Alluring Raven

  “What the hell is that?” I shout as I struggle to keep balance.

  Harper grins from ear to ear. “That, my friends, is our speedy transportation.”

  Before anyone can say anything else, the ground opens up and I’m swallowed by iridescent light.

  Raven

  I hate school. I really do. Not because I don’t like learning, but because all the other vampires make fun of me. They’re always saying I’m such a clumsy and slow vampire, which I guess I sort of am. My older sister Nadine seems to be the main instigator of the ridicule. She must be as charming as a siren because she’s managed to get the entire school to call me Spazzy Raven. Honestly, it’s not a very clever name, but Nadine isn’t very clever either. Still, as stupid as the name is, hearing it makes me feel terrible. I even spent yesterday during lunch crying in the bathroom. I wish I could just be done with school already, but since it’s my first year, I have a long ways to go.

  I probably should’ve eaten lunch in the bathroom today too, but I was trying to be brave. Now I’m stuck sitting at a table all alone while the rest of the vampires in my school throw food at my back and chant, “Spazzy Raven. Spazzy Raven. She’s such a spazz.”

  I want to get up and leave—go hide somewhere—but I’m too scared to lift my head and look at all of their faces that I’m sure are filled with hate.

  “Well, what do we have here?” Someone plops down on the bench beside me.

  I don’t dare look up, too afraid of what’s coming next.

  “Easy, Kingsley, she’s probably scared to the undead.”

  I know that voice. It belongs to my parents’ friends’ son Rhyland. Kingsley is his twin brother, although they don’t really look alike. While sometimes they talk to me when our parents hang out, they’ve never really paid too much attention to me before. They mostly just go outside whenever our families have get-togethers and mess around, playing pranks on people and getting into trouble. They rarely spend time with other vampires, living in their own bubble.

  I’ve heard Nadine talk about them, how she thinks they’re cute and has all sorts of plans on how she’s going to be friends with them. So far, though, they pretty much just ignore her, which makes me like them, even if we’ve barely spoken.

  “I’m not scared,” I lie, staring at my mushy sandwich. It wasn’t mushy when I first took it out of my lunchbox, but then someone dumped blood on it and now the bread is all red and gooey.

  “Then why are you talking to your mushy sandwich?” Kingsley teases from beside me.

  I’m so sick of being teased. And now they’re joining in on it. I can’t take this anymore.

  “I’m not.” I lift my gaze and glare at him. “I was talking to you. Well, unless you’re a mushy sandwich. But maybe you are. Your face does look sort of mushy.”

  Oh my vampires, did I seriously just say that!

  His brow pops up with intrigue then his gaze darts to Rhyland, who’s sitting across the table from us. “Did you hear that, Rhyland? She just said I have a mushy face.”

  “I think she might be on to something,” Rhyland remarks, smiling at me.

  I don’t know what to do with that smile, whether to run away or return it. Usually when another vampire smiles at me, it’s right before they call me Spazzy Raven. But his smile doesn’t look mean. It just looks like a smile.

  So I decide to smile back. “Of course I am. I’m super clever and an expert on mushy faces, seeing as how my sister has one.”

  Rhyland glances at Kingsley. The two of them trade an indecipherable look before Kingsley presses his hand to his chest.

  “The queen has wounded me so,” he teases with a grin.

  “Yes, she has,” Rhyland agrees. “Now all you can do is beg for her to take it back. But you better beg really good. She seems like a hard one to win over.”

  “I’ll do my best.” He stands up, drops down on one knee in front of me, and takes my hand. It might be the first time another vampire aside from my parents has ever touched me without the intent to hurt me. “Raven, fairest queen of all, will you please take back your cruel words about my mushy face and fix the deep wound you instilled in my heart?”

  I press my lips together, stifling a laugh. “I don’t know. I’m not sure if your begging won me over or not. I might need a little bit more.”

  He ponders the idea with a clever smile. “How about my hand in marriage? When we’re old enough, of course.”

  “Hmmm…” I thrum my fingers against my lips. “I’m not sure if I can ever see myself getting married.”

