Chapter 16
Larissa
Falling Apart
Christopher Tyng
“Larissa!”
I stopped abruptly because I recognized the voice. It was Jenny Bexley, running after me breathlessly. She had been following me for the last three minutes, but I had hoped she was just running in the same direction as me.
I spun around and she came to a stop. Immediately, the sweet smell of her blood hit me and I bit my tongue, but it wasn’t until my two sharp upper teeth cut into the flesh that I realized I’d made a mistake.
Hold your breath, Larissa. You don’t have to breathe anymore.
At least that was roughly how Camille had explained it to me. And it took some getting used to.
Jenny, unaware of all this, tossed her yellow-blonde hair over her shoulder and smiled at me so intensely that her puffy lips looked as if they were about to burst.
“I looked for you on campus on Saturday, but you were nowhere to be found, so I reported you missing.”
I looked at her in surprise.
Why had she been looking for me? And did she always report people missing when they were nowhere to be found? I mean, we were in fucking Blairville, a town full of monsters, but she was a human who didn’t seem to know anything about any of this.
“Thanks,” I mumbled thoughtfully, holding my breath to keep the smell of her blood from entering my nose. “But I’m fine.”
I wanted to sink my teeth into her arm, her shoulder, her neck…
Fuck, Larissa. Those aren’t your thoughts. Those are the thoughts of the monster they turned you into. Get out of here!
“You look good too,” Jenny remarked with her artificial smile, looking down at me. “In the clothes the DeLoughreys got for you.”
I raised both eyebrows.
I wanted to rip this dress off my body. I was missing my old black leather jacket, jeans of the same color, and comfy tops. Camille had dressed me, and it looked really good, but I would never wear high heels again. Not on this campus!
“Are you dating Adrian now?”
I looked at Jenny in disbelief. She had unlocked her tablet, and now I realized what she wanted from me.
“Definitely not,” I murmured and turned to leave. I had to get out of here before I left a bloodbath behind.
I felt sick.
“With Miles? Or David?”
Jenny hurried after me and, unfortunately, I couldn’t use my new speed to escape.
“Over my dead body,” I returned.
Jenny appeared next to me.
“But you’re friends, right?”
“Jenny...” I stopped. “I don’t have the energy for any interviews right now.”
“That’s what they all say,” Jenny sighed, rolling her eyes, and only now did I notice that she was walking around without Penny. That poor introvert girl had probably fled to a quiet place. Understandable.
“I’m serious.” I sighed. “It’s best to get as far away from me as possible.”
It was for her protection. Even though I doubted that the Bexleys put protecting their family at the top of their list. These people put themselves in danger just to publish the best article.
I also liked to put myself in danger, not because I didn’t care that I might get killed, but because I needed it to relieve stress.
And suddenly I missed my motorcycle. Oh, how I wish I could have gone for a ride through town, through the forest, which was no longer a threat to me. The long, albeit winding, road through the forest in the DeLoughrey area was perfect for practicing a few stunts and ignoring the speed limit.
“One more thing before you run away from me,” Jenny said indifferently, as if she was aware that she was bothering people. “There’s an internship at our radio station.” I looked at her in irritation. “I hear you like taking photos, and you are good at it?” I nodded slowly, but immediately regretted it, because Jenny smiled. “Consider this an invitation to become part of the reporter team. You know how to reach me.”
She smiled one last time, then turned away from me and hurried back to campus.
I stared after her, bewildered.
A week ago, I would have said yes. This would have been my chance, even if the media industry wasn’t the field I was hoping for a career in.
Now I had completely different problems.
Damn it, Larissa, where have your life choices gotten you?
I spotted Miles, who skillfully dodged Jenny before he spotted me.
The anger from earlier was returning, and he was one of the people responsible for it.
Determined to get out of here, I wheeled around and started walking.
“Larissa, stop, damn it, why so hostile today?” Miles shouted behind me.
He had already caught up with me.
