After a little more sleep, I was up and dressed just in time for room service to bring breakfast. A full English breakfast which I wolfed down hungrily. I left the tray just outside of the door and then lazed about on the bed for a while longer, looking over my grandfather's notebook for lack of anything better to do. I could have put the tv on, but I knew there wouldn't be anything of interest on there.
I glanced over at Rakesh who was sleeping peacefully, then to the closed curtains. I was half tempted to see what would happen if I opened them, even for a little bit. Then out of curiosity, I flipped the page to the notes on vampires. Some of it felt like it had come out of a movie or book but other bits were a surprise to me. For example, it was a lie that vampires couldn't be near garlic and that this was a lie told by them to prove they were not vampires. This apparently came about due to the odd vampire who, in their human lives, was allergic to garlic and not becausI spent the rest of the day wandering around the hotel and enjoying the time away from home. We weren't that far from where I lived, but it was somewhere new and I wanted to enjoy it. I did not have any prior engagements since I had finished school and although I was hoping to find a job soon, it wasn't like my grandparents needed the money or demanded I do so. They seemed to have an endless amount of funds somehow.It was getting close to the evening when I made my way back to the room. Rakesh was only just now stirring awake but hadn't quite roused himself just yet. I made sure not to disturb him too much and moved to the curtains. I gathered it would be fine to open them now, seeing as the sun was no longer on this side of the room. He grumbled in retaliation which caused me to let out a little laugh. He was like a kid being woken up for school."Rise and shine sleeping beauty," I teased him gently.He huffed
After having lunch in the hotel's restaurant, the two of us were travelling once again. Rakesh promised we would find a place to rest again before midnight, if only so that I could sleep but between now and then, I had to answer his pop-quiz questions on the various monsters that were in the notebook and how to kill each of them.I played along with him because he refused to answer questions about himself and I had little else to talk about."How do you escape from a kelpie? Or kill it?" Rakesh questioned me.I sighed out and said, "silver hurts it. Are there any monsters that aren't fearful of silver? And why silver anyway? What is so special about it?"Rakesh seemed thoughtful about it for a moment and then paused in his steps. He looked at my neck where the choker was and then replied, "back in the early days of humanity, they put water in a silver pitcher, because it takes a lot longer for the water to go scummy. There are medical prop
Stretching my arms out as we finally made it to the second hotel. This one wasn't fancy and the room was smaller, but with Rakesh going out for his midnight snacks, I didn't mind too much. He hadn't spoken to me in a while and had left without a word. Though I wasn't sure what I had said exactly to upset him.I fell asleep easily enough but instead of waking up in the morning as I had planned, it was Rakesh who was shaking my shoulders, telling me to get up. I shot him a glare as I had not had nearly enough sleep and it was still dark outside, but the look of worry on his face alerted me to something being wrong."What?" I asked, sitting up quickly.Rakesh glanced to the door, then uttered, "I may or may not have killed a newly turned and I may or may not have accidentally got a hunter on my hide. Though I did them a favour if you ask me."I blinked at him for a moment and then looked to the door. Sure enough, I could hear someone trying t
Rem and I spent most of the night talking about Hunters and he gave me some tips here and there. He agreed to travel with us for a day or two, just to keep an eye on Rakesh, but also to help train me since Rakesh would be asleep during the day. It wouldn't be much, but until we got into a better routine, it would do.Rakesh agreed to look for more information on my parents during the nights while we slept, though Rem at first seemed against it, he relented when I begged him to give the idiot a chance. I wondered if Rem knew who Rakesh was, or had at least heard of him. Though I didn't want to ask with Rakesh still in the room so I waited until he had left."Have you heard of the name Rakesh?" I asked Rem as he made himself comfortable at the end of my bed. He had decided by himself that he was going to share the bed with me, I was fine with this. We had grown up together and often shared a bed as children.Rem looked over to me at my end of the bed a
It was morning when I heard Rakesh making his way into the hotel room. Rem was still fast asleep and nothing was going to wake him up at this point. He could sleep through just about anything as I found out a few times when sharing a room with him.I leaned my head up to try and get a better look at Rakesh and raised my brows when I noticed the state of him. It looked as though someone had beaten him up, or maybe, he had been the one to inflict damage, either way, he was bloody."What in the shit happened?" I asked, trying not to be too loud even though I knew Rem wouldn't wake easily. I got out of bed as quickly as I could and went straight over to Rakesh's place. He had a brow perked up at me and an amused little smug smirk plastered on his face."Worried about me, are you?" He asked me with that cocky little tone of his.I rolled my eyes. Obviously, Rakesh wasn't in danger of dying. "You should clean up before Rem wakes up," I muttered
