Fang and Claw: Nocturne Academy, Book 2

by Anderson, Evangeline

  I woke up in the Healer’s office, lying on the narrow cot in her back room and shivering so hard I could barely breathe. It was the shivering that woke me up, I think. Or maybe the sounds I was making—my teeth were chattering loudly and the sheets around me were rustling with my own involuntary movements.

  “Oh dear—what’s wrong with her, Healer? Can you tell? Is it just that she’s cold?” I heard Megan asking.

  The Healer, a middle-aged woman with iron gray hair and serious eyes, had a grim look on her face.

  “She’s more than cold—she’s hypothermic. How long did you say she was in the lake?”

  “Not more than two or three minutes,” Avery answered.

  “But she’s been cold all week,” Emma added. “She’s been complaining that she can’t get warm and that she felt like she was getting sick.”

  “She’s sick all right,” the Healer said. “She’s so anemic it’s a wonder she’s walking around at all. Her hemoglobin count is down to four!”

  “Is that bad?” Megan asked anxiously.

  “Human females ought to have a hemoglobin count of twelve or above,” Griffin’s cool voice informed her. “So yes—this is bad.”

  “Darkheart is right,” the Healer snapped, frowning at my friends as she wrapped me in thermal blankets. “This girl is in critical condition! Why wasn’t she brought to me sooner? It’s clear there’s a lot more wrong with her than just getting dunked in the lake.”

  “We didn’t know,” Emma pleaded. “I mean, we knew she wasn’t feeling good and didn’t want to eat much but Kaitlyn thought she was just getting a cold.”

  “Can you tell what’s wrong with her?” Avery asked the Healer. “I mean, besides being extremely anemic?”

  “She’s been complaining about being thirsty all the time,” Megan added helpfully. “Maybe she’s diabetic?”

  “Not according to the tests I ran,” the Healer remarked and I wondered how long I had been under for her to do all these tests on me. I must have fainted from fear and exhaustion out on the bridge and been out of it for some time.

  At least the thermal blankets she was putting on me were doing some good. My teeth were chattering much less and I was beginning to be able to feel my fingers and toes again. True, they felt like lumps of ice, but at least they weren’t completely numb.

  “Please—it’s not their fault.” I spoke up for the first time. “I’ve been feeling bad all week but I just kept telling myself I was getting a cold.”

  “So you really think all you have is a cold?” the Healer demanded, frowning down at me.

  “I…I don’t know.” I shrugged weakly. “I mean, my throat has been terrible—so sore all the time. And I’ve been so thirsty. I mean, I know I’m not running a fever—”

  “That you certainly are not,” she said crisply. “In fact, your temperature is nearly thirteen degrees below normal. Some of that may be attributable to being in the cold lake, but I don’t see how just being in the water for two or three minutes, as your friends say you were, could lower your body temperature that fast. Maybe if you fell into the Arctic Ocean or someplace like that but we’re in Florida, for the Goddess’s sake! No…” She shook her head. “Something else is definitely going on here and I need to find out what it is.”

  “I think I can help with that.”

  Griffin’s cool, quiet voice broke through the noise of my other friends talking and I looked up to see that he was standing over me, holding a tall paper cup with a bendy straw in one hand.

  The cup looked like something you’d get at any fast food restaurant in town and though it was covered, I could smell something good coming from it. Something rich and mouth-watering and delicious. Even though I’d had almost no appetite all week, my stomach suddenly woke up and growled loudly at the scent of the stuff in that cup.

  “Griffin, please…” I reached for it and he placed it in my hands.

  “Small sips,” he told me gently. “In case I’m wrong—but I don’t think I am.”

  I put the straw to my lips and sucked experimentally. My mouth was suddenly full of a salty, meaty liquid that seemed to be exactly what I needed. I took another sip—another gulp, really—and swallowed eagerly. I felt as though my whole body was coming alive—waking up and unfolding the way a flower unfolds when the sunlight caresses it.

