Authors Note:I'm back everyone and with a brand new, LONG chapter! You get to learn more about MT's Vamps and about the Harper Coven as well in this chapter. Anyways, thank you all so very much for a awesome reviews from the last chapter. I got a ton of hits for the last post and so I thank you all who are reading this--even if your one of those silent readers. So this chapter is long but I hope you all enjoy it. There's a ton of info but I hope you all still enjoy it. Now all you have to do is review and maybe you'll get a faster update. Again, if you have any thoughts or ideas for future chapters--I'm open to ideas. I have until Chapter Twenty mapped out but I love listening to others ideas as well. :) You will be credited as well. Anyways, I'll stop rambling. One with it :)

- RiP.


PLAYLIST:

Bring Me To Life

by

Evanescence


Chapter Eight – Bring Me To Life

Amber POV

Just when I thought that the pain and that fire that was pulsing in me could not get any worse, it tripled to an almost unbearable magnitude. It hurt so much that I was having convulsions from the severe pain that I was in. I was twisting and turning on the soft bed to try and get away from the pain but nothing I could do would make the pain go away. I was probably making the pain worse by moving around but at that moment I really did not care.

Suddenly, as if it was a gift from god in heaven, the pain just stopped and I felt myself coming to an uneasy peace. The first thing I noticed after the pain went away was little whispers filling my head, sounding as if there were seven or more people in the room talking at once about completely random things. But the thing was, I just couldn't make out what they were saying, it was as if everything was muffled by a glass wall or something of that sort.

After lying still for a moment, trying to rid the voices from my head with no use, I opened my eyes to look around me. I was able to ignore the voices as I took everything in. Everything was in a striking icy clear focus. I was confused, I did not recognize anything. All I knew was that I defiantly was not in the woods anymore. From where I lay, staring up at the ceiling, which I noted was a light cream color with a thick white molding surrounding it, there right in the center of it was a small gold and white chandelier. I felt my eyes widened as I looked around. I was in a circular shaped large and lavish bedroom with beige colored walls. There were two small windows in the room with soft silk white curtains over them. Right across from me was a small sitting area with two stark white chairs and a light green couch. I was on a comfortable king sized dark brown framed bed with cream and light green silk sheets. As I was looking down at the sheets I looked down at my own clothes. I was still in the same clothes that I had been in the first day we had gone camping. They were blood splattered and torn and extremely uncomfortable. They didn't fit right for some odd reason.

The strangest thing though, was that there was no one else in the room besides myself and a beautiful woman with strikingly bright indigo colored eyes. I looked up at her and met her bright gaze. She was a complete mess—her hair was disheveled, her clothes were ripped, there was dried blood splattered onto them and she was starting to get purple bruise-like bags beneath her eyes that were just a few shades darker than her eye color but none of that changed that fact that she was extraordinarily beautiful. As I looked at her the name 'Grace' registered in my brain as if I knew her.

And as soon as I thought that small sentence, everything came back to me in a rush. The red eyes in the woods, the blurs, Shay believing me, sitting at the campfire when Olivia cut her finger, the red eyed vampires attacking us, the man throwing me backwards, him biting me, the bubble that surrounded me, Grace and Lester saving us and then carrying us, not seeing Brie—everything, it all came back.

The only thing that was different was Grace's face didn't hold the hardness that it had when I had first seen her. Now her face was serene, yet her eyes were slightly troubled. 'I wonder why that is?' I thought to myself.

"Hello." I told Grace shyly after I was able to sort through all the blurry memories that were currently wracking my brain. As I spoke to her though, I could feel my eyes widen slightly at my voice, had it always been so melodious?

To my surprise, the beautiful eyed woman offered me a warm smile, "Hello darling." She said pleasantly.

"What am I doing here? How did I get here? Oh my god! What happened to my friends?" I asked in terror. I didn't see any of my friends as I looked around.

