VAMPIRE IN LOVE

Maria made a move to stand up and I quickly followed suit, still on alert.

"I want to see him." She had decided, her tears finally stopping.

I breathed a sigh of relief but caught it again when she turned to face me.

I was taller than her by a full head. She had to look up, "Please, will you come with me?"

By now, I gave up. Elena was gone, and I had no reason to hold back.

I grabbed Maria around her slender neck and threw her back down. She gasped and fell backwards. "You will not have my blood." I growled.

Maria nodded, her doll-like face alit with fear and panic. I could smell her fear.

Then she managed to speak, "Friends are not food."

I looked at her nonplussed. Her fangs were protruding, but she was still on the floor. Her hair was covering her face and her skirt had flown up her legs. I shrugged and averted my gaze.

Did vampires have friends?

"Yes." She stood up.

Did she read my thoughts?

"Yes."

S***.

"Don't hurt me! Please!" Maria panicked at my internal fury.

Why did Elena leave me to deal with this?

"I don't like her." Maria had otherwise soundlessly righted herself.

She took a small comb out of her pocket and fixed her hair. Her eyes were still a little red around the edges but otherwise, once she pocketed her comb, she was back in her creepy doll-like state.

Don't read my mind.

She laughed then.

If this is a stupid vampire trick...

"It's not. We are friends."

Why me?

Maria shrugged and started heading back into the building. I felt her try to insert herself into my mind, a mind link? I blocked out the cold presence.

She pouted at me.

"It's troublesome to have to speak aloud!" She whined.

I don't care.

I realized now that she could only hear the thoughts I thought at her. I carefully fortified my mental guard. She was sulking now, but she didn't try to mind link again.

We walked back to class silently, an alpha and vampire, side by side. What the heck.

"Your blood smells powerful." Maria informed me.

Of course, it was alpha blood.

But out loud I said "Keep your fangs in."

She giggled. Giggled. Did vampires giggle? Apparently.

"If you were a guy, I might have chosen you instead." Maria offered generously.

Are you mad?

"You're very strong. You can protect me."

I'm an alpha, not your damn bodyguard.

More giggles then a silence.

The silence grew and the emptiness around her became more intense. What now? I continued walking, looking straight ahead.

I didn't have time for teenage vampire melodrama.

Undeterred, Maria grabbed me by the crook of my arm. We were walking along the school hallway now, and it looked exactly like two girls walking arm in arm, but Maria's vampire strength was not something that I could ignore.

What? I seethed.

Maria's laugh tinkled, "You look like a girl, but you think like a cool guy."

Stop snooping in my head.

"If only Dionysios had a mind like yours." She continued.

Who?

"Dion." She sniffed condescendingly at the name I had tagged on her crush.

Diony. I compromised.

"Dionysios!" She hissed. Her hair lifted in pure irritation, her fangs protruded. We were in a crowded school hall, but nobody noticed?

I looked at Maria. She puffs out prettily, "They won't see me if I don't want them too."

I decide right there and then, I hated vampires.

She was silent again. She gripped my arm tighter. I would bruise for sure, but I remained stoic.

As we walked, she started to hide herself within my shadow. I ignored her, smelling and watching carefully at the hallway.

There were humans, and wolves, two packs more prominent than the others, but I don't sense any alpha in their midst, and funnily enough, most of them looked older.

I could smell rogues, barely, but there were at least one or two. I bit back a growl. They would make sure not to cross my path, I know.

A lot of humans but they were tolerable, interesting even at times.

And random empty pockets, like voids where there were no scent at all, which I recognize now as vampires.

Most of the students were moving to their classes now.

A male vampire passed us.

"Hi babe." He winked.

Maria popped up from out of my shadow, "Hi."

But she didn't sound enthusiastic.

Vampires flirt. Shocker.

He continued his way to class and I relaxed a bit at his departure.

Maria slipped back into my shadow. She told me his name was Alad.... Something very long, why did vampires have such stupid long names?

Tinkling of laughter.

I'm beginning to find the sound quite pretty, like bells. This girl was getting under my skin quite quickly in more ways than one.

That made me feel uncomfortable.

Maria decided to inform me that Alad...you know what, let's just call him Aladdin. Because he looked like Aladdin. Black hair, tan skin, lean and buff street rat...

Street rat?

More tinkling laughter. Aladdivere was from her coven. He was a player, and he would date and snack on his dates, instead of sticking to the mandatory packets of laboratory produced blood. It's very unhygienic cos you never knew what's in blood nowadays. He was pretty useless as far as vampires go, but was Maria's cousin, twice removed, she had to add, because she didn't quite think much of his family line. His grandmother was a mere human. All he had was his good looks, unlike Dionysios because Dionysios was a prince, third in line to the Lord of Kosan. Dionysios had a face of a god. And Maria just had to have a little peep, so we will walk the long way around the hall just to pass his class which was just all the way down the hall and I will walk Maria there and back because she was a princess and if Dionysios had my mind he would be even more perfect, but it's okay because he was so handsome he didn't need to think at all. There was a swooning feeling which felt foreign to me because I didn't swoon. F***.

At this point I realized that I was no longer thinking for myself.