I stopped and wheeled around to face him.
“You’re fucked without me. Where are you going anyway?”
I didn’t know myself any longer. The sweet smell around me was driving me crazy. Every breeze that drove the scent of a human toward me was filled with tantalizing aromas. That’s exactly why I hated them. All of them. I was no longer myself. And for no price in the world would I allow myself to drink a human’s blood again. God, the mere thought…
Bastien had given me animal blood this morning because I’d refused to suck out the AB bag, but he’d given it to Adrian like he was my babysitter.
Miles came closer, his expression alarmed.
“You’re hungry... Damn.”
I looked at him more closely. His hair was darker than mine, a deep brown. But the eyes... no. He could look like me in appearance as much as he wanted, but that didn’t make him my goddamn twin brother! I didn’t have a family anymore. And I’d managed to put that behind me. How ironic that it now seemed that I would probably never have one. No children... nothing.
The lump in my throat got bigger, and I tried to focus on Miles. He had the same lips as me.
No. Larissa, stop!
So far, I had managed to avoid Miles. I’d had plenty of reasons to do so. After all, he had kept the truth from me and simply left me with my murderer father without ever showing up again.
“You idiot!” I clenched my fists and hammered them against his hard torso, making him stumble back.
“Wow, relax. What’s wrong?”
Miles looked surprised. Good acting.
“What’s wrong?!” I stared at him in anger. My chest quivered with rage. “You apparently didn’t see the need to tell me that Bastien was serious when he said I was a DeLoughrey!”
Three girls walking past us looked at me in astonishment and I couldn’t help but stare back in annoyance, so they quickened their pace and disappeared.
I felt my eyes start to glow and inwardly thanked Camille for the contact lenses she had given me to start with, but I wouldn’t be able to wear them for long because my eyes were burning like hell.
“I wasn’t even there during your conversation.”
“That’s not the point, Miles!” He didn’t seem to get it. “You didn’t tell me that my trainer is actually my father!”
His breath stopped completely and surprise appeared on his face.
“He dropped the goddamn daddy bomb? This early?” He started to laugh. Hell, even his grin resembled mine. How had I missed that? “That man does indeed have no sense of timing.”
His words made me even angrier. “That’s all you have to say about it?”
“Larissa...”
“No. Leave me the fuck alone!” I tore myself out of the grip he had on my arms. “Don’t get the idea that now that I know the fucking truth about my messed-up family, you can play the brother!”
He swallowed. The slap had stung, and he absolutely deserved it.
“What else did I expect?” I hissed and couldn’t stop myself from laughing like a maniac.
Shit, man, how unlucky was I? My mother had been impregnated by a murderer and he had killed her. And I had a twin brother? I started laughing and realized how dazed I was. God, could it get any crazier?
“You should have a drink.”
Laughing, I patted him on the shoulder. “Go to hell with your disgusting eating habits. I’d rather die than drink blood again.”
Miles’ expression darkened and he moved closer again. “This isn’t funny. If you try to suppress it, it’ll take over, and you’ll randomly pounce on the nearest human and kill them.”
“Here you guys are.”
Great, that arrogant snob was all I needed.
Adrian eyed me suspiciously. He looked a bit windswept because his short black hair was falling into his forehead. Something you rarely saw on him. The noble Adrian DeLoughrey.
“She looks hungry,” he murmured darkly, and then looked at Miles, his hands in the pockets of his suit trousers. “We should show her how to hunt.”
Hunting. What the...
“No, Adrian. She won’t learn to hunt. The blood bags are enough.”
“Damn it, Miles! She won’t learn control otherwise,” Adrian returned impatiently.
“I’m not going to drink blood. And I’m certainly not going hunting, ” I pressed out, looking for his black moonstone.
Every DeLoughrey wore one. Camille had explained to me that this stone protected us from burning in the sun, whatever that meant. Transformed people always had to wear it; Legacy Ruisangors – like me – only when they were using their powers or transforming someone.
