Chapter 1

“So what do you say?” he asked, cocking his head to the side. I thought about it. I knew giving a vampire hunter my phone number couldn’t end well. I could expose my whole coven with a few simple numbers. But as I looked into his bright blue eyes I felt myself wavering. Over the past few days I had come to… well like him. We had met at the coolest nightclub in the city. It was one of the few clubs that vampires went to. It was also the main place to find vampire hunters, for obvious reasons. Five days ago I was sitting at one of the club’s black leather booths with my friends when a man who looked like he was in his late teens or early twenties came over to our table. Most of the humans who came to this club tended to avoid us. Since our coven was a whopping 30 people, everyone knew everyone. Which meant this guy was either a human (not likely) or a vampire hunter (very likely). Judging from his body looks I assumed he was a hunter. He was wearing a white tee-shirt that showed off how muscular he was (as if it wasn’t obvious). It took normal humans years of training and heavy workouts to look like that and this guy was way too young. It was the hunters’ vampire like qualities that made it easy for them to look like that without very much time or effort. Although from what I hear they do train hard. And often. Which is why the coven, especially us vampiresses had to be extremely careful. The man leaned on our table and looked directly at me. He introduced himself as Patrick and said he hadn’t seen me around here before. I told him it was a big club, trying to be icy enough to make him leave. Instead he had asked for my name. After I reluctantly told him, he smiled and left. Every night after that he would wave me over to his table as soon as I walked to the door and we would talk about random things like colors or what some slutty human girl was wearing. When I said I had to leave he looked truly sad and the whole way home my friends would yell at me about risking the coven’s safety. That was very risky for them since I was the leader of the teen girls’ group.
“Zaila?” Patrick’s voice brought me back to the present and I realized he had said my name several times.
"Look, I’m sorry, Patrick, but I don’t know you very well and I don’t feel comfortable giving you my number.” His face fell and I almost changed my mind. But then my three best friends came over and stood, hands on their hips, glaring down at me.
“I’m sorry but I have to go now.’’
“So soon? But it’s only one. You usually don’t leave until two.” If I thought he looked disappointed before, he looked truly tragic now. I felt bad for him. He was always here alone, other than me.
“Sorry but we have to go somewhere and we need to be there by quarter to two.” I smiled in apology before standing up. He quickly stood too. He reached out and grabbed my hand. On my palm he wrote his name and then ten digits.
“Come on, Zaila, if we’re late, they’ll kill us.” Rue said, and her voice was practically a growl. Rue Deathstrike was my best friend in the world. We told each other everything. Don’t get me wrong, we didn’t have very many secrets that Kendall Darkblood and Brigid Ghostfire didn’t know. We just told each other first. I was about to reply to Rue when out of nowhere The Pack appeared. The Pack is the five guys that are my age in the coven; Rue’s twin brother Skull, Jet Darkblade, Bryce Drakul, and the twins, Apollo and Artemis Gallowsraven. We had called them The Pack ever since the coven had been started about five years ago. Us girls didn’t have a group name but that was fine, considering how The Pack got their name. They always run around like a pack of crazy animals.
“Ladies. We’re here to escort you to the meeting.” Skull said looking at all of us. Brigid kissed Apollo’s cheek and then whispered in his ear. They had been together for the last four years. They were thirteen when they first hooked up. Bryce, who was standing to the left of Skull, pulled Kendall over. Rue, wasting no time with hellos, kissed Jet.
“Is one of them your boyfriend?” Patrick asked, gesturing towards Skull, who was at the front of The Pack, and Artemis, who was standing in the back of the group as usual.
“Only in their dreams,” I sounded kind of cocky and I knew it but both of them did like me. And as if they just remembered that they both came over and stood in front of me.
“I didn’t know you had a boyfriend.” Artemis said.
“I thought Bade said no outsiders." That little reminder of my father’s rules came from Skull.
“He’s not my boyfriend.”
“Who’s Bade? And what does he mean by ‘outsiders’?” Patrick asked.
“Bade is my father and he’s very strict about who my friends are.” I told him.
“Oh, well my dad’s the same way. So I understand.”
“Hey! We need to get going or we’ll be late” Skull said over everyone’s talking.
“Oh, well I’m sorry. I had no clue I died and someone put you in charge. Last time I checked I was still leader of the group.” I hated it when both of the groups were together. Skull and I were both used to being in charge and we just clashed.
“Sorry, Bloodrayne, but you were too busy talking to your little friend to do your job.’’
‘’Then don’t you think you should have gotten my attention instead of the groups, Deathstrike?”
“OK, when you to start using last names you need to be separated. You both need to calm down.” Kendall was calm as always.
