Beginnings (The Trifectus Series - Book One)

by Logan Byrne

  The bell rang as Mr. Johnson was lecturing about the discovered wolves.

  “Class is already over,” he said with his hands clamped inside one another. “We will talk more about this on Monday. Everybody have a wonderful weekend!”

  I grabbed James by his hand and pulled him outside.

  “What’s the rush?” he asked me as I pulled him along.

  “You heard what he said in there. What if they find out?”

  “They won’t. We are safe. Just relax. You’re just stressed because of tonight.”

  “Maybe you’re right. You’re still coming, right?”

  “Yes,” he said, laughing. “Just calm down. Everything will be okay.”

  He pulled me into him to give me a hug and kiss my forehead. I instantly felt calm when he held me in his arms.

  The rest of the day went on and I could tell everybody was excited for tonight. I started getting worried that too many people would show up and that things would start to get out of hand. My parents never meant for me to have this many people show up. If they came home while the party was going on, they would be furious.

  I got home and threw my bags down as I surveyed all of the things my mother had gotten for the party. She bought a lot more drinks and snacks than I thought she would. Either she thought my friends were all human garbage cans, or she knew the party would be big.

  As I started preparing the house for guests, I heard a knock at my door. I opened it to see Ariel and Taylor standing there all dressed up with bags in their hands.

  “Are you ready to party?” Taylor asked.

  “As ready as I’ll ever be,” I said while smiling.

  They looked around and look disappointed.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  “Well, this is okay if your grandma is coming over to visit, but we’re having a party!” exclaimed Ariel.

  “We have to make the place more fun!” yelled Taylor.

  “Well, why don’t you two try to make the place more fun while I go sort out the snack situation,” I said.

  When I came back from the kitchen I was amazed at what was happening. There were stringed lights hanging from the ceiling and a few streamers from end to end.

  “Now this is a party,” said Ariel.

  “Wow, this looks great!” I said.

  “Well of course it does,” Taylor said while smiling slyly.

  A few hours passed before people started showing up. It seemed like I would shut the door and more people would magically be there a few minutes later. My house started filling up rather fast, and I started to get worried.

  “Do you think there are too many people here?” I shouted to Ariel over the music.

  “No. There isn’t enough if you ask me!” she shouted back.

  I was standing by the door as I heard a knock. I was starting to get anxious thinking of more people coming in. We were already crowded as it was. I opened it to see James standing there smiling back at me. I lunged out the door and jumped into his arms.

  “I’m so glad you’re here. Things are getting so crazy,” I said frantically.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  “There are just so many people here. I didn’t know it was going to be like this. My parents are going to kill me.”

  “Calm down, it’ll be fine. Just relax and enjoy it. I’ll make sure nothing gets too crazy,” he said, holding my hand.

  I looked at him and trusted he would keep his word. He held my hand as we walked inside together. The music was blaring so loud I was sure the windows were going to shatter. I tried talking to James but I couldn’t even hear him over the music. I grabbed his hand and took him upstairs.

  “There, that’s better,” I said as I could start hearing again.

  “It’s weird being in your house, well, I’ve been in your house, just only your room.”

  “It’s kind of nice,” I said, smiling.

  “Yeah, it is.”

  “My parents have been asking about you.”

  “Why? Do they suspect something? Should I leave?” James said frantically.

  “No!” I said as I grabbed his hand and pulled him back gently.

  I grabbed both his hands and put my arms around his neck.

  “They have been asking if I’m going to date you. They like you, but I’m too scared to tell them about us.”

  “Why would you be scared?”

  “I don’t want them to find out what you are. I want us to move away someday together. I want you to give me the bite.”

  “Juliet, no. You know you don’t want that. It only causes problems.”

  “I know I want you, and I know I want a life with you. Do you want to see me grow old and die? If you give me the bite, that won’t happen. You will have me like this forever.”

  “I don’t know. I love you too much to give you this burden.”

  “Then we will take some time to think about it,” I said, smiling.

  The truth was I knew I would get the bite. I didn’t want to push him, though, for the fear of him running away. I didn’t want him to think he had to do it to get me to stay with him. I knew I would get it someday, but fighting about it now wouldn’t help anything.

  “I want to be with you,” I said shyly.

  “But you said we had to wait.”

  “I know, but I don’t want to. I think I’m ready,” I said, slowly looking up at him.

  “All I have ever wanted in my life is you. My life is nothing without you in it. I will love you until the end of time. Not even death itself could stop my love for you,” he said.

  I looked into his eyes and could see his sincerity. He leaned in and kissed my cheek. Even these little affectionate things could bring a smile to my face. He made me feel complete: he was my everything.

  “I think we should date again,” I said.

  “Will you be my girlfriend?” he asked shyly.

  “I love you,” I said while nodding my head yes.

  “I love you with all of my heart,” he said before kissing me.

  “We should probably get back to the party to make sure my house isn’t on fire,” I said jokingly.

