She wasn’t one of them. Sarah thought of her sister’s birthday, coming up in less than a month. She wanted a sweet sixteen party with all the trimmings. The extra money would come in handy to help pay for it.
Maybe this month she would consider donating.
#
My butt hurt and my back was sore from sitting so long in the hard-backed chair. I wriggled to find a more comfortable position as Wendy Seul spoke, hands moving for emphasis. Her wheelchair made a slight squeaking sound as it spun and moved across the front of the classroom. I struggled to follow what she was saying, dutifully taking notes. But I could admit to being exhausted. A small group of other students surrounded me; dragon shifters like me. There weren’t many of us in Drae Valley and those of us that were had been required to partake in a separate session geared more towards our particular needs with Wendy Seul. Nick’s mother was the professor in charge of Shifting 101.
I listened as she prattled on, recommending certain vitamins I should be taking. I wrote them down; sure the spelling was off. I figured as long as I could pronounce it, I could pick it up at the pharmacy. Anything to ease the ache in my muscles and bones. It seemed like they were constantly shifting and realigning themselves without my permission.
The tone of the conversation shifted and I looked up. Ms. Seul was bringing the class to an end.
“The test is Wednesday. To pass this segment of Dragon Shifting 101, you have to score a 90% or better. Anything below that gets a repeat for the session. Sorry, but you have to know this stuff.
Inwardly, I groaned. One more test to study for. I snapped my notebook closed and shoved everything into my backpack, straightening away from my desk and perking up. It was lunchtime and I was starving. Maybe this time I’d beat Thomas to the pizza bar.
We all stood up to leave and I headed for the door.
A voice over my left shoulder pulled my attention. “Hey, Sadie, wait up.” April Meyers struggled to shift her backpack onto her thin shoulder and catch up to me. At five foot nothing, I had her by close to a foot in height. I waited impatiently.
“Jeesh, you’re like running with those long legs,” she complained.
I shrugged and attempted a weak smile. I was hungry and in no mood to chat.
“Sorry bout that,” I lied, shifting my pack to the other shoulder. Did it seem heavier?
She sent me a friendly smile. “No biggy. Hey, I wanted to remind you about the shifters party at Nancy’s Tuesday night. You’re coming, right?”
I sighed; my mouth open to tell her I wouldn’t be making it. She must have sensed my hesitation because she added before I could tell her no. “Remember, it’s a get together to have fun, but we are also going over all the material for the test. To encourage participation, Ms. Seul gave Nancy her notes. Simple way to study what’s necessary, right?”
I hesitated, a niggling sense of having forgotten something important trying to tunnel through my befuddled head. I ignored it. Besides, when she put it like that, I wasn’t sure how I could refuse. I was not the partying type. But the not have to repeat a class kinda girl? I was all in for that one.
“Yeah, sure. What was it, 6:00?”
She confirmed, “Yup, that’s it. So we’ll see you there?”
“Yeah, I’ll be there.” I wondered how soon I could make my escape after I had that study guide copied without appearing overly rude.
“Outstanding, hey, I gotta go. I have to talk to a couple others. You guessed it. They appointed me as the recruitment committee,” she admitted ruefully.
I watched as she hurried off toward another hapless student, a boy I couldn’t recall the name of because he was even more antisocial than I was.
I did a mental check of the time and place and headed out into the afternoon sunshine, turning towards The Commons. In the back of my mind, there was a niggling worry I couldn’t shake. But hunger won out and I headed for lunch, my stomach growling.
#
On entry, I remembered back over a year ago to when I was a first-year student, having lunch on the first day with all the other students and staff of Rule 9 Academy. Then it had seemed overwhelming. The odd conglomeration of tables in all shapes and sizes arranged at random in the large domed room, glass windows letting in the light on all sides. They set it up with various kiosks of delicious fare showcasing different cultures and themes. The aroma of Chinese, Indian, and American cuisine and more teased the air. I usually went for the lengthy salad bar and topped my meal with a selection from one of the other areas. Today I made a pass through the Indian Buffet for some Chicken Korma, taking a healthy helping.