And so, I had spent the last few days trying to find out where the others wore their moonstone: Camille wore a ring, like Tristan; Bastien a simple bracelet, like David; Miles wore a chain beneath his shirt, and the moonstone on it bore the DeLoughrey crest in gold, seamlessly attached to its surface. The only ones I hadn’t found out about yet were Laurent and Adrian.
Camille had promised me my own moonstone, but said it would take longer to find one that worked.
I didn’t even know if I wanted such a stone, because I wasn’t going to use any wild powers or turn innocent people into infertile bloodsuckers.
“Your stubbornness will endanger you and our family line.” Adrian’s words sounded cool. Just as he always was.
“To hell with this family!” was all I could say in reply.
Adrian raised an eyebrow scrutinizingly, then looked at Miles. “What did you do to her?”
“She knows…” Miles sighed and grabbed me by the right wrist. So firmly, in fact, that I had no chance of getting away from him.
“Let. Go. Of. Me!” I hissed.
“About time,” came from Adrian, who eyed me strangely.
“She may be a Ruinouveau but, with all due respect, she’s strong,” Miles sighed.
“Newbie,” Adrian murmured darkly without changing his expression, and suddenly his hand was on my back.
I swallowed and my whole body tensed. The last time he had touched me had been a while ago, but it gave me the same electric shocks as a few weeks ago.
I cursed my body because there was no reason for this reaction. Adrian was an arrogant prick.
He pushed me, his fingers resting firmly on the new leather jacket, applying light pressure so that I was forced to walk. Only now did I realize Miles had already let go of me and was on the phone.
“All right, give us three minutes.” I looked at him questioningly. “David. He’s waiting for us. And we’re going to show you a place where there’s plenty of prey.”
Why did it sound like even he didn’t feel like going there?
She Knows
Christopher Tyng
I didn’t know what I’d done to deserve the honor of sitting in the front seat next to Adrian, because just this morning, Miles and he had fought over the driver’s seat and then Miles and David had fought over the passenger seat like little teenage boys. And as if the two men had managed to offend him, Miles had decided to drive his own matte gray sports car.
I had noticed that Adrian and Miles had special models with five seats, which – as David had explained to me – had been made especially for them.
Now David and Miles were sitting in the back talking about Bitcoin, while Adrian’s hands rested on the steering wheel, or rather clawed into it. He seemed to be just as uncomfortable, although he barely showed it.
One of his hands suddenly wandered over my lap and I startled. What the... He was half leaning into me, and only now did I realize what he was doing. I blushed when he said to me, “Sunglasses.”
I stared at him like an idiot as he pulled his hand away and sat up straight again. I spotted a streak of light blue paint on his wrist.
“Some fool had apparently forgotten where the proper compartment for it was.”
In the rearview mirror, I caught Miles’ grin. He was the aforementioned fool who had played with the glasses just this morning, not to mention the suspicious look on Adrian’s face, as if the item was a fragile crystal.
“The glasses”
I winced and looked back up at Adrian, who eyed me with a steely expression before looking back at the road.
“Um... yeah… of course”
I took his sunglasses out of the front seat compartment and handed them to him.
“Did you finally tell her?” it came from Miles, whose gaze I immediately caught in the rearview mirror. And I knew immediately that it was about me.
“Told her what?” I asked suspiciously and looked at Adrian, whose jaw was now completely tense.
“Thanks, Miles,” he murmured, jerking the steering wheel around so that we sped through one of the many intersections downtown, and I had to hold on tight to avoid slamming into him.
“Speak up. I hate secrets.”
Adrian was silent, and I was about to threaten him when Miles opened his mouth.
“Bastien isn’t your only uncle.”
“What?” I stared at Miles through the mirror, and then at Adrian.
What did Adrian have to do with this?
“Miles, she’s learned enough for today.”
I gave Adrian a devastating look. He had been a great help to me so far.
“So, I have another uncle? An aunt? Any surprise siblings I should know about?”