  “Then how about I promise to be your sworn Blood Protector.”

  “Doesn’t only the queen have those?”

  “But you are the queen,” he reminds me with a grin.

  I can’t help but laugh, partly because I sort of think he’s funny and partly because, please, like I could ever become queen. Still, it’s kinda of fun joking around with him.

  “Fine.” I pat his head. “You don’t have a mushy face. In fact, your face is as hard as a rock.”

  “Thank you, my queen.” Grinning, he jumps to his feet and moves to sit down beside me.

  I’m still completely confused why they’re even talking to me to begin with unless maybe my parents found out about how badly I get teased at school and asked them to make friends with me. If they did, I kind of feel pathetic, but at the same time, feel sort of grateful because I get really lonely sometimes.

  But me being me, I need to know the answer.

  “Why are you guys talking to me?” I glance at the two of them.

  “Why not?” Kingsley quips, stealing a carrot from my lunchbox.

  “Um, because I’m Spazzy Raven,” I tell him. “And you guys are far from spazzy.”

  “You’re not spazzy,” Rhyland insists, stretching his arms across the table to steal a carrot from my lunchbox.

  “And even if you were,” Kingsley says, stuffing the carrot into his mouth. “We happen to like spazzy.”

  “Yeah, you say that now until I’m constantly tripping over your feet, stomping on your toes, slowing you down, getting you made fun of—” A hamburger bun hits me in the back then falls off and lands on Kingsley’s lap. “And getting you hit by food.”

  Kingsley’s lip twitches as he picks up the hamburger bun. “First of all, no one ever dares make fun of us. And second of all, soon they won’t dare make fun of you.”

  “Um, yeah, I don’t think…” I trail off as he gets up and strides across the cafeteria toward my sister’s table.

  Worry whips through me. “He better be careful. He’s walking right in to the witches’ den.”

  “Relax. Kingsley can handle it.” Rhyland reaches across the table, takes my hand, and tugs me to my feet. “Now come sit down by me and watch the show. I think you’re going to enjoy this.”

  Nervously, I round the table, highly aware that he continues to hold my hand even when I sit down. I wonder how he can be okay with holding my hand in public. Isn’t he embarrassed? He sure doesn’t look like it.

  As if he feels me staring at him, he meets my gaze and smiles in amusement. Then he fixes his finger underneath my chin and steers my attention back toward Kingsley.

  “You don’t want to miss the best part, do you?” he asks.

  I shake my head and focus on Kingsley as he strolls across the cafeteria with the soggy hamburger bun in his hand. Even though he’s only ten years old, he looks scary as a demon as he stops by Nadine’s table.

  “All right, I’m going to ask this one time and one time only.” He holds up the hamburger bun. “Which one of you evil wenches threw this?”

  “Hey,” a male vampire with blond hair and blue eyes, who’s sitting next to Nadine, starts to protest. “Male vampires aren’t wenches—”

  Kingsley reaches across the table and stuffs the hamburger bun into the vampire's mouth. Then he props his boot up onto the bench and rests his arms on his knees. “Now, like I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted, which one of you evil
wenches threw the bun at my lovely little Raven over there.”

  “Hey,” I start to gripe. “I don’t belong to anyone—”

  Rhyland quiets me by placing his finger against my lips. “Shh… Don’t worry, we can belong to you too.”

  I dramatically roll my eyes. “Who says I want you to?”

  His brow bows up. “You’re saying you don’t?”

  “Um…” Part of me wants to nod, but the other part really, really likes not being alone. Plus, they seem nice and everything.

  Rhyland grins at my silence. “That’s what I thought.” When he withdraws his finger from my lips, I stick out my tongue. He laughs, then nods in the direction of Kingsley. “Now watch your new friend and future Blood Protector defend your honor.”

  “Oh fine.” I pretend to grimace as I return my attention to Kingsley, but secretly, I smile to myself. “So, if Kingsley is my future sworn Blood Protector,” I say as I watch Kingsley continue to toy with Nadine and her friends like a vampire playing with his dinner, “Then what does that make you? Because all you’re pretty much doing is sitting here beside me, watching the show.”

