Total pages in book: 133
Estimated words: 122946 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 615(@200wpm)___ 492(@250wpm)___ 410(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 122946 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 615(@200wpm)___ 492(@250wpm)___ 410(@300wpm)
I turned my body, moving to sit beside him and not across from him, so I could avoid his gaze. Instead, I looked at the moon. It looked like a glowing plate in the night sky. One of the things I loved about living in Washington D.C. was the fact that it was a big city that didn’t look like a big city with massive skyscrapers.
“Now whose avoiding questions?” he asked softly.
“I know almost nothing,” I whispered back. “I was human; I got into a car accident, and some vampire changed me. I woke with the need to drink blood. My senses: hearing, sight, smell, everything was heightened much more than humans. Once I realized what I was, I realized that the sun does not burn, and I can see my reflection just fine in a mirror. I don’t sleep in a coffin—I don’t need sleep at all. I know that witches are also real, and they hate us, so I should avoid them because witch fire is deadly…oh and mating rituals. That is about the extent of my knowledge.”
“And you have survived the last twelve months on only that knowledge?”
I could feel his eyes on me, but I didn’t look back. “Yes, it wasn’t easy, but it wasn’t it impossible, either.”
“Didn’t your family notice?”
It was only then that I looked at him, and even though I knew he was staring, his face was a bit closer than I expected. I didn’t want to back down and let him know I was in any way unnerved by him. “I’ve answered your questions. Now explain.”
“I warn you, what I say will shatter everything you think you know—”
“Stalling,” I almost sang. His lips made a straight line, and I felt this urge to reach up to poke his cheeks. Why, I had no idea. “Well shatter my mind then.”
“Very well.” He nodded, and I gave him my undivided attention. “Then you should know that if the sun does not burn you, Druella, then that is because you were never human to begin with.”
“What?” There was that question again.
“Long ago, before me, before everything you see now, there were witches, and there were humans. The humans outnumbered and hunted the witches, and so the witches needed weapons to fight back. Someone took humans and turned them. Some turned themselves into new creations…vampires, us.” He didn’t stop there. He lifted his hand, turning it. “If you are a vampire who does not burn in the sun, who does not go mad with blood lust, who sleeps in the day, you have witch’s blood in you. You are considered a Noble within vampire society.”
“But I don’t sleep at all,” I said, quickly trying to separate myself from anything Noble.
“Not yet.” He shook his head. “You are young still, but by the time you get to my age, sleep will come as naturally as it did when you were a living child. You will enjoy it, too, as I do. Resting one’s mind is the comfort you forget about over the years.”
“So…” I said slowly, trying to understand. “You were a witch before your change? But I’ve never casted spells or anything like that while I was alive…or not vampire alive.”
“The witch gene can be like other genes and be recessive, meaning you could have lived on thinking and acting as a mortal without ever noticing. Though, I am sure you never got very ill as a child.”
I thought back over my childhood and nodded. “I used to have to pretend to get sick to fit in.”
“Well, that was foolish.” He snickered.
“I was a kid!” I cried out, and I elbowed him a bit, causing him to grin.
“You were a Wiccan child; of course, nothing in nature would make you ill. You were part nature whether you realized it or not. When I was a boy, I remember fever had broken out through my village. It claimed my elder brother, Demetrius, and within two days, my younger sister, Thalia. She was a newborn, and within hours, she was gone.”
He spoke of his past so freely, so openly, that I instantly felt whatever little guard I held up come down. “But you were fine?”
“Yes.” He nodded, holding my gaze. “Because I shared the same mother, not father as my sister and brother. And though my mother had magic in her blood, it was not enough to carry to her children. Her family magic ended with her. I received my witch’s blood from my biological father, a random, unknown fisherman, who I never met or knew.”
I thought of it a bit more. “If it was your older brother and younger sister…”
“Yes, my mother had an affair, which her husband suspected, but once his children had died, it was all but confirmed, and people knew more of the ways of witches then. He sought to have her and me stoned, but we escaped by boat the night before.”