No one noticed me much, and I’d also never been an offense to anyone and never been in any real trouble. Becoming an adult was the best thing that ever happened to me because it allowed me to pursue my own path, even if I hadn’t figured out what that was going to be yet.
And all the partying and sleeping around… deep down, I knew it was a farce. This was all part of me finding myself, figuring out who I was and what I wanted from life, and all that. Part of it was also about attention. Now, I could finally shine, be the loudest person in the room, and get noticed like I never had before.
But getting Turned was something else altogether. It took all the good parts of me and highlighted them, magnified them even. It brought out good in me I didn’t even know was there. And it brightened the dark spots in me, gave me new skills and abilities, and a confidence I had never had before.
The Academy had taught me how to use all these newfound skills and how to control my new powers, and now they were unleashing me onto the world, a more powerful, amazing version of myself than ever before. I didn’t even want to remember my old life anymore. There had been nothing worth remembering anyway.
Now I was free to enjoy the world. And my thirst for life… it was insatiable!
~ The End ~
Sneak Peek into Bloodlust: Mystic River Vampire Academy Year Two
Year Two at the Academy was going to get even wilder. These newly turned vamps were insatiable, but now they have bloodlust. Can they learn to tame the wild beast inside and function in a normal society, or will they have to be put down?
After posing for the photos, my mind went back to that bastard who had turned me. He was just hanging out, laughing, and acting like he belonged here; like it was no big deal he had violated me and sent me here.
What was he doing here anyway? Did he have any idea how much trouble he would be in for what he did to me? He broke the cardinal rule. He could be killed!
He should be killed, I thought, but immediately thought better of it. Deep down, I knew I didn’t want that. All I really wanted was to have those missing hours of my memory returned to me. What really happened that night?
There was only one other person who might know the answer to that and right now, he was making toasts and telling jokes and standing just a few feet away. Now might be my only shot at it.
Right before I marched right up to him to give him a piece of my mind, Damien grabbed me by the arm.
“Hey, that guy you’re eyeing? Stay away,” he warned.
“Excuse me?” I shot back. He was not going to keep me away from demanding that fool tell me why he tricked me and bit me. “You can’t tell me what to do. We’ve been over this before.” I was seeing red and anyone who got in my path was going to experience my wrath.
“No, you don’t understand,” Damien said, leaning in close to my ear and whispering, “I’m telling you, Carmilla, that guy is a vampire hunter!”
“No, he can’t be,” I argued with Damien. “He’s the one who turned me.”
“He turned you? Wait, are you saying he’s a vampire?” Damien looked shocked and confused as the pieces started to come together for the both of us at the same time.
But why would a vampire kill his own kind?
Buy Bloodlust here.
Full Moon Rising (sample)
This was the hardest breakup of my life. True, it was the only breakup of my life, and maybe that’s why it was hitting harder, but all I knew was… it sucked. I was supposed to be training for the most important competition of my life, but all I could do was think about him.
I wondered where he was, who he was with, what he was doing… if he was thinking of me like I was thinking of him, and if he was sorry that we had broken up.
Most of the time, it felt like an anvil was sitting on my chest and the rest of the time, it felt like I was floating outside my body, watching this broken husk of a person from above, wondering how that lifeless shell continued to move around when it had lost everything that mattered to it.
Ah, heartbreak… it’s fun, isn’t it?
I could get some of that aggression out with my combat training sessions, and I loved to go for a long run every other day, at least, to keep my stamina up, but none of that stopped the pain or the endless thoughtsof him.
It was like getting a song stuck in your head. You know how it just keeps replaying itself over and over, pieces of it even when you’re not trying, a bit here and there when you’re falling asleep, or in the back of your mind working its way to the front as you do daily chores. That’s what his memory was doing to me.
How long was this supposed to last anyway? People told me I needed to just date someone else to get over him. A) I didn’t want to date someone else. B) I already tried that, and it didn’t work.
In fact, I had dated someone else for more than six months, but I still didn’t feel any different. My best friend, Roxy, said that I didn’t give it my best effort, but I disagree. At first, I was super into the new guy, Dre. He was fun and exciting, and everything that Brent wasn’t in some ways.
In other ways, he was everything I missed about Brent. And if I’m being honest, it was great to have someone text me good morning and good night, and to say sweet things to me throughout the day. I had really missed that attention. Just knowing that someone else out there is thinking of you can really brighten your whole mood.
On our second date, we kissed for the first time. It wasn’t hot and passionate like it had been with Brent, but I blamed it partly on him being nervous. I expected things to get better on our next date and beyond.
Only… they didn’t.
I actually spent the night at his house – twice – but nothing happened between us. Weird for a 20-something man, right? I mean, it was a relief not to have someone trying to get into my pants two seconds after we met, but also kind of odd how reserved he was being.
Who invites you to sleep over after you’re dating for weeks and then doesn’t try to even kiss you?
