“Oh, Tyra,” I murmur.
She holds up a hand. “I’m not finished yet. I returned.”
“You went back? Why on earth for?”
"I still needed a barrowroot petal," she reminds me, "and the boy. I didn't realize yet that he was a wolf too. I just had to go and make certain he was all right, and when I arrived at the scene, a wolf was carrying him in its mouth by the neck. I thought the boy was dead from the way he was hanging there, not moving, and I…"
“You attacked, didn’t you?”
“No,” Tyra says solemnly, the word undercut by self-loathing. “No, I didn’t. I wanted to. I followed as far as I dared, and I realized the boy was a wolf then, but…”
“Wolves do carry their young like that,” I remark softly.
“Which is it, Romelia? Are they animals or not? You can’t have it both ways.”
I can’t help grinning. “I think nature itself would argue with you there. They are both human and part animal. Some of their actions will seem foreign to us, but that’s to be expected. They would be as disgusted to know that we give a living vampire baby both milk and blood. Not at the same time, of course. That would be disgusting.”
“You disgust me,” Tyra mumbles, but there’s no heat or energy behind her words.
I giggle. Since we were young, we would say things like that all the time, twist words around to become playful insults, little barbs that don’t cut at all.
Tyra just shakes her head. “I wanted to help him, a young boy, maybe three, four years old. Why was he up that tree and all alone? And why did he bite me? I’ll tell you why. They hate vampires. They’re born hating us.”
“Hate goes against nature,” I say mildly. “No one is born hating another.”
“Do you think zebras love lions then?” she counters.
“They love to stand still so that the lions can’t tell where one zebra starts and ends,” I say.
“You watch too many nature shows.” She throws her hands up in the air.
“I would’ve tried to save that boy too,” I inform her.
"But you wouldn't have blamed the werewolves for their treatment of the boy or me."
“They didn’t understand why a vampire would help one of theirs. Maybe they thought you meant the boy harm. You didn’t, but maybe they didn’t realize.”
“Just as you don’t realize that that werewolf means you harm?” she asks cunningly.
I huff a sigh.
“You asked me to avoid the forest. I’ll consider it, but you need to consider what your mother asked of you.”
I gape at her until realization dawns. “You want me to talk to Constantine.”
“And more than just, ‘hi, how are you?’” Tyra crosses her arms and lifts her chin, waiting for me to consent.
I sigh. “If I have a conversation with him, will you stop hounding me about the werewolf?”
“A nice, long conversation,” she stipulates, “and I don’t hound. I never hound. None of that.”
I can’t help giggling. “So you aren’t hungry enough to wolf down a meal?”
“No!”
“You aren’t angry enough with me to howl at the moon?”
“Keep this up,” she warns, “and I will throw you to the wolves.”
We burst out laughing and hug each other before finally parting to get a little bit of sleep. A conversation with Constantine I could take or leave it, but Julian? I will not give up on him no matter what Tyra says. I know her intentions are good, and she thinks her fears are valid, but what harm can come from a vampire and a werewolf getting to know one another?
Chapter 12
Romelia
The ball took place on a Friday night. Come Monday morning, it’s time for classes. For the first time, I wish I opted for the nighttime classes instead of the daylit ones. Some of the dead vampires can’t walk during the day yet. Spelled jewels or certain magical artifacts can grant them the ability to tolerate the sunlight, but I don’t have to worry about any of that, courtesy of my demonic father.
My first class of the day is Conversion, a class I don’t particularly enjoy, although now I have a reason to wonder about it. Conversion is the act of turning a being into something else, such as a vampire turning a human into a newbie vampire. Is it possible for a vampire to turn a werewolf? I know that some werewolves are powerful enough to turn a human into one through a bite. What if a werewolf were to bite a vampire? Would one or the other be considered a werepire? A vampwolf? Or is Tyra right and nature thinks the two paranormal beings don't belong together? Maybe a vampire bite will severely harm a werewolf, just as a werewolf bite may harm a vampire. That's not quite what I want to consider, but it's on my mind as I enter the castle and make my way to the spire where the class is held.
The professor isn’t here yet, and the vampire students are all whispering to each other, which is a bit ironic and completely unnecessary considering our superior hearing makes it all but impossible to have a secret.
“Did you hear the news?” someone whispers. “I heard there was a werewolf at the ball. Can you imagine?”
I stiffly sit at my desk. Are the students talking about Julian or one of his friends? No, of course not. Maybe they mean that mysterious Bellanore Shade, although thinking about her makes me squirm. I am not jealous of the werewolf, but I do wonder about her and her connection to both werewolves and vampires. Maybe she is the missing link between the two paranormal beings.
Discreetly, I glance around to try to see who mentioned the werewolf at the party, but I can’t tell.
Professor Marius Cross enters the room, which is rather odd considering he's the professor for Blood Magic and not Conversion. His dark reddish-brown hair is a bit tousled, and his red eyes seem particularly hard today.
“How many here attended the Red Moon Ball?” he asks.
“We just about all did,” a vampire calls out from the back of the room. I always sit in the second row, not right up front, but not in the back.
