The rage I can understand even if I don't share it. Yes, werewolves vandalized our property. Yes, they trespassed, but does that mean that we need to drain every last one of them as Dirk is suggesting? Of course not!
Professor Trevor appears, and he tries to usher us back to the classroom, but other vampires are joining the throng, their professors too, and it’s rather clear there won’t be much learning today.
I fall back and allow the crowd to surge forward to have a better view of the ruined statue.
Tyra finally releases my elbow and starts to pace back and forth. Her arms wave about, but she doesn’t say anything, clearly working something out in her mind.
Abruptly, she stops and fixes me a glower. “Where were you last night?”
“Me?” I point to my chest and then to the statue. “I had nothing to do with that.”
“No, but what about wolfy boy?”
I bristle and shake my head. “Don’t. Don’t you dare.”
“Don’t what? Don’t tell anyone that you’ve gone stark raving mad for a boy who has a wolf inside him?”
My hand covers her mouth, and my feet keep churning until we’re at least three miles away from the statue. Here, we’re in one of the fields on campus, and no one else is around us. A few castles are nearby, all ones where students live, but they should theoretically be empty at the moment.
“You can’t tell anyone about him,” I hiss.
“You shouldn’t be keeping secrets from your parents, from your friends. Where were you last night?”
“Fine! Yes! I went to see him. I haven’t seen Julian in months, and I had to.”
Tyra throws up her hands. “Are you serious right now? I just can’t with you! Don’t you see how violent they are?”
"They attacked a statue. The werewolves easily could've grabbed a student and hurt one of them instead, but they didn't."
“As if that makes what they did right! No, Romelia! Stop defending them and their actions!”
“Tyra, you’re upset. I understand that. I really do, but you need to realize that—”
“No. You need to see that—”
“I’m not going to leave him.”
“You two don’t have a future!” she shouts.
“We do if we say we do,” I say quietly.
She’s breathing heavy, fuming mad, and for that matter, I’m breathing heavy too. She’s furious at all werewolves, which of course includes Julian, but she’s the source of my anger.
“You’re naïve. You have your heads in the cloud. Come back to reality! Come back to me!” Tyra pleads.
She reaches for me, but I take a step back and shake my head.
“Are you saying it’s impossible for anyone to love me?” I demand.
“No, of course not—”
“Do you honestly think that not one werewolf is capable of love?”
“They are—”
“They were monsters at first, yes. They ate flesh and drank blood. We still drink blood, but they don’t. They learn how to control their wolves. We’re the monsters more than they are.”
“They’re an abomination!”
“And so we are.”
We glare at each other, and suddenly, my anger is gone, wiped away entirely, but vanished too is my happiness at spending the night with Julian. How I wish we could have run away then! But he loves his family, and he needs his pack. As much as he claims that wolves leave to form new packs with their mates, his kin sticks to their pack. It's huge, spanning multiple families. I won't ask him to leave his parents and siblings and everyone else behind. That wouldn't be fair. I'm not the only love in his life.
As for Tyra…
“I know you think you’re helping me, that you’re trying to save me from the hurt you think Julian will cause me, but he’s not like other werewolves.”
“A pup bite me.”
“Yes, and what would a young Tyra have done if a werewolf tried to help her out of a tree?”
“I probably would’ve run away instead of bitten him!”
“Is that so?” I ask dryly. “I think I recall a time when little Tyra bit me because I won a game of hide and seek.”
“That was different. You cheated.”
“I did not cheat!”
“You weren’t supposed to use your ears.”
“You farted!”
Tyra’s shoulders shake, and she starts to laugh, and I laugh, but things aren’t the same between us, and maybe they never will be.
“You have to know that I love you dearly,” Tyra says softly, “and I always will.”
“If you love me, you will trust my judgment,” I counter. “I am not naïve.”
“You can’t know what love is. You’re only sixteen.”
“You can say that, but you’re wrong. Love is about wanting what’s best for the other person.”
“Your parents love you. They think Constantine is what’s best for you.”
I inhale deeply. “My parents don’t know who I truly am, so what they want for me… that’s more a reflection of themselves than me.”
“If they don’t know who you are, that’s your fault, isn’t it?”
"Or theirs. My parents don't bother to listen to me."
“So make them listen!”
“I can’t even make you listen,” I grumble. “You’re so certain Julian is wrong for me, but you don’t even know him.”
“Will you bring him home to see your parents?”
I say nothing and hold entirely still.
“You wouldn’t, and why not? Because they wouldn’t approve.”
“They’re as prejudiced as you are,” I snap.
Her eyes widen. “It’s not a matter of prejudice when they are coming to our school and—”
“Julian had nothing to do with that,” I protest.
“If he cares so much about you, why won’t he try to make sure that his friends don’t do anything like that?”
"How do you know that any of his friends did anything?" I challenge. "Maybe he convinced them not to, but I'm guessing he didn't even know what was going to happen."
