by Mia Archer
I looked down as was proper. I’d expected to come down here and find myself dressed down by the most powerful men and women in vampire society. Instead she was praising me for saving our people?
I’d done nothing of the sort. I’d merely created a system where we could insinuate our way into university life. Work behind the scenes unobtrusively without drawing attention on ourselves.
There were others who’d tried that with the humans, but a lust for power was ultimately their undoing. They tried to take over and were ended as a result.
I was content to merely exist. To fly under the radar, to quote a neologism that I was fond of. Oh the humans and the interesting toys they came up with!
“A pity that someone with brains like that can’t see the opportunities waiting for you in the wider world,” she said. “I don’t understand why you continue wasting your time pretending to be a drunken fool decade after decade.”
I frowned. And now we were coming to it, though again it wasn’t quite the dressing down I’d expected. I’d expected the Coven to be here in their full fury. I’d expected them to demand my head and Diana’s for what she’d done.
Instead I was getting the same old lecture I’d received from Mother since my first decade at the university.
“I enjoy the life I’ve made for myself here,” I said. “It’s good. Simple.”
Mother walked towards me. She put a hand to my chin and pulled me up until our eyes met. Her smile wasn’t entirely pleasant. It wasn’t entirely threatening either, though with her the threat was always there.
“And that’s your problem,” she said. “Clever but no ambition. Though perhaps not as clever as you’d like to think. That’s how you find yourself in situations like this.”
And now we’d come to it. The old woman had merely wanted to work in some of her favorite old complaints before she got to the business at hand. I would have sighed, but I couldn’t be sure that wouldn’t set her off so I kept my thoughts to myself.
“Killing a witch,” she said. “You’ve really fucked up this time Ivy. You know that, right?”
“I know, Mother,” I said.
I didn’t bother trying to explain myself. I didn’t tell her how the pledge class this year was the worst we’d had in decades. How they were willful and idiotic and also suffered from the illusion that they were far more clever than they actually were.
None of that mattered. They were my responsibility. The sorority Coven, my Coven, turned them. That meant it fell on me when they fucked up.
And boy what a fuck up.
“Have the witches made a formal protest? Will I be returning with you?”
It was entirely possible that they would demand my head for this. And Diana’s. There wasn’t a chance that she was getting away with this. Even if the witches didn’t demand her head I’d make sure she lost it before I was dragged off to pay for her stupidity.
I’d been prepared for this since the moment I had to put that poor witch out of her misery.
“I don’t know what we’re going to do about this,” Mother said, shaking her head.
I sensed an opening here.
“Where is the rest of the High Coven?” I asked.
“They’re not coming,” she said. “So far there have been no calls for your head from the witches so the High Coven doesn’t feel this rises to the level of their attention. Yet.”
Yet. There was a strong implied threat there. Still, it wasn’t the bad news I’d been bracing myself for this entire time.
“So if the witches aren’t complaining then…”
“Then it means you need to be doubly on your guard,” she said.
I blinked. “What do you mean?”
“It means that this is what I was talking about. You’re content to live your life here and because of that you’ve grown complacent. You’re not thinking like a true leader.”
I bristled at those words. This was the woman who’d just told me that my scheme for blending into human society rather than hiding in the shadows had saved our people, and now she dared tell me I couldn’t think like a true leader? How dare she!
Yet I didn’t say anything. I wasn’t in a mood to be ripped limb from limb. Not only would that be painful when they came off, but it would be even more painful when they grew back.
Assuming she didn’t kill me.
“I don’t understand,” I said.
She sniffed. All the derision she might have put into words was contained in that single sniff.
“Of course you don’t. They aren’t protesting formally which means you need to watch your back. You and your coven have witches hunting you, and the High Coven is inclined to let them have open season on vampires on this campus if it will prevent them from breaking the Covenant and hunting us elsewhere.”
My fangs lowered and my eyes glowed red. It was a measure of the shock I felt that I lost control so completely in front of Mother.
“That’s impossible! It’s a…”
“Violation of the Covenant?” Mother asked, arching an eyebrow.
The glow from my eyes illuminated her, but she knew she was in no danger. I wouldn’t dare attack her. She was older than me and she could destroy me without so much as breaking a sweat.
“Now you start to see what you’ve done,” she said. “I’m not even supposed to be here right now. It’s a measure of the affection I feel for you that I’m risking this much to warn you of what’s coming rather than coming here after it’s all done to sift through the ashes of what you’ve built.”
She closed the distance between us and put her hands on my shoulders. Favored me with a fond smile. Like a mother looking at a favorite child who’d gotten in over their head.
“Why are you risking telling me this?”
“Because I’m fond of you,” she said. “I see a lot of me in you. Always did. You’d be my favored protege if you ever showed any ambition beyond the walls of this university.”
I didn’t rise to the bait. Not now. Not with what she’d just told me. It was an elegant and cold solution, which meant it was the perfect kind of solution that would appeal to the High Coven. Allow the witches to kill on this campus alone and the Covenant could remain in effect everywhere else. The truce would be maintained.
