The Story of Amara Kuran | Mariah Bryant

Book One, Chapter Twenty-Two

My Mansion Fills

"Kaname, let us in!" Mike banged on the classroom door.

We were soaking wet and in our pajamas. When my brother opened the door, he was a little confused. The students behind him were also in that state. The teacher was a little annoyed.

Kaname stared at the scene: Mike's arm around my waste, me clinging to him, hardly able to stand. I was too weak to even smile at my kin.

"Shiki has escaped from his confinements, and he is in a rage. We need to leave, now." Mike told him urgently.

"That was soon." Kaname blinked. "Come in, quickly." Kaname moved out of the way. Kain was already running his chair down to the first level. "Ruka, would you run get her some blood?"

Ruka nodded, and leaped out of her seat. While Mike helped me inside she ran out into the hallway and beyond. With Kain's help, Mike sat me down in his chair. There, I let my eyelids drift downward.

"It is a good thing she found you, Mike. How did she?" Ichijo asked. He had left his chair to hover around us.

"She came and found me because she was feeling warnings, then it hit her like the day in the Night Clan Great Hall." Mike lied.

"Should I get Headmaster?" the teacher, Hattori-sensei, asked.

"It would be nice." Kaname responded.

Hattori-sensei nodded and picked up the phone at his desk.

In my haze, going back and forth between consciousness and blackness, I searched for Mike's face. I saw his pajamas out of the corner of my eye, but could not exactly get my eyes to obey me. I loathed being a damsel.

"Are you alright?" Mike asked, moving so that he was looking me in the eyes. Worried, he turned to Kaname. "She would not die from this, right?" Things then went black again.

The next thing I knew I smelled blood. I knew I had to pry my eyes open so that my brother would not have to feed me again. Though I tried, it was difficult. In the end I opened them long enough to see the cup, then forced all of my energy to my hands and I took the cup and drank. My consciousness rebuilt quickly.

"I really despise when that happens." I grumbled.

"Yeah, I am beginning to despise it, too." Kaname said.

I sighed. "Shiki is one scary vampyre."

Mike laughed. "I was hoping I was not the only one who noticed."

I grinned at him shyly, then looked back at Kaname. "This is awkward." I confided. "I am sorry about the bad timing."

"It is not a problem." Kaname said. "Everyone here is with you."

I felt a wave of sorrow come from someone behind me. I slowly stood and turned. Mike moved out of my way so that I could approach the source of the strong emotion. Everyone watched the girl adorned in nightclothes closely. The source was a blank-faced girl sitting at her desk.

"Yes?" she asked.

"Rima, are you with me?"

"I am. I want Senri back." she assured me, but her voice was hard and fierce and determined.

I smiled.

"I know it is going to be difficult." Rima said. "I will not abide by it if Senri's body is hurt."

"I understand. I will not, either. Fortunately, Shiki is not one to risk dying."

"Yes."

Just then, Kaien raced into the room. "Amara! I heard you passed out! Are you okay now?"

"I am fine," I smiled. "Thank you for your concern."

"You saw Shiki escape? Where is he going?"

I grinned. "Here, of course, following building up his army. Which is why we need to leave tonight."

Everyone in the Night Class jumped to get ready. They swarmed back to their rooms and packed the necessary items, including only what clothes they would obviously need. We rented a charter bus (yes, at that time of night . . . the Night Class was very famous) and loaded even the vampyre teachers onto it. I saw that the students were all very ready for the challenge I presented to them. I had ever had anything less to live with. I never lived what normal vampyre teens lived. I was truthfully much younger than them. But I saw that they really believed that there was no better path. However, they did not join me recklessly. They had thought it over. All were wise, mature people.

Vampyres: I thought they were cruel and heartless beings; I saw that wisdom was one of their props. Especially this young group. What was the difference between them and their parents?

Vampyre history, that is what. These teens were not going to let it repeat itself.

They had come to Cross Academy for a reason: to follow my brother.

Kaname was going to stay behind to wait until Yuki and Zero had awoken. He would bring them then. Kaien would also come then, leaving the school in the care of the Day Class teachers. I would go on with Mike and the Night Class students to the mansion.

Each student had called his or her parents (if they knew that they were pacifists) and explained to them what was going on. Some adults were planning on coming to the mansion and were prepared to fight. Kaien had contacted the President of the vampyre hunter society, and she was going to put together a team to protect the school as well as send some to join us at the mansion. Those coming to the mansion would be bringing plenty of vampyre hunter guns.

