Chapter 10:

It didn't take too long for them to show up. They walked towards the house synchronised with their bow and arrows drawn on us. All the men were at least thirty or older, not one of them unexperienced in what they were about to get them self into. I look down the line on both sides off me. My friends were all going to die because I came here; I should off left before it got this far out of control. I would stop this before anybody gets hurt.

I walked forward and motioned for everybody to stay where they were. Alex's father approached me with his weapon drawn. I took in a deep breath then said, "I'll go with you as long as you promise nobody else gets hurt."

I heard somebody try to say something but Phillip knew what I would be doing I've had to do it once before but this time I meant it. Instead of tricking the hunters then killing them I am now willing to risk my life to save everybody else's.

Alex's father thought it through then motioned for me to walk into the group of hunters in front of him. I did as he said, but once I was in front of them I turned to face everybody else. I took another deep breath.

"Look after each other and try to keep out of trouble." I turned to look at Alex who was being held back by Phillip. "I love you." I felt a tear roll down my face.

This would be the last time I would ever saw him. He was wrestling against Phillip. Eventually he hit him in the groin which dropped him to the ground and he ran towards me. As he approached the hunters began to raise their weapons aiming for him. His father ordered them to lower their weapons they did once he said that he was human.

When he finally reached me he threw his arms around me and whispered into my ear that, "I love you more."

I smiled trying not to cry. He kissed me tenderly, more tender then he ever has before. More tender then anybody has kissed me, and then he took a step back and looked at his father.

"The minute you kill her consider me no longer your son."

"I'm doing my job; she is a monster and needs to be destroyed."

"I don't care. I'm sick of your excuses. If you kill her I am no longer part of your life. I will never acknowledge you as my father. From this point on I have no father."

"If that is the way you want it to be."

"It's not the way I want it to be. I want to live a normal life with the person I love. But either you or your men are going to kill her. Doesn't what she just did show you that she is completely different. She is willing to give up her own life to protect her friends."

"She has done that before. The last time I caught her she was willing to give up her life to stop me fighting with you but it doesn't change anything. She is a vampire; my job is to kill her."

"Fine, then kill her. I really don't care anymore I have no life without her if you're going to kill her you might as well kill me too."

His father turned to me and said, "Did you use your mind control powers to get him to do this? To say these things."

"I've never used any off my power on him. I would never have too. I don't use my powers unless essential, life or death situations."

He turned back to his son and said, "Go back to your friends we are taking her with us. You never know she might not be a monster and we might let her go free."

"Might let her go free so even if she isn't a bad vampire you're still planning to kill her," Alex had a pained look across him face.

"I'm doing my job. I don't have a choice."

"Fine then I'm going to do something before you take her with you."

Alex pulled out a small necklace out of his pocket. It was a thin gold necklace with a golden love heart pendant. His father's face turned bright red. He grabbed Alex's hand and tried to stop him from giving the necklace to me.

Alex looked at me and said, "My family has a very long tradition. When a male child is born they are given a golden necklace with a love heart pendant on it to represent their heart."

Now I could understand why his father was mad. Alex was giving me his heart in some way or another. Alex pushed his father away and leaned towards me and placed the necklace around my neck.

Tears started to stream down my face. Alex wiped them away then kissed me again before he turned around and walked back to the house with the others.

As he walked away he yelled that, "I love you Rachel Morgan and I always will."

He called me by my real name. Nobody has called me by my real name since I was human, except for Marcus. I looked at him walk away for a short while until his father pushed me forward. I walked on without worrying about what was about to come. I just kept looking at the small love heart pendant around my neck.

Eventually we came upon a minivan hidden behind the trees. I was pushed into the minivan. Once I was in the minivan one of the hunters bonded my hands with silver chains they began to burn which only mean one thing. They were blessed, which meant that one of the hunters would either kill me or I'll die because the silver chains will make my body disintegrate slowly and painfully.

Alex's father kept looking at me as if he were going to kill me. He kept eyeing the necklace around my neck. Eventually the necklace got to him and he yanked in off of my neck and put it in his pocket. I could see that he broke the clip yanking it off of my neck. When I get it back if i get it back I'm going to have to get it fixed.

The ride was long, quiet and painful. It was as if the drive hit every bump he could find. I wasn't exactly sure where we were going because every time I tried to look out the window one of the hunters would raise his crossbow as if it were a warning.

I tried to think of anything that would keep my mind off of what the hunters were planning to do to me. Usually they would shoot me and it would be over but they wanted something specifically from me. I thought of Alex for most of the drive but it made me feel really bad. He was the first guy I truly ever loved and I've left him to save my friends. I couldn't off just leave them to defend them self.

One of the hunters kept looking me up and down as if he were checking me out or something. I didn't really care until he tried to get a feel and I broke his hand. Alex's father slapped me across the face and then tightened the hold on my chains.

Eventually the minivan stopped and somebody opened the door. Alex's father pulled me by the chains out of the door then pushed me through a door into a big large white room. The room had no decorations just a metal table and a tonne of metal surgery tools. Great they were planning to chop me up and have a look inside.

One of the hunters pushed me onto the table while another chained my feet to the end of the table and Alex's father chained my hand to the top of the table. Somebody turned off the normal light and turned on a slightly duller blue light. Blue wasn't a good colour for vampires. Blue is the colour of cold and it shows our true features, the slight glitter of our skins.

Eventually a guy dressed in a white doctor's coat came through a door at the other end of the room. Everybody smiled at him then left the room except for Alex's father he told the doctor that, "I want to stay and watch if that's alright. She needs to be punished she turned my own son against me."

I shouted, "You turned your son against you yourself he hates you and it has nothing to do with me. You were too busy for him and his mother. You even missed her funeral because you were chasing down vampires."

