I watched helplessly as Tyrone moved his head closer to my throat. A howl rang out in the silence of the night. A Howl, such a familiar sound. Connor, I thought instantly, I knew you wouldn't let me die. Tyrone froze, wide eyed with fear. Both Tyrone and me looked up at the same time. A huge wolf stood on the top of the hill, silhouetted against the full moon. It was like a scene from a horror movie. The huge creature was way too big to be a normal wolf bounded down the hill towards us. It stopped just a few feet away from us. It was a huge black wolf. Oh no. I struggled harder to get out of Tyrone's grip, he didn't even notice I was moving; he was still staring at the huge creature in front of him. His fear turned to anger as I watched, his lips pulled back over his teeth and a low hiss escaped his lips. I saw a flash and the wolf turned back human again. There, only a few feet away from me; stood Francis. The werewolf who was trying to kill me. He must have followed me over here. He stood now, wearing only a pair of baggy jeans. His short Black hair only just reaching his earlobe. His glowing amber eyes alight with enthusiasm. His scar that run over his left eye, his well muscled chest and arms. His deep tanned skin. A handsome boy – a handsome werewolf. He smiled at me.
"Nice to see you again, Helena." He smiled evilly at me. Walking forward.
"Back off, mongrel! This ones mine!" Tyrone shouted at Francis. A low snarling noise escaping through his teeth.
"I had her first." Francis said calmly. "She managed to escape me the first time, it won't happen again. Hand her over, parasite."
"Never." Tyrone snarled and picked me up in his arms. I felt so helpless. Both these creatures were trying to kill me. Werewolf or vampire. No matter who won, I was going to die. Tyrone was standing, holding me close to him and as far away from Francis as possible.
"I'm giving you a chance, hand her over or I kill you both." Francis held out his hand, as his Tyrone could just place me in it and be gone.
Tyrone looked from Francis to me and then back to Francis again. Tyrone started toward Francis, to hand me over.
"Ella!" I heard a familiar voice shout. Oh no, Aiden, no, don't, they'll kill you. Both Francis and Tyrone looked toward the cemetery gate, I followed their gaze. Aiden was walking into the cemetery, looking around desperately trying to find me. Jethro, Courtney and the rest of the prom closely followed him. It was a search party, everyone was looking for me.
"Damn." Francis whispered and ran. Tyrone dropped me and disappeared into the darkness. I felt dizzy. Why had they run? Not that I wasn't glad, but a vampire and a werewolf, scared of two vampires and a group of humans. It just didn't seem right. Jethro spotted me and was by my side in less than a second.
"Ella, are you ok?" he asked, hugging me against his chest. "We were so worried when you didn't come back…" He stopped mid-sentence and sniffed the air. "Aiden." It was no more than a whisper, but Aiden was next to him in less than a second.
"Ella." He said in relief. Falling to his knees next to me and hugging me gently against his cold chest. He'd removed his tie and jacket and was only wearing a thin white shirt and black pants. He sat up swiftly, letting go of me. He sniffed the air and froze.
"Lycan and Rogue." Jethro confirmed, Aiden's eyes widened with fear. I couldn't move I was still paralysed, two vampires sat around me now. I still couldn't believe it. Aiden threw a warning glance at Jethro.
"She already knows." Jethro said in a toneless voice. "But we still have a lot of explaining to do."
Aiden sighed then nodded. Jethro went to pick me up but Aiden glared at him so he let me go and let Aiden carry me.
I lay on the couch in Aiden's living room, a mug of hot chocolate in front of me and a blanket around me. I was still in shock from seeing Francis. I wanted to talk, to tell them I was ok and I didn't need pampering but I couldn't, I couldn't speak from the shock. I couldn't move either. Francis was here. He'd followed me. He was going to kill me.
I could hear Jethro and Aiden arguing in the kitchen, but I couldn't hear exactly what they were saying. I just lay staring at the blank white wall on the other side of the room. Aiden entered the room first and sat down on the couch beside me and put his arm around me. Jethro entered a few seconds later and sat on the couch opposite us.
"How are you feeling?" Aiden asked me, concerned. I couldn't answer, I was willing him to understand I was fine I was just in shock. Jethro sat staring at me.
"She's ok." He said in a toneless voice, still staring at me. "She wishes you to stop asking her. She's just in shock."
My eyes shifted and I stared into the bleakness of his sunglasses. It was like he had read my thoughts. Jethro nodded as I thought that. You're reading my thoughts? I tested to see if he responded. He nodded again. I was even more shocked. How could he do that? Maybe it was a vampire power. I looked away from him and looked back at Aiden.
"So I guess we should explain ourselves." Aiden sighed, I managed to nod slowly.
"We're vampires." Jethro said and then left the rest to Aiden.
"Yes, we are vampires. We are the living-dead," he laughed slightly. "But you can't tell anyone. Not a living soul, otherwise it's death for us." He paused to think how to continue.
"Why don't you let Ella ask us some questions?" Jethro suggested. Aiden looked down at me.
"Can you speak now?" he asked.
"Yes," I croaked. It hurt to speak for some reason.
"Go on then, ask anything you need to know." Aiden said sadly.
"How did you know where I was? And who had been there?" I asked.
"We followed your scent. And we can always smell our own kind and our enemies. We have better senses than you do, we have a very sensitive sense of smell, good eyesight, and so on" He chuckled.
"How did you know it was a werewolf and what's a rogue?" I asked, shivering as I remembered Francis's evil grin and Tyrone's liquid silver glare. Aiden glanced at Jethro and then back to me.
