A fire in my heart raged as I slashed at the training dummy. My nails had grown into sharp claws. The tips were strangely black, fading into my normal skin tone at the cuticle. How odd. That thought lasted only a fraction of a second before I struck the dummy again.
How could I have been so stupid? I was nothing but a meal ticket for this egotistical peacock. All that talk, all that emotion that had poured from what I thought was his soul. No—he had been using his silver tongue to bring my guard down and feed from me. When things went dark, when it felt like we were in our own bubble, he must have been trying to feed from me then. My heart ached. It wailed. It felt devastated. Not just because I had believed our relationship was building into something real, but because I mourned my old life. My life was gone. I let out an agonising cry as I broke the dummy's head. My life was gone because I fell for a pair of purple eyes. Because I thought the connection we had was real. My parents and my friends were all lost to me now because of one stupid decision I had made.
He is not worth this, my mind screamed.
I turned, grabbed one of the pointy things, and flung it at the dummy. It bounced off and pinged onto the floor. That enraged me even more, and I grabbed more, throwing them and watching as they missed or bounced off the dummy. Eventually, I seized a long spear and impaled it. I lifted it off the floor and stared in anger and awe as I held it high. My breathing quickened. It felt like it weighed nothing at all, even though I knew it was a weighted dummy designed not to fall over easily.
"Impressive. However, I am a bit disappointed about the dummy. I only bought it last month. I'm pretty sure I had another couple of months left in it."
His voice. So casual. So irritating.
I turned and felt my eyes burn into his. He didn't even seem fazed. I dropped the spear, and the dummy came crashing down. I barely looked at it as I stormed up to Darien.
"How fucking dare you!" I screamed. My voice was shrill, like a harpy. I wanted to hurt him. I wanted to claw into him like I had the dummy.
"You're upset, and you have every right to be," he said. It was so matter-of-fact. Why did that irritate me even more? Where was the guilt? Why wasn't he begging for my forgiveness? I couldn't stand this. I wanted him to feel my pain, to feel what he had caused.
"You ruined my life," I said quietly.
"Yes."
That was all he replied.
No. Why wasn't he apologising? Why wasn't he grovelling?
I felt tears stream from my eyes.
"So, that's it? I was nothing more than blood to you. Was anything real?" I opened my arms, looking around the trashed training room. Discarded weapons and bits of sponge that had exploded from the dummy littered the floor. I looked back at Darien, and he was staring at the ground.
"I'm afraid I can only offer you friendship that I don't deserve."
I froze for many reasons.
Friendship.
Even though I suspected as much, hearing him say it hurt. Then there was his guilt, finally showing. I was sad and finally glad, and yet I wasn't satisfied. I clutched my chest, feeling my heart pang with grief.
I have lost everything.
My parents' faces appeared in my mind: my mama and her stern yet kind eyes; my dad with his scruffy red-and-white hair and faraway look. My friends. Iah, her infectious humour and the way she boldly wore anything she wanted. Val and her icy, regal exterior but with the biggest heart of gold. Heck, I even missed Carter and what we had.
That was my life.
It was taken away from me because I fell for the most beautiful man standing in front of me. I should have known he would always be close, yet out of reach.
I stared into his eyes, and tears burned, threatening to spill over. I couldn't do this anymore. I had to get out of here.
"I have to leave," I said, my voice breaking.
I made for the door, but Darien moved and stood in front of me.
"Move," I said with a little more command than I was used to.
"You want to leave? Fine. The world out there is different now, Eleanore. You are different."
He used my actual name.
I scoffed and tried to push past him, but he stood firm. My anger was building again.
"You want to run away. I get it. You just need to remember that you are being hunted. Someone needs information that you hold. They were willing to kill and turn you for it."
My breath hitched. I looked away.
"It doesn't matter. I. Can't. Stay. Here," I replied through gritted teeth. My anger kept building as he calmly threw facts at me.
"I meant what I said last night. You have a home here. I can teach you how to live in our world. Give me that, at least. Once you have the knowledge and training to be on your own, you are free to leave."
"NO!" I screamed and shoved him.
He barely budged.
My canines popped out, and I hissed at him. His eyes darkened, and he smirked.
"There you are, vixen. I will let you leave, but you'll have to get past me."
His eyes began to glow a bright, luminous purple, and his expression reminded me of a wolf ready to pounce. I didn't step back in fear. No, I found myself raising my hands into a fighting position. My nails grew into sharp claws again. I saw him quickly glance at them, his intrigue showing. I took that opportunity and launched at him.