  My shivering stopped completely and I felt well and whole instead of horribly fragile. My sore throat was soothed and best of all the thirst—that terrible thirst which had been my constant companion this entire week—was finally quenched.

  “Oh God, Griffin,” I nearly moaned as I finished off the entire cup and licked my lips. “That was so good and I feel so much better! What was it?”

  Griffin looked at me grimly.

  “Blood, Kaitlyn,” he said flatly. “You just drank an entire cup of blood.”

  29

  Kaitlyn

  “Blood?” I put a hand to my throat, feeling sick. “You gave me blood to drink?”

  “Griffin, why would you do that?” Megan asked him, sounding bewildered.

  “Because I thought it very likely that Kaitlyn needed it. And I was right.”

  Griffin’s pale eyes glittered coldly and it occurred to me that the tall Nocturne was absolutely furious. But what or who was he mad at? Not me, I didn’t think—I hoped not, at least.

  “I…I do feel a lot better,” I admitted in a small voice. “But…I don’t understand why.”

  “I do,” Griffin said shortly, his fury still palpable in the small room.

  “But—” I began but just then another voice interrupted me.

  “Hello? Is this where they’re keeping Kaitlyn Fellows?”

  The new voice startled everyone and all eyes turned towards the door of the exam room.

  I was surprised to see Alistair Breedlove standing in the doorway, a quizzical look on his cool, handsome features. His blond hair was perfectly coifed and he had his hands in the pockets of his hand-tailored dress trousers. His button down Egyptian cotton shirt was rolled up casually at the elbows and the Italian driving loafers he was wearing probably cost at least as much as a semester’s tuition here at the Academy.

  He looked like what he was—a rich, privileged Nocturne. And, as always when I stared too long at him or his wife, I remembered what a small, grubby, scarred human I was. I was suddenly aware that my damp hair had been pushed out of my face and the scarred left side was on display. Hastily, I rearranged it to hide my ugly imperfection and tried to sit up in the cot.

  “Mr. Breedlove—what are you doing here?” I asked, my voice raspy with uncertainty.

  “Why, looking for you, Kaitlyn,” he said, as a frown creased his perfect features. “What are you doing back here? Someone said you fell in the lake but why would that necessitate a trip to the Healer’s office?”

  I started to answer, but Griffin stepped forward and spoke before I could.

  “It wasn’t the fall into the lake that brought her here—it was you,” he said, glaring at the other Nocturne coldly.

  “Me?” Alastair Breedlove put a hand to his chest in apparent surprise. “What are you talking about?”

  “You know damn well what I’m talking about,” Griffin growled. “How long have you been abusing Kaitlyn? How long have you been taking advantage of her, Breedlove?”

  The bewildered look on Mr. Breedlove’s face grew cold and hostile.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about—Darkheart, isn’t it? Yes, I recognize you—of course, everyone does. You were Censured by the Other Elders Council. Censured for murder. So I think you’d better think twice before accusing someone else of any kind of crime.”

  “Griffin was cleared of those killings—they were perpetrated by Winifred Rattcliff, the former head of the Windermere Coven!” Megan said hotly. “How dare you even bring that up when you know good and well that Griffin is innocent?”

  “He’s as innocent as I am, then,” Mr. Breedlove said, frowning. “How dare he accuse me of
abusing a dependent? A dependent whose tuition I pay and whom I gave a home to after her parents died, I might add,” he said, lifting his chin and giving Griffin a virtuous look.

  Up until that moment I had been so stunned I couldn’t talk. But I finally found my tongue.

  “Yes, Mr. Breedlove does do all that for me!” I exclaimed. “And I’m very grateful to him and to Mrs. Breedlove.”

  “Please, Kaitlyn—you don’t have to defend him,” Griffin said quietly but there was still rage dancing in his eyes. “It’s very clear what he did to you.”

  “What?” I asked, honestly confused. “What are you talking about, Griffin? What makes you think that Mr. Breedlove abused me in some way?”

  “Because…” He turned to me, his pale eyes flashing. “Because you’re turning into a vampire, Kaitlyn. A Made Vampire—the one kind of Nocturne which is forbidden to exist.”