"Rogues are sort of bad vampires, they go against the rules set by the elders. And well, Lycans – sorry – werewolves; have a very distinct, disgusting smell to us. Just like we smell horrible to them too. And we have never gotten on with their kind, we are at war with them in a sense. But the strange thing is we haven't seen one in many years." Aiden's face changed into confusion. "How did you know it was a werewolf?"
I wasn't going to let on that I was in love with a werewolf and I'd spent all of my childhood with werewolves. But I was going to tell the truth about Francis, editing out Connor.
"His name was Francis, he's been after me since I was twelve." I admitted, "I killed one of his pack and when he tried to kill me I hurt him with my silver necklace and ran and he's been after me ever since."
"And how have you managed to stay alive for this long?" Aiden asked, now very concerned.
"I had help, but I really don't want to talk about this now." I said quickly. Aiden nodded.
"Why are you and the werewolves at war?" I asked.
"They have they ability to kill us by just one bite to the throat, for us to kill them it is much more complicated, we have to use silver. It started when werewolves killed all the children in our clans a thousand years ago or so. So we killed their pups and it started a war between us and now we've hated each other ever since." He explained. The whole time Jethro was still staring at me. I asked a few more questions about vampires and managed to find out that they had heightened senses, could run at incredible speeds, had great strength, had to feed on blood to survive, some had other special powers (like Jethro who could read minds). They were in a sense the living dead. They could disappear into shadows and could do a number of other amazing things. There was just one question I needed to ask.
"Aiden, please can I see your eyes?" I asked, I could sit up now and I sat facing him. Aiden looked at Jethro for support, Jethro just nodded. Slowly Aiden removed his sunglasses. I gasped, his face was so unbelievably beautiful. More beautiful than before. His skin was pale and there were dark purple rings under his eyes, but his eyes were a very vivid light green that shimmered in the light. They looked like two gemstones, like two emeralds. He had thick dark lashes that shadowed his eyes when he looked down. He looked at me, as if waiting for me to cringe away from him, but instead I threw my arms around him and held him tight. I was just overjoyed that I'd actually seen his eyes. They were so light, so beautiful, so mesmerising and so unusual. I loved them. He pushed me back gently. I was confused as to why, but I looked into his eyes again and I saw it. The thirst. The green was draining away and I could see the red starting to seep in to his irises. He was restraining from just killing me right now. I shuffled away. "Sorry." I whispered.
"It's not your fault." He replied, getting up and leaving the room. As soon as Aiden left the room, Jethro was next to me. I hadn't even had chance to blink before he was there.
"I'm sorry about reading your mind before, your thoughts were just so strong I couldn't push them away." He explained.
"It's ok." I assured him, then I looked at him again. His sunglasses still guarding his eyes. I really wanted to see his eyes, to see what he really looked like. His whole face. To see the boy behind the sunglasses. Jethro didn't seem too happy to be sat near me at all, I could see him leaning away from me. Why did he hate me so much? Was it because I wasn't a vampire? Wasn't what he was. I felt tears well up in my eyes, I struggled to hold them back.
"Jethro…" I began shyly. "Please can I see your eyes?" I looked at him pleadingly. He hesitated for a moment, then sighed in defeat. He slowly but gently removed his sunglasses and looked at me. I nearly fainted. His eyes were such a mesmerising blue. They were bluer than the sky itself. They also looked like two gemstones, I'd have to say aquamarine described them perfectly, such a light blue and so beautiful. I couldn't look away. "thank you." I whispered as I continued to stare. Under his eyes there were dark purple circles but they weren't as vivid as Aiden's were. And Jethro's lashes were a lot thicker than Aiden's. I leant towards Jethro without thinking and rested my head on his shoulder. He automatically wrapped his arms around me. I sighed, this felt so right, and I felt at home with him. I relaxed in his arms, not aware of anything else but him. There was suddenly a connection between us, like an electric current flowing from him to me and back again. All I wanted to do was kiss him, to touch his face, to hold his hand. To be with him. I had to fight back the urge. I felt his body tense. I looked at him. His eyes were closed and he was holding his breath.
"This is wrong." He whispered. He felt it too. He let go of my and pushed me back. A millisecond before Aiden entered the room. Aiden hadn't seen anything. Jethro used his special power to see when Aiden was about to walk back into the room. Jethro was back on the other side of the room on the couch. Aiden sat next to me and put his arm around me.
"Feeling better?" I asked shyly. The electricity had died when Jethro moved away from me. Now I just felt empty without him.
"Much better." He smiled, kissing my forehead lightly. I was going to have to tell him soon. Tell him everything before he got hurt. I was considering what to say, when I saw Jethro shake his head. He'd read my mind, read how I felt about him. This is wrong, Ella, his voice said in my mind, it startled me for a second. But then he continued, I'm too dangerous for you.
That won't stop me loving you, I thought before I could stop myself. I wished he couldn't read minds, at least I had privacy about my feeling then. His head dropped into his hands. Aiden's eyes quickly flashed to him, "What's wrong, Jethro?" He asked, suddenly concerned about his friend he'd hardly payed any attention to since entering the room again.
"Nothing." Jethro whispered and then left. He was gone before any of us could have said goodbye.
"I hope he's ok." Aiden said more to himself than me.
"Aiden we need to talk." I said quickly, it would be better to get this over with now. I explained all my feelings for Jethro, I explained about Connor (not the werewolf part obviously) and how he'd found someone else. He kept his face composed but his eyes let him down. They were full of pain. I knew I was hurting him, but it was better than hurting him later when he was more attached to me. He agreed to still be friends and tried to smile but his eyes let him down again, still filled with pain.
"Please don't wear your sunglasses anymore." I begged.
"I won't wear them around you, but I have to wear them in public for obvious reasons." He promised. He hugged me gently then took me home.