The number of assassins Shiki had under his control was unknown, but bound to be numerous. It would take him two weeks to have everything ready, but he would not be too careful and dilly-dally because he knew that any moment the Assassins of the Senate would pick up his trail. I did not urge anyone to rush, and I wanted them to be precise. I knew what Shiki was doing. I wanted to make sure that we were a step ahead.

Mike was amazed by the Kuran mansion . . . mystified by it. Both and night and during the day we went outside and walked amongst the overgrown flowers. I showed him more and more rooms and told him about what used to happen inside of them. We turned into mostly-nocturnal creatures. I could not wait for the war to end. Then Mike and I would live in the mansion for the rest of our lives. I was sure of it.

Some adults did come. The Aidos, Ichio, and the Kains worked with the senate to build an army of assassins before they arrived. The vampyre hunters were stationed three days before due at the school, and the ones that brought us guns arrived a week in advance.

No one was allowed in the master bedroom or the library and there was no way to accommodate even one teenager in my nursery. Kaname and Ichijo paired up in his old room, with Kain on the couch. This was for no reason except that they were really good friends and Kaname, not knowing the things that made me paler with each passing day, wanted to think that he was planning battle strategies with them. Many people paired up for no reason except for emotions, such as Ruka and Rima. Mike and I shared a room rather secretively. There were luxurious rooms like ours and there were rooms in servants' quarters that had not been used in fourteen years (yes, some moved out at my birth.) People like Ichio, Kaien, Aido's parents, his aunt and uncle, Hattori-sensei and every vampyre hunter got fancy rooms like ours, also, being as they were older (at least in a sense) than the teenage students.

Having been the ruling family at one point, our mansion did have enough rooms to accommodate everyone.

Even a huge castle such as ours would not house as many antsy people as there were. Time was drawing near. I was getting really scared for Mike, and tension between my brother and me was growing.

"I think we should send Yuki and Mike to the school." Kaname told me one beautiful twilight, dragging me out of the house to the garden so that we could speak in private.

"Agreed." I allowed, but Kaname saw that there was something I was not saying.

"What is it?" Kaname asked harshly, for he was the same as me in that we did not mess around when it came to the ones we loved.

"How can you refuse her this opportunity to learn of her abilities? My brother, she is so gifted! She is suffering, not being able to know her true potential."

"I know that. Of course I know that. But this is not the right time."

"It is time." I said before I knew what I was saying, then every muscle in my body squeezed as if cramping up, and I sucked in air for a long time until it eased up.

Kaname was staring at me in horror. "Amara, tell me what happens to my Yuki."

I grinned. He knew I could not. "They both are horribly gifted, Kaname. There is nothing that neither you nor I can do to stop them from standing beside us."

"Yuki is different from Mike." Kaname growled. "Even skilled vampyre hunters fall when faced with purebloods."

"That is not all that she will be." Though I was smiling, I spoke through gritted teeth as my stomach and lungs compressed themselves.

Kaname shook his head. He was so furious he did not know what to do. He knew it was not me he was angry at, and he longed to be angry at something. In a flourish he whirled around and stomped back to the mansion, leaving me in the garden.

***

"Does it bother you are much as it bothers me?" Yuki asked Mike after dragging him to the window to gaze upon the Kuran siblings as they quarreled in the garden that twilight.

"Yes." Mike admitted.

"You know they are fighting over us."

"Yes."

Yuki turned to Mike from the window. "Do you think Amara feels threatened by me somehow?"

"No. Why?"

Yuki shrugged. "She looks like she likes me, but it is almost like she is keeping a distance from me on purpose. There is something apprehensive in her eyes when she looks at me."

"She is just giving you and Kaname space, probably. She knows things about people that they don't even know." Mike assured her.

"Kaname is the same way with you." Yuki pointed out.

Mike grinned slightly. "I know."

"Doesn't it bother you?"

"Not really. Kaname and Amara are very strange creatures, the only of their kinds. Everything they do has a double meaning. You and I will find out why they do the things they do in time."

"I don't like waiting." Yuki sighed. "And I don't like seeing Kaname this way. He is so serious. Even around me, now. He used to be more carefree and happy, if only with me."

"These are serious times."

"I don't want to go to the school." Yuki said defiantly.

"Neither do I. We won't go. But this is way above our heads. Kaname and Amara know things we don't."

"I know. And I'm scared. But they think we can't handle whatever is coming: they're wrong. I'll stick by him no matter what. I trust him." Yuki clenched her fists, staring determinedly out of the window as Kaname approached the house.

Mike sighed. "I feel the same."