The woman laughed, "My name is Grace Harper. As you have probably already figured out by now, I am Lester's wife. As for where you are, you and your friends are at our house. And why you are here—well, we had to take you somewhere away from those bloodthirsty vampires that attacked you." She told me.

I was confused, "But aren't you a vampire too? You look like the vampires that came from the woods." I told her.

"Yes I am a vampire." Grace answered.

"Then why did you save us? Why aren't you trying to kill me yourself? I mean you are a vampire and vampires do drink blood. Why are your eyes different then the other vampires? And you never told me where my friends are!" I said at a very surprising speed.

"You ask so many questions." Grace said with a giggle. "But that is okay. I am a special type of vampire—I don't like to drink human blood because like you I was changed against my will. After that I promised that I would never drink human blood. Lester, and our son Jeremy Harper are the same way as I am. Instead of drinking human blood we only drink blood from animals. That is why our eyes are violet instead of red like the human drinking vampires that attacked you. If you drink animal blood like us you will get violet eyes too in about a year after all your human blood is out of your system. Of course, after you hit your one year mark you will gain the ability to change your eye color back to you human eye color, which is why Lester's eyes were always grey to you. Around us, his eyes are always purple." She explained. "And Lester and I saved you because you are all so young and you don't deserve to die like so many of you do every single day. Plus I think Lester has taken a liking to you and your friends."

"Why didn't Lester tell us he was a—a vampire." I stuttered slightly.

Grace smiled sadly, "We are not supposed to let humans know what we are. It's sort of an unspoken rule that humans aren't the know about the supernatural that walk the earth with them. It would cause mass hysteria and throw everything off balance if they knew. Think back to the witch trials and vampire hunts of the 1600's. It was a mess." She said. "Of course, Lester wanted to tell you but Jeremy and I discourage him, and explained to him that it was best if you didn't know that he was a vampire. But now, given the circumstance, we figured it was best to tell you."

"And my friends?" I asked impatiently. I had asked three times where my friends were and I still had yet to get an answer from Grace.

I noticed her eyes turned sad, "Your friend Shay is already awake from her transformation and is currently with Lester and Jeremy. Lester is trying to figure out how she can not be thirsty. Your other three friends are still undergoing the transformation. You are the second to awaken." She told me.

I was confused. What transformation? But something else just didn't sound right, "What do you mean by three, if I'm the second to awake then what happened to my sixth friend?" I asked.

At this I noticed a small spark of sadness appear in her eyes. Grace looked completely reluctant to tell me but she took in a deep breath of air and spoke in a heartbroken voice, "She—we—we weren't able to get there in time to stop them from killing her. There wasn't anything we could do." She said sadly, looking down at her feet once she finished almost as if she was trying to avoid my reaction.

Everything in my world came to a forceful standstill and an awkward silence hung in the air once she finished. I felt my heart crumble to pieces at her words and it left like everything was closing in on me at once. It was too much—too much to handle at once. I could barely breathe as the weight of everything crushed down upon my shoulders. I shook my head forcefully, almost as if I could make her words go away—as if shaking my head and refusing to believe her words would make then less true.

"You mean th—they died?" I asked. I could feel persistent tears building up behind my eyes, making them irritated. I started to panic when the tears wouldn't fall down my cheeks, no matter how much I wanted them too. Crying always made me feel better—it gave me some sort of release that no amount of screaming and smashing things could do.

"I'm so sorry, we tried but there wasn't anything we could do." Grace told me, interrupting my panic.

"Which friend?" I asked after a few moments. I had noticed during her little speech Grace had used the word, 'her', which automatically out ruled Matt.

She took another deep breath before mumbling out, "Lester said her name was Brie."

At this I lost it, I lost it completely. Loosing any of my friends was hard but Brie—she was my sister in all ways possible. I wrung my hands together a few times and stared at my lap before my shoulder started to shake, my lip quivered and strangled sobbing noises came from my mouth in short gasps. Finally after what seemed like ages I felt a gooey wetness flowing down my cheeks and simultaneously I heard Grace gasp loudly and stare at me in wonder. I looked up at her and saw that her eyes were wide and her jaw was dropped.