My voice almost dripped with cynicism. I was prepared for anything.
This time, I looked to Miles. Looking back, he had been my only help so far, albeit a flawed one.
“Adrian, don’t you want to enlighten your niece?”
My jaw dropped.
“His what?”
Adrian sighed.
And I stared at him. Because I wasn’t capable of anything else.
He and I had made out, and he had kissed me. I had almost developed feelings for this arrogant prick, and now I found out that this man, who was just six years older than me, was my uncle?
Adrian cleared his throat, as the situation seemed to make him uncomfortable too. Was that the reason why he had kept his distance?
“You’re the brother of...” I couldn’t say it.
Distraught, I sank back into my seat and tried to erase what had happened between us.
“Welcome to the family,” Miles said from behind me with a grin, but I’d already stopped laughing two days ago. I didn’t know if I could live with the truth, or if I should go bury myself today.
“The witches looked pretty dumb when they saw you today,” Miles continued.
“The what?”
I widened my eyes again, and for a moment it distracted me from Adrian.
“He means the Quatura. A species gifted with elemental magic that is a territorial as well as financial burden to us.”
I stared at Adrian again. “Witches...”
Hadn’t the uncle bomb from a moment ago been enough?
“The Blairs are the oldest Quatura family in this town. They also call themselves the founding family,” David explained, as if it were an entry from an encyclopedia.
“More like founding crisis,” Miles said gloomily.
And then it clicked. Grace possessed so much weird stuff that reminded me of the esoteric aunties from Sacramento’s underground streets, and she and Julie had always acted so strangely secretive. But witches? It wasn’t unthinkable. After all, I was now a what? Bloodsucker? Ruisangor? Vampire? It all came down to the same thing.
“I don’t get it... How did I not realize that?”
“When it comes to identity secrecy, we are all, perhaps except for the wolf pack, cautious.”
I looked at Adrian again, confused. “Wolf pack? You mean like werewolves?”
“More like biting puppies,” Miles laughed, but Adrian remained serious.
“Watch out for them. They hate us and would take any opportunity to kill one of us. One bite and you’re dead.”
So, all this supernatural stuff was real? Vampires, witches, werewolves…
“I’m sure they want to kill you for a reason,” I said, remaining thoughtfully silent and ignoring Adrian’s devastating sideways glance.
“They should kill Tristan,” Miles growled from behind me. “He’s already done far too much damage.”
I snapped my eyes open and glanced at Miles in the rearview mirror, but he only looked out the window with a grim expression.
He wished his own father was dead. I didn’t know how to process that, or if I could even let it get to me without suffering collateral damage inside.
This man was also supposed to be my father…
“It’s not certain that it was him,” David remarked. “The girls could also have been killed by the other man.”
I couldn’t keep up.
What were they talking about? Surely not about the missing persons cases?
I remembered that I had wanted to ask Adrian something else, even if it was the most inappropriate time, especially in front of the others.
“Have you ever manipulated my thoughts?” Adrian looked at me, focused. “Bastien said that we can do that, that it’s part of our gifts.”
“Legacies can’t manipulate other species’, each other’s or Transformed’s minds,” David clarified. “We can only use our special gifts on each other.”
I looked thoughtfully at the road. Adrian must have tried it then, because he had thought I was human…
I remembered the bite, but immediately tried to suppress it again, because in combination with the fact that he was my uncle, this image in my head was not only inappropriate, but also disturbing.
My mind wandered back to the frustrating events on campus and... to Bayla.
“My friend, she was also attacked and bitten by that man. I’m sure of it.”
The man Tristan had killed... I wonder if he was telling the truth or just trying to scare me.
“Wait, someone else was bitten?”
David looked surprised, and I glanced at Adrian with a searching look.
He hadn’t told him?
“Bastien told me about her,” Adrian said tonelessly.
I caught myself looking for similarities in him too, but we didn’t look a bit alike.