Food in hand, I turned towards the Tuttle table as we referred to it, where all the Tuttle clan and my best friends were already sitting. Shifting 101 always seemed to be the last to let out.
Nick had saved me a place across from Sirris and Thomas and I headed over, my eyes on his dark head as he bent forward to say something to Thomas. Warmth spread low as I stared at him. He’d grown broader over the summer, his shoulders widening and his features growing razor sharp and more masculine.
His brilliant blue eyes lifted and caught mine. I gulped. Wowser.
I sat down beside him and busied my nervous fingers; rearranging my tray and silverware.
He whispered in my ear. “Feel up to a walk after supper this evening. I haven’t explored the shoreline of Bane Lake in a while.” His breath tickled my nape with a lazy whisper. Instant goosebumps sprang up.
I shivered, leaning closer. “With Thomas and Sirris?” I teased, deliberately misunderstanding him.
His eyes met mine, dark with humor. “With you and me, unless that scares you?”
I snorted at the corniness, ruining the moment. “Don’t be an idiot Seul, I’m not afraid of anything you have to dish out.” I giggled, stabbing a forkful of salad.
He grinned at me and we both went back to our meals.
I looked down the length of the table, my eyes sliding past Todd Tuttle, who was eating quietly, ignoring his brother and looking like he was a million miles away. I knew exactly where his heart was wandering. Greylock Mountain was where we had all spent the summer and where he’d met and left Jayne Martin. We’d gone there the past summer to make up classes we’d missed from the previous semester and relax. Given our history, we should have all known that wasn’t going to happen. Instead, we’d all nearly died—again. Trouble seemed to follow us around with no invitation on my part.
Beyond Todd, Kimmy was poking at her sisters. Karen growled something back, but Krissy stubbornly ignored her, making Kimmy giggle.
I frowned, my eyes back on my plate as I speared a tomato and plopped it in my mouth. Fern was missing again.
Fern Mason was my roommate, and one strange duck. But somehow, despite her oddness, and the differences in our personalities too many to count, we’d become friends.
She’d checked into our dorm room at the beginning of the new semester several weeks back. But I hadn’t seen a lot of her since. Our classes were all different this semester and she was absent more than she was present at lunch time. Not that any of that was unusual. Fern kept her own council and preferred her own company. In part I knew because she was an Empath. Crowds gave her raging migraines as she tried to funnel out the thoughts and emotions of so many people gathered in one place. It made her one of the most private people I knew.
Still, her absences lately had seemed over the top and I wondered just what Fern Mason was really up to.
“Hey, earth to Sadie…” Sirris interrupted my musings.
I shook my head and tried to focus on what she was saying.
“We still good? For pizza?” she asked. I stared at her in confusion.
She rolled her eyes, “You know, Thomas and I, you and Nick, at Smaugs?”
I started. It had slipped my mind, but I nodded automatically. “Yeah, sure, when is it?”
Nick shifted at my elbow, listening in as she answered, “Tuesday evening. We’re heading there instead of here for su
pper.” The buzzing was back. Crap.
“Wow, I’m sorry. I can’t make that.” My eyes shot with apology to Nick, whose dark gaze pinned me to my seat. He didn’t look amused.
“What do you mean you can’t go? We’ve been planning this for a week,” he added.
I sighed, “I know. But I have a test coming up on Wednesday, I have to pass and the guys are getting together…”
“Guys?” he interrupted me.
Scowling, I rolled my eyes, addressing them both. “Figure of speech, the kids from my Dragon Shifting class are having dinner at Nancy’s house and we’re going to go over questions and study for the test.”
“Sounds more like a get together for the class than a study session. It doesn’t sound like its mandatory to me,” he ground out. His expression hadn’t changed, but his mouth had tightened into a thin line. Sirris didn’t look pleased either.
“We’ve been planning this for a while. Did you forget us?” she whined.
I squirmed. “Sorry, but I have to pass this class…” I began weakly.
“By breaking the plans you had with us to go to another party? With guys?” Nick ground out, mouth a thin line.