  I grabbed his hand and we went downstairs. Everybody was still partying as if we never left. Being upstairs seemed like a different world compared to downstairs. I just prayed my parents wouldn’t come home to see their house like this.

  Ariel looked at us as we came down and smiled. I smiled back, almost giving her a nonverbal cue that James and I were back together.

  James grabbed my hand and pulled me to the middle of the room to dance.

  “I’m a horrible dancer,” I said.

  “You’re with me, I’ve got you,” he said.

  James and I danced in each other’s arms with no care in the world. Our bodies pressed against each other’s, my head buried in his chest. His arms were wrapped around me as we slowly moved across the dance floor. I had never felt so safe and loved in my life.

  “I better go check on everything,” I said to him.

  “Okay, I’ll be here,” he replied.

  I walked around the house to make sure nothing was broken or stolen. Things were a little messy and dirty, but nothing seemed to be gone. I pushed my way through the sea of people and ran into Ariel.

  “So, are you two back together?” she asked with a giant smile on her face.

  “Yeah,” I said, giggling.

  “I’m so happy for you!”

  “Thank you. I just wanted to check on everything.”

  “No, don’t. Just go spend time with him. We will make sure nothing happens. Just enjoy being here with him and if anything big happens we will get you.”

  “Thank you,” I said as I grabbed her and hugged her.

  I made my way back to James and saw him standing next to Derek. They seemed to be talking, as if they were discussing something important. I didn’t even invite Derek but he was here. I walked up to them to see Cara standing behind him.

  “The alpha you fought got away
,” Derek said.

  “He was too powerful for us alone. We took down the others, but they don’t matter,” replied James.

  “No, they don’t. The alpha recruited them to try to take over the city. They tried coming to our pack to get people, but we turned them down. He is dangerous, James.”

  “I know he is. If he attacks more people, I won’t be able to live with it. We had a chance to take him down and we didn’t.”

  “We need to try to sit down and work this out. I know our people don’t get along, but if we don’t at least try, there could be consequences.”

  “I agree. I will talk to my family and we can see if we can work something out.”

  “I’ll talk to my elders and see if we can try to sit down for talks. If he recruits more people, especially stronger ones, we won’t be able to do anything. Innocent people will die and that isn’t worth the feud.”

  “I agree,” James said as he held out his hand to shake with Derek.

  Derek shook his hand back. James’s cold pale skin pressed against Derek’s hot tan hand. Their differences were set aside and they saw a common goal, something that hadn’t been done for centuries.

  “Would you guys like to stay?” I asked.

  “No, we should get going. Parties aren’t our thing,” replied Derek.

  Cara grabbed Derek’s hand and pulled him out the door. I turned to James and tried to figure out what that was all about.

  “What happened?”

  “We have to hunt down this alpha. My family isn’t strong enough and doesn’t have enough resources to take him down or track him. If we partner with them, we can get it done. If he recruits more young wolves then it is all over. There were already three recruits before. Imagine if he gets ten or twenty.”

  “Yeah, I guess. I just worry about you though. What if you get hurt?”

  “That’s a risk I have to take, Juliet. I can’t risk more people getting hurt. If I get hurt then I get hurt.”

  As the night went on, more and more people started leaving. It was eleven and only a few people lingered around talking. Ariel and Taylor helped me clean before my parents got home at midnight.

  “Thank you for the great time,” Ariel said as she grabbed her coat.

  “Thank you for helping. I really appreciate all you did.”

  Ariel and Taylor hugged me and left. I stood there with James before my parents were supposed to get back.

  “Well, I guess this is it,” I said.

  “I’ll leave before they get back.”

  “I’ll miss you,” I said.

  “I’ll miss you too, my love,” James replied.

  He leaned in and kissed me, his hand on my chin. I stood on my tippy toes as my lips pressed against his. I hugged him goodbye and walked him out the door. I crossed my arms and made a pouty face as he walked down the street laughing and waving goodbye. He was perfect.

  Not too long after James left, my parents got home. They walked in the door as I spastically looked around to make sure I left nothing sitting around.

  “Did you have fun?” my mother asked.

  “Yeah, it was a good time. We all had a ton of fun,” I replied.

  “How many people came?” my father asked.

  “Um, around twenty,” I said hesitantly.

  In reality, about seventy-five people showed up. I was too terrified to tell my father the truth. I enjoyed having the party, and I wanted a chance to do it again sometime. If he knew how many people were in his house he might not ever give me the chance again. I wasn’t willing to give that up.

  I kissed my mother and father on the cheek and dragged myself upstairs. I was exhausted, and needed to pass out on my bed before I did it on the floor.

  I yawned as I climbed into my bed. It felt so great to be under my fluffy pink covers. I pulled them up to my chin and slowly drifted to sleep.

  When I awoke the next morning, I was sore and exhausted. I had never hosted a party before and it completely sucked the life right out of me. I wasn’t sure I wanted to do it again if I would feel like this the next day.

