The neighborhood, founded by Ebel Underwood on a fifteen-hundred-acre tract, didn’t have the pizazz as those communities closer to the bustling city, and we were okay with that. Town was only a short drive away, but far enough to keep us safe. The whispers told me enough about what happened outside of the neighborhood’s walls.
“What are you going to do with two turtle doves?” I asked Tom.
“Sunny,” Tom began. “It’s simple. I want to see if they can fly with those hard shells.” He shoved the remaining bit of his ice cream cone in his mouth, puffing his cheeks out like a squirrel.
I chuckled and mushed Tom’s curly brown hair. “I’m sure they don’t come with shells, champ.”
We climbed up the rickety stairs and pulled open the large wood-and-glass door of The Store. Like always, the smells of freshly, double fried potatoes—potatoes dipped in chicken seasoning and deep fried to a perfect golden brown—greeted us.
At the counter, Mary Abernathy waited with a kind smile on her weathered face. She’d spent many years working at the old mill, that somehow or another caught fire in the middle of the night. That fire changed everything, though. It brought our part of town to the attention of the powers that be.
“Well, what do we have here? Is that little Tommy, now all big?” Ms. Abernathy said. She reached under her counter and pulled out a bright yellow-and-blue lollypop.
Tom’s face lit up, and he took it.
Birthdays here in the neighborhood were unique, and since Tom’s was right around the holidays, his was extra special. Not all boys got to experience what it meant to be a kid around these parts.
“Sunny, I have your order out back.”
I nodded and followed Mrs. Abernathy through the store and out to the back to the barn where she kept her livestock. We bypassed the bunnies and the different variety of fowl, until we stopped in front of a cage that held the two turtle doves. One was brown and dark brown, while the other was blue, with gray and brown spotted wings.
“What are their names?” Tom looked at the birds with child-like awe.
“That is the special thing. You can name them yourself.” Mrs. Abernathy turned her attention to me. “Now, I got these from the elders.”
I nodded my head.
Those in the Hidden Lakes still traded with us, but it was very hush-hush. When the British came, they tried to conquer all things native to the land. Maybe they expected to win. But those of the Hidden Lakes fought back, won, and created firm boundaries.
“I also have something for your mother.” She moved to a back shelf and removed a parcel. “The shaman provided additional stakes, too. And she’s going to need them.”
Mom was one of the only basket weavers given the blessed rods by the shaman. Ms. Abernathy paused and lowered her voice. “Rumor has it that, just last night they culled Tallulah.”
I tucked the parcel into my backpack.
Our world was so cut off.
We might have lived in British America, but not all of North America belonged to them. Besides Canada East and Canada West to the north and Mexico-Tenochtitlan to the south, the indigenous tribes populated the land sporadically.
Those in charge, the vampire oligarch ruled vast regions, but they didn’t control it all.
Tom took one of the birds out of the cage and examined it. “I don’t see any turtle shell.” He petted the feathers, smoothing them down, and then placed the bird back in the cage with the other.
Mom would be busy for sure, and Tom didn’t need to hear all of the details about what was going on. He needed the chance to be a child. “I need to get you back home, sport,” I told Tom. “And I need to get to class.”
With a casual wave, we left. I carried the cage of turtle doves and held Tom’s hand just a little bit tighter than I had on the way to The Store.
We made it back to our cottage in record time. It wasn’t anything to look at, but home nevertheless.
“Well, that went well,” I announced to Mom as she stood in the kitchen, stirring the last bit of sugar into the whole wheat flour. Those ingredients were rationed out, and too expensive to buy. Funny how we could buy crap to eat, but nothing nutritional. But she wasn’t alone, as my uncles quietly sat at the table.
“I think they are trying to stuff us like birds for the slaughter,” I said and reached into the bag of potato chips on the table. “Think about it. They shove unhealthy foods our way, so we can’t run. I can’t remember the last time we had spinach.”
Mom continued to create her whole wheat cupcake with Agave icing.