Maria felt offended. {I never imagined you would use that word.}

I don't. (Not out loud.)

{You shouldn't use it when I'm here.} She miffed.

And then, I don't know how I knew to do this, but I simply folded up her presence, like a piece of paper and pushed it out.

I was annoyed, but not mad enough to crumple it.

But if she ever gets into my head again, I will crumple her into a ball, or tear her into shreds. Maria's face paled. So I knew she heard the thought I let slip. I ignored her.

We were already at the end of the hallway and she made sure to position herself by my side, putting me between herself and the classroom where her Prince Diony-what's-his-name was residing.

I change my mind, let's call him Dino.

She peeped carefully around my slender figure to look into the classroom. "Oh, he's there!"

Of course he was there. It's his class. We should be in our class too.

By now the hallway was emptying out. Class would start soon.

I didn't slow down even though Maria was clutching my arm and pulling back with vampire strength in a bid to look at Dino's side profile. "Don't you want to see him? He is very handsome."

I don't care.

"You didn't care for Aladdivere either." She mused aloud, remembering her cousin.

I didn't answer her. This conversation was stupid. This entire detour was stupid.

I stepped into the classroom, the scents at the doorway informing me to expect the rest of the wolves inside.

They were. All of them standing up the moment I stepped in.

I walk without pause to my seat. Maria had the sense to drop back away from me and slip into her seat. She still had a small smile on after seeing her Dino.

The guys growled lowly at her as she passed us. Over-protective much?

"Oh my gosh, that girl is a vamp!" Jasmine worried openly. She sniffed me, but of course there was nothing to give away Maria's presence.

"Where were you?" Henry growled. He was pissed. Hahaha.

"Just scouting around." I looked away so he knew it was only a half truth.

"Grrrr...." Okay, now he wants to know the other half.

"Leave it, Henry." I said quietly.

For some reason, Henry did leave it at that. He sat down and looked away.

Marcus tried to reason with me once more, "Be careful of vampires, Sam."

His eyes were pleading. I don't get how it's any of his business but I get that he was sincerely worried. I gave him a curt nod and sat down to face away from him.

Elena wasn't back yet. Whatever.

Liam and Jasmine had sat themselves down too, but both were turned back to face me. Liam remained silent with a tight smile. His posture lounged causally in his seat. Jasmine was wide-eyed, "The vampires here are on probation."

She continued in hushed whispers, "They are from a very old coven nearby. And they have a peace treaty. Part of the peace treaty included allowing their youth access to modern education."

Winderhill was the first and only school to open their gates to them since last year. There were conditions, such as no feeding off other students (which obviously players like Aladdin didn't keep).

"That's why there has been so few werewolves enrolled here since." Jasmine told me.

Now that made sense, the two main packs were mostly upperclassmen, before vampire enrollment. And in our level, it was suddenly only the five of us, and none of us were from either of the main packs.

"Why are you here?" I asked Jasmine.

Jasmine snuck a peek at Liam, "Uh, I dunno."

I looked at Liam. He shrugged, "I wanted to meet new people."

He wriggled his eyebrows at me. Right... I'm going to ignore him.

"Did you both know each other before coming here?" I asked Jasmine.

She shook her head too quickly, "We were in the same school, our packs were next door neighbors, that's all."

Liam looked surprised at that piece of information. Jasmine blushed.

I really didn't want to watch this anymore. It looked like this would be the end of any useful information anyway.

As if on my cue, the teacher walked in and Liam and Jasmine quickly whipped their attention back to the front.

This teacher was werewolf. I didn't have to look to know.

Elena was still not back yet.

My desk buddy had not struck me as the tardy type. Now this was inconvenient. Within the first ten minutes, notes and things were passed out, I took an extra copy of everything and put them on Elena's desk for her.

Once everything was distributed, the teacher opened his mouth to explain the material along with what I would expect to be another variation of rules and expectations.

Suddenly, a very pretty human girl stepped through our door. Was she in our class?

Elena followed behind her and I noticed how she looked awkward and stick-like in comparison.

"Why are you late?" The teacher started off fiercely, determined to make examples out of them. No one would ever dare come in late after this.

The very pretty human smiled, it was a beautiful smile.

And the class was suddenly quiet, so quiet, we could all hear her, "Sorry, we got lost."

She gave a pair of puppy dog eyes. She did it rather successfully.

"Go sit." The teacher relented. I guess he won't be making examples out of them after all.

Elena sat down next to me. Her fear and panic and relief radiated unnecessarily.

Liam leaned forward away from it. I turned my nose away at the assault on my senses. I hear the two wolves behind me shuffle a bit in their seats.

"Air pollution" Marcus grumbled.

Yeah. What was I thinking, making friends with a human?

Although I did also make friends with a vampire.

Now that I think about it, that was a really stupid thing to do.

It was probably a good thing that the moon goddess was the one who picked my mate, because I obviously was stupid when it came to choosing my friends. I smirked, even if Moon Goddess chooses a merman for me (and he had to spend all day in the bathtub), I would be able to confidently say, "I could've done worse."

I hoped not though. I'm not all that into fish boys.