  “Doesn’t that make the answer obvious?” he whispers in my ear. “I’m your king.”

  “So gross,” I gag, eliciting a chuckle from him.

  “You know what?” he says. “I think the three of us are going to be really good friends.”

  I don’t want to get my hopes up, but I’ve never had a friend before and I can’t help but get excited. And the excitement only grows as Kingsley’s voice rises across the cafeteria.

  “And if you or any of your little minion wenches even so much as look at Raven again, this’ll be mild in comparison to what’ll happen to you.” Then he dumps a cup of blood all over Nadine’s head.

  She screeches like a wild banshee as she jumps to her feet. “You’re going to pay for that, Kingsley!” she screams with her hands balled at her sides. “One day, you and your stupid brother are going to get cursed and there’s nothing you’ll be able to do about it!” Then she spins around and stomps out of the cafeteria.

  Kingsley turns around and strolls back to our table, grinning. “Did you hear that? She’s going to curse me.”

  A beat of silence trickles by and then the two of them erupt in laughter.

  I, however, don’t find it very funny. “Maybe you guys shouldn’t have upset her like that.”

  Kingsley lifts a brow as he steals another carrot from my lunchbox. “Do you feel sorry for her?”

  “No.” I feel bad for saying so, but Nadine has done way worse to me over the years, everything from getting a witch to cast a wart spell on me to tricking me into drinking troll blood. I was sick for over a month after that and temporarily sprouted horns from my head. “But Nadine can be really cruel, and I’m worried she might come after you.”

  Kingsley and Rhyland exchange another unreadable look.

  “We can handle Nadine,” Kingsley assures me with a smirk. “And if you stick with us, from now on, you’ll be completely protected from her.”

  Again, I want to ask them why they’re suddenly being friends with me. But then I decide that maybe I don’t want to know the truth. That maybe it’s better if I just accept their friendship.

  “All right, I guess we can hang out or whatever,” I say with a shrug.

  Again, they assess me with amusement. I’m unsure why, so I flash them a smirk and they grin.

  I start to grin too but then the strangest feeling someone is watching me trickles up the back of my neck.

  When I peer around, I spot a figure lurking in one of the alcoves, their face hidden in the shadows. For a faltering moment, they’re eyes flicker and for some odd reason, Nadine’s words echo in my head:

  One day, you and your stupid brother are going to get cursed and there’s nothing you’ll be able to do.

  But when I blink, the figure is gone. Still, worry crawls through me.

  “What if she really does try to curse you,” I whisper, chewing on my thumbnail.

  “There’s no way she could,” Kingsley promises. “Curses take too much power—more power than anyone in Mystic Willow Bay has.”

  “Yeah, I guess so.” But my stomach remains raveling in knots.

  “Quit worrying,” Rhyland nudges me with his elbow. “We’re gonna take care of you from now on.”

  I raise my chin defiantly. “I want to take care of myself.”

  “You can do that too.” Kingsley winks at me. “Just as long as we get to help.”

  I can’t help but smile, my worries momentarily drifting away…

  Raven

  My eyelids flutter open, my body aching like it’s been split in two. As the events of what occurred before I passed out emerge, I start to worry that’s exactly what’s going on. That the cracking overtook my body until it split me apart.

  “Oh my vampires, please don’t say I’m like two halves now,” I groan as light stings my eyeballs. “How am I supposed to walk if that happens? Or eat? Or wear clothes… Wait, please say I’m not like naked right now.” I cringe at the idea, especially since I have no freakin’ clue where I am or if I’m alone.

  A soft chuckle touches my eardrums as a finger lightly grazes my hairline, brushing my hair away from my face. “I think you might be okay.”

  I cringe again. “Great, you’re here. Please don’t tell me I’m naked.”

  “Now, now, sweetheart, don’t pretend like you don’t want me here while you’re naked.” Kingsley’s smirk is evident in his tone.

