime. But it was silent, probably just as shocked as the rest of my body. This town simply wasn’t good for my health.
“Who said anyone needs to know what you are?”
My eyes widened. I stared at him, flabbergasted.
“First of all, you should drink this tea, because you don’t have your irises under control yet.”
I quickly squeezed my eyes shut and finally lowered my gaze to the smelly drink in front of me.
“What’s in there?” I looked suspiciously at the purple flowers.
“A mixture that ensures that you won’t transform for the next twenty-four hours and won’t react to transformation triggers.”
It sounded tempting and like something I’d better take before something bad happened.
Yet, I hesitated.
“Are you afraid I’ll poison you?”
Alarik smirked.
“N…no,” I mumbled and quickly reached for my cup, which I emptied in one go.
Meanwhile, Alarik got up and walked to his desk. I followed him, hoping that he had a plan.
My mouth burned bitterly.
“How do I explain this to my mother?”
Maybe she had something to explain to me instead? Now I was all the more interested in who my father was.
“It’s best to keep this between us for now.” He looked up from his calendar. “I’m serious. The pack really isn’t a good place for you right now, and as soon as Gloria and the Councils find out what you are, there’s going to be a riot, and I don’t want that for your mother either.”
I raised my eyebrows.
Somehow, it unsettled me when he talked about her. But I didn’t dare ask the questions that were burning on my tongue. There were too many. And above all, they were too personal.
“Next week, Monday. Before university. I’d pick you up.”
Sorry, what?
“From home?”
“Yes,” he said, as if it were the most normal thing in the world. “But very early. At five in the morning. We can’t afford to attract attention.”
Why did everything sound wrong about meeting my professor at five in the morning?
“I’m sorry it can’t happen before then. As you noticed this morning, there’s still a lot I have to do here.”
He sounded exhausted.
“It’s… okay, it should be… fine,” I stammered quickly, trying not to blush.
Everything was strange. Just the fact that I was supposed to be a werewolf should be unsettling enough. Now I had a secret to keep that no one had prepared me for. I would have to continue playing the unsuspecting daughter of a witch, because I would probably only find out later what happened next.
And then there was Larissa... I had to sort that out. But how, if she belonged to the Ruisangors now?