Rem woke up about ten minutes after Rakesh got into bed. I had tried to probe Rakesh again, but every reply was met with an annoying joke. In the end, I decided to shelve the questions for later. Maybe Rem would know how best to probe the fool so I resigned to asking him about Rakesh after we had gotten some training in.Leaving Rakesh to his daytime sleeping, the two of us went down into the large hotel restaurant and ordered some breakfast. While we waited, Rem had me people watch. He said it was one of the first things Hunters did in order to quickly pick out the humanoids which might be dangerous and which might not be and by humanoids, he obviously meant the supernatural kind.I did... poorly. I wasn't used to this sort of thing but Rem being my best friend, was patient with me. He smiled and shook his head, kicking me under the table playfully. "Good thing I do not have to rely on you to know when to be alert or not," he teased me with a playful little gr
The rest of the day, Rem showed me where he and his family spent most of their time training whenever they weren't pretending to be 'normal' people. They had family in this city and I had always wondered why they visited their family so often and now I understood. It was strange learning about all these new things about someone I thought I had known so well.I wasn't upset or hurt, it was my own fault for refusing to listen to my grandparents, though in a strange twist of fate, I had done what my parents wanted up until Rakesh showed up anyway - and that was staying out of the life of a Hunter. Though I wasn't a Hunter even now, I was getting some more needed training.I sighed out and slumped down onto the ground against the wall, exhausted from the fighting that Rem's cousin put me through. He was a burly man with a bushy beard. He didn't look much like Rem at all and that amused me. Rem was athletic, about as tall as Rakesh was, and was very pretty to look a
The two days with Rem came and went quickly. I had gotten a little better at pointing out the supernatural - at least the pure-blooded ones. Half-blooded humans were harder to tell from normal humans and that would only come with experience but usually, they posed zero risk due to how diluted their supernatural blood was.Without agreeing to join the Hunters Guild, I wasn't allowed to have a gun or sword infused with silver, but Rem did help teach me how to use the knife my grandfather had given me so that I wasn't just stabbing at the more dangerous beings and hoping for the best.As for Rakesh, he still refused to talk to me about anything unless it was him being a flirtatious idiot so I did my best to ignore his stupid antics for now and worked on honing what Rem was able to teach me. I had a list of places I could go and would be welcome all across the British Isles. Rem told me if Rakesh tried to take me out of the country, to warn people. I hoped it wouldn't come
Greetings to all my wonderful readers!As you've likely noticed, I have actual artwork of my characters for the cover of my book now. This was a commission I paid for from a very dear artist friend by the name of Rydi on DeviantART also known as lucia-garcia on ArtCorgi.We've known each other for a long time now, and I was super happy she gave me permission to use the old commissions in this way, so if you like her style, feel free to check her out.Thanks for reading my story and feel free to check out my others also here.Have a wonderful day!
A month passed by quickly. My grandfather Edward had been convinced to come to where we were and was rather glad that I was well though he was shocked when he learned the truth of everything. He worried about the other side of my family not accepting me anymore, but otherwise, he was happy to stay with us for a few weeks to help. He and Tudyr seemed to get along well.Eris and DJay had bonded and had started a relationship much to the joy of most of the supernatural beings that had belonged to the group. Only the other Ancient Ones and vampires from the red-eyed family were not fully accepting of the match, but they were well aware they couldn't hassle the pair. Tudyr was very firm about that.Tudyr, of course, bonded with Eris making him the official leader. Their relationship wasn't great but Eris settled down after a couple of days. Though she held her usual spark whenever she disagreed with something he said or did. The two were almost like an old married c
With Rakesh's fate as my lover sealed, the only thing left was to decide what to do with Eris. Had she not over-taken Rakesh for the leader position when he became unable - it would have meant I would have been the new leader in joint with Rakesh. However, because they had swapped positions, this meant she would need to either bond with me or Tudyr.She was unhappy with either outcome as Tudyr expected. Rakesh didn't want to share me with yet another person and I was not willing to go against Rakesh's wishes but at the same time, I wasn't about to force Eris into bonding with Tudyr if it made her uncomfortable and if it would be easier for her to bond with me.Being Tudyr's second meant that he was a little more lenient and willing to let me take charge of this group of misfits but of course, we were going to let Eris make the choice. Personally, I didn't much care to lead, I just wanted to make sure the fighting was over."I don't want to share him,