'Why is she shocked that I am sobbing over the fact that my best friend is dead?' I wondered.

Grace stuttered for a few moments, her jaw still hanging open, before she finally was able to lift a shaky finger and pointed to my face. Curiously I wiped my fingers across the tears that were now flowing freely down my face but gasped slightly when I noticed that my tears didn't feel right—they didn't feel like water at all. I pulled my hand away in surprise and was shocked by what I saw.

Red blood was staining my fingertips were my tears should have been.

"I'm—I'm crying b—blood!" I exclaimed loudly, shocked by seeing the blood more than being disgusted by it like I most likely should have been.

Grace's jaw snapped shut at my statement and her eyes softened, "I've heard of this happening before but I've never actually experienced it, besides yesterday that is…" she mumbled, more to herself than me. "Only vampires in extreme distress have this happen to them and usually they are older, more experienced vampires."

"What do you mean by that?" I exclaimed. "Crying blood is not under any circumstances normal!"

"It is for vampires." Grace replied.

I froze at her words once more. It seemed like everything that I had heard in the past ten minutes since I had woken up was a bit of a shock. I really needed some time to just think and digest everything that Grace had just told me but it looked like I wasn't going to be getting any of that anytime soon.

"What a minute, are we—are we vampires now?!" I asked Grace after a few moments of rushing through my thoughts.

"I thought that you had been able to figure it out by now, but I guess I was wrong." She chuckled slightly, "But to answer your question, yes you are a vampire."

"How?" I managed to speak out.

"Because those other vampires bit you and all of your friends, and since they were not able to suck all of your blood out thanks to Lester and myself, the venom from the other vampires system flowed through your blood system and the venom finally changed you into one of us since you were still alive. That was the 'fire' you felt while undergoing the change. You are now a vampire." Grace quietly explained to me in a caring voice.

I nodded mutely, not trusting myself to speak right away. After a few moments of awkward silence on both parts, I finally gathered the courage to reply. "Well then what happened to Brie? You said you and Lester were able to stop them before they sucked all of our blood out so why isn't she a vampire?" I asked.

Grace's eyes glazed over slightly with sadness, "That is true but we weren't able to stop the vampire that attacked Brie from killing her in time. She was already completely dead before we stopped them. The vampire who killed Brie killed her before drinking her blood and they drank it quickly. She had no chances of survival. I'm so sorry." Grace explained.

"Oh," was all I could say. I tried not to dwell on the fact that one of my closest friends were now dead and decided to ask more questions about being a 'vampire'. "Well I have another question. You said Lester was asking my friend about why she wasn't thirsty, what do you mean by that?" I asked out of pure curiosity.

"Well when newborn vampires awake from their transformation they need to feed right away. They are supposed to have an unquenchable thirst and they automatically crave blood but neither you are your friend seem to be craving blood yet. Your eyes are still a light red instead of turning blacker from hunger like they should be. That's how we all are but you are your friends are different." She said. "Of course after you feed a few times, you thirst stops and you feed just to keep up your strength. Besides that, most vampires are very demented creatures and get some kind of shear pleasure out of killing and toying with their food. Fear is something that we feed off of as well, blood can keep up strong but fear is what really makes us what we are. But not all of us live like that. Basically, there are three times of vampires. Fear frenzied vampires—like your attacker that feed from humans, civilized vampires—like our coven that feed from animals, and lastly Nomad vampires—vampires who wander and keep to themselves for the most part and feed off of both humans and animals."

"How do you know if you are thirsty or not?" I asked curiously. Some of the things she had said had disturbed me, but I decided to let that go for now. It wasn't something that I wanted to think about.

"Does your throat tickle or feel uncomfortable?" she asked me.

I shook my head, "My throat feels completely normal, just like it did when I wasn't hungry or thirsty for human food when I was human." I told her. "Why do you think that is?"

