Chapter 7
Small spheres of light shone through the window, creating freckles of warmth on her cheek. Elijah stood by the window, jade eyes examining overgrown pastures and tangled barbed wire fences. Set in deep sockets, his eyes looked tired, surrounded by dark skin that faded to nearly translucent at his cheekbones. 150 years ago, time in the once pristine barn and pastures left the Jacobs brothers kissed by the sun’s angels.
“You don’t sleep,” Lana stated, grabbing his attention. He shook his head, still leaning against the frame.
“How did you sleep?” Elijah asked.
“Peacefully actually,” she smiled. “What do you have planned for today?”
“Classes start today,” he said, crossing his arms.
“What? It’s Saturday,” Lana tossed the sheets aside, twisting her braid into a bun.
“Lana,” his shoes clunked against weathered wood. “You were exhausted and needed your rest. You slept through the weekend.”
Lana left the room, nearly stumbling down the staircase. Elijah held out her jacket, opening the door. On the highway headed south into town, the car was quiet except for minimal road noise as tires gripped asphalt. Two miles from the Jacobs’ mansion, Elijah pulled into Lana’s driveway, a two-story home coming into view.
The cobblestone driveway created a semicircular shape around a patch of land. The land was a shade of dark green with a small garden filled with tulips and roses, specifically red and pink tulips and white roses, her favorite.
A porch wrapped around the mansion that was painted dark brown. A hammock-like seat hung from the awning covering the porch. The wall of the house was created with stones, which formed the first four feet of the wall from the ground. Wooden planks painted light gray formed the rest of the outer wall.
The rest of the land surrounding the front of the house was landscaped beautifully, with sculpted shrubbery lining the stonewall of the house and large trees, pecan, pine, and lavender, scattering the property.
A blue Mercedes sat parked in front of Lana’s home, Elijah pulling in behind the vehicle. Lana glanced toward the door to see if anyone was standing on the porch. When she couldn’t see anyone, they got out of the car, grabbing her book bag. Closing the door, she noticed the man exiting his vehicle.
Kyle leaned against the Mercedes, his hands in the pockets of his khakis as he looked them up and down. He looked at her with a more intimate look, soft and subtle. His hazel eyes dulled slightly as he pushed himself away from his car. He walked toward her then, slowly and keeping his hands in his pockets. As Elijah put himself between them, Lana looked away, trying to avoid eye contact.
“I’m sorry for what I did, Lana,” he said. “I was out of line the other night.”
“Is that all?” Elijah asked.
“Elijah Jacobs,” Kyle said, his face two inches from Elijah’s. “You’ve really lowered your standards since 1840, Lana.”
“Vampires and demon hunters are much more alike than you realize,” Elijah said. “You’re lucky I didn’t track you.”
“And I you,” the demon hunter lifted his chin.
Kyle’s left eye twitched before he grabbed a thin wooden rod from the back of his jeans. Elijah turned and pushed Lana toward the house, the Fury stumbling on cobblestones before finding her balance and sprinting to the front door. Looking behind her, Kyle had the vampire in a chokehold, the rod sticking through his abdomen. He pushed Elijah to the ground as Lana barreled through the door, locking it behind her. She went through the double doors to the right of the foyer, closing them behind her and kneeling on the other side of a long leather couch near the fireplace on the opposite wall of the living room.
The front door slammed shut. “Come out, come out wherever you are.”
His black leather shoes scuffed the marble floors beneath him as he looked from left to right. Up the grand staircase would take him to the bedrooms of the McDowall mansion. In front of him, a mirror that rose from halfway up the wall to the ceiling reflected his hazel eyes, blond hair that fell on his face, dark circles beneath his eyes. The doors to the right took him to the living area where he used to sweep Lana off her feet and hold her in his arms on the couch before the fireplace during the cold Bay winter.