“She’s one of the Quatura” He looked at me again. “The witches.”
No. I would have known that. Had I been so blind all this time, all these years?
“And the Circle insisted that the girl stay there.”
I was absolutely shocked. My best friend of many years? A witch? I should have noticed something like that.
She had been out with Julie and Grace... Of course, she was one of them. I’d seen her eyes earlier. Yellow. Just as abnormal as my red ones. But it hit me that she’d kept me in the dark about it.
“Best stay away from them, all of them,” Adrian murmured tensely.
“You already dictate enough to me,” I hissed back.
“Your former friends are a threat to our clan.”
“You’re joking,” I laughed in response to Adrian’s words. “You are monsters. How can witches be a danger to you?”
And besides, this was Bayla. She wouldn’t hurt a fly.
“I’m not joking,” he replied dryly, silencing me. “First of all, now you’re also a... what did you say? Monster?” He looked at me again with that creepy, threatening look. “Secondly, the Quatura own the entire town center, and they’re part of a treaty we all have to abide by, even the fucking Copelands.”
I looked at him again with wide eyes. “The Copelands?”
“The so-called werewolves,” Miles laughed as he painted quotation marks in the air, amused by my choice of words.
And then the last piece of the puzzle fell into place: the Copelands, Emely, this strange tension whenever Emely and the other girls were in the same room... They didn’t just hate each other, no. They were enemies. Wolves and witches. Wolves and vampires.
“Like I said, keep your distance and nothing will happen.”
“And if I don’t?” I challenged Adrian.
He turned his head. His eyes sparkled. “Then you’ll have to deal with them and with us.” A huge shiver ran down my spine. “And believe me, you don’t want that.”
Fire
Two Feet
The three of them had taken me downtown, to a bar called Black Roses. A rather expensive-looking one, I noticed.
What did they expect me to do? That I would throw myself at someone and literally suck them dry? Preferably in the middle of all the people here? Not in any way conspicuous. No, not at all.
The bad thing was that I felt like it. It smelled delicious. And how ashamed I was of it. I was disgusted with myself and forced myself to hold my breath, but failed immediately.
A girl bumped into me and I practically inhaled the smell. The scent was sweet. My body seemed to literally crave it.
“Freak!” she barked and pulled her even better smelling friend past us. I flinched, caught off guard.
“Not like that, newbie.”
Annoyed, I looked at Miles, who couldn’t stop teasing me. How could this guy be my brother?
“Don’t call me that.”
I’m sure I sounded aggressive, but I didn’t care. I was fucking hungry and could have literally eaten a horse.
Disgust rose up inside me again. I didn’t recognize myself; that’s how much this hunger was affecting my mind.
Even though I would have loved to storm out of this bar like a madwoman, preferably far away from here, I followed the blood brothers. That was the name they gave themselves, even though they obviously weren’t brothers.
They settled down at a table that reminded me more of a darkened side alcove, slightly overshadowed by a black lace curtain.
Damn, what kind of place was this? This bar seemed somehow mysterious with its black and red color spectrum. It was also very busy for this time of day.
I felt like I was being watched because every second woman seemed to be staring at us as if they wanted us. It was clear to me what they were all after. They wanted the men next to me, and their eyes spoke of pure desire. You couldn’t blame them. All three had their charms. And unfortunately, I was related to them.
“Who’s the girl with the DeLoughreys?” I heard a curly, slim blonde whisper.
And it seemed the three DeLoughreys also were the talk of the town.
“She looks hot.” My head whipped around,and my eyes met those of a woman occupying another alcove with two men. She winced.
Crap. Miles had been right when he’d told me on campus this morning that I was acting too conspicuous. I just hadn’t gotten used to my refined hearing yet, let alone learned the code of conduct for Ruisangors.
“Hello there,” chirped a delightful feminine voice, and a blonde woman with straightened hair and a very tight black dress stepped out from under the curtain before sliding her shapely ass onto Miles’ lap.
