“Ivy behind you,” I shouted but Ivy can’t hear us over the commotion.
“He can’t be dying; Rose gave him two vamp cures. He lied to me,” said Leonardo.
Zane threw his hands up. Everything stops except him. He grabbed Ivy and turns the knife so that it’s pointed at the mutagen and waves his hands again. Time started back up. He threw the knife at Zane, but he ducked and waved his hands. A force grabbed a hold of all of us and we fell into the black hole.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Cade
“How well do you know Cade?” asked Claire. She ran a hand through her hair. Her blonde hair fell over her shoulder as she fixed the intravenous line and drew some blood.
“I know him well. Why,” said Maximus.
“I gave him the vamp virus cure and his blood is not free of the virus. I can’t cure him because he isn’t a vampire,” said Claire. She put Cade’s blood in the test tube then dropped the vamp virus blood. Green bumps formed but the pink cells remained in the bloodstream.
“I think I’m understanding what you’re saying.”
Claire grabbed a fresh needle and stabbed it into Maximus’s finger. He frowned but watched as she placed his blood in a separate test tube then put some vamp virus on his blood sample. Green bumps formed and blue cells floated in Maximus’s blood sample.
“So, have I been exposed to the vamp virus?”
“No, the green cells are werewolf DNA.”
Maximus pulled her aside away from the window. “Tell no one of this. I don’t know who to trust. There’s a mole. You and I will never speak on this, not even to him.”
“As you wish,” said Claire.
“I like those words on your lips,” said Maximus. He winked at her and went to hold Cade’s hand.
She looked from the door to the room. “There have been two attacks here. Do you think this is the best place for him to be right now?”
Maximus turned to the door. Her eyes flew to the door. There were three knocks then Arianna walked through the door. Her shoulder was bandaged up and she had bruises on the left side of her face.
“How is he? Is he awake yet?” Looking at Cade in the light of day, he looked worse than he did lying on the cold ground last night. I’m not sure how that’s even possible. Something isn’t right. I don’t know what it is but something is wrong. Would they hide something like that from me?
“He’s still weak,” said Claire. She mopped his brow with a damp cloth and pulled the blue blanket up to his chest.
“Why is he so weak? Leonardo had the vamp virus and he’s bounced back one hundred percent.”
“I know you’re worried about Cade, but he needs rest and so do you,” said Maximus.
“I don’t care if she’s your new girlfriend or not. If something happens to him the next person to die is you.”
“Go get something to eat and come check on him later,” said Maximus.
“You get a new girlfriend and you don’t know how to act. I thought I’d never see the day when you would hang up your player’s card and settle down.”
“Wow. I need to set you straight. I’m not his girlfriend.” Claire put her hands up and shook her head.
“Are you trying to convince him or me? Girl you look at him like he’s a caramel molten lava cake. Decadent. Forbidden. But so good.” I pointed to both. “I’ll be back.”
“He needs rest and so do I. I’m beat,” said Claire. She headed for the door.
“It’s only a matter of time before you’re mine, you do know that.”
“Maximus, I told you that I don’t date outside my species. We have different cultures and things are so… different.”
“Claire our differences are why this relationship will work.”
“You’re wasting your time. I’m not going to date you.” She rushed out of the door before he could say anything.
Maximus looked at Cade again before walking out of the door.
Chapter Thirty
Arianna
Two hours have passed. My neck muscles are bunched up and I can’t turn my head. It’s dark and I want to see Cade before I go to sleep. I can’t shake the feeling that there’s more going on than what I’m being told. I trust Maximus and Claire but I feel that there is something they are not telling me. Opening Cade’s door, there was a werewolf feeding Cade blood. It wasn’t just any werewolf. It was the largest werewolf I had ever seen. It wasn’t part of Maximus’s pack.
“Stop!” I shoot a lightning bolt at the werewolf. It jumped through the window. Picking up the longest glass shard. I jumped through the window.
The werewolves’ fur looked blue-black. I couldn’t keep up with this neck-breaking pace for long. I threw the glass shard at the werewolf. It caught the glass shard in its mouth and threw it back at me.
Ducking I grunted and fell to my knees. A sharp pain ran through my chest as blood dripped from my mouth. My breath came in small spurts as I struggled to draw in breath. The glass lodged in my heart. A cold wave swept over me. My vision blurred as the werewolf stood over me, and my vision went black.
My eyes fluttered open. I was shackled to a steel beam. I was in a cave but why? How am I even alive? Looking down at my bloody shirt the glass shard had been removed. Something to the left moved which got my attention.
“You’re probably wondering who I am,” he said. It was the mutagen that had almost killed Cade.
“We can start with that question.”