He walked over and slapped me across the face before putting a piece of material in my mouth to shut me up.

The doctor examined his equipment before he turned to examine me. He looked me up and down just like the hunter in the minivan did the only difference now is that I can't do anything to stop him from touching me.

He grabbed something off of his table and I had no idea what it was until he began to cut my clothes off of me. He quickly cut my top up and threw it in a bin next to the table holding his equipment. He cut up all of my clothes and tossed them into the bin.

I lay on the metal table wearing nothing and everybody can see everything. The blue just made it easier to see me. The glittering skin is almost like a torch in a room that is barely lit by the lights coming through the windows from the street. Everything was on show.

Then the doctor looked at me with an evil look on his face before he reached for a scalpel. If I weren't scared before now I was terrified. Alex's father saw my distress and started to smile. I just wish all this would end but I doubt they would let me live after Alex's show off affection. His father was mad about that; he wouldn't let me forget that too easily.

The doctor began to cut into my lower abdomen. It didn't hurt at first, but I knew it was only the beginning of his little experiment. The main thing that hurt at the moment is the chains that bind my legs and arms. They were beginning to disintegrate my skin and it was stinging.

I closed my eyes and tried to remember make-out hill, just sitting there with Alex's arms wrapped around me. I would give anything to be back there in that moment with him. I wanted to be there so bad that I thought I heard him yelling my name. I could feel the tears running down my face onto the metal table below me just wishing to be back there with him, in his protective embrace, without a care in the world.

All of a sudden I could hear people filling into the room, with panic and stress in their voices.

"They're coming for her. There are more then there were at the centre."

I opened my eyes to see all the hunters bracing the door. Someone was trying to push through the doors to get to me. The doctor looked directly at me then at the hunters.

"Keep them out of here. I've barely started. We aren't going to know the full potential off her talents without these types of experiments."

It was true they know I'm the Vampire Queen and they know that I have talents above everybody else. The only thing they don't know is that I have no idea how to use most of them. I was only taught a few before my trainer and I was attacked. The trainers named me and said that they would hold the hunters off while I got out of there. I was never fully trained. I still don't know about all of my talents and I didn't really want to know. I was trying to train Rachael the parts I knew, which was basically how to persuade somebody to do what you want them to do and how to solve things without fighting.

As I looked around the room every single person that stood in this room were scared as hell. And I could see why, the windows were crowded with vampires I knew and some I had no idea who they were. They were all risking their existence for a person that was made to rule and lead them to a better life.

I took a deep breath and concentrated when the doctor pushed a long metal hook inside my stomach that was what did for me. I lifted my hands so fast that I didn't realise the chains had broken when my hand collided with his throat before I knew it his wind pipe was crashed. I removed the material from my mouth.

The hunter's turned towards me with their bow and arrows facing me. I lifted my legs and the chains snapped almost automatically. I jumped to my feet. I still had chains attached to my hands and legs but I was no longer tied down to the cold metal bed.

One of the hunters shot his arrow towards me and I caught it in my hand before I snapped it into two pieces and dropped it onto the ground. All the hunters looked at me in shear horror. I would off have the same look on my face if I had a chance to think about it. Before I had a chance the windows started to break as the vampires outside pushed up against them.

I looked down and realised that I was standing there stark naked. One of the hunters grabbed me and tried to stake me. I bite his hand and kicked him towards the other side off the room. More and more hunters tried to attack me and ended up either getting beaten up or hitting a wall.

Eventually the others got through the door. Ryan, Marika, Phillip and Alex all ran towards me. Before they reached me they were attacked either side off them. Ryan and Phillip handled most of them. Marika took out a few then that just left Alex towards me.

I looked directly at him and almost forgot everything that was going on around me. He smiled at me and tried his best to concentrate on my eyes considering I'm standing here fully nude.

Just before he reached me his father grabbed me by the hair and began to pull me away from the others into a back room. He quickly closed the door, and pushed a cardboard in front of it.

"What are you doing?" I said in a calm but very annoyed voice.

"Shut up." He was starting to get angry.

"You're angry because Alex doesn't care about your reason. He believes the opposite what you tell everybody. He believes not all vampires are evil just like not all humans are evil."

"I told you to shut up."

"You can't boss me around. I am no longer chained; I can kill you in a blink of an eye."

"Then why don't you do it?"

"Even though Alex hates your guts, I'm not going to be the one to kill you I'll leave that to natural causes or another vampire."

"What you scared if you kill me he will no longer be under your control."

"Alex has never been under my control."

All of a sudden the cardboard fell over and the door burst open. Ryan and Phillip walked straight past me and grabbed Alex's dad by the arms and were preparing to pull him from limb to limb.

"Ryan, Phillip don't."

Ryan turned to me and said, "Why not?"

"Because I said so."

Alex handed me his shirt. I put it on and grabbed his hand. He squeezed mine then leaned down and kissed me. Ryan and Phillip made a gagging sound. Marika was about to tear us apart but before she had the chance I felt myself being picked up and pushed up against a wall.

I opened my eyes to see Marcus standing there. "Kissing humans now, no wonder you said no to marry me."

"Fuck you."

"Don't be like that sweetie. Yet again you are very over dressed for what I have planned for you." He pulled the top of my shirt open and looked down.

I hit him in the groin then swung him around so that he was pressed against the wall. I moved really close so that my mouth was almost on his and just before I kissed him I swung my head around so that my mouth was at his throat.

"I'm sorry to have to do this Marcus but you leave me no choice." I bite down and my mouth started to fill with blood. He screamed so loudly that I almost had to cover my ears.

I pushed him away from me and one of Phillip's friends finished him off while I spat the blood out of my mouth.