I placed the parcel onto the table and watched her wipe her hands on her threadbare pink apron. Ceri Underwood wasn’t a typical stay-at-home mom, but I was sure she had her load of secrets. There was just something different about my mom. And the rumor mill was spinning stories about her like it did about Mrs. Clareton a few months before.
Although I couldn’t confirm it, according to the rumors, Mom was a basket weaver by day, and a slayer by night. A basket weaver responsible for keeping us all safe?
I once heard that slayer skills were genetic. “Maybe one day I could be called on to be like her,” Tommy said. Evidently, he’d been listening in on the conversation at The Store and only pretending to look at the baubles, curiosities, and trinkets. He balled up his fist and pretended to strike.
“Don’t you go getting that into your head now.”
“My dad always had his head in a book, but Mom, when she isn’t pretending to be Mrs. Homemaker, I know she practices in the abandoned barn not far from our house.”
“Let’s not worry about that. Ms. Abernathy was only gossiping. Mom isn’t a slayer any more than I am.” I tousled his hair and tried not to notice his small frown. Was it better to believe, lie, or be told the truth?
When we’d arrived home, Mom was humming her tune, a tune I’d grown up hearing. It had always made me calm down and feel at ease. It was her way of giving me an embrace without me being there. I loved my mother and the life we had. I just wished it could be better, and it would have been if we weren’t under the thumb of the vampire oligarchy.
“Mrs. Abernathy said there was a culling last night,” Tom announced. Mom stopped stirring.
“You know, you shouldn’t be worrying about adult talk. That’s not for you.”
“Mom, you can’t protect me from everything. I’m eight now,” Tom surmised, took the turtle doves from my hand, and headed towards the living room.
“I guess he isn’t the only one who had to learn how to live, heck, even survive in this world,” I muttered.
Mom walked over to me and wrapped me in her arms. “I don’t want you having to deal with that quite yet. That’s what I’m for.” She kissed me on the head and went back to her stirring. Tom’s childlike voice was loud as he pretended to put his action figures on the live cooing birds.
“Instead of talking politics, why don’t you get to class? Marcus should be here soon to pick you up.”
Since the death of her friends, Charlemagne and Skars, she’d seemed somewhat aloof. Today she baked. Uncles Renault and Cole sat at the table. I must have interrupted something as they’d both decided to drink deeply from their coffee cups.
Renault and Cole couldn’t have been any more different. Unlike most of those around here, they didn’t belong to either the Wolf shifters of Hidden Lake or the Vamps. I’d been trying to figure out what Renault’s power was. It wasn’t that I could sniff out a shifter, but something told me he wasn’t entirely human. Of course, over the years whenever I asked, he’d tuck my chin, smirk, and give my mom a grand smile filled with something I couldn’t discern.
Cole, on the other hand, was complete Alpha. He told me the story of his wandering across the continents to land here with us. Of course, he never really told me how he had garnered a treaty with the peoples of the Hidden Lakes. His brown eyes seemed wiser than almost anyone I knew, even the patriarch of the family, and the uncle I called Dad, David.
It hadn’t always been th
at way, though. Each had their own version of “da” growing up, a name I called them. But Renault and Cole agreed that keeping up appearances to have David as the father figure made sense.
I never asked my mom about her arrangement, and luckily in our community, we weren’t the only family with more than one set of either mothers or fathers. I supposed it was a shifter thing, though. Admittedly, that was what made them all get along, and not compete.
Most women were ever only lucky enough to find love once, but Mom, she’d lucked out and found it in a trifecta.
I glanced at my watch and nodded. As if on cue, Marcus’s bike came burning down the lane. It could be heard a mile away. It rumbled, and practically howled, announcing his arrival.
Marcus had been a constant part of my life for as far back as I could remember. It just seemed natural that one day, our friendship would shift to something else. I knew everything about him and trusted him with my life. He was my best friend. He, like many of my other friends, was from Hidden Lakes. Mom seemed to have some kind of a working relationship with the community that I hadn’t quite figured out, even if many whispered that she was a slayer.