“I’m Nathaniel Higgins. You killed my father.” He lit the stack of logs in the pit. The fire cast an orange glow through the cave and warmed her up. She began to sweat.
“I didn’t kill your father.” This psycho has me tied up, and I must pee.
“You won’t be peeing unless it’s on yourself.”
“What?” I hope he can’t read my mind.
“Yes. I can read your mind. The most important question is the one that you’re afraid to ask me”
“I was dying, so why did you bring me back here and heal me?”
“Your worst fear is being raped again, so I’ll start with that, eventually torture and then kill you.”
Chapter Thirty-One
Cade
I opened my eyes. I was weak but I was alive. Flashbacks of the fight we had at the capital has been running through my mind. Sitting up I wiped the blood off my mouth. I guess they fed me while I was sleep.
Claire and Maximus came walking through the door.
“How are you feeling?” asked Claire. She looked down at my shirt then over to Maximus.
“I’m feeling like a new man. Thanks for curing the vamp virus.” I can’t believe I was sick. I haven’t felt this great in years. I owe Claire an apology. She worked a miracle on me for which I’m forever grateful.
“You’re welcome. Try to get some rest you’ve been through a lot,” said Claire.
“You gave us all quite a scare,” said Maximus.
“Can you get Leonardo in here?” Claire’s eye started to water but she turned away from me and acted like she was cleaning the counter, which was already clean.
“What? What has happened to Leonardo?” I sat up.
“He found out that there never were two vamp cures. When you flat-lined the third time he left the room. We found him two days later hanging from his closet,” said Maximus.
I covered my face. I sacrifice everything and he still committed suicide. Tears stung my eyes as they clung to my eyelashes.
“Get out. I need to be alone.”
“There’s more. We can’t find Arianna.”
“The attack on the academy left us with half of the students and the other half ran away. Liam might be dead and Arianna is missing,” said Claire.
Epilogue
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Acknowledgments
It has always been my life long dream since I was a little girl to become a published author. I have been crafting stories in my head, and vivid worlds ever since I was young. I have always believed that through the gift of reading you can explore and live in ways you can only dream. I only wish my father were alive to see me. Daddy, I hope you’re looking down from above. I did it.
There are so many people that helped me along the way to publishing this novel. This book would not be written without the love and support of my mother Rose, and my loving family. Thanks so much to my wonderful editors Courtney Galloway, and Amanda Williams.
A special thanks to my amazing cover designer Camila Marques. Please feel free to judge my books by her covers. Pretty please.
Symphony of the Departed by Majanka Versraete
Chapter One
Rising from the fog like a haunted mansion in a horror movie, Allegro Academy was a behemoth of a building. U-shaped and six stories high, with pointed towers meandering towards the sky, the front side spanned nearly fifty meters with at least a dozen Greek columns holding up the first-floor balconies. I imagined someone looking down at me from behind the long and narrow Gothic windows, and a shiver ran down my spine.
The bright colors of sunset, yellow hues mixed with oranges, formed a sharp contrast with the dark stone of the building. Allegro Academy looked far from welcoming, not in the least because of the scowling security guard glaring at me. He was bulky and tall, towering over me, and from the way he scrunched up his nose, I guessed he would rather be anywhere but here.
“Name, please,” the security guard barked at me without an ounce of empathy.
“Alanis DuChamp.” My voice trembled, courtesy of the nervous butterflies swamping my stomach, and of the biting wind whipping around me. England was a lot colder than Florida, at this time of the year. “Do you need my pass?”
The security guard nodded, his lips pulled into a grim line.
I fumbled through my suitcase until I found the pass and handed it to him.
The guard glanced at my pass for less than a second, and then gave it back to me. “You’re late.”
“My plane got delayed.”
He shrugged and lifted his right arm, pointing at the wide pathway running toward the building. “Just follow the path, knock on the front door. You can’t miss it.”
“Thank you.” I nodded at the guard, then grabbed my violin case and suitcase, and walked up the lawn toward the academy. While I dragged my suitcase along, the wheels rolling on the gravel, I gawked left and right, taking in my new soon-to-be home.
In the light of the setting sun, the front garden was a real spectacle. Trimmed bushes and flower beds in myriad colors, marble statues of girls carrying baskets with flowers in their hair, and with two fountains on each side of the path, each of them large enough to swim in. My Grandma had been to Versailles once, the famous chateau in France, and every so often she dug up the pictures she took of the magnificent palace and its renowned gardens and showed them to me, her features soft and longing, as if she would give everything to go back there someday. The gardens of Allegro Academy reminded me of those gardens in Versailles. Vast, well-kept, overwhelming, more like a dream than reality, as if by walking through that wrought-iron fence, I had stepped into a fantasy world.