  30

  Kaitlyn

  I’m sure you’ve probably heard the saying, “You could have heard a pin drop,” but in this case, you really could have. There was dead silence in the room—shocked silence. And the look on Mr. Breedlove’s face was every bit as shocked as the one on everyone else’s.

  “There must be some mistake,” Mr. Breedlove said at last, shaking his head. “There’s no way that’s possible.”

  “Not without long-term systematic abuse, there’s not,” Griffin said grimly. He glared at Alastair Breedlove. “You and I both know that biting is a sexual act, Breedlove. Which is why I ask you again—how long have you been abusing Kaitlyn? How long have you been biting her for this unthinkable thing to have happened?”

  “I never—” Mr. Breedlove began, shaking his head.

  “No, he didn’t!” I exclaimed.

  Suddenly I understood what Griffin had been hinting at the other night in the Norm Dorm when he had asked me if I thought Mr. Breedlove was a good guardian. Even then he must have guessed what was happening to me—though he must have hoped he was wrong.

  “He never bit me!” I said to Griffin again. “I swear it—he never did!”

  Griffin frowned at me.

  “Kaitlyn, the signs of what is happening to you—has already happened—are unmistakable.” He ticked them off on his fingers. “Your body temperature has dropped, your hemoglobin is dangerously low, you have a sore throat and a terrible thirst which no amount of water can satiate, you have no interest in food—well, other than the extremely rare, bloody roast beef that Avery made for you twice this past week—and you crave blood. Also—and this is something that only an Other would notice—your scent has changed. You smell like a Nocturne.”

  “I…I do?” I remembered seeing his nostrils flare when he got near me—and Headmistress Nightworthy had done the same thing—as though she was smelling me—when I was in her office. Was this what the two of them had been smelling? The fact that my scent was changing from human to Nocturne?

  “You do.” Griffin nodded firmly. “Given all that, it’s clear that someone—some Nocturne…” He looked accusingly at Alastair Breedlove. “Has been biting you on a regular basis. And since biting almost always goes with sex—or in this case, abuse—”

  “It’s not like that,” I said hurriedly. “Mr. Breedlove was never the one who bit me. It was…it was Allegra.”

  “What?” Mr. Breedlove looked shocked all over again. “You encouraged my daughter to bite you?”

  “No, I never encouraged it,” I said quickly. “It’s not anything weird—it’s just something she does after she has a nightmare and needs comforting. She just bites me on the wrist and takes a few swallows of blood—it’s never been a big deal.” I held out my hands to him appealingly. “I have so much scar tissue I can barely feel it. It just comforts her—that’s all. And I never knew there was anything wrong with it or any kind of…of consequences. Oh, Mr. Breedlove—I’m so sorry!” I exclaimed, feeling like I was going to cry.

  His face went from shocked to cold as ice in an instant.

  “I’m sorry we never explained that there could be consequences for such an action but it wasn’t something we even thought we had to discuss. Mrs. Breedlove and I would never have dreamed that you would allow our daughter to draw your blood!” He shook his head. “In light of this, I’m afraid we’ll have to sever our relationship with you, Kaitlyn.”

  “What?” I felt as though he had slapped me. “What…what does that mean?”

  “It means exactly what it sounds like,” he said sternly. “You will no longer stay with us during weekend or summer or holiday breaks. We will continue to pay your tuition to Nocturne Academy but only on the condition that you never tell anyone it was our daughter who turned you.” He pointed a finger at me. “Allegra’s life and prospects would be ruined forever if she was ever implicated in the making of a Made Vampire.”

  “But…does that mean I can’t see her again? That I can’t see Allegra?” I whispered.

  “No, never.” He frowned. “I’m surprised you would even ask such a thing. Clearly Allegra must be taught that what she did was wrong and she must be separated from the mistake that she made—permanently.”

  A mistake. I was just a mistake. His words seemed to shake me—to ring my body like a bell. I felt as though he had slapped me. But more than that, I felt physically ill.