My expression turned mutinous as I glared back at him. Sometimes he could be so dense. “It’s not a party, its dinner. And it’s for class. We can do pizza another time, can’t we?”
Thomas piped up, “Nope, it’s pizza, remember? Sirris and I are going. Sorry you can’t make it, Sadie.” He looked in Nick’s direction. “Maybe Fern will stand in and come with us to make a fourth Seul, how’s that?” he asked, grinning.
It was my turn to scowl? Why did someone else have to go in my place at all?
Nick’s eyes flashed with sudden temper. “Or we can just skip it altogether. You guys go ahead, I’ll find something else to do. Now, if you will excuse me, I have an important test to go study for myself.” He got to his feet and snatched his tray up, still half full. He never glanced in my direction as he left.
I didn’t have to be a genius to realize I’d pissed him off. He was being unreasonable and pig-headed. My grades were important and I sure as fire didn’t want to have to repeat any more classes. Still, with a sinking feeling of guilt, I remembered the week before when I’d had to cancel our plans as well. I couldn’t even remember why. I stared at my plate of food and pushed it away. I wasn’t as hungry as I thought, either.
CHAPTER TWO
Jorta’s upper lip curled in disgust. “Why do you even bother to cook it?”
Ab’et’s mouth curved in a satisfied smile. “Delicious, try it. I think it helps hold off my need for other sustenance.”
Elise looked on with her daughter, Emerald, in amusement as Ab’et forked up another slice of red meat, cooked extra rare and dripping red.
Jorta’s own steak was done extra well and she shuddered. Who wanted to dine on shoe leather, anyhow? Had no one ever heard of a happy medium?
Emerald tackled her own plate with the gusto of youth. A plate full of leaves and vegetables—and no meat.
Elise shook her own head ruefully. And whoever heard of a vampire that didn’t eat meat?
Jorta spoke up, reaching for his wife’s hand, squeezing it lightly and looking at his father. “Did they ever find the young groomsman? The boy that didn’t return from checking the fences?”
Ab’et looked up and shrugged. “If they did, I wasn’t informed. Still missing last I heard. They sent a small detail to check things out later and look for him. No sign and the fence is intact. He was human. Maybe he wandered away from the fence and a wandering Juggat snatched him up?”
Jorta frowned. Maybe.
Ab’et turned to gaze fondly at his Granddaughter, ignoring his son. “So tell me about this new one. What did you call him? Daisy? What kind of name is that for a gelding, anyhow?”
Emerald took a drink of her apple juice. “Well, I’m not sure it’s the best name for him Papa. He’s thrown me twice now. I think I fractured my ankle the first time. But he’s coming round. He has spirit, that’s for sure. We’re just learning about each other and that takes time,” she confessed with a saucy grin, her freckles standing out in sharp relief against her alabaster complexion. It paired well with the light copper curls that fell to the middle of her back and reflected the sunlight like a new penny.
Jorta spoke up, staring at his daughter’s too thin frame, “When was the last time you ate, Emerald?”
Emerald stared at her father, “I’m eating now, daddy. I like vegetables.”
“Emerald…” he addressed her, a warning note in his voice she couldn’t fail to notice.
She sighed.
“It’s been about a week. I feel fine, really. I don’t like the smell.” She said the last with distaste around a small show of pearly fangs, peeking out from beneath her lips.
“Regardless, partake to stay healthy. It helps us control what we are, you know that.”
Her expression darkened with a hint of temper. “I know who and what I am daddy.”
His mouth tightened at the touch of stubbornness. “I’m not sure that’s entirely true, daughter.”
Emerald didn’t answer. She’d returned to stabbing at her dinner with savage strokes.
Elise looked around the large dining hall. They weren’t the only ones sitting at the long table. Other couples and families were there too. But they were a family unit and usually kept to themselves at one end. Elise smiled at a young waiter as he handed her a goblet of thick red fluid. She could feel her incisors lengthen and grow sharp in anticipation. She took a long welcome drink before setting it down. Almost immediately the uplifting euphoria invaded her veins and she felt more vibrant and alive. She gave a silent thanks to the young volunteer that had added to their blood bank. She remembered what it was like to be starving and desperate. Elise was forever grateful that Emerald had been born normal.
