24 Invitation

"Christmas party?" Nick asked, a mouth full of food.

"Yeah, I hold one every year." Mark said with a smile on his face.

"But Christmas is a little bit under a month away. Why invite people now?"

"I like to give people advance notice."

"... I'm sure a week would probably work for advance notice."

"Maybe, but I like to give people a month so they don't make other plans."

"It's Christmas eve, I'm sure most people already have plans on that day."

"I don't." Melanie said, she was sitting at the lunch table beside Mark working on her makeup.

"You would be surprised how many kids our age come to this every year. People tend to prefer loud music and junk food over dinner with their family." Mark shrugged.

"What about your parents? Wouldn't they be at home?"

"Nah, they are usually pretty busy this time of year. They are going to be in Germany during Christmas."

Nick sighed, thinking about the invitation for a minute. His parents would probably be mad if he didn't spend Christmas eve with them, but it should be fine as long as he is home for Christmas morning. "Yeah, sure, I'll come."

"Great! You are going to love it dude, trust me. I'll text you the address at the end of the day."

"Why not just tell me now and ill put it in my phone?"

"Because lunch is almost over and I've barely touched my food. I need to talk less and eat more."

Nick shrugged, going back to eating his own food. He has never been to an actual party before, so he was pretty excited to be invited to one. He hasn't been to Mark's house yet, he couldn't help but wonder what kind of house Mark lived in. He was able to piece together that Mark is relatively wealthy and from a well respected family, so he imagined it must be pretty big. He was planning to look it up online once he got the address.

The bell rang, signaling the end of lunch. Mark groaned, mouth full of food and tray only half empty. "Damn..." He grumbled, getting up and reluctantly scraping the food off of his tray and into the trash. Nick laughed and did the same before they headed back to class.

The rest of the day was business as usual. He got the address on the way home and looked it up, Mark's house looked to basically be a mansion. Once he got home he spent most of the day doing homework and then watched YouTube to wind down afterwards. He went to bed and fell asleep at 10, the time he usually went to bed now. He also wakes up now at 6 instead of 5, he no longer works out in the morning and usually does it at night before taking a quick shower and heading to bed.

He woke up in the other world at 6 in the morning as well, he was able to make it so he went to bed and woke up at the same time in both worlds. It took a lot of napping and staying awake at awkward times on the weekend, but he was able to do it. As his eyes opened and he saw the familiar room he groaned, he hated this place. It was torture to him to not be able to talk to anyone or walk around the castle.

He would even sometimes summon Azara just to talk to someone, or try to talk to the guards who escorted him when he had to use the bathroom or take a shower. Unfortunately the royal guards were under strict order not to talk to Nick unless it was absolutely necessary. He got up and got dressed in the clean pair of clothes that was left for him while he was sleeping. It was nothing he really wanted to wear, just a pair of light gray baggy pants and a matching t-shirt. It was better than spending all day in his pajamas, however.

He moved back to his bed, sitting on it and looking towards a mirror on the wall. He had sat in this spot for many hours in the past week as he tried to learn how to control his demonic power. Trying to summon it took a lot of meditation and every time he thought he was making progress he would check his eyes in the mirror. During the last week he had caused his eyes to turn red once or twice for a couple of second, but overall he had made little to no progress. At this rate he expected it take to take a month or more to learn how to actually control it.

Well, at least that was what he originally expected. The last time he was here he was actually able to make his eyes turn red three times in the same night. He was starting to understand how to summon his demonic energy. He had to concentrate a little bit but he was able to summon his demonic energy for just under twenty seconds. It was a huge breakthrough in his training that he had not expected.

Nick sighed and cleared his mind as he closed his eyes. He began to focus on the feeling that brought his demonic energy to the surface. It was a difficult feeling to explain, it has a mix of desperation, desire, rage, and a will to live that manifested into this power. As he opened his eyes and looked in the mirror he could see his eyes were that red color that others had seen on that day. They were an almost glowing bright red color.

It was a chilling sight at first, but he actually had begun to enjoy how it looks. I think I am starting to get the hang of this. It took a lot of concentration but he could summon this energy, though he had no way to tell if he could suppress it during a battle if he needed to, or if he would even want to. The power is intoxicating, he knew it was possible that he might not want to suppress it if it tries to take over. It was all speculation however, there was no sign that the demonic energy had any permanent or bad affects.