"That is what we aren't exactly sure of. Lester and Jeremy are trying to figure that out. It isn't impossibly for vampires to not feel the thirst but it defiantly isn't normal either." Grace said.

"Oh, okay." I answered.

Grace smiled at me, "Your name is Amber, correct?"

"Yes, my name is Amber Mason." I said softly.

'Amber.' She murmured slightly but it sounded muffled, like the voices I was hearing when I first awoke. "That is a beautiful name, dear. Why don't you come with me now? We can go find Lester, Jeremy and Shay and then hopefully we can find out why neither of you are thirsty. We can also test you for your power as well." Grace said happily as she almost drug me out of the bed in her excitement.

"My what?" I asked clearly confused.

Grace just laughed and then went on to explain, "Your power, every vampire was once human and when they are changed they usually get some sort of extra power, almost like an extra sense. My power is to block out any vampires power and use it against them. That is why I could block out those other vampires and put a force field around you and your friends to prevent them from getting to you."

As we started to walk away from the circular part of the bedroom I realized that the bedroom I was in extended into a larger room with the same color of walls and flooring that had a small TV, couch, arm chair and a bathroom and closet.

I was curious about something though, "What are Lester and Jeremy's powers?" I asked inquiringly.

"Lester has the power to mooch off of other vampires powers and use them at will. It could be extremely dangerous if it was in the hands of the wrong vampire but Lester would never use his power to harm anyone. Sometimes I find him mooching off my power or Jeremy's power. Now Jeremy's power on the other hand is pretty rare and special as well. He has the power to create an exact replica of anything living or anything inanimate as long as it already exists or has in the near past. He wouldn't be able to create a replica of like George Washington or anything but he could create a replica of someone who has recently past." Grace explained.

"Wow, who would have thought that Lester was a power moocher." I mused lightly with a smirk plastered on my face. "I just hope my power is as cool as your guy's"

Grace frowned slightly, "Not everyone has a special ability, some people will carry over a trait like strength, speed, precision, ignorance, beauty, and the list goes on and on and on. There is always a possibility that you will have a trait like that instead of a special ability." She said. I nodded in understanding and then Grace spoke again, "Although I have a feeling you will have a special ability." She winked at me.

"Do you know if Shay has any powers yet?" I asked.

"Shay hasn't been awake for more than a few hours but we think her power is to interpret and alter emotions. Basically she could take a sad person and send a wave of happiness to them to make them feel better and she will always know what anyone's emotions are. Meaning that all she has to do is look at a person and she will know how they are feeling because according to her she sees with little fuzzy haze around a person that will let her know what they are feeling. It seems like you can't hide your true feelings from her." Grace explained.

"Shay was always good at knowing how a person was feeling, so I guess it isn't much of a surprise that that would be her trait." I laughed as I thought about it. I voiced another question, "I have another question about powers: do you think it has anything to do with the fact that I am hearing muffled voices all around me even though nobody but me and you are standing here?" I asked.

Grace's eyes widened, "What do you mean?" she asked.

"Well, when I first awoke from my change I thought that there were several people in the room because they were all talking about random things at once but I couldn't make out exactly what they were talking about because everything was muffled.

After a few moments of silence, Grace most likely going over and analyzing what I said over in her brain, she spoke, "Amber, I'm not sure exactly what to tell you." She said with a sigh. "I have no idea why you are hearing voices but maybe Lester will know why." After she finished it sounded like she added a muffled, 'I knew she was special,' but I couldn't be sure.

"So being immortal, does that mean we live forever?" I asked Grace, changing the subject once more.

She nodded, "Yes since you will always keep the appearance that you have now—you will always be the same age you were as you were when you change. So if you were changed at twenty, you could really have lived thousands of years but you will always look twenty, no matter how long you live." She told me.

"How old are you?" I couldn't help but ask.

"One hundred and five." She answered with a grin.

I felt my jaw drop, "Are you serious?!" I asked.