“Stay out of this, Darkblood.” Skull growled.
“Hey, watch it, Skull.” Bryce said. I sensed a fight coming so I took action quickly.
“Alright that’s it! Everyone shut up! Rue, you and Darkblade are with me; Darkblood, Drakul, you guys too. Ghostfire you and the Gallowsravens are going with Deathstrike. Everybody got that?” I asked. They all nodded. I motioned for them to go. Skull hung back a bit.
“What are you waiting for?” I asked him.
“You. I wanna make sure your not disobeying Bade.”
“He doesn’t control me. And neither do you. I’ll date outside the group if I want to.” I turned and going on impulse I kissed Patrick. He was so taken off guard and I pulled back so quickly that he didn’t even have a chance to respond. “See you tomorrow.” I grabbed Skull’s shirt and pulled him with me as I stalked out. When we got to the door, he pulled out of my grasp and held the door open for me, a smirk on his face. I immediately regretted kissing Patrick.
“Here’s the deal.” He began stopping me outside the door. “I won’t tell Bade, but…” he trailed off. I growled quietly.
“What do you want?”
“A kiss,”
“What?! You’re insane! I will never-“
“That’s OK. I’ll just tell Bade about the kiss that actually happened tonight.” Looking at his face there was no question that he was serious.
“Damn,” I muttered in defeat. Skull could tell I had given up. He put his hands on my hips and pulled me close.
“I expected you to put up more of a fight,” he murmured. One of his hands slid up to the back of my neck and he tilted my face up. He kissed me gently. I was surprised. I didn’t know what I was expecting but gentle definitely wasn’t it. I also wasn’t expecting it to be that nice. He smiled.
“Happy now?” I asked.
“Extremely, and I won’t tell Bade about what’s-his-name in there.”
“Thanks. You’re such a great friend.” I said sarcastically. He frowned.
“Friends,” he muttered under his breath. I guessed he was hoping the kiss would change my mind about him. We walked to the cars in silence. Everyone was standing at the front of the cars and staring at us. Their facial expressions ranged from wide eyes to mouths open in shock. I turned around and realized they had a clear view of the door. Which means they saw the kiss.
“I don’t want to hear one word about what you saw! And if I do I can guarantee you’ll regret it.” I growled. Both cars clicked as they were unlocked. Rue and I got into the front and Jet, Kendall and Bryce climbed in the back. I pulled out of the parking lot and I was doing eighty down the main road. The club was towards the edge of the city so pretty soon both cars were going down the dark roads. I turned my headlights off and Skull followed suit. I hit the gas and Skull’s car came up beside mine. My phone, which was sitting in the cup holder, rang. Rue answered. She pressed the button to put it on speaker.
“Hello?” I asked.
“Wanna race?” Skull asked. We were both doing about a hundred but my car could go two.
“You’re on.” Rue hung up the phone. And both cars sped up. It was about twenty miles to our houses. We made it there in record time. I’m proud to say that I won. Of course I was on the side of the road that the driveway was on. Skull didn’t even bother using it though. He simply drove his car up the front yard. We both slammed on our brakes making the car tires squeal. All nine of us jumped out of the cars and raced around to the backyard. No lights in my house were on and there was a huge bonfire going in the back.
“Five minutes early; I’m surprised.” Bade said after glancing at his watch. Jennica, my mother, smiled at us.
“Did you kids have a good time tonight?” she asked. Skull chuckled before answering her.
“Yes, Mrs. Bloodrayne, we had a very good time.” I glared.
“Zai-Zai!” someone hit my leg. I looked down and saw my little sister, Kisha, hugging my leg. All the little kids were five just like all the teens were seventeen and all the adults were however old they were.
“Jet!” I heard Jet’s father, Nikko Darkblade yell.
“Honey, can you please take Magenta?” Jalisha, his mother, asked, passing him his little sister. Kendall's parents, Judith and Kobe, were talking to Rue’s parents, Niha and Jamil.
“OK, I guess since everyone is here we can start the meeting now.” Bade said. The coven sat down at the five picnic tables. I ended up sitting between Skull and Rue.
“Can’t you sit somewhere else?” I whispered to Skull.
“Why would I want to?” He asked and I growled in response. He chuckled.
“First off, has anyone noticed any hunters hanging around?” Bade asked from the far side of the tables, where he was standing at the head. All my friends glanced at me but didn’t say anything. Skull put his hand on the bench behind me. I frowned. When no one replied to Bade, Jennica spoke.
“OK second, it's almost time for school to start again.” Everyone immediately started talking in a low murmur. There were several groans from my end of the table. School meant we wouldn’t be able to sleep all day. The sun didn’t hurt us but we always needed sunglasses and we all really preferred a nocturnal schedule. Besides, we weren’t allowed to go clubbing on school nights. Which meant five days of midnight curfews. I hate school. I suddenly wondered if Patrick was in school. Most likely, he hadn’t been in school for a long time. Years maybe. As I sat there and half-listened to my father I thought about Patrick and my kiss with Skull tonight.