I wanted to hurt him. I wanted him to feel my pain, and if slicing his perfect skin was the only way to do it, then I would do my best to make it happen. I swiped at him, and he immediately grabbed my arm and spun me around so he held it behind my back, twisting it slightly. I felt his cheek brush against my own, and I heard him chuckle.
"You will have to do better than that, vixen," he teased.
I wriggled, trying to break free, but he held firm.
"I'm sorry, that wasn't very fair of me. Here, let's try that again."
He let go, and I grabbed my arm, rubbing it.
"What are you playing at?" I growled.
"I told you, get past me, and you are free to go. You want to prove to me you can take care of yourself? Then do it!"
When I hesitated, he laughed and moved away from the door. He then turned and stared at me with a hunter's eyes.
"C'mon. Don't hold back. Let me really feel your anger."
The logical part of me shouted that I should just give up. He was never going to let me win. The illogical, feral side of me, however, was in control. I fell for his taunt. I swiped at him again, and he moved away with ease. Every move I made, he had a defence for. Every punch was blocked. Every attempt to smack him was swatted away like a fly. With each blocked attack, I grew angrier and angrier. I felt like I was going to burst. I had no idea what I was doing. All I knew was that I was attacking in the hope that I would hit him with a fist, scratch him with my nails, or hear the satisfying crack of my palm against his face.
I never gave up as he parried each attack. I should have foreseen that he would be able to do this. He was over two hundred years old. Of course he knew how to fight. Me? I had never been in any kind of fight apart from a few shouting matches.
"Getting tired, vixen?"
Darien's voice broke through my thoughts. Annoyance surged through me. How was it that he was able to get under my skin? Again, he blocked another one of my attacks.
"Predictable," he scoffed.
Yet it was then I realised he was taunting me to get under my skin, yes, but also so I'd fight sloppily, with anger. No technique. Not that I had any. Even so, I continued to fight him, watching as he blocked my attacks. I watched where his eyes went, and I knew then I had milliseconds to act.
I thrust my right fist towards his head, and he blocked it, but just then I drove my left fist into his side.
"Offt."
Before he could recover, I swiped with my right hand, and four scratches appeared across his chest, slicing through his shirt.
Blood started to well in the cuts, and I inhaled the scent.
Then I heard something.
A small note.
It was sweet.
I stared at the cuts in shock. The sound was coming from Darien.
His blood.
It sang to me. A beautiful melody came from him, wrapping around my head and heart, filling me with a strange sense of belonging.
I stepped back in horror, and I immediately regretted it.
"Well done."
Recovering from my hit, Darien launched at me and pinned me to the ground. I felt the impact in my back and his weight press against me. I gasped and looked up at him.
He wasn't angry.
In fact, he was smiling. He looked almost proud.
"Get off me!" I shouted.
"In good time. Right now, I need you to listen."
I wriggled beneath him and tried to move my arms to push him off. Instead, he grabbed my wrists, pulled them above my head, and pinned them to the floor with effortless strength.
I screamed at him.
He clicked his tongue in disapproval.
"Easy now, vixen. You need to be a good sport. I'm very proud you got a hit in. It exceeded my expectations of you."
I wanted to spit in his face. Somehow, I thought he would have found that funny.
So I lay there and glared at the ceiling.
"You have natural instinct, and you show great promise," he said fondly, which made me look into his eyes.
Damn his eyes.
His face was inches away from mine, and the heat of him was making every one of my senses go haywire.
"But you are sloppy. In our world, you need to be prepared for a fight at all times. We are emotional creatures and can be quite possessive at times, especially when it comes to feeding. Not only that, there is more than vampires out there you need to be aware of."
All the warmth vanished when he said that. He then looked thoughtful.
"I'm guessing you've never been in a physical fight."
"Well, the fight club was full on Saturdays," I snapped back.
"Smart ass. We'll need to work on that."
I scowled.
"Which is it? My ass or my fighting skills?" I said with sharp sarcasm.
Oh my God, what possessed me to say that?
He chuckled and moved a mere couple of inches closer to my face.
"Both," he replied.
Then he looked down at my mouth.
I became acutely aware of how close his lips were to mine. It felt like a magnet, as though some invisible force was pulling us together. It sent my head spinning, so I turned my face to the side to break the pull.