Nick tried to keep his eyes red as long as he could, he was able to reach twenty seconds before he was unable to hold onto it. When it came out on its own it was effortless to maintain, but it took a lot of effort when he wanted to force it out. Nick let out a sigh, looking at his now brown eyes in the mirror. The fact that the red eyes went away was convenient, those would be hard to explain on earth. Suddenly a knock came from his door, it was odd for people to knock.

Usually if people were coming in they would just come in. Like when it was time for food a guard would just open the door and slide in a tray with some food. "Uh... Come in?" As the door slowly creaked open Nick's eyes went wide at who came into frame.

"It's been a while!" The crown prince said, a wide grin on his face.

"Uh, what are you doing here, your highness?" Nick was even more surprised and confused when the prince closed the door. He didn't have any guards with him, he must have known why Nick was locked up but didn't have guards accompany him.

"You can stop it with the formalities, Just call me Marshall."

"Ah... Right."

"I come with news! I was able to argue a case for conditional release for you."

This caught Nick's interest, but he tried to not get his hopes up. "Conditional release? What is the condition?"

"A royal guard must be with you at all times and you must attend training to learn how to keep your demonic side under control."

Huh... Well, I guess it is a good thing I already have a head start. "How do you even know that it can be controlled?"

"I've met a couple of hybrids in my time. It was the only reason I was actually able to negotiate for this conditional release."

I guess there are a lot of things I don't know about the prince. "Alright, well, In truth I have already been working on controlling it."

Marshall raised an eyebrow in mild surprise. "Really?"

"Yeah, or at least I have been training to summon my demonic energy. My familiar is a demon so I got her to tell me how to do it."

"How much of a grasp do you have on controlling it?"

"Well, all I know for a fact that I can do is summon it. I don't know if I can suppress It or not and there is not really a good way to test for that. I can only keep it summoned for around twenty seconds and it took me about a week just to get a basic understanding of how to summon it. It also takes a lot of concentration."

"Hmm, then you are already about halfway done with the training. Once you finish the training and the head of the royal guard is convinced you are not a threat you will be allowed to come and go as you please just as you did before."

Nick couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief, It might take a few more weeks but he will soon be able to go back to doing quests for the guild. It might be dangerous but to him it was really the only fun thing to do in this world."Alright. Well, when does this training start? And who will be teaching me?"

"Ah, you start in a couple of days. Your instructor is on his way here. He is the only quarter demon that the royal guard trusts enough to be allowed entrance to the capital and the castle."

Nick was surprised to hear that his instructor would actually be part demon, especially a quarter. He couldn't help but wonder what kind of person this quarter demon would be. "Alright. Do I have to stay locked in this room until then?"

"No, you will be allowed back in your old room once a royal guard is assigned to accompany you. However, nobody will be allowed to come near you until you are done with your training. That was a point the royal guard captain would not concede."

Guess training and talking with Alyssa it out of the question, then. "Alright, sounds good enough for now. I do have one more question though."

"Yeah, sure, what is it?"

"Why... would you bother to do all of this for me? It is not like we really know each other. We have only talked a couple of times and never for more than a few minutes."

"I just don't like to see people confined for something they have no control over. You used to be confined if you were even suspected of being a vampire, now we have vampires living in the same building as our rulers. I'm hoping that some day it will be the same for quarters and maybe even some halves."

Even Nick couldn't imagine a half ever being allowed to live in the same castle as a king, but he also never thought that he would learn a vampire would be in the same castle as a king either. "Huh, alright. Well I hope you still feel that way when you become king some day. Not everyone is a slave to their genetics."

The prince nodded and grinned. "Glad you agree. Well, I will see you in training." The prince turned and opened the door, beginning to leave.

"What? Wait! What do you mean by 'see you in training'?" He called out to the prince before he left.

"Hmm? Well, I thought it would be fun to watch. I don't have much to do this week and I want to see what all the fuss is about." The prince chuckled, leaving the room and closing the door.

Nick sat in silence for a moment and thought about his situation. In a couple of days he would start training with a quarter demon to learn how to control his own demonic side as the crowned prince of the kingdom watched... This is going to be one strange week. Nick shook his head, trying to clear his mind as he went back to his own training.