She met Jorta’s eyes across the table and smiled slyly. He sipped at his coffee and winked at her, making her blush.
Satisfied, he turned once more to his daughter. “How are your studies going, Emerald? Your practice skills on the field?” He stared at his daughter’s suddenly vacant expression and frowned in concern.
Emerald’s expression changed and her gaze focused with sudden intensity on her grandfather. His hand flashed out with vampire speed to catch the tipping tray carried by a young maid that had apparently tripped as she delivered drinks. He smiled kindly at the nervous young woman, putting her at ease. But Emerald didn’t hear what he said, her breathing hitching as a tableau of events played out in her mind in bits and pieces. But it was fleeting and then gone with a whisper of pain.
She turned to give her attention to her father with a distracted frown. “Um, yes. I love The History of Wyndoor. Instructor Legion really knows what he’s about. I think Mr. Rogers is going way too slow in my Necessary Mathematics class, though. And I hate literature. In a word—boring…” Her words dwindled. Her eyes ran the length of the table.
Something hung in the air that felt wrong. What was it? Further along the table, she watched another guest pick up his goblet and take a long drought. She caught a flash of teeth and he sucked his lips dry. All along the table, two or three other guests partook of their drinks.
Emerald tried to concentrate on what her father was saying. Something about the significant works of certain poets, and she didn’t really care about any of that.
A thread of pain worked itself along the edge of her temples. She could feel one of her episodes coming on. She put her fork down with a clatter. A tingle of alarm made her shiver.
A vampire four seats down who appeared to be approaching middle age gave a sudden gasp, her cheeks flushing red as she clasped her stomach as if she might be ill. Her eyes flashed around the table in sudden confusion, heating up as they slowed and turned calculating.
Emerald’s breathing picked up as her headache deepened, and a whisper of breath hissed past her lips as her vision narrowed. Something was coming.
Sh
e tried to concentrate… struggling to remember something important. Pieces of a memory not yet realized swam in front of her vision. Her eyes landed on her grandfather. He was breathing fast and sweating buckets, his teeth chattering. “Something’s wrong…” he moaned. “Hurts. I want…”
Emerald gasped and pushed away from the table, her dinner forgotten. “Run…” she whispered, nodding at her parents. “We have to run now.”
A high-pitched scream split the casual chatter all at once and echoed long and terrified from the other end of the table, a chair crashing back and out of the way. The ripple of alarm spread the length of the table like wildfire.
Elise stared in stunned panic. One guest had grabbed a young serving maid. He’d yanked her off her feet and brought her in with a snarl, incisors pointed and hungry as they sank deep and he fed.
Pandemonium broke out. Vampires and humans alike sprang to their feet, milling in confusion as several of the guests began attacking the closest human victims. Other vampires sprang into action, trying to peel them off and restrain those whose ability to function had evaporated like smoke.
A snarl of rage close by snagged Emerald’s attention and she stared at her grandfather in horror, watching as he leapt to his feet, his eyes wild and his teeth bared. Eyes bleeding red, he searched the room, narrowing in on a fleeing victim, making for the door. At once he was moving in her direction.
“Stop him Jorta. You’ve got to grab him before it’s too late!” Elise screamed. Jorta and several others leapt onto Ab’et’s back and drug him to the floor as he snarled and screamed, twisting in a frenzy of fury and determination. His fingernails had lengthened and sharpened to match his teeth, chattering in a grinding need.
Twenty minutes later four vampires were subdued and tied fast and would shortly be on their way to the holding cells in the keep. The dungeons below would hold them until they could figure out what had happened. But the damage was done. Several humans cringed in the room's corner, sobbing and hysterical with disbelief and shock. Just like that, Elise looked around and realized the bigger catastrophe was the resulting fallout. In the space of a few minutes, they had just set their progress back a century. Trust had been broken and suspicion had sunk deep.
Rule 9 Academy Series Boxset: Books 3-5 Young Adult Paranormal Fantasy (Rule 9 Academy Box Sets (3 Book Series) 2) Page 26