I didn't see his expression, but I felt him get off me and stand. He held out a hand for me.
I took it hesitantly.
He pulled me to my feet and quickly let go.
I looked down at his chest. It had stopped bleeding.
In fact, the wounds were gone.
He saw me looking.
"Checking out your handiwork?" he joked.
"Yes—I mean, no. Uh... I'm sorry."
He had already started picking up the weapons I had so carelessly thrown around.
"For what?"
He picked up an interesting curved dagger with a gold hilt.
I also started to clean up.
"Hurting you, for starters. And for the state I left this room in."
I grabbed a weird pointy knife and placed it on one of the holders. I had no idea if he had a system.
"Pffft," he said.
Then, after a minute, I heard him speak again.
"I deserved it. You've been through hell, and I haven't been entirely honest with you."
I stood up from picking up another knife... thing... and looked at him.
"Was that supposed to be an apology?" I asked.
He looked over at me.
"Yeah."
Then he went back to picking up weapons.
I smirked.
Okay, so not the apology I expected, but at least he admitted he'd done wrong.
"So what's the deal then? I mean, with feeding on me. It never happened, right?"
He continued picking up and tidying the assortment of knives and daggers. I felt like he was trying to figure out the best way to talk to me about this without angering me again.
"Club Dusk is a feeding ground for vampires. It is open to all who wish to come. There are rules, of course. You cannot drain a human to the point of unconsciousness or death, though some vampires can go overboard."
My mind drifted to the blonde, curly-haired woman Bastian had been carrying the first time I met him. Someone had clearly gone overboard with her.
"Anyway, Valda kindly offered to find a... uh... human for me to feed on that night."
I bit my inner lip, trying not to feel the hurt sting me again.
"So it would seem that you and your friends landed right in her grasp, really." He shrugged. "As for feeding on you, no. I never got the chance."
He looked up at me and shrugged again.
So he had been about to feed from me, but Carter had stopped him.
I didn't know how to feel about that.
Darien didn't pause long enough for me to dwell on the thought.
"What normally happens is that when we feed from humans, we put them into a trance. Once they're under, we're able to feed. They don't feel pain, and we don't take enough to cause any harm. Afterwards, when they come out of the trance, we're able to make them forget everything. Even the fact that we'd ever met."
I sighed.
So if Carter hadn't stopped him, I would have been fed upon and forgotten everything Darien had told me about himself. I would have carried on with my night. Gone home. Had breakfast with my parents. Finished my report and enjoyed the rest of my lazy Sunday... and the rest of my life.
For some odd reason, I didn't mourn that version of my life.
Stuck doing a degree I had no passion for. I probably wouldn't have broken up with Carter. I would have had no idea why I had the visions. They would have continued haunting me, and I would have been miserable with that alone.
Now I knew they meant something.
I knew I possessed some ancient knowledge of vampire history...
...and I was being hunted for it.
Darien noticed I'd gone quiet. He looked at me, one eyebrow raised.
"Elena, are you okay?"
Oh, thank goodness. Back to my favourite name. I honestly didn't like how he used my proper name whenever he was scolding me or being serious.
I shook my head, trying to clear those thoughts.
"Sorry. I was weighing up a lot of thoughts all at once."
"Oh? Care to share?" he asked with a smirk.
"Not really. I was just thinking about what it would've been like if you'd erased my memory."
"Hmm." He nodded. "I thought about that a great deal too. Perhaps your life would have been better."
I had a sudden reaction to that, one that caught me off guard.
"I don't think so," I said, surprising even myself.
Darien was placing a medium-sized spear onto the top shelf, and he nearly dropped it.
"Sorry, you want to run that by me again?"
He turned to face me.
"I know it sounds crazy, but I think things were meant to happen this way. I would've gone through the rest of my life haunted by visions I'd never have understood. I would've got my degree, found some boring-ass job and probably been unhappy."
"And being murdered by a vampire is the better alternative?"
He crossed his arms and gave me the most incredulous look.
"Better? No, I never said that. I just meant... this is the path I was supposed to be on."
"Ugh, spoken like a true Blood Witch. Fate, right? That's what you're going with?"
I shrugged, letting my hands fall to my sides.
"I don't know. But you don't have to be such a sceptic about it. You talked about how the Blood Witches can see into the future. Why would you doubt this?"
Darien smirked and ran his fingers through his long, wild black hair. I didn't think he could ever tame it.