  It was as though someone had told me I could no longer see my own child, ever again. I thought of Allegra waiting for me out in the cool leather depths of the Breedloves’ Mercedes, thought of her asking where I was and then crying when she was told she would never see me again.

  “Please,” I begged brokenly, reaching out my hands to him. “Please, Mr. Breedlove—don’t do this! I love Allegra like she was my own. This was a mistake—just a mistake. Can’t it be undone so we can all just go on with our lives? I promise I’ll never let her bite me again. I didn’t know it was wrong—please!”

  But the cold, remote look on Alastair Breedlove’s perfect features remained. I thought he looked like a marble statue of a god. One so far above me I would never be able to reach him or his family again.

  “I’m sorry, Kaitlyn, but there is no going back once a human has been turned,” he told me. “Please don’t try to contact us or see any of my family again—especially Allegra. If you do, I’ll be forced to cut off your funding. Good day.”

  And he turned and walked out of the Healer’s office, as casually as though he was leaving a mildly boring business meeting.

  He had discarded me like trash—like the mistake he had named me. But it wasn’t his abandonment that hurt me so much—that stabbed me to my core.

  I thought of Allegra’s chubby little arms reaching for me, of her calling my name and crying for me in the night—having a nightmare with no one to comfort her…and I dissolved into sobs.

  The Breedloves hadn’t been a real family to me—I hadn’t had one of those since my parents died—but they were something. And Allegra was everything to me. I’d been watching her since she was a baby. Losing her forever was like ripping my heart out.

  “Oh, Katydid!” Avery exclaimed, sitting down on the cot beside me and putting an arm around my shoulders.

  “I’m so sorry, hon,” Megan murmured, sitting on my other side.

  Emma stroked my hair and Griffin stood helplessly by, a look of disbelief and uncertainty on his face. Clearly this had been the last thing he had expected—he’d truly thought that Mr. Breedlove was abusing me in some way. He’d had no idea I would be stupid and naïve enough to let myself be bitten repeatedly by a Nocturne child.

  The tears rolled down my cheeks and pattered onto my scarred hands. As I looked at them, I realized that they weren’t normal tears at all—they were red. Red tears…blood tears.

  I was crying blood.

  Suddenly my stomach turned and I knew I was going to lose every last bit of the big cup of blood Griffin had given me.

  “’Scuse me,” I gasped and pushed my way off the cot and past my concerned friends.

  Having been to the Healer’s
office before, I knew where the restroom was. I got to it just in time and barely had a second to bend over the toilet before a gout of bright red blood shot from my mouth and into the water below.

  I looked at the gore coating the white porcelain bowl—it looked like a murder scene. The thought turned my stomach and I was sick again…and again and again.

  Finally, when I had no more in me to throw up, I rested my forehead on my crossed arms and cried. Cried for Allegra and my place in her heart and home and for all I had lost in the blink of an eye. It was like The Fire all over again—the people I loved being torn from me by some outside force I couldn’t control.

  Only this time, the force wasn’t outside—was it? It was inside me and there was no getting rid of it…ever.

  I bent over the bowl and was sick again.

  31

  Kaitlyn

  “There must be something wrong with her,” Megan said worriedly, after I had finished my third round of puking. Her face was pale and worried but that pretty much applied to all my friends. They were standing around me in a semi-circle—well, except for Emma who can’t be around someone puking without having to puke herself.

  The Healer was there too, with a grim look on her face.

  “What kind of blood was that you gave her?” she asked Griffin, who was still looking stunned at the sudden turn of events.

  “Just animal blood—beef blood,” he said at last. “I ran over to the Dining Hall to get it. It’s the same kind of thing she’s been eating all week so I thought it would be the easiest for her to digest.”

  “You thought wrong,” the Healer said, frowning. She sighed and shook her head. “It’s been a while since I studied Made Nocturnes but if I remember correctly, once the initial transition is past, they can’t live on animal blood.”

  “What exactly does that mean?” Megan demanded. “I mean, Kaitlyn has to live on something. If she can’t drink animal blood, what can she drink?”