  I roll my eyes, my mind briefly flickering back to the memory I had right before I woke up. If I had to guess, it was a real memory from my first life, back when Kingsley and Rhyland first became friends with me. Our relationship had felt so light, so real. It felt—still does—sort of nice. But then my mind floats back to the memories of this life when we were the same age, only Kingsley and Rhyland were sitting beside Nadine in the cafeteria, mocking and tormenting me right along beside her.

  My emotions get all wonky, dancing between liking Kingsley and loathing him.

  Seriously, all these contradicting memories are so confusing.

  And what’s even more confusing was the whole scene in the cafeteria, when Kingsley swore he was going to be my Blood Protector and how Rhyland said we were going to be king and queen. Then Nadine said they’d end up cursed. And somehow it all actually happened, yet that memory was from my first life. So how did we know what we would end up becoming? And what was that thing hiding in the alcove?

  “What’s the matter?” Kingsley’s face comes into focus. Worry is creasing his brow as he slants forward in the chair he’s sitting in that’s beside the bed I’m lying in. “You look upset.”

  My gaze drags across his face. His hair is askew and he has a strange red handprint shaped mark on his cheek. He’s also shirtless, but I think I remember him taking that off to give to me.

  “What happened to your face?” I lift my hand and graze my fingers along his red tinted cheek. “It’s red and feels puffy.” My lips quirk. “And mushy.”

  His eyes light up. “Did someone remember something?”

  “Yeah, how mushy your face is.” I pat his cheek then gasp. “My hand! It’s not cracky!” I bolt upright so swiftly, I smack my forehead against his. “But apparently my spazziness still exists.” I wince as I press my hand to my throbbing forehead. “I’m so sorry. Is your head okay?”

  “Maybe. You may have cracked my skull a bit. Might have to kiss it better,” he says with a wink.

  I lower my hand to my neck to check to see if perhaps the dragon fire burns are gone too, but nope, my skin is still all flakey. “Not funny.”

  He tugs on a strand of my hair. “Then why’re you smiling?”

  I roll my tongue in my mouth, the edge scraping against my fangs. “That’s what my evil villain smile looks like.”

  His lips threaten to turn upward. “And why exactly do you have on your an evil villain smile?”

  “Because…?
?? I search my mind for an excuse and then decide to just pinch his chest. “Because of that.”

  A laugh bursts from his lips. “That’s the best you can come up with?” He shakes his head. “You just might be the most adorable vampire I’ve ever seen, even when you’re trying to be an evil villain.”

  I pinch his chest again, this time a bit harder, but all he does is laugh again. Giving up, I take a look around at the room and discover that we’re not in a room at all. “Are we inside a tree?” I line my palm to the rough edged wall beside me. “Because this looks an awful lot like bark.”

  “Actually, we are.” His laughter fizzles, the glitteriness in his eyes dimming. “How much do you remember about after we left camp?”

  “Well, I remember walking for a while. A lot of snow. I remember getting really cold and my feet hurting. Then I started cracking apart so Rhyland put a freezing spell on me.” I rest back against the headboard of the bed that’s made of bark. “After that, everything becomes hazy.”

  He rests his arms on the bed. “I figured you probably wouldn’t remember much. Freezing spells have a tendency to freeze the mind as well.”

  I scrunch my nose. “Well that sounds lovely.”

  “Don’t worry, I’m sure it’s thawed by now,” he says, brushing his fingertip along my temple.

  “Is everything always a joke to you?”

  “You tell me. You’re the one remembering things. So tell me sweetheart, am I always the lovely jokester I am now?”

  “No. From what I can remember, you’re usually cruel, at least to me.”

  “Raven,” he starts, his eyes softening.

  I dazzle him with a sassy smirk. “And there you go. You’re not joking now.”

  “Well, aren’t you just a little brat.” He dives forward, his fingers finding my sides.

  I let out a squeal as he starts tickling me. I’m not even sure I’ve ever been tickled before, at least in this life. And here I am in a tree bed, inside a freakin’ tree, getting tickled by, of all vampires, Kingsley.