“Why?” I whisper, my heart starting to pound.
The professor zeroes his steel gaze at me, but there’s a hint of compassion in his eyes that I don’t understand.
“It has come to the attention of the staff that werewolves may have come.”
“How is that possible?” a guy asks.
"There are any numbers of ways for one to disguise his or her appearance. A potion, a fairy could have glamored them… I suppose a werewolf could try to pass their canines as fangs and use colored contact lenses." The professor holds out his hands and shrugs. "How they did it is not nearly as important as why they did it?"
“Was anyone attacked?” I ask, already knowing the answer.
“No,” the professor admits, “but if we are to learn that werewolves were here… we might have to put the academy under lockdown.”
A roar of displeasure echoes throughout the room. Several other students jump to their feet, although I am the first.
“Why?” I ask, but the other students are talking, shouting, asking their own questions, and mine gets lost in the panicked confusion.
There's anarchy in the classroom, and Professor Marius does his best to settle the students.
I march up to him. “What about Bellanore Shade?” I demand. “Isn’t she a—”
“Why are you mentioning her? Did she attend the party?”
I gape at him. “Not to my knowledge, but I thought she… Does she have vampire blood in her?”
“I do not know.”
“But you do know of her,” I press. “You’ve heard her name.”
“No. I read her name. I examined the list of all students currently attending Moonstone Academy. That is how I recall the name.”
“Oh.” My gaze shifts to the stone wall behind him.
“Romelia, are you all right?”
I give my favorite professor a smile but offer no words because honestly, I am not certain how I feel at this particular moment. Whenever I think of Julian, I feel peace, but my thoughts cannot stay cen
tered on him long. A lockdown would mean we can’t see each other.
Not unless I were to slip away and try to find him.
I would not have him risk coming here when tempers seem to be rising. I don’t want to even contemplate what some of the vampires would be willing to do if they came across a werewolf.
“If the werewolves were here on a dare,” I say slowly. “I mean, they did nothing to harm any of us. What is the harm—”
“Intent matters, yes, but if they came here disguised, how could their intent be conscientious?”
My lips quirk. “Professor, you know there are many who believe that vampires have no consciences.”
“Which is preposterous.” He waves his hand. “Vampires of old used to make that claim so they would feel less guilty about doing that which they desired. There are rumors even that a large number of deaths attributed to the bubonic plague had actually been from vampire attacks.”
My heart skips a beat. “I didn’t know that.”
“No, that doesn’t surprise me. Your mother…” He shakes his head, the strands hardly moving. “Well, I have argued time and again that all of the history courses be taught to the first years, but no. They want the first years to worry about Blood Magic and Fog Generation and Conversion from the very start. No one ever bothers to listen to me.”
He says all of this in a low, annoyed tone, speaking more to himself than to me, and I smile despite myself.
“We have a bloody history,” I say.
Professor Marius blinks and refocuses on me. “That we do, and it has been watered not just with human blood.”
“You’ve lived a long time, Professor.”
“Yes. I was turned during the height of the Renaissance. A great time that had been, so many masters alive then. The great painters and artists of that time hadn’t been human, but they did their best to pass as one. They wanted to share their talents with the world, and they succeeded. The Middle Ages… I’m glad I wasn’t alive then.”
“In all of your years, over the centuries, surely there have been times when…”
He eyes me, waiting patiently, and I spy that flash of compassion once more.
My right hand slips into the pocket of my red plaid skirt. I'm wearing the Blood Haven Academy uniform—the skirt, a buttoned-down white shirt beneath a black vest, a burgundy tie, and a red capelet that has a tendency to flutter behind me regardless of a breeze or lack thereof.
My fingers brush against the gold cufflink. As much as I took it so that Julian will have an excuse to see me again, it also serves as a reminder of him and of our shared affinity toward the moon… and each other.
“Times when—”
“Do you see that?” a student cries out, his voice far louder than everyone else’s.
He stands by the window, and the other vampires crowd around him. Even Professor Marius and I do the same.
On one of the castles, blood dripping, someone drew a picture of a vampire with a wolf in its mouth. It’s shockingly detailed for something that had just been painted, but then, vampires do possess super speed. It would take no time at all to paint something like this. Such a terrible picture. The vampire’s eyes are formed from blood, as is the rest of the picture, but it only serves to highlight just how much of a blight vampires are.
I shouldn’t. I shouldn’t feel so much animosity toward my kind, but I suppose my feelings against vampires lies first and foremost with my mother and her sins.
My stomach churns. Most of the other students are riled up to the point of being in a frenzy, which is never a good thing. Vampires can become rather emotional, can become blind to everything else, a slave to those emotions. They are capable of great destruction then.
The human theory that vampires can shut off our emotions, simply put, isn’t true. No, if anything, we are beings of strong emotions, emotions that can sweep us along in a bloody tide pulled by the red moon.
The students rush out of the castle, and not just from my classroom, but from many of the other nearby castles that serve as our school. I linger a moment, as does the professor.
“What is to happen?” I ask, staring at the graffiti.
