Chapter 13
It had been three weeks since the incident at the house. I had spent most of my time ignoring my mother, John, and even Nick. I felt like I was deceived by all of them and was not ready to talk to them or deal with the situation. I had learned a lot of things about how the organization had worked with the pure blood vampires for years to get rid of the vampires who hunted people. We did it to protect people, and they hunted them so that they wouldn’t be exposed to the population at large. But apparently a rift had been created around the time John, who is the vampire queen’s half human son, had started a romantic relationship with the organization leader’s daughter, my mother. I had decided that it was all crazy family drama, and I was going to step back and ignore it like the plague. But it was kind of neat that my grandmother was the queen of the vampires.
“Sweetheart, what are you thinking about?” I smiled and looked over at my grandmother, Luciana. “Nothing,” I told her.
“Right, I believe you,” she said with a wink.
Since everything had happened. I had gotten to know her even though I was afraid at first. She had told me a lot of things about her life and history with the organization. I had found out that she was 350 years old even though she didn’t look a day over thirty. I found that I actually liked her, and she explained everything to me even though most of it left me confused. She explained that the occurrences of people like John and Nick being half human and half vampire were rare, and that she didn’t expect to give birth to John when she took a human lover thirty-five years ago. I also found out that my grandfather had been dead now for twenty years. He had been a lifelong member of the organization and good friends with my mother’s father. That friendship though still didn’t stop a rift when my parents started a relationship resulting in my mom getting pregnant with me at seventeen. I also found out that my mother and John had formed a bond when my grandfather had tried to break them up. Victor also came into play during this by being jealous of his mother doting on John and ran him out of town by threatening the lives of my mother and me. He has since apologized for his actions and confessed that he would have never hurt either of us even if John had stayed. His excuse was that John just takes everything too seriously, but apparently at a young age he had made enemies other than his nemesis of a brother, so he thought it would be best to get some distance in order to keep us safe. I still wasn’t ready to accept him or talk about him and my mother. Getting to know Victor was quite funny because he wasn’t so bad after all; he just liked antagonizing John, which was thoroughly amusing considering he was forty years older than John and looked younger. I also asked her about myself since John was my father. My grandmother said that time would tell if I inherited any vampire traits.
Sighing, I stood up from my seat. “I’m sorry, but I need to go,” I told my grandmother sadly. “My mother told me to come home for dinner, and then I have to go out with my team tonight.”
She nodded. “I understand,” she said, “but I will see you soon?” she asked with a bright smile on her face.
“Yes, you will,” I said and hugged her quickly before I left.
On the drive home, I thought about the story my grandmother had told me weeks prior about the bond that was formed between Nick and I. She told me that there was once a vampire around a thousand years ago who fell in love with a human who didn’t want him. He had a witch come up with a spell to bond them together. The witch called it a mating bond and tied them together for life. It gave them the ability to find each other anywhere, communicate telepathically, sense each other’s feelings, and be devoted to each other for life. After the first bond, the bonding ritual was performed for years, many times ending in death. I don’t want to die, was my first thought when my grandmother had told me. But because of the deaths and the bonds being formed without permission, the practice of forming bonds this way had died out and been banned by some vampire circles. In the last 150 or so years, there had only been a handful of cases of a bond being formed and two of them were my parents, and now me and Nick.
When I arrived home, I could smell the scent of food cooking coming from the kitchen. I immediately headed for the stairs, but my mom stepped out of the kitchen and caught me before I could make my escape. “Dinner will be ready soon.”
“Okay,” I said, keeping it short and going up the stairs before she could say anything else.
Walking into my room, I sighed in annoyance when I saw Nick sitting on the edge of my bed waiting for me. “Can I help you?” I said trying to hide my annoyance.
“Will you talk to me?” he asked.
“What is there to say?” I asked back. “You tricked me,” I hissed. He winced visibly as if he were in physical pain, and I instantly regretted my tone.
“I’m sorry,” he said for what seemed like the hundredth time in the last few weeks. “Can we just talk about everything?”
“I don’t know,” I said honestly.
“I really care about you,” he explained, “and I fell in love you that night I saw you in the clearing. I don’t think I will ever move on from these feelings.”
“I don’t either,” I said truthfully, “but I don’t know if it is real or just this bond.”
He nodded. “If it helps, the bond is just supposed to intensify what you were already feeling.” I looked out of my window and swallowed because I knew this was true, my grandmother had already explained this to me. Looking back at him, I nodded and sat down next to him. “Just give me some time, okay?” I asked, and he put his arm around me. “It is not just you though. My mom has kept all of this stuff from me my whole life, and I feel so hurt.”