We were like middle school girls on a sleepover. We watched movies, ate snacks, talked all night, and then passed out sometime in the wee hours of the morning. It was nice, but not what I would call romantic or erotic.
It was the most platonic adult date I’d ever had. In fact, I’d hung out with non-romantic girlfriends who were more affectionate. And if that wasn’t odd enough, the next morning he asked me to be exclusive, which seemed to come out of nowhere, but I figured what the hell did I have to lose at this point, so I said okay.
Of course, Roxy had said it was “totally weird” and that I should drop him because there was “obviously no spark”, but I was no quitter and that attitude carried over in my dating life, as well. So, being the stubborn girl that I was, I kept trying and hoping it would get better.
The more time I spent with Dre, the more it made me miss Brent, so I finally decided the nicest thing I could do was break it off. He didn’t seem too bent out of shape about it either, so I think the feelings were mutual. If he didn’t like me, why didn’t he say so? Or maybe he had felt a spark in the beginning and then lost it? Again, why not just say something? He carried on like everything was fine and when I broke up with him, he said, “Okay, well thanks.”
Thanks?
Um, okay.
It was the strangest dating experience I’d had in a long time. Then again, I had never really had any other dating experiences. Brent had been my first serious love.
I had experimented some, and I had middle school boyfriends or crushes, but Brent was my first serious partner in any capacity, and we had been together for five years. I didn’t even know how to be with someone else, but Roxy insisted it was the answer.
“You just need to date someone else,” Roxy had pushed. “You’re not going to find the perfect guy right off the bat. I had to date like dozens of losers and weirdoes before I met Tony.”
“Well, that’s reassuring,” I laughed, rolling my eyes. Pardon me for not being excited about dating dozens of losers to try to fin
d “Mr. Right”.
Roxy and her boyfriend had been together for two years now. They were adorable in that way that someone makes you jealous you don’t have the same and other times makes you want to stab them both with a fork. I was happy for her, but my failing love life was a bit bitter about her success.
Over a year later and he was still the first thing on my mind when I woke up and the last thing on my mind when I went to sleep at night. Often, I would find myself caught up in some menial chore like mowing the lawn, or when I was working out or going for a run, and my mind would just wander.
I’d start doing my tasks on autopilot while my brain drifted off to memories of him, thoughts of what I would say if I saw him again, or fantasies of running into him again. Yeah, I had it bad.
He haunted me.
And this was one reason why when I got that invitation in the mail, I said “Yes!” without so much as a second thought.
Getting invited to the Magic Trials was a big deal. Some people could practice magic their whole lives and never get that invitation in the mail. It was an honor to even be considered. An honor that my family, especially, knew a great deal about and held in a very high esteem.
A smarter, more careful person would have thought about it more, weighed the pros and cons of going versus not going, and determined a strategy for plan of action before they confirmed the invite.
But let’s be real, I wasn’t that person.
I was a woman with a broken heart that nothing seemed to heal. That meant I was angry, reckless, bitter, and out for blood.
If beating the shit out of people in the Magic Trials released some of that pent up, unrequited love, well then, that’d be a good thing. There was no reason to second-guess this. No reason to drag out the inevitable.
My cousin, Rocco, said it was the greatest honor in magic to be invited to the Trials. You didn’t shoot down an offer like that. In fact, in my family, it was considered an insult to the entire family to say no to an invitation to the Magic Trials.
At the end of the day, I didn’t need time to think on it. An invite meant I was going, whether I wanted to or not. May as well make the most of it and kick some magical ass.
So, why was I sitting here pining over a lost love instead of preparing for such an honored tradition?
Ah, a magnificent question!
If I knew the answer to that, I guess I wouldn’t be in this position. Despite my broken heart, I’d been practicing for weeks now. Only the best of the best came to the Magic Trials and if I wanted a chance of staying in past the first round and not embarrassing my family name, I needed to be as prepared as possible.
Despite all my family’s experience with the Trials, I needed to prepare my mind and body. It was one thing to know in generalizations how the Trials work, but it was another thing altogether to actually have to participate.
There were unexpected circumstances that could happen when doing battle with other magic users. You could prepare for the Arena, the rules, the terrain and other factors, but you couldn’t fully prepare for how another participant would play.
Tomorrow, I take a train to The Scorched Wilderness. This is where we would sign in for the Magic Trials and spend an additional 48 hours preparing for the Games. There would be team leaders and trainers for each of the magical classes and types to help us.
From there, we’d get carted over to the Demon Dome Arena to fight to the death!
Okay, not really. We didn’t do that anymore – although rumor had it some of the elders wanted to bring it back. No, we actually fought to magic death; meaning we fought until we exhausted all of our magical ability and then we would be eliminated from the competition. There were two ways this happened: you either checked yourself out when your magic was low, or the referees pulled you out when you reached the Point of No Return.