  I got online to check my mail before going downstairs. As I logged on I saw that Marcus was on, but away. I was intrigued, however, by his away message. “Changing,” it said. What did that even mean? I was on for fifteen minutes and it never changed. He never messaged me and he never came back from being away. I was curious about it, but didn’t want to message him for fear he would get upset again. I still cared deeply about him and his friendship, and wanted to give him some space to recover from being rejected.

  I went downstairs to help my mother prepare breakfast. I was starting to like helping her out with the housework. It made me feel as if I was contributing in some way to our family and the household.

  “Hello, honey, how are you feeling?” my mother asked.

  “A little tired,” I replied.

  “So your party went good then?”

  “Yeah, it went great. Hopefully sometime I can do it again.”

  “That would be great, honey,” my mother said while smiling.

  “Your mother and I have been talking,” my father said as he sat down at the table with his newspaper and coffee.

  “Talking about what?” I asked.

  “We want you to have James over for dinner. We think it could be a good thing for you two to date. We really like him and want to meet him and get to know him a little more,” my father said.

  “I can talk to him and see if he can come over sometime,” I hesitantly replied.

  “We were hoping for this week, possibly Tuesday,” my father said.

  Tuesday seemed so close. That only gave me three days to try to prepare some kind of excuse or event to prevent him from coming. It wasn’t that I didn’t want James to know my parents, because I did. I just didn’t want them to catch on to anything. I didn’t want to get him in trouble or risk him in any way.

  “Okay, I’ll talk to him Monday at school and see if that’s okay.”

  “Great,” my father said.

  “Find out what he likes to eat so I can make something good for him,” my mother said enthusiastically.

  I tried not to laugh as I held back the thoughts of my family sitting down and eating blood soup. I was just hoping if he did come over that we could pull this off somehow. I had never seen James eat any real food before, and I wasn’t sure he was even allowed to.

  The rest of the weekend went on without any problems or occurrences. I did some homework, got lectured by my parents on how teenage boys think, and hung around the house. I was still trying to recover from Friday night, and I had to recover really fast.

  When Monday morning came around, I started getting butterflies in my stomach. I was going to get to see the man I loved today. I was going to get to kiss him and feel his strong arms around me once again.

  I got to school and saw James leaning up against my locker. He was wearing a plaid button-down shirt, his arms filling out the sleeves as if they were going to rip. He casually looked up from the floor and looked me straight in the eye. I felt a flurry of butterflies as I started making my way over to him.

  “You get more beautiful with every passing day,” he said as he pulled me closer to him.

  I started to blush and looked down so he couldn’t see my cheeks turn red.

  “I love you,” he said while putting his index finger under my chin, raising it slightly.

  “I love you too,” I said while my cheeks turned ever redder.

  “Were your parents okay with the party?” he asked.

  “Yeah, they didn’t know that many people showed up,” I replied.

  “Good,” he said while gazing into my eyes.

  “I actually wanted to ask you something. You can say no because I know you will, but my parents want you to come over to dinner tomorrow night. I know you don’t ea—.”

  “I’ll come,” he said while interrupting me.

  “You will?” I asked in confusion.

  “Yeah. I think I shoul
d meet them. They are your parents and you are the love of my life. I think it is almost fitting that I get to know them.”

  “What about the dinner though? You don’t eat,” I whispered.

  “Vampires can eat normal food if they have to, we just don’t like to. It upsets our stomachs and the wrong things can make us sick. I’ll eat a little to make them think everything is fine.”

  “I don’t want to make you sick,” I said cautiously.

  “You’re worth it.”

  I didn’t know how it happened, but I fell more in love with him. He was willing to put his health on the line just to make me happy. Nobody had ever done this for me before, and I couldn’t believe that it was happening now.

  “I love you,” I said as my finger ran down his chest.

  “I love you more than life itself,” he said as he put his finger atop of mine.

  He kissed me as the bell rang in the distance. I was so infatuated with his lips that I couldn’t ever stop myself from kissing them. They welcomed me every time and always were cool.

  I stood there with my books pressed against my chest as I watched him walk away. I felt as if the butterflies inside my body could lift me to the ceiling. I felt as though my life was complete.

  I went through the rest of the school day with an air of happiness. I was able to clearly focus on my assignments and lectures. I answered questions left and right, as my teachers were shocked at my attentiveness. Now that James was going to meet my parents, I felt as if I didn’t have anything to hide anymore. I felt like an entirely new person.

  I got home after school to see my mother walking in with bags full of groceries.

  “I talked to James,” I said.

  “Oh yeah? What did he say about tomorrow?”

  “He said he will come,” I said with a smile.

  “That’s great! I knew he would.”

  “Try to make sure dad is nice to him. I don’t want to scare him off.”

  “Don’t worry about your father. I’ll talk to him and make sure he knows to be good. He just wants to get to know him. We both want to get to know him.”

  “He is a really special guy.”

  “I bet he is. We just want to make sure in case he isn’t.”

  “I understand.”