If so, that could mean death for all of us. Slayers were part of legend around these parts. The one who went toe to toe with the overlords. I wasn’t so sure if my mom had it in her, though.
He was like a BLT: predictable, calming, and home. The boy next door who knew exactly the way to my heart. Bacon.
Marcus stalked in. His broad shoulders were accentuated by the plaid shirt with long sleeves he wore rolled up to show off his tattooed forearms and manly farmer hands. He ran his fingers through his almond-colored hair, fixing it to be just as spiky as it always was.
He walked right in, patted me on the shoulder, and passed my mother an aluminum-foil-packed treat right off the farm. That was one good thing about Marcus; he made sure we had proper food to eat.
“Mom made your favorite, Mrs. U.” He winked, and that smile that I loved spread across his handsome face.
If someone ever wondered what the future brought, I knew Marcus would be in it. I trusted him implicitly. He never shunned my family, and instead made his world a part of mine.
Together, but not entirely, it was a relationship filled with contemplation and hand-holding—only hand-holding. Marcus said he wanted his first kiss to be special. I thought we should get on it with it. So far, he’d won—this was our courtship.
Could it be that he’d placed me in the friend zone? Whatever this was, it wasn’t quite hitting the spot. My youth should have been filled with unabashed passion, not sweaty palms.
Still, relationships required loyalty, and until we called it quits, I was in this for the long haul.
“Evening, Mrs. U, Uncles,” he said, picking up the bag of chips off the table and pouring himself a handful. “My mother asked me to bring this to you. You ready, babe? We have to get to—”
“Class.” I cut him off and blared my eyes at him. Marcus didn’t need to reveal all the truth of what we had planned for tonight. Showing up to class was the least important thing on my mind when it was supposed to be about the revolution.
I grabbed my pack, waved goodbye to everyone, and hopped on the back of Marcus’s bike. “That was a close call,” I said, positioning the extra motorcycle helmet over my ponytail.
“I don’t think you should be keeping it from her. She should know we all have her back.”
I snorted. To have the slayer’s back, if my mom was one, inevitably would get her killed. After all, the last thing she needed was to worry about some academy kids taking up arms to fight back against their oppressor.
Revolution started with a thought.
“Why? Nothing ever happens around here.”
Chapter 3
Marcus and I bypassed the Legacy Academy’s campus and neared Hidden Lake right around dusk. With my arms wrapped tightly around Marcus, I felt like I could breathe. The area of the Eternal Mountain brought a freedom I’d never known.
Tonight, it looked like the gods had painted the sky in brilliant colors of orange and red. For a moment all was right in the world. But with the night coming, so would the vampires rise from their British coffins.
High above, I heard the hawks alerting the tribes to our approach. The shifters were many, and with the golden council of Hidden Lake meeting up, it was my best bet to find out what was really going on, and how we could prepare.
Things always got tricky at night, though.
We parked and hopped off the bike. Marcus took my hand, and we headed over to listen to the elders. Outside, everyone sat gathered to hear what was happening, where rumors had only existed before. I recognized a few faces, including my friends, Faith and her twin brother, Axel.
Axel pushed his shaggy black hair with blue streaks out of his face, and the dark eyeliner he wore highlighted his piercing blue eyes. I caught his attention, and my stomach tightened. In his black leather jacket, crisp white button-up shirt, matching black necktie, and jeans that hugged his thighs just right, he looked like the manly goth he wanted everyone to believe he was.
“They culled Tallulah last night,” Isi began, the high alpha in the area, and Faith and Axel’s father. He eyed the fire, and in those shadows, I could see his worry. “We were there, delivering supplies to assist as the representatives had slowly cut off supplies to them. Their women and children were starving; anti-hunting laws were enacted, disallowing them from finding food. Even the crap junk food they brought in provided them with no sustenance—all chemicals that tasted like fake cheese.”