What the...
Miles smirked at her and my mouth fell open.
I felt Adrian give me a warning look. I stared back at him sourly, but his gaze remained cool, so I turned away from him in confusion and looked back at Miles and the young woman.
“You have a new friend, I see.” She blinked at me out of her big blue eyes and when I didn’t return her smile, she looked at Miles. “I haven’t seen you around for a while, darling.”
Darling?
Miles didn’t seem to mind this term of endearment because he put his lips to her ear and whispered audibly. “I’m very busy, as you know. But I just couldn’t forget about you.”
She giggled. Then it happened.
I had thought he was going to kiss her neck, but he bared his teeth and... bit her. Miles bit the girl’s thick pulsing vein and the sweet smell in the air intensified.
I saw the other two’s eyes begin to glow, barely noticeably. I could feel my own glowing too.
Miles seemed to suck and suck on her until he finally broke away and licked his lips. His eyes were glowing... although they were reddish, they were darker than the other two’s.
Shock must have been written all over my face, because Adrian looked at me again in warning. The glow in his eyes made him look more threatening.
Then Miles stood up unexpectedly. “Come with me, pretty, you don’t seem to be feeling too well. I’ll take you home.”
“Miles, I’m fine… I...”
“It’s okay.” He gripped her waist.
I was startled. The girl looked like she was high, all woozy, and Miles looked a little lost too.
“Is he all right?” I asked Adrian, who was now eyeing Miles suspiciously and cursing something unintelligible, before getting up with David and pulling me out of the alcove.
Hubble’s Shock
Tony Morales
Once outside, I felt my hunger subside a little. The smell was no longer that intense.
Adrian simply walked to the car, where Miles had already pushed the girl into the back seat, and I had no choice but to follow him, snorting. At the car, the sweet smell hit me again, and I realized that it wasn’t the girl’s Victoria’s Secret perfume.
“Shit, he’s had too much to drink,” David said, and I held my breath again. Something that normally helped with my craving for blood but didn’t help at all right now.
“What does that mean?” I asked, puzzled.
Adrian looked at me annoyed, as if I were a small child. “It means you ‘re going to sit in the front seat, and we’re going to take the girl home.”
I ignored his tone and looked at David.
“Do you know where she lives?”
David just nodded, and I could read the concern from his expression before he disappeared into the back seat of the sports car.
I got in, still too perplexed, which ironically helped me to block out Adrian’s annoying behavior.
Then we drove off.
Whatever had happened to her, it upset me. Seeing the blood on her body brought back unpleasant memories of the past, and I struggled to push them away.
Then there was the divine smell, which made me clench my teeth and look into the mirror with narrowed eyes, where my faintly glowing red eyes were reflected. They were glowing through the contact lenses, damn it.
I caught Miles’ face through the rearview mirror, his expression revealing that he was tense and not relaxed himself. The girl, seemingly unconscious, hopefully just asleep, lay there, leaning against his chest while he looked out the window, his jaw working. What was wrong with him?
A strong, sweet smell mingled with the one that was already making my mouth water. I jerked my head to the side, where Adrian was holding out a plastic bag filled with dark red liquid labeled AB. My eyes widened as my stomach began to growl.
“Drink this.”
When I didn’t take it, he placed the cool bag on my lap, and I winced. There was... blood on my lap. And he demanded that I drink it...
I didn’t hesitate another second, grabbed the bag, twisted the top open and brought the bag to my dry lips.
A few seconds later, the liquid ran down my throat like syrup. My body craved it, sucking fiercely on the pouch until I realized that nothing more was coming. I lowered the bag breathlessly and licked my lips.
My eyes wandered back to Adrian, who was staring at me as if I had shocked him. His expression seemed petrified.
“It’s green,” David remarked, and Adrian’s foot hit the gas as he turned away from me.
I stared at him for a few more seconds, but finally turned my attention to the road.
How would I ever come to terms with the fact that he was my uncle?