Kyle turned the knobs, letting the doors swing open slowly. The room looked as it had before. A dark leather couch sat on the far side of the room in front of a fireplace. The curtains were drawn closed, shielding the view of the garden behind the house. Across from the windows were two divans with a glass coffee table in between them, a vase with white roses in the center of it.
A gust of wind shut the double doors behind him, forcing him to turn around. Taking a step back, he ran into Lana.
Kyle swung, missing Lana as she ducked.
She braced herself against the floor with her hands, kicking him in the stomach with her left foot. She spun then, a long silver rod forming in her hands, a purple jewel-encrusted spiral at its tip. As Lana came around to face him, again the rod came swinging from the ground up, digging into his stomach. She followed through with the swing, the pointed tip of the rod penetrating the skin. A liquid darker than blood slid down the rod as Lana lifted him up and over her head, slamming him hard onto the ground.
Blood bubbled from the wound as Kyle gasped for air. She stood straight then, staring down at him.
“What a mistake you have made,” he struggled to find the words. Elijah kicked the doors in right as Kyle dissolved into a million black dust particles.
He was at her side as she leaned against the table behind the divan, his hands turning her head side to side in search of scratches or bruises.
As she looked in his eyes, Elijah noticed a white glowing ring spinning circles around her pupil. Each element Lana conjured reflected in a glowing circle around her pupil. The gust of wind startling Kyle utilized the element of wind.
“I didn’t let him touch me,” she said softly. Elijah didn’t speak, only continued to look her over. Her hair was still in its bun but tendrils had come lose. The longer they stood there the more the glowing circle diminished until only her gray irises remained, light and tired.
Elijah always admired her beauty, the agelessness of her face and her youthful features. Her hair had always been perfectly curled and pinned up during the day. It cascaded down her back when she would take the pins out. He tried not to watch her as intently as his brother but could not help but be mesmerized by her beauty and the grace she had. At one point in time, he would have believed maybe she was secretly a vampire by the way her beauty was seamless, that she had no flaws in her façade as the myth of those creatures always stated. Immortality seemed to look good on all creatures.
Her cell vibrated in the back pocket of her jeans, Lana fishing it out and reading the caller ID. Rae.
“Where have you been? I’ve been trying to get ahold of you for days…” Rae’s frustration got the best of her as she stuttered.
“I was visiting a friend,” Lana said, her voice almost a whisper. “I’ll see you in class.”
Before Rae could stammer through another sentence, the screen went black. Lana gathered her books and bag from the walkway, tossing them into her car.
“Mind giving me a lift?” the vampire asked, following closely behind her. “My chemistry class starts at 10.”
She nodded, sliding into the driver’s seat.
Chapter 8
Lana and Elijah parted ways once they arrived at the campus, the vampire heading to the science wing while Lana went to the fine arts department. Across the quad, she noticed Rae talking to Alexa, Beta Psi must really want her friend.
“Lana! We were just talking about you!” Alexa said, manicured hands on her hips. “Where did you disappear to Friday night? Rae said you two headed out early?”
“We hadn’t set up our apartment yet,” Rae beat Lana. “She just moved back last week, so we wanted to get settled in before classes started.”
Alexa looked Lana up and down. Her hair was grea
sy under the beret she tucked the mess under in a hurry. The blouse she’d worn to the party bunched up and folded as if she’d slept in it all weekend. News flash…
“Well, I’ll let you two go,” Alexa said. “Classes start in 10.”
“Thanks for covering,” Lana said as she and Rae walked toward Malcolm Hall. Each of the buildings at Clover Bay University represented one of the town’s founding fathers. Bridger Malcolm was the Bay’s first lawyer and led the search party during the vampire infestation.
“Anytime,” Rae’s voice was low. “I’ve gotta head to psych. I’ll see you at home.”
The Seer unlinked arms and dashed in the opposite direction, avoiding eye contact with Lana.