And me and all my friends in the sorority were the ones who would pay the price.
“What do I do?” I asked.
“Survive,” she said. “And if you see any pretty young girls showing more than a passing interest in you and yours for the next little while? If you have any hint that she’s a witch?”
“Yes?”
“Kill her. The High Coven might not say anything about any vampires who are killed on this campus, but the witches aren’t going to say anything about any of theirs who are sniffing around in the grey areas between the Covenant lines that have just opened up on this campus, if you catch my meaning.”
I nodded. “Understood.”
“Oh, and one more thing,” Mother said, almost as though it was an afterthought. I braced myself. Afterthoughts with Mother were typically the most important part of the conversation.
“Yes?”
“I would be very upset if I discover those pledges died at your hand,” she said. “I’ve given you free rein to fritter your life away for too long. You’ll learn how to lead them. Or else.”
I gritted my teeth. There’d been many times when I was tempted to dispose of the pledges and be done with it. Now I didn’t even have that option.
Witches hunting me. Pledges I couldn’t kill if they got out of hand, which was the favored form of discipline among vampires.
I didn’t see how this semester could get any worse, but I knew better than to say that out loud and invite the universe to show me.
5
Lisa
The woods.
I knew this was a dream. Had to be a dream. I hadn’t been in the circle. I didn’t remember any of them using their magic to put me in Selene’s memories.
Which meant this had to be the dream again. That meant she was coming.
I turned around. I didn’t need the snap of a twig to know she was there. She’d been there every time. Waiting for me. Usually she fell upon me and I didn’t know from one night to the next whether she would attack me or kiss me or maybe both.
I never knew which I wanted. There was something about being ravished by this vampire that sent a thrill and a chill running through me.
I knew I should push her away, but I couldn’t fight the strange pulsing deep in my stomach every time I laid eyes on her. She was the last one I should be falling for and yet I was.
She was, after all, a woman who’d been haunting my dreams for years. I just never imagined the woman haunting my dreams would be a vampire. Or that she would kill my best friend.
Tonight something was different. It was the same dream of Selene’s memory, but there was something else out there in the darkness. Something that felt more dangerous than the vampire. It was only a dream, but anyone who used magic knew dreams could be dangerous.
All those stories mortal parents told their children about how dreams couldn’t hurt them were lies to make other mortals feel better. Dreams should terrify people. There was a reason people died in their sleep, and it wasn’t always the neat clinical medical reasons modern science told people.
My pulse picked up. I couldn’t be sure if it picked up because of fear or because of the chance of seeing her again.
“Who’s out there?” I shouted. “Show yourself!”
The dream had never been like this before. I’d never felt like I was truly in danger, yet there was some instinct that reached back to the memories of ancient humans that was screaming. Back in the days when becoming a yummy snack for an apex predator with nasty teeth and claws was still very much a possibility.
It was still very much a possibility today, but most humans blinded themselves to that possibility. Told themselves they lived in a world humanity had mastered. That the darkness could be banished with the flip of a light switch and nothing more.
Darkness lurked out there tonight. Someone stepped forward. I could barely make out their features, but I knew this one wasn’t the one from my dreams. Wasn’t the one from Selene’s memories. Her hair was dark and short where the other vampire’s hair was blonde and down to her shoulders a way that suited her perfectly.
“Who are you?” I asked.
I hadn’t seen this one before. Her presence in my dream worried me. She looked confused for a moment, but then she grew more confident and took a step forward.
“I remember this,” she said, her voice smooth.
I took a step back as she looked around.
“Oh yes, I remember this well,” she said.
She took another step towards me as I took a step back. Her smile widened as though she enjoyed that I was taking a step back from her. As though she enjoyed the chase.
That sent another chill running through me. This all seemed more real than the dreams I’d had before. I tried to remember where I’d been and what I’d been doing before I fell asleep, but it all fell away like sands slipping through a sieve on the beach.
“Who are you?” I asked.
“I think the real question is who are you?” she asked. “Because I remember all of this, but I don’t remember you. I must’ve seen you somewhere if you’re gracing my dreams though. You’re a pretty little thing.”
She stepped forward with a speed that surprised me. A speed that was superhuman. Supernatural.
The speed of the undead. The speed of a vampire. A vampire who seemed far more dangerous than the one who killed Selene, even if that made no sense considering a vampire who’d managed to kill a witch was just about the most dangerous vampire I could think of.
Panic welled up inside me. I knew the spell to get out of this, a spell that would reduce this woman to ash, but I didn’t have the magic. I felt something tingling within me almost out of reach, and I felt disgust at the thought that I might be excited at this vampire getting so close to me.
She was pretty, but unlike with the other one there was something about her that twisted my stomach.
“You are a pretty thing indeed,” she said, reaching up and running a clawed hand along my cheek. Something wet ran down my cheek.