Magic regenerates itself over time, so you get it back, but how long it takes depends on the person and how fast you regenerate. It’s easy to see why those with the most magical stamina do well in the Trials. The quicker you can regenerate, the longer you can stay in the game, especially if you are very intuitive with your own
I didn’t know much more about it than that. Most participants didn’t even know that much, but I came from a long line of Magic Trials veterans, so word had been passed around my family. We talked about Trials over dinner, family holidays, and any other time people could find a way to work it in. That didn’t mean I was a shoe-in for this thing, though.
The thing is, even being from a family who had participants in previous Games didn’t guarantee an advantage. They intentionally mixed it up every year, so you never knew exactly what you were going to get. And they were more secretive than Lucas on a Star Wars film.
No one involved in the planning was allowed to say anything, not even to their own family members, and most of the planning committee didn’t know any more than their small, specific role in it. They showed up, did their part, and left without a word.
“The only way two men can keep a secret is if one of them is dead,” my dad used to say. This was a very good example of that.
Since the small details of the Trials and the specifics of each year’s Games could vary, no one could predict exactly how it would go. This meant it was impossible to be 100% prepared for it. Or rather, it was impossible to cheat it. I suppose you could be prepared, but there would always be unpredictable variables.
The fewer people who knew about that year’s Games, the lesser the chance of someone leaking it. My dad used to tell a story about the time the Magic Trials secrets got released. The result was disastrous. It was back in the 1900s and someone on staff leaked the info before the Games.
The Trials were postponed for a month that year while they redesigned the entire event. Rumor has it, the person who leaked the info ended up dead in a horrible auto “accident” just a week later. No one dared to question it.
It sounds fishy if you ask me, but there were highly connected people involved in making the Trials go off without a hitch and let’s just say, you didn’t want to get on their bad side.
The Magic Trials were run by the strongest and most influential magic users in the world. They came from generations worth of the best in their magic classes. The title of Head of the Board had been passed down through the same family line for at least seven generations. It was currently being held by the Vullerys, friends of my dad’s, and a family who had been winning and then operating the Magic Trials for far longer than I had been alive.
I slammed my fist into the training bag hard, then again, and then again. Thwack! Thwack! Thwack!
“Hey Harlow, why don’t you go easy on my bag there, girl?”
“Ah, shut it, Ryder! Your bag is fine. Just be happy I’m not punching on your face.” Teasing my best guy friend was a lot of fun. He could take as much as he gave.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa! Such hostility. Save it for the Games, girl,” he teased.
Ryder had been my best friend like a brother to me for nearly as long as I could remember. We were still in diapers when we first met. Our moms had been best friends so it was pretty much destiny that we would be, too.
He had been by my side through every major life event; first day of Kindergarten, prom, when my dad died, high school graduation, and of course, when Brent and I broke up. No matter what was going on, he was there so I didn’t have to be alone, and I had been the same for him.
After the breakup, he had been my lifeline. He was there with the endless bottles of wine and tubs of Rocky Road ice cream that I needed to get through the first few days. I’m pretty sure I never would have survived it without him.
We cried it out, we ran it out, and we boxed it out in the garage where I had a mini gym that he had helped me set up back when we were in middle school. We started it with pieces we found in other people’s trash and hand-me-downs from family members but since then, it had grown into a nice home workout space.
No matter what life would fling at us, we could come i
n here and work it out, punch it out, and sweat it out. This was our therapy.
Lately, we’d been using it to prep for the Magic Trials. He had been helping me get ready ever since my invite came in. Most of the time, we acted like we wanted to kill each other, but the truth was, he was probably the only person in the world who I knew would always have my back, no matter what.
And I would do the same for him.
He was absolutely going to be at the Magic Trials cheering me on, and that meant everything to me. My cousin Rocco would be there, too. He took the games really seriously, and he totally freaked when he found out I had been invited. It was nice to have the support, honestly.
I just wished my dad could be there to see it. And I wished that I could have at least one person come back with me before the Games. I had heard the prep area could be intense. You spent 48 hours at the Wilderness and they made sure you weren’t trying to smuggle contraband or anything, and they gave you military-style physical training.
Admittedly, it was a bit intimidating knowing that I was leaving tomorrow completely by myself and no one could come along. I was not a soft girl. I had been on my own for a long time. I liked to be in control of my life, call the shots, and do my own thing. But this was a very big event, and it would have been nice to have someone in my corner.
At least I knew my dad would be watching from above, or wherever really good people go when they die. I liked to think that his spirit was looking down on me from time to time, and that he was happy with what he saw. Every day I strived to become the type of woman who would make him proud.
I launched a couple more punches into the training bag as I thought about this. Sometimes there was nothing else in the world that could help me release my emotions quite like hitting something very, very hard.
Ryder called out from across the room, “Hey, what do you say we dip out of here and go get you some last supper? We can go to that nice Italian place you like.”
Bloodlust: Mystic River Vampire Academy (Year Two) Page 11