"Lester is two hundred years old exactly." Grace giggled.

My jaw that had already been hanging open from Grace's age was now open wider at that thought of Lester's age, "He doesn't look a day over twenty-five." I said sarcastically with a laugh.

"That's because he was changed when twenty-five years old." Grace told me.

"How old were you?" I asked.

"I was only twenty-two years old when I was bitten." She said sadly.

"I'm still fifteen." I muttered sadly under my breath. "I will be fifteen years old for the rest of my entire existence."

Grace smiled sadly at me, "With your vampire body you could pass for a lot older than fifteen. You could probably pass for an eighteen year old if you really wanted too." She reassured me.

I laughed a bitter laugh, "Do you want to know what's really funny?" I asked.

"What?" Grace replied.

"It's Monday night, right?" I asked.

Grace nodded, "Yes."

"What time?" I asked her.

She shrugged, "Last time I checked it was almost 5pm."

I spoke my next words quietly, but I'm sure that she heard anyways, "Today is my sixteenth birthday—September 24th, 1991 at 5:06pm." I mumbled out sadly.

"Then technically you'll be sixteen for the rest of your existence." Grace told me. I gave her a blank look and she continued, "Technically you wouldn't stop aging until the change was complete. Your change finished about twenty minutes ago, now. I don't think it would really matter if you were a couple minutes off. To me, you are sixteen." she said, giving me a smile. "Happy birthday by the way."

"Thanks," I replied with a grin.

That was when I noticed that we had gotten to the end of the hallway we had previously been walking down. The hallway was very light and airy compared to my room. It had a light colored wood floor and creamy white walls with various pictures hung up on the wall. We were now standing at the top of cream carpeted stairs that led down to a larger hallway.

And that wasn't even the whole house. Grace told me that on the first floor there was a fully equipped kitchen even though they didn't really use it since they were vampires plus dining room, living room, a privet study that belonged to Lester and a library filled with all sorts of books that I could read anytime if I was interested. On the second floor there were four bedrooms including the one that I had been in and a bathroom. She also informed me that there was yet another story on the house that had three bedrooms and a media room plus another bathroom. She probably mentioned more rooms but I was too amazed to catch all of them. I didn't understand how nobody had found this house in the woods until them.

"Why do you need such a big house if you only have three people in your coven?" I asked Grace when she finished showing me the second and first floor living rooms and telling me about the rest of the house.

"We found this house when we first moved and I fell in love with it the moment I first saw it. Sure it was huge but for some reason I knew that it would come in handy some day. We defiantly needed the extra space the last few days, with five new vampires staying in the house. Lester and Jeremy actually said that they were thankful that we found this house." Grace said. "You kids are welcome here for as long as you want. We were actually wondering if you wanted to join our coven and you can stay here with us and learn to feed off of the blood of animals. Shay has already accepted our invitation and now we want to ask the rest of you." She told me.

"Of course I want to. I could never hurt a human purposely." I told her.

She smiled, "Good."

We descended down the stairs and entered the first floor living room and then she took me out on the front porch were I saw three people standing outside talking. One I recognized immediately to be Lester, another was a tall blond haired boy with violet eyes who I figured was Jeremy and the last was a short, pale skinned with long silky blonde hair and ruby red eyes. I knew that it was Shay the moment I saw her.

"Hello, Amber is awake I see." Lester said with a smile directed at me.

Shay turned around and even though she had red eyes I would have known it was Shay anywhere. Her facial features were the same except for more defined than before.

She was at my side in an instant and tackling me in a hug that would have probably crushed me to death if I was still human, "Amber!" she squealed with happiness as she hugged me. Her voice had change, it almost sounded like she was singing instead of just talking. "Oh my god, we are vampires and guess what? I have a special ability and we are going to join Lester's coven and live in this completely gorgeous house with Lester, Jeremy and Grace and we—" she said while talking so fast even as a vampire I was having difficultly understanding her.