Eris was surprised to see Rakesh and me enter through the door and in one piece and without an escort. She stopped yelling and marched over to us. Rakesh hid behind me and clung tighter to my shoulders. It was an awkward sight with him being taller than me but I did my best not to laugh. He was genuinely nervous.I gave Eris a small look of warning, it was gentle but commanding enough that she paused in her steps once she got close enough to me. She hesitated, noticing the change in my blood right away. She opened her lips to speak but found herself unable to bring herself to scold us.I looked over to Tudyr who was sitting at Eris' desk with a rather professional look on his face. He nodded at me in greeting and then waited expectantly for us to come further inside the office. It was a command regardless if it had been said or not and thus, I moved over to where the chairs were placed across the desk and facing Tudyr.Rakesh followed me, unwilling t
A while had passed from when Rakesh and I had reaffirmed our bond and he was curled up in my arms, happily resting in my company. We were merely enjoying being near each other again after what seemed like forever. I wasn't even sure how long it had actually been since we had seen one another.I briefly worried about how my grandparents and Rem had not been in contact with me, let alone poor Eddie, for as long. I hoped they would not think this was Rakesh's fault or think I had failed and been killed. Curious, I sent a message to Tudyr about it.'Are you sure it is wise to keep in contact with Hunters? You are no longer human enough for them to care,' he replied through the mind.Rakesh wiggled his nose in annoyance. He still wasn't happy to share me, but he didn't complain. I kissed his forehead in reassurance.'They're my family, if I don't let them know I am well, they will probably gather up the Hunters to come and find me. I don't know
After giving Rakesh some time to take in all of the information I had tossed on top of him, we laid on his cot in near silence. He couldn't remember hurting anyone or feasting on flesh and part of him didn't want to remember it. There were so many thoughts running through his mind but he couldn't find the answers to any of them just yet."It'll be alright, probably," I offered as I felt his mind fretting again. "I mean, Tudyr isn't going to kill us, just bring us into his fold, so things could be a lot worse, right?" I gave Rakesh a small smile."Only because of dumb luck that you're of his blood. Though in truth, I am surprised he wants you, you not being fully blooded..." Rakesh trailed off. "Or are you now? Though now I wonder why did my blood not do that for you?"I looked up thoughtfully. Tudyr wasn't exactly invading my mind at all as he had wanted to give me and Rakesh space - but that didn't mean he had blocked himself out of my thoughts. I s
With everything I had gone through lately, I was exhausted. It didn't matter if I had been unconscious for a while, that wasn't exactly resting. I watched Rakesh from where I laid on my cot. He seemed peaceful despite the fact that he had also been through so much.I reached out to him with my mind and although I didn't get a worded reply, there was a sense of warmth that surrounded me as Rakesh sensed me. That was enough to soothe my fears and the feelings of being isolated from him for so long finally seemed to melt away and I could truly relax and bathe in the bond we shared.I fell asleep listening to the beating of hearts inside my mind. It was still strange that I could sense it no matter where the bonded one was, but it was even stranger now that there were three of them. Still, it was a relaxing sound and quite the lullaby to listen to.A few hours must have ticked by as I sensed Rakesh stirring awake. My own eyes flickered open and I slowly
The beating of my heart was loud and swift in my chest as I felt Tudyr's fingers tickle my neck while he brushed my hair out of his way. My eyes closed and my head tilted slightly to the side as I anxiously anticipated him feasting on my blood. It wasn't a sexual experience like it had been with Rakesh, but it was still somehow exciting to me.We were already somewhat bonded due to the family blood we shared, but this was much more than just a vague feeling. It felt as though my whole body was aching for us to be fully bonded. I wondered if it was indeed just this reason why it felt so right? Or maybe it was more a servant and master connection? In the end, I guessed it didn't matter too much. I had agreed to share a bond with Tudyr.I let out a pleased sound from my throat as I felt his fangs pierce the skin of my neck. That familiar sound of two hearts joining and beating as one echoed through my ears and mind. The sound was lo
Tudyr watched me painfully mull over my options which only made me feel further pressured. Finally, I asked, my fingers holding onto my neck tightly, "what if I say no? What would happen to them?""I have no use for families that do not submit to the First," Tudyr said harshly but with no malice within his voice. "I will spare your life, only because you are one of mine, but like those of the red-eyes, Rakesh and his sister must submit or they will die.""And why do you need me for that? You could just ask them yourself..." I uttered, glancing away.Tudyr gave me a long look before he replied, "Eris will never submit and Rakesh has bonded with you, I cannot force him into anything without your permission. The same was true for Eris with you and him, is that not correct?"I gave a thoughtful frown and then nodded slowly. "I thought that was for all Ancient Ones... but you said... my blood was your right?" I looked back to Tudyr with the sam