“That will have to be washed and taken down along with the others.”
“The… others…” I murmur as I glance around and realize there are no less than four more instances of graffiti, each depicting violence toward werewolves.
Suddenly, the students all turn toward the source. My ears prickle, and I can just hear shouts from far away.
“She smells like them!”
"She went to their academy!"
“She’s the reason why they came!”
She? Are they talking about…
I dash out of there, the wind blowing my wavy hair back from my shoulders, fluttering as much as my cape. It doesn’t take me long at all, only seconds, to arrive at the scene. A large cluster of vampires have formed a circle around Tyra, and I push and fight my way through to her just as the first vampire reaches for her throat.
“Leave her go!” I shriek, slamming my palm up at his elbow, forcing his limb to snap as arms aren’t meant to bend that way.
More vampires rush forward. The first released Tyra, but his arm’s already healing, and he’s looking at me with murder in his red eyes.
Others pin Tyra’s arms, holding her in place. Her eyes land on me, her expression much like the vampire I attacked.
“Why do you smell like them?” one of the vampires asks.
“Why are you hurting one of our own?” I cry. “Leave her be!”
“I have nothing to say to you,” Tyra spits out.
“You’ve gone to their academy. I’ve heard you tell others about it. You brag about seeing them—”
“I don’t go to see them,” she snaps. “I go to fight them, to provoke them.”
“So you admit you’re the reason why they came then. They wanted to scope out our grounds so they can see where they can lie in wait for an attack!”
I scowl and grab the speaker’s arm. “You’re making assumptions. Stop. We have no reason to think they will attack—”
“What is the meaning of this!” roars a voice so loud that it causes my ears to ache. Involuntarily, my hands lift up to cover them.
A division forms in the tightly packed circle around us, and Ambrose Mandrake marches toward us. The headmaster of Blood Haven Academy appraises the scene. Without a word, the vampires holding Tyra tighten their grip instead of releasing her, and I flash my fangs at them.
“What is the meaning of this?” the headmaster repeats, his words whispered, but the tone is that much stronger and deadlier.
None of the vampires speak up. My own gaze drops to the ground. If Tyra is to be punished, I will confess to all. I will spare her so that we can maybe have peace.
Only, peace won’t be had if they learn the truth. No. If anything, it will cause more pain, more fear, more violence.
“You will not act as if you are nothing more than sacks of blood and emotions. We are not savages, and we do not harm our own kind.” The headmaster shifts his gaze to take in each of us in turn, and I squirm beneath the heat and power of his stare. “I can see where this is headed, toward a blood bath of our own. I will not have this.”
Slowly he turns about, his black cape fluttering about him to reveal the blood-red underside. He has his black hair styled in a way that might have been fashionable six if not seven hundred years ago, and his eyes are so dark a red that they almost appear black. He’s an old vampire, ancient, and he has lived through much and more. He will not suffer to allow any sort of violence on campus.
With great deliberation, the headmaster points to the vampires in the circle, including Tyra and myself.
“You all are punished. You will head to the dungeons and sleep in coffins and not see the sun or the moon for three days.”
The vampires around us all flee, and Tyra jerks herself free from the grasp of her captors. Her glower at them doesn’t soften any as she looks at me
.
I hang my head. At least I will have my thoughts free, so I can think of Julian at the very least. He calls me his moon, and I will have a bit of the moon with me regardless of what the headmaster says.
So long as I have my mind, I will be able to be free.
So long as I am free, I will have the choice to be with Julian.
But am I truly free if the vampires seek violence over the possibility of werewolves attending one of our parties even though there had been no violence to speak of?
Must we live in such tempestuous times?
Chapter 13
Romelia
The three days have come and gone, and honestly, sleeping in a coffin is hardly a punishment at all. The lining is soft beyond measure, and it helps me to block out all of the chaos going on outside the walls of the dungeon. The students are under lockdown, and apparently, as much as my ears can clue me in, there’s been a bit of a bloodbath. Not between vampires and werewolves. No. The vampires have taken it upon themselves to be extra violent toward humans, a situation that plagues me terribly. The night I realized this, the second night, I could hardly sleep and couldn’t center my thoughts on Julian. That night had been my worst one here.
Honestly, some of the students prefer to sleep in coffins and have them in their rooms. I think most of those vampires are the ones who turned rather than the ones who were born. Tyra and I and the other female vampires who share our castle all sleep in beds.
Despite my time confined to the coffin, I’m to be freed. One of the professors’ aides comes to free us. The moment Tyra is uncuffed, she darts away without waiting for me or even looking in my direction. It hurts that she is so utterly furious with me. I hadn’t meant for her to become embroiled in all of this, but she can hardly lay the blame solely at my feet. After all, she is the one that has been sneaking about their campus. I had been so shocked and bitterly angry to see her held against her will that I hadn’t even inhaled to see if they had the right of it. Had she gone to see the werewolves again? I thought she wouldn’t. I hoped she wouldn’t, but I fear that the closer I am becoming to Julian, the further away I am pushing Tyra.
Blood Haven: Year One: A Mayhem of Magic World Story Page 8