Chapter 2

I woke up to my alarm clock blaring. I hit it off my nightstand and it flew across the room the cord yanking out of the wall and sending sparks flying.
“Back to your normal routine, eh, Zaila?” Skull’s voice scared me and I jumped out of bed. He was sitting on the floor by my bed watching me. I growled.
“What the hell are you doing here?”
“Watching you sleep, obviously.” He chuckled and stood up, offering me his hand. I refused to take it.
“Why?” I asked him. He was still smiling at me.
“I think it's quite obvious. You're absolutely beautiful when you’re sleeping. Not as moody. And you actually smile when you sleep. Unlike when you’re awake.”
“Did you ever think that the reason you never see me smile is you?” I asked looking for my cell phone so that I could see what time it was.
“You have an hour before we need to leave. That is only if we drive the speed limit. If you need more time we could always have a race...” he trailed off. I grabbed clothes and went into my bathroom to change. When I came out Skull's jaw literally dropped. I looked good and I knew it. I had a tight halter top underneath a leather jacket, a miniskirt with tights and leather boots up to my knees. Everything was black of course, except for one little symbol on my jacket. All the teens in the coven had a jacket like mine. We always wore them on the first day of school. The symbol was a five pointed star inside a circle with a lightning bolt going through the middle. It was the symbol of the coven. I went over to my mirror and started to brush my hair. The door opened and a very sleepy looking Jennica came in. Her eyes immediately zeroed in on Skull and she suddenly looked completely wide awake.
“What's going on?” she asked.
“Nothing, Jen. Skull just stopped by to make sure I was up.” I told her silently cursing Skull for coming.
“So you expect me to believe that a boy in our coven came into your room to 'make sure you were up'? That's a load of crap, Zaila. Now one of you better tell me the truth.” Skull stepped forward dramatically.
“I'm sorry you had to find out like this, Jennica, but...” he paused for suspense before continuing, “your daughter and I are in love and last night we slept together.”
“What?” we both shrieked.
“Never! Why would you even say something like that? Get the hell out of my room!” I pushed him out my open, floor to ceiling window, most likely the way he came in. He landed on his feet even after falling two stories. He looked up and winked at me before walking away.
“What happened last night, Zaila? And don’t lie to me.” Bade was standing in the doorway of my room.
“Nothing happened, Bade. Relax. That creep was just watching me sleep and scared the hell out of me when I woke up.” I told him and glanced out the window. Skull wasn’t there. Lucky him.
“He was watching you sleep? I’ll have to have a talk with his mother about that. That’s very strange behavior even for one of us.” Jennica said. She seemed distracted as she walked out the door, talking quietly to herself.
“What’s with her?” I asked, referring to how distracted Jennica seemed. I was expecting a lecture and a warning about guys and how they only want one thing. My father simply shrugged.
“Now you know to be careful about boys, Z.” he said with a stern look then walked out, closing the door behind him. I groaned then finished getting ready for school. By the time I was done the other girls were all gathered in my room.

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Tag der Veröffentlichung: 22.03.2010

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