Behind us I saw Grace and Lester shaking with silent laughter while Jeremy was watching her with an amused expression and love in his eyes. Did he love her?

'Did I miss something?' I wondered.

I tried to get Shay to calm down but she was still babbling along about being vampires, "I know Shay!" I laughed loudly, shutting her up for a moment but I could understand why, my laugh sounded like ringing bells. "Grace told me everything about us being a vampire and everything about what being a vampire means and she explained a lot of things too me. She also told me how we can stay here." I said as I hugged her back, trying to ignore the strange change in my voice.

Shay suddenly stopped jumping, "Did you hear about—" her voice broke off before she got Brie's name out.

"Yeah…" I said quietly.

She hugged me, "I can't believe that those jerks killed her." She mumbled.

"I know…" I replied and I hugged my best friend tightly.

Lester walked up to us then as we pulled apart from our hug. Lester turned to me and then asked, "Amber do you feel an itchiness in the back of your throat? Are you thirsty for blood?" he asked.

I thought a moment again like I had earlier with Grace and shook my head no. I had no feeling to attack or suck the blood out of anything. I could smell something that sticky sweet and it smell delicious but I had no involuntary desire to attack it.

"Shay isn't thirsty either. We thought that bringing you outside would make you smell the animals around you and make you want to attack but no such luck. It doesn't make sense; newborn vampires have to feed right away. There has only been a few cases over the past two thousand years in which vampires were immune to blood all together and now we have two vampires who are." Lester said in frustration.

"I do smell something that is very sweet and it smells so good but I don't feel like I have to have it. I mean I can smell it all around me and if I wanted to I would try and go after it but it isn't anything that is overpowering me or anything." I explained to Lester.

"But you two are newborns; you are supposed to be in a blood wanting frenzy by now!" Jeremy said as he spoke for first time since I had come outside.

"Well there is one theory." Grace said suddenly after being quiet for a while.

"Which is what?" Lester asked his wife.

She answered almost immediately while looking at me and Shay intently, "Well I have heard in some cases that vampires who are younger when they were changed will not be in such a craze for blood but it mainly depends on the personality of that younger person. Both Shay and Amber are under eighteen. It is very possible that that little factor is keeping them from being in a frenzy right now." Grace explained. "But this is just a small theory; it was never actually proven that this is the case. I just heard another coven discussing it."

Lester's eyes lit up, "Well that would explain some things."

"But I was bitten when I was sixteen and I was in a complete frenzy for blood as soon as I woke up." Jeremy said, slightly agitated.

"Like I said," Grace started, "It mostly depends on the personality of the person who was bitten."

"That would make sense, but Shay and Amber need to feed so Jeremy and I can take them right now into the forest to hunt." He then turned to Shay and I. "Even if you aren't thirsty you still need to feed." Lester told us in a stern tone. "You can become very weak if you do not feed often enough when on the animal diet. Animal blood is not as rich as human blood and if you do not feed often enough you can slip up and accidentally kill a human because the scent of their blood is so potent. Since you are newborns you need to feed around once a day or so." He told us. "Grace, can you watch over the remaining three until we get back? We won't go far, call Jeremy's cell phone if any of them wake up before we return."

"Okay, I will keep an eye out on the other three kids. Have fun dears." Grace said before she waltzed back inside.

"Let's go." Lester announced and before any of us could utter a word he took off into the woods, Jeremy not far behind me. Shay and I shrugged and then together took off after them.


So, thoughts? Comments? Ideas? Let me know what you think, even if it's just as small as a smiley face as the review or telling me about my grammar mistakes (which nobody is perfect) There was one word I was unsure of, "proven" is that spelled right? On here the spellchecker said it was wrong, ah well. If you know the answer, you can let me know. :) But I hope you enjoyed it. Next update depends on how many reviews I get!!

1 to 2 reviews: two weeks.

3 reviews: one week.

4 to 6 reviews: I'll update Wednesday.

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More than 11 reviews: I'll update tomorrow :)