Outside the art building, Aiden leaned against a pillar, a lightly tanned brunette talking his ear off. From the side she looked like Alexa, only her hair had been curled messily and framed her face.
Aiden looked in Lana’s direction, the Chatty Cathy following his gaze.
Her feet ceased, her breath catching in her throat. A chill ran up her spine, the hairs on the back of her neck standing straight. Bumps rose on her arms.
The girl had hazel eyes and thin lips, her cheekbones defined like Aiden’s. Her nose slanted slightly with a small round tip.
Perfection.
The girl grabbed Aiden’s chin in her hand, refocusing his attention on her. Passing them, Lana walked swiftly up the stairs into the building.
“See you after class, Aiden,” the girl said, patting his chest before turning on her stilettos.
The art room was divided into sections by various furniture. Long counters on which sat six artists, three on each side, adorned the right side of the room. In the center, stools and easels formed a semi-circle around a 10-by-10-foot stage. A projector hung from the ceiling with a screen behind the platform. On the left of the room, cabinets with nametags and empty frames covered the wall.
Lana took the stool in the center closest to the exit, a mere four rows away from the stage which sat an additional stool. Art was like science to her, she enjoyed discovering new techniques and testing the limits of her ability with different models and subject matter. Live models were particularly challenging because they rarely stood still. She gazed around the room, sizing each student up to determine who would be the model of the day.
Josephine Baldwin, the art professor, stepped onto the platform, placing her thin-rimmed reading glasses on her head. Her blonde curls were pulled into a low pony, short ringlets curled around her ears. Ms. Baldwin looked older than the last time Lana saw her, wrinkles spiking from the sides of her light hazel eyes.
“Good morning students, and welcome to Malcolm Hall,” the professor said. “My name is Josephine Baldwin and I will be your instructor for the duration of the semester. My class is unlike any art class you have taken in the past. In fact, it is so different, we do not cover what types of brushes there are, what they do, and how you should properly use them to get a desired effect. Instead, I assign projects from the beginning of the semester and allow you as the artist to interpret said assignment in a way you see fit and critique over time.”
A short blonde girl whose feet dangled six inches from the floor sat in the row ahead of Lana. She raised her hand hesitantly.
“Why? Aren’t these classes supposed to teach us how to become an artist?”
Professor Baldwin looked toward Lana, “what class are you in?”
“Life Drawing,” Lana said softly. The professor nodded.
“And in Life Drawing, we draw just that,” she added. “Today, you will be drawing Mr. Morrison.”
Aiden emerged from behind a separator wearing only lose fitting jeans. His short brown hair formed into a faux hawk, and he wore a cocky grin as the female students took his figure in.
He had toned abdominal muscles that formed a V shape, disappearing under his jeans, his biceps toned when he flexed. Aiden laughed and Lana could notice his smile was extremely white and beautiful, and how his eyes glistened a little when he did so.
“Your assignment is to take Aiden and create the ultimate fantasy. Yes, he is strikingly attractive, and half dressed, but everyone has a different interpretation of how he looks. I want you all to try and put that interpretation down on paper,” she said.
Lana already knew what she would focus on. The center of interest was his face, the high, defined cheekbones and the dimples that appeared when he smiled a little. She would define him by his facial features, not by the body that he probably spent hours in the gym to obtain. In her mind, he was the ultimate male fantasy. He was attractive, his body was very athletic and toned, and he had the eyes that could melt a heart with one glance.
She imagined his hair without all the gel he used, and how he would look with facial hair. Whenever she finished with his hair, she worked on his lips and the smirk that he had given when he walked out. She tried two different angles, an angle from the side and one head-on.
As she glanced at him once more for the final facial detail, his eyes, she caught him staring at her. He had crossed his arms, and bent over more to cover his torso as an obstacle for each student to overcome. He grinned and she looked away, focusing on the eyes in her sketch of him.