But not necessarily the kind of fantasy world where everyone got their happy-ever-after. There was something menacing about the gardens too, something ominous, because they were too vast, too overwhelming, the kind of place where you could disappear and never be found.
Alanis, get a hold of yourself.
Grandma often scolded me for having an over-active imagination. “Just like your mother,” she used to say then, with a mix of pride and sadness.
I was here all but five minutes and I already missed Grandma as much as I would miss a part of myself.
While I dragged my suitcase along, trying not to think about home or the life I left behind, noises from inside the building reached me, voices too faint for me to make out what they were saying, and soft piano music, Claire de Lune by Debussy if I wasn’t mistaken.
Light pierced through the tall windows flanking the double front doors.
So, this is it. You’re really here.
I took a few deep breaths to calm down, but despite that, my hand still trembled as I pressed the golden bell next to the front door.
Leaves rustled behind me, but before I could turn around, the front door squeaked open, revealing a woman in her early fifties with short, brown hair. Her lips were pulled into a scowl, and she had a thin nose that formed a strange contrast to her bushy eyebrows. “Yes?”
“I’m…” I struggled with the words. “I’m one of the new pupils. Alanis DuChamp.” Nervously, I dropped my suitcase and held out my hand.
She looked at my hand with as much disdain as one would look at a worm that had crawled out of a ditch. Without another word, she moved to the left, so I could step inside.
Hurriedly, I grabbed my belongings and sneaked past her. “Sorry. My flight had a delay and…”
She waved her hand. “Everyone’s already inside the grand hall. I’m Mrs. Evergreen, the house mistress. I gave all the other freshmen the grand tour an hour ago, and I don’t have time to do that again.”
“Oh… Okay.” I didn’t know what else to say. Sure, I was late, but I had still expected to get a warmer welcome.
Mrs. Evergreen started walking, her long, bony legs moving faster than a mailman chased by an angry dog. I hurried to keep up with her, as she led me through a labyrinth of doors and hallways. Every so often, my mouth dropped open as I stared at gigantic paintings of the classic masters, vaguely recognizing a Rubens and a Rembrandt, or as I gawked at the intricately detailed wooden carvings on the stairs’ bannisters.
Whenever I stopped for too long or trailed too far behind, Mrs. Evergreen coughed or shot me an angry glare until I fell back in line with her. After about fifteen minutes, she led me into a cramped office dominated by a large, old-fashioned desk that took up more than half the room.
Flakes of dust swirled around when she moved to the back of the room, and I started coughing. My lungs burned and tears sprang in my eyes.
“Your room is on the fifth floor.” Mrs. Evergreen ignored my coughing fit and conjured up a key from one of the drawers. “Room number 512, at the end of the hallway.” She handed me a key, then opened up another drawer – causing me to have another coughing fit – and browsed through some files. She slammed the drawer close and handed me a planner. “This is your week’s schedule.”
I stared at the planner and the key, not quite sure what to do. Mrs. Evergreen sighed impatiently. “Bring your suitcase to your room, and when you’re done, come back downstairs and go to the main hall. Just follow the map in your planner. ”
She half-pushed me out of the office and before I even had time to ask questions, she strode away back in the direction we came from, leaving me alone in the middle of this maze.
Bewildered, I looked at her disappearing form. Far from the welcome I had hoped for. For the first time since setting foot on English soil
, I felt completely and utterly lost. Alone. Insignificant.
I had been over the moon when Allegro Academy, one of the most prestigious music academies in the entire word, had chosen me – plain, old me – as one of their students.
Now, as I began to make my way through the end of the seemingly endless hallway, I started to wish they hadn’t.
Ever since I’d been a little girl, I had fallen in love with the violin. Although I couldn’t remember this myself, my Grandma always told me the story of how four-year-old me was ‘helping’ her clean the attic during spring cleaning, when I saw the violin that had once belonged to my mother. Before Grandma even noticed I had spotted the instrument, I was playing on it. The sound was, to use Grandma’s description, ‘nothing short of monstrous’, but I had fallen in love right then and there.
The year after, I enrolled into music academy and all I could envision for myself was a life filled with music. I dreamed of standing on the stage, sweeping away the audience with my music, inspiring them with the notes erupting from my violin.
Still, despite that dream, despite spending years practicing the violin, I practically peed my pants when it was my turn to go on stage during my audition for Allegro Academy.
My hands trembled non-stop and my knees felt like Jell-O for the entirety of my performance, but I must’ve done something right, because three weeks later, I got an acceptance letter in my mail.
Now, several months later, here I was, dragging my suitcase and violin up a staircase as steep as the Mount Everest, and trying to ignore my grumbling stomach. By the time I made it to the fifth floor, I was sweating as much as a marathon runner, making mental notes that I really needed to improve my physique.
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