“But the tent city was outside of any protection, choosing to care for their own,” Faith interrupted. She was Axel’s twin sister and had the position he was supposed to covet, but he didn’t. A glorious alpha she was, and she wore it well. There had been many occasions where she’d shown up to provide us with her daily kill.
“That may be true, Faith, but as alpha, you are to take care of the tribe, not just those who you wish to call family,” Isi admonished.
“What we need to do is attack! They sleep during the day,” Faith began. The more she spoke, the stronger her voice became—never raised, but stern. “The old tales say they are allergic to the sunlight, that it is deadly. Why don’t we just enter their compounds and stake them where they lay unprotected? We have weapons, manpower. Our ancestors have defeated them before, and we can do it again.”
I watched the younger people in the crowd as they nodded their heads in agreement, but the elders frowned and shook their heads no.
Axel shot up. “It is times like this that we determine our values, where we must care for family and friend alike.” He looked down at me, and I squeezed his hand. “We needn’t rush to kill, but plan to kill we must. We should align ourselves with the Slayer.”
“That is only one person. How can she do anything?” Faith barked across the fire.
“Son,” Isi said, “The slayer line was passed down through the maternal side: one female chosen to fight back against the tyranny of the British colonizers. Your words almost speak wisdom, but it would be war if we officially interfered. We assist with food and supplies, but aid in weapons or men, I cannot allow.”
The conversation turned to the other towns, and how the vamp representatives were being resettled, but I lost interest. Axel sat down next to me in a huff, and his sister made her way next to him.
“Don’t feel so bad, they won’t listen to either of us,” she said to Axel and made a small wave to me. “But at least they listened to you. I swear, they listen to you because you’re a male, and they want you to inherit papa’s position, even if I am the one more suited for that honor. What good is being an alpha if you don’t have a pack?” Faith didn’t wait for Axel to answer, but instead pulled herself together and walked away from the fire.
Tonight was a bust. I knew Axel didn’t have to try as hard to be heard. He wasn't the alpha type, though. He was happy having someone tell him what to do—more of a soldier than a leader. I
t was his father’s expectations that kept him gnawing at that bone, even if he didn’t want it.
“You coming?” Marcus asked grumpily, and I followed him toward his waiting bike. “We got what we came for.”
His mood swing caught me off guard. It seemed to happen more and more after these meetings, I noticed. I wanted to soothe him, so I placed my hands on his back and made small circles. I could feel the anger buzzing beneath his skin. Turning my head, I wrapped my arm around his torso and pulled him close to me. He shrugged me off.
Faith and Axel appeared at my side, looking just as upset.
“They don’t have a clue. A bunch of old fogies who want to sit around and do nothing. One day, those vamps they seek to ignore will come knocking on our door, and we won’t be ready. We need balance, not high rhetoric.” She tossed her burnt-red hair over her shoulder. “If I had a penis, they’d listen to me.”
“Yeah, but then I’d be in even more trouble,” Axel responded.
Axel and Faith were two sides of the same coin.
“Are you heading back to campus to meet up with the others?” I asked them. During culling season, the town was under curfew. One of the rare exceptions was for the academy’s campus. With evening courses still ongoing, we had a reason to be out. I glanced at my watch. We could make it back in time for the final class of the evening, too. Luckily, the border wasn’t closed to Hidden Lake residents—yet.
“Why? Are you planning on staying the night?” Axel winked. His broad, sexy smile slowly spread across his handsome face, sending my heart a little pitter-patter. Marcus cleared his throat.
Axel had a small apartment which he shared with Faith located next to the campus. “Bastian called and said he had something he wished to show you.”
“We’ll see ya’ll there,” Marcus agreed.
The ride to campus wasn’t as light and carefree. I could feel Marcus pulling away. “Is everything okay?” I asked. He simply nodded.
Holidays Bite: A Limited Edition Collection of Winter Holiday Vampire Tales Page 25