Blood. It was blood. Vampire claws were razor sharp so I didn’t feel the pain immediately. The wet blood trickling down the side of my cheek was what finally brought that pain screaming to the surface, but I didn’t cry out in response to that pain.
This was dangerous. This was a dream, but it could also be real. This vampire seemed confused. Somehow my dream had drawn her in. I didn’t know how I did it, but it had happened.
It could happen. I knew that much. It had never happened to me before, but it was possible. I’d read about it in the books in my mom’s shop.
“What are you doing?”
I closed my eyes and let out a relieved sigh, though I wasn’t sure why I should be relieved to hear that voice.
It was her voice. The one who killed Selene. The one who’d been haunting my dreams forever, and particularly since the day the coven shared Selene’s dying memory with me.
The one at my throat pulled away. Turned and hissed.
“What are you doing here in my dreams?” she asked. “I was just about to have some fun with this one. It’s bad enough you push me around while I’m awake. I don’t need you here too!”
She sounded different. Almost like a petulant child upset at getting caught with their hands in the cookie jar. Though in this case it was more like getting caught with claws in the cookie jar.
It was a marked change and even if she was sort of cute she became far less so when she acted like this. She turned back to me and raised a clawed hand.
She didn’t know this was real. Couldn’t know this was real. I didn’t want to tell her it was real, but there was a good chance this one was about to do something that might kill me without realizing it. Tears ran down my face and the salt mixed with the cut on my cheek adding to the pain.
The other one was there in a flash. She grabbed the new vampire’s wrist and pulled. The new vampire slammed into a tree, had a moment to look surprised, then faded away as she was pulled out of the dream.
Leaving me alone with the one who killed Selene. The confusion on her face made it clear that she was just as perplexed about being here as I was.
“Why would I dream about her of all people, and what are you doing here of all places?” she asked.
My breathing picked up. Here of all places? That sounded like she’d seen me before. Impossible, but if I’d dreamed about her before and suddenly it turned out she was real and not some passing fancy my dreaming mind made up…
I reminded myself, again, that this was the vampire who killed Selene. The girl who took my best friend from me. Who snuffed the life out of her.
I should want nothing to do with her even if her gaze was so intense. So inviting. It drew me in.
“Of course if this is just a dream then I suppose I should enjoy myself,” she muttered. “Even if the surroundings are less than ideal…”
This was more like what I was used to. I blushed even as the same familiar fire bloomed in me. Even as I thought of all the things I wanted to do with her.
“You are beautiful,” she said. “Do you know that? I don’t normally say that to a human, but if this is all a dream then why not? Who else can I be honest with if not my dream girl?”
Her dream girl. What did that mean? I opened my mouth to ask, but something stopped me. The feel of her pressed against me. The smell of her breath. The way she looked at me.
It all rolled together and I figured it was safe enough if this was a dream, right? Sure there was that voice in the back of my head screaming that dangerous things could happen in dreams, that dangerous things were happening in this dream, but I ignored it.
This might be dangerous, but not too dangerous. Not if she wasn’t trying to kill me. Why not
indulge a little?
Besides, this was familiar territory. This I was used to. This dream had gone here often enough since I grew old enough to take an interest in the dating and mating game, after all, for all that it turned out my interest was in the ladies and not the gentlemen like so many other friends had discovered.
She leaned in close and inhaled. Her breath let out hot against my neck and for a panicked moment I worried she might try to bite me after all.
Could you be turned in your dream? I didn’t know, and I didn’t want to find out the hard way. I didn’t want to step out into the sun in the morning and discover I’d become a nightwalker as I was set on fire by the sun blazing overhead.
But she moved away from my neck. Moved around to the front and her eyes were like hypnotic orbs reflecting the dream moon overhead.
I closed my eyes as she moved in. I knew what was about to happen. It had never happened to me before in real life, but it was familiar in this dream.
I shouldn’t be doing this. I should be using this opportunity to try and get information out of her. She thought this was a dream, she was being far more free than she probably would if we met in person, and yet I couldn’t bring myself to waste this opportunity.
Her lips pressed against mine and a fire ignited all over my body. I shivered and shook as the fire consume me. Her kiss was insistent. She smiled and laughed as she pressed her lips against mine.
The kiss was wonderful. Amazing. Everything I’d dreamed of for my first kiss, and then it was over as my eyes fluttered and I found myself staring at the ceiling of an unfamiliar room with a familiar snoring coming from one side and unfamiliar city noises coming from the other side of a window.
I blinked a couple of times in the darkness. Everything was in shades of grey as my eyes adjusted.
A hotel. Of course. We were in a hotel because tomorrow I’d be moving into the dorms and I’d wanted to get there early so I’d have a chance to check the place out without my roommate bothering me.
The snoring came from my dad. He slept with mom the next bed over. Bless that woman for putting up with that snoring for so many years. I wouldn’t have been able to stand it without earplugs.