“You honestly think it was just a coincidence that the one night you two have a date together, is the one night that they make their way here? You claim you aren’t naïve, but you are. Romelia, please. He had to have been in on it. He kept you distracted—”
“Why? Why would he do that?”
“So that he can continue to bring you down. Maybe it’s a dare. I don’t know, but he and his friends organized this.”
“No. That’s not Julian!”
“Do you know his friends?” Tyra crosses her arms.
“No.”
“Has he introduced you to them?”
“No, but I also haven’t introduced him to you, and I don’t think I want to because I’m afraid you’ll snap and bite him and kill him.”
Tyra’s face pales, and she hangs her head. “I wouldn’t do that,” she murmurs.
“Are you so sure about that? Because you are ruining our friendship over this. Not because you don’t accept that I… that I’m with Julian. Not because you won’t accept him. Because you think that werewolves are worse than demons, don’t you?”
“I… Our fathers…”
“Yes, our fathers are demons, but that doesn’t mean that everything they do is evil, right?”
“You won’t listen to yours or your mother. You promised me that you would get to know Constantine, and you still haven’t.”
“I don’t like him,” I murmur.
“Have you even given him a chance? What if your parents know you better than you think they do and Constantine is the vampire for you?”
“I don’t need anyone but Julian,” I say stubbornly.
“So why don’t you just run off with him?” Tyra shouts. Her eyes widen. “No, don’t. Please. Forget I said that.”
I close my eyes and hang my head. “I want to.”
“Romelia!”
“Don’t you want me to tell you
the truth? I want to. I won’t deny it, but he has a pack, and he has a loving family and siblings, and I won’t ask that of him.”
“Because you know he won’t pick you.”
“No.” I smile despite my sorrow and shake my head at her. “No, because I know he will pick me, and I don’t want to tear him away from his family like that. As much as I want to leave all of this hatred behind, I don’t… I don’t know how things will play out, but you have to believe me. Julian is the one for me. He makes me happy, and he understands me.”
“How? He’s a werewolf with a loving family. You’re a living vampire who hates your parents.”
I wrinkle my nose. “Hate is a powerful word.”
“It is. You hate your parents, and you hate vampires, and that’s why—”
“I don’t hate vampires,” I protest. “How can I? I am one!”
“How can you be so certain that he accepts you for who you are if you can’t even drink from the source? You can’t accept who you are!”
I draw myself up to my full height even though Tyra's taller than my five-foot frame. "I did drink from the source. From Julian. He offered. He knew I was thirsty, and… I drank from him."
“He trusted you?”
“More than I trusted myself, and he was right. He does accept me for who I am, Tyra.”
Tyra eyes me for a long moment. Then, she nods and dashes away, leaving me to head who knows where.
Her nod. Does that mean she accepts Julian and me finally? Or is that naïve of me to hope?
Chapter 22
Romelia
I don’t know what to expect when I head to fetch a goblet for dinner hours later. Tyra hasn’t appeared—
“There you are,” Tyra says as if she didn’t just appear out of nowhere.
I eye her. “You’ve been looking for me?”
“Yes. I just want to say that I love you, and I’m sorry, and we won’t talk about him or vampires or werewolves.”
“So what are we going to talk about?”
“I want you to know that I have always had your back. I will never do anything to harm you, and I will always want what’s best for you. Maybe I’m not the one to judge and tell you what’s best for you, but I do think I know a thing or two.”
“Because you’re so much older and more mature than I am.” I tap a finger to my chin. “Wait. No. I’m older than you are.”
“By three days. That’s not even a week!”
“Still. Older, wiser…”
“Age before beauty,” she says, bowing at the waist and sweeping out her hand for me to pass by first.
“What happens if you have age and beauty?” I tease.
“I wouldn’t know, and neither do you,” she teases back.
I grin as we link arms and cross over to a tree. We sit and talk about the lockdown. Apparently, the headmaster is considering hiring some demons to be guards.
“What’s next?” I grumble. “Hellhounds?”
“I think there are a few hellhounds who are guards at Magical Prison,” she says.
“To serve as a reminder of Hell?” I assume.
“I guess.”
Hmm. At least none of the guards have been attacked by werewolves.
Tyra glances over. “There’s Constantine over there.”
I stiffen, and she sighs.
"I want to wave my hand to get his attention, but I won't. I'll be a good friend." She eyes me with a sly smile. "Aren't I a good friend?"
“The best,” I assure her.
She laughs. "All right. I know I've been saying this before, but I really should work on fog generation. If I can't generate fog from within myself and without any outside aid, I will fail the course and be forced to take the summer course."
“That would be terrible, a fate worse than death,” I joke.
Tyra purses her lips and shakes her head, her golden-brown hair falling forward over her shoulder. "That's not something to joke about," she admonishes.
I grimace, my shoulders slumping. “You’re right. I’m sorry.”
She winks. “No worries. Tootles!”
And she’s gone in a flash.