“Take your time,” he said and squeezed me. “I’ll wait for you,” and with a laugh he added, “I can’t help it.” I laughed despite everything and leaned into him.
“Hey guys,” my mom called to us from downstairs. “Dinner is ready.”
We broke apart and stood up, and I glanced over at him. “He’s here?”
“Yeah, he is,” he responded with an apologetic look on his face. Since everything had taken place, John was still Nick’s caretaker, and their relationship was a little icy from what I had been told by Taylor when she had asked the guys. I had found out that even though John is angry about the whole bond thing, he had told Nick that he understood why he had done it.
Walking into the kitchen, I didn’t say a word to anyone and sat down in my usual seat at the dinner table. After everyone else sat down, we passed around the food and began to eat. I hoped that the whole meal would pass in silence, but I could tell that it was driving my mom crazy. I knew it wasn’t completely silent for her though. I had been discreetly watching her and John, and I was sure that they were communicating through the bond they also shared. Finding out they had a bond explained a lot of things. Like the looks they always shared as if in silent conversation and then the fact that my mom had never dated another man my whole life. Though I’m guessing that some of the trips she had taken that were for “business” over the years were spent visiting him.
But I figured that if they could play the let’s have conversations over the teenager’s heads game, then I could play the same game and be way more discreet than they were about it. Taking a bite of my food, I communicated to Nick for the first time since that night. “They are so talking right now.”
“Probably,” he agreed, “probably talking about how you are being so stubborn.” I rolled my eyes at him, and we both started laughing out loud. Being discreet just went out of the window.
My mom tried to ignore our outburst, so she decided to start a conversation which I had been hoping to avoid. “How was school today?” she asked.
“Fine,” I said and didn’t offer any further comment about my school day.
“Good,” Nick told her.
“Are you two ready for Thanksgiving vacation next week?” she continued trying to get a conversation going.
“Not really,” I said.
“Well, we are going to go to your grandpar
ents’ house for dinner,” she said.
“Okay,” I agreed because it was something that we did every year.
After finishing my meal, I went to my room to get ready for the night’s hunting trip. In my room, I changed into a pair of black yoga pants and a dark blue long sleeve t-shirt. As I finished putting on my black running shoes, there was a knock at my bedroom door. “Come in,” I said while I was tying my shoe thinking it was going to be Nick. To my surprise, it was John that came in. “Can I help you?” “You need to cut your mother some slack,” he said bluntly.
“I’ll think about it,” I said dismissively, hoping he would leave.
“You have no reason to be mad at her.”
“Are you serious?” I asked exasperated, “after all of the lies?”
“It wasn’t her idea not to tell you the truth,” he said. “She was just following my wishes.”
“Great,” I said and left the room in a huff. Until then, I hadn’t spoken a word to him since that night, and he hadn’t spoken to me. Now I wished he hadn’t. He made me feel horrible for giving my mom the silent treatment and at the same time made me feel like I was an unwanted kid. I guessed our feelings of dislike for each other were mutual.
Opening the front door, I called to my mom that I was leaving. Outside I found Nick listening to music on his phone while leaning against his car. I waved at him to get his attention and waited for him to take the ear buds out. “Are you about to go meet everyone?” I asked him.
“Yeah,” he said, “come on,” and he walked around to the passenger door of his car and opened the door for me.
“Just a second,” I said and walked to my car and grabbed my katana out of the trunk. Back at Nick’s car, I slid into the passenger seat and he shut the door for me and walked around to get into the car.
We were the first ones to arrive at the meeting spot which was actually the same park where I had been waiting for my team the night everything had started. It was also the same park where we had went into the clearing and formed the bond. It was around eight p.m. and the moon was already high in the sky, and the only ones around were runners leaving in their cars or a few teenage loiters hanging out on benches.
Getting out of the car, I walked around to the back. I leaned on the car to wait for the rest of our team. I just stood there and stared at a distant streetlight that was flickering near where I had run into the woods that night. My attention was so focused on the light that I did not realize how close Nick was standing to me. When I looked up, I was taken aback by the fire in his blue and eyes and was caught off guard when he kissed me. As mad at him as I was, I had no control over myself and I kissed him back. I kissed him with all of the feeling I had in my entire body and soul. When we pulled apart, we stood close together, basking in each other’s warmth on the cool fall night as we waited for our team to arrive.
I glanced over at him and laughed. “At least I am not waiting out here alone this time.” I shrugged and sighed. “I still have no idea how I ended up out here alone that night.”
Now Available
The Broken Pact
By: Sharon Rose Mayes