"Let's just say I'm not a fan of having my story written for me. I'd rather be in control of my own life."
I smiled at him.
Whenever I got these little truths from him, it felt like I was finally seeing who he really was.
I wished I could have more moments like this.
"I can understand that," I replied. "More than you think."
He smiled back, and my heart quickened.
Suddenly Darien's face dropped. His eyes glowed dangerously.
",Darien?" I asked, worried. His face contorted into a snarl.
"A trespasser," he growled in a deep voice I'd never heard before. The sound of it sent shivers racing down my spine, and I recoiled. At the same time, I found myself slipping into a defensive stance, as if I could somehow take down a trespasser myself.
Darien bolted from the room, and I followed. He was already out of the front door before I even reached the kitchen. I knew I was strong, but I had no idea how fast I could move. So I pushed myself, and within moments I found myself beside him at the bottom of the staircase. We hurried towards the main doors of the church, where he came to an abrupt halt. I stopped just in time, almost crashing into his back. That would have been a disaster.
"Where are they?" I asked, looking around.
He shook his head, looking just as confused.
Then I caught a scent at the exact same moment Darien did.
He cautiously opened the main door, holding a hand out to stop me from moving. He leaned around the doorframe, and his face froze. I watched his eyes slowly scan the entrance before his expression darkened with anger. Stepping aside, he silently allowed me to see for myself.
Written across the front door in dark red letters that dripped towards the ground were the words:
See you in your dreams, Eleanore.
My breath caught.
In your dreams.
My thoughts immediately drifted back to the vision I'd had of my murderer. There had always been something different about it. It hadn't felt like an ordinary dream. It had felt like an unwanted visitor.
He had somehow entered my veil.
A wave of nausea washed over me, and I instinctively wrapped my arms around myself.
"Elena, look."
Darien pointed lower down the door.
Beneath the message, an envelope had been nailed into the wood.
He didn't reach for it. Instead, he stepped closer to me and nodded for me to go ahead.
With trembling hands, I pulled the envelope free and slid out the contents. Inside was a single sheet of paper bearing nothing but an ornate letter P, along with a photograph tucked behind it.
I turned the photograph over.
My parents.
They were asleep in their bed, completely unaware that someone had been watching them.
A cry escaped my lips, and the photograph slipped from my fingers. Darien caught it before it reached the ground. His eyes flicked between the elegant P and the photograph.
"Those fuckers," he whispered.
"Darien... those are my parents. They know where they live. They're threatening them. I have to go to them. They could be hurt."
The words tumbled out between panicked breaths.
Darien gently took hold of my shoulders and met my gaze.
"Easy, vixen. Easy. We don't know that for certain. This could be a way to draw you out from my protection. My home is warded, meaning no one but you, me and my kin can enter without an invitation."
"But, Darien..." My voice trembled. "Those are my parents."
Tears began to stream down my face. He lifted a hand and gently brushed them away before looking me directly in the eye.
"We'll find a way to protect them. Just give me a moment to think."
I nodded and looked back down at the paper with its elegant P.
"What does the P mean?" I asked.
"It means we know who murdered you. That particular P stands for the Purists."
"The Purists?" I repeated.
Darien stared at the letter with open disgust.
"A cult of vampires who believe in pure blood. Veilborne only. They detest veilbounds. When they first came into existence, they were led by one of my ancestors, who, as you can imagine, we don't talk about. They waged war against veilbounds, killing innocent vampires, anyone who sympathised with them, and anyone who had created a veilbound. They were immediately outlawed and disbanded. So seeing this..." He glanced back at the letter. "...makes me think they're back, and they want something from you."
I barely heard the last part. My eyes remained fixed on the photograph of my parents, and my heart ached at the sight of them. I missed them so much. They had never hurt anybody. They had done nothing except love me, and now someone had the audacity to threaten them because of me.
Slowly, the fear that had consumed me began to give way to something else. My fingers tightened around the piece of paper until it crumpled in my hand. Instead of asking myself How could they?, my mind had settled on an altogether different question.
How dare they?
I lifted my head and met Darien's concerned purple eyes with a determination I hadn't felt before.
"Teach me how to fight," I said. "I want them to feel everything they've done to me."
Darien studied me for a moment before one corner of his mouth lifted into a proud smirk.
"As you wish, vixen."
I was tired of living in fear. Tired of hesitating. Tired of running from a fight I never asked to be part of. If they wanted something from me, they would have to come and take it.