As much as I want to stay here under the shade of a tree, I want to make sure that I don't have to worry about Constantine, so I dash off to the southwest and sit in the shade of a fountain that spews blood. Even I have to admit that it's more than a little disturbing, and normally, I stay far away from this one. I mean, it's gruesome, a headless person with blood gushing from the wound. Some students will drink from it, but the fountain isn't spraying anything right now. It's been turned off. Why? To prevent another blood bath? To try to encourage more peace? Honestly, I wish the headmaster would grow a backbone and stop all of this nonsense, but maybe this is too much for one person to stop.
More than two people to stop.
I settle myself and sip from my goblet, pleased to have not spilled a single drop. Just because I was able to drink from Julian doesn’t mean I’m going to drink from humans all of the time. Drinking from Julian is one thing. I’m not about to change everything about myself because of him. If he offers to let me drink from him again, I might. I most likely will, but that’s something special between us.
I can survive because of him.
Speaking of Julian… I grab my phone and see a mixed text.
Romelia, are you there?
I’m here.
Where exactly?
I lift my eyebrows and shift slightly to stare up at the disturbing fountain.
I’m near a fountain. Julian probably hadn't seen this one on his way to the party. There's no reason to describe it.
Are you alone?
Confused, I frown. Julian doesn't exactly sound like himself.
For the moment.
Are you expecting anyone?
I wish I could be expecting you.
No.
I know. Wishful thinking.
I won’t risk my life.
I blink a few times and shake my head. I would never ask you to do anything that would endanger you.
I’m not a coward, though.
Of course not, Mr. Hero.
There's a pause. Has Julian changed his mind about the nickname? Maybe he doesn't like it anymore.
Or maybe’s he’s busy. He’s not alone, and that’s why he asked if I was. It could explain why his texts seem a little guarded.
If a vampire comes at me, I would have to fight.
Oh. He's worried about his safety, which I understand, but Julian doesn't need to worry.
We’ll never meet on my campus again. You don’t have to worry. There’s nothing for you to fear.
What if one of your friends follows you one time? That’s all it would take. One time. Then I would be dead.
My friends wouldn’t attack you unprovoked.
So you’re saying that I would provoke them? Just because of who I am? What kind of friends do you have?
My nostrils flare as a thought occurs to me. It can’t be… Could it?
The kind of friends who are looking out for me and who want what’s best for me, I text back.
And they can’t possibly think that’s me.
Maybe they’re coming around.
Maybe? If you can’t even tell, can you trust them?
Trust. That’s a keyword, isn’t it? Without trust, there’s nothing, no tie, not faith, nothing at all.
Faith. Can vampires have faith if they have no souls?
I grin. Maybe.
Maybe? Even if they are partially a demon?
None of us are without sin.
No, but some of us have more sins than others. Some have darker souls.
Blood-red eyes don’t mean that we have darker souls than others.
There’s no answer.
When will you show me your wolf? I text.
My wolf?
Yes.
Why are you asking now when we were talking about dark souls? Do you think werewolves have dark souls?
I think anyone
can potentially have a dark soul. We all have the potential to do either good or evil. No one is wholly good and never evil or vice versa.
Even demons?
Even demons.
Like your dad? And what about your mom?
What about your wolf? I counter.
Why do you keep bringing up my wolf?
Why do you keep asking questions to avoid answering mine?
I’m tempted, so very tempted, to call him.
But I don’t. He won’t answer.
You’re doing the same, he finally sends after a two-minute break.
I’ve answered a lot more of your questions.
No response.
How about this? I ask one question. You answer and then ask me a question. So on and so forth. Deal?
Fine, but I ask first.
Go ahead.
If you had to pick between saving your dad or me, who would you save?
You.
Me? You wouldn’t save your own flesh and blood?
The only scenario in which I can see myself needing to save you both is from each other, so if I save you, I save him.
That’s not what I meant.
My turn. I grin triumphantly as I text again, When will you show me your wolf?
Maybe one day. Or one night.
I consider that. I did see Julian's wolf but only for a few seconds. It's not as if he allowed me to pet him, to try see his wolf. He didn't smell me, nuzzle me, nothing.
The seconds tick by as I wait for his inquiry, and I think back to his first question. If I picked my father, he would've been upset that I didn't pick him. He deliberately asked a question that would work in his favor if his goal is to hurt me, to argue.
He’s picking a fight.
Or is he?
Have you ever killed anyone?
No. Of course not. You know I don’t even drink from anyone.
I know. I meant fantasized about. Have you ever thought about killing someone?
I grit my teeth. No one knows about this. Not even my parents. Not that I would’ve ever told my father this.
You did, didn’t you?
Think about killing someone? Not really. Worry and become afraid that I would accidentally? Yes. I used to have nightmares about it when I was five, six. I would get so upset about it that I would throw up. Since I always drank blood before going to bed, I would vomit up blood, and the sight of it… It just made me think about killing people, which would make me sick again. That's why I don't drink from people. The blood I drink isn't the freshest, but it's fine. I'm used to it.
Blood Haven: Year One: A Mayhem of Magic World Story Page 14