She continued to sneak a glance here and there over the edge of her easel, her gray eyes meeting his blue crystal gaze each time. They stared at each other for a minute before Professor Baldwin started speaking.
“All right, time is up,” she said, snapping her fingers. She stood up on the platform with Aiden after handing him a shirt to put on. “Now if everyone would please turn their creations around to the front so that we can evaluate them.”
Students hesitantly turned their easel around. Some of the first drawings had him lying on his side with his head propped up by his hand leaning on his elbow.
The scene from Titanic popped into her head.
He was wearing nothing and had a feather blanket covering his hips, a scene straight off the cover of a steamy romance novel. He had long flowing hair and a look of beckoning in his eyes.
The next had him dressed in a football uniform and a helmet in his hands. He looked exactly as he did now only fully clothed. Lana was the last person to be evaluated, only because she hadn’t turned hers around until asked by Professor Baldwin.
Both she and Aiden stepped closer to examine the artwork. She had focused on his face, and not the temptation of drawing him naked like most of the other girls in the class. For this, her instructor commended her.
Aiden watched her as she looked over her own sketch. She explained to the class that she felt the body didn’t define the man, that instead the face and, more importantly, the eyes are the first things that are noticed, at least for her.
“The ultimate fantasy doesn’t exist,” Lana said. “If anything, reality is more obtainable than fantasy, because it is just that. Fantasy. If you had asked me to go off with something fictional, had not put a model in front of me, I would draw him. Or someone that looked almost identical to him. There is no fantasy about him as the model because he is the reality.”
“Well done,” Professor Baldwin said.
This is why your artwork has always been an example I have used during lessons like these, Lana heard inside her head. She smiled at her instructor and turned her sketch back around.
Aiden was waiting for her, leaning up against a pillar in the garden, when she left the art room.
“That was very impressive,” he said. His voice was deep and smooth.
“Thank you,” Lana said, keeping her back to him, her head hung low.
“Hey, wait up,” Aiden said, touching her arm. “I didn’t see you after that issue with Austin after the party.”
“Yeah, Rae and I left right away. She was pretty spooked.”
“Are you alright?”
She looked up then, “yeah, I’m fine. Just tired. I’ll see you around.”
Dark circles, the color of bruises formed under her eyes, small raised bumps on her chin. She stuff
ed her sketchbook in her book bag and headed to chemistry.
It wasn’t like Aiden to take to new people, especially women. Christine was around only because she had to be, not because he wanted her to. He’d been alive for a long time, 500 years or so, he lost count. But there was something about Lana… Could it be that she didn’t respond like most women to his charm? Maybe it was that she wasn’t perfect, that she didn’t try to conceal the flaws on her skin like Christine did.
Whatever it was, he had to know.
It could just be that he had saved her life, destroyed that demon who had harmed her and her friend at the party. Maybe he felt he needed to continue to protect her, she should at least expect that’s why he’s being so nice.
Aiden shook his head. She’s just a girl. Just a human. Even if she fell for him, if he let her into his twisted, demented life, he couldn’t take her with him, couldn’t live happily ever after. She’d die in sixty years, unless she had cancer, and he couldn’t cure that. And that’s if she believed in magic, if she was fine with the fact that the man she fell in love with has killed people and can’t be killed.
Well, he can be.
Stop. Just stop. Christine understands, just stick with her.
Chapter 9
In the quad, Lana braced her back against a tree, a leather-bound journal in her lap. She pulled at the maroon ribbon until it revealed her place and unsheathed the pen from its holster.
It’s like I never left, or rather she never died. Elijah said Abigale was burned when the patrol took her, but now I’m not so sure she’s really gone.
That girl.
The skin.
Eyes.
Even her stare.
I need to know.
“What do you need to know?” Elijah appeared over her shoulder, reading as she wrote.
“A little privacy here…” Lana laughed, replacing the ribbon and returning the journal to her book bag.
“How was your first class?” he asked, taking a seat across from her.
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