Chapter four

They talked till it was late in the night before she decided to head to bed. He showed her to her room and she saw that the room was prepare as though he had foreseen this event. It was almost like he had been expecting her to come stay in his house. She walked in and looked around. 

“Were you expecting me? It looks like you are fully prepared to accommodate me” Anna said.

“Well, Mom told me that you might not be returning back to her place tonight so she packed some things for you and I got a rook ready. Guess we could say that she was right”

“Yeah, she always is” Anna said to herself.

“I would leave you to get some rest. You would need it. Goodnight, little one” He said as he left the room and closed the door behind him.

She had a quick shower and headed to bed. For the first time in months, she had a nice sleep. She didn’t even have a bad dream. She woke up and reached for her phone. It was almost ten in the morning. She had slept for so long. She had her bath and headed down for breakfast. She noticed a ring on her finger. It wasn’t hers and she definitely didn’t put it there. Her instincts told her not to remove it and she obeyed.

She got to the dining room and found her brother at the table. He greeted her with a warm smile. She sat beside him and tried to eat but she had no appetite. She picked at her food till she got tired. Alex noticed she wasn’t eating anything so he asked her.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Alex asked her.

“Yeah, I am. I just have zero appetite and I don’t even know why”

“You are a vampire now, things like this would have zero interest but when you find something that would pique your interest, you would drain it dry” he said.

She didn’t understand any of what he just said and she didn’t bother to ask for an explanation. She wasn’t interested to an extent. She grabbed an apple and settled with that. She was busy on her phone when she remembered the ring. She decided to ask if he was the one that had given it to her.

“I was starting to wonder when you would notice” Alex said, smiling at her

“When I would notice? How long has it been there?” Anna asked, surprised.

“Since yesterday and I wasn’t even the one that gave it to you. It’s a gift from Damian” Alex said.

“Damian? I don’t want anything from him. Why would you collect anything from him? After all he did to you?” 

“Well, the enemy isn’t Damian but his father!” Alex said to her.

“Yeah, that sure sounds like the same thing to me” Anna replied.

“Well, Damian is the reason you’re alive. He found you before I even thought of coming over. He saved your life and he did so just in time. You would have died if he hadn’t found you when he did” Alex explained.

She was still unmoved. Damian had called her pathetic in front of a good amount of students. She despised him. She took of the ring which was a mistake. Her skin started to burn and she screamed in pain. Alex sped to the windows and closed all the curtains. She gasped, crying. 

“You really shouldn’t take that off” Alex said as he put the ring back on her finger.

“What the hell was that?” Anna asked, still in pain.

“You would be fine. You heal fast, thanks to your parents. The ring is called the daylight ring. It is supposed to keep you from dying in the sun. You’re a vampire and right now, the first thing that would try to kill you is the sun. The daylight ring is supposed to protect you in the sun” Alex explained.

“But you don’t have one on and you literally stand in the sun” Anna said.

“I am not a vampire. I am a combination of a vampire and a werewolf. That is more than enough protection that is required to keep me alive” Alex said, trying not to brag.

“So you’re what? Hybrid?” she asked, with mockery in her voice.

“Yeah, I am. C’mon, you’re completely healed up. I need to take you somewhere” he said as he got up

He grabbed his jacket and headed out. She followed him but stopped at the door. She was scared to step into the sun. He noticed she wasn’t walking beside him anymore. He looked back and saw her standing inside the house. He walked back and offered his hand. She looked at him and he could tell that she was scared. It must have been so painful.

“Hey, it’s fine. You can come out. I wouldn’t let anything hurt you, I promise” he said

She took his hand and he pulled her into the sun. They walked in the sun. He got into his car and she got in. Alex noticed she used the seatbelt immediately she got in. He smiled to himself. She was brought up in the human’s world. She paid attention to their every rule and it was cute. He pulled out of his house and headed somewhere. 

“Where are we going?” She asked him.

“We are going to a field” Alex replied.

“What are we going to do there?” She asked again.

“We are going to train you” Alex replied her again, this time, without looking at her.

“Train me? What for?” she asked.

“For the future. For yourself. I don’t think I have to answer that question. Once you activate your wolf curse, some very dangerous people would come after you. You are royalty. You have a place in this world and nobody can take that place but that doesn’t mean they wouldn’t try to. Some people are threatened by your existence. They think you’re too powerful to exist. They don’t like our kind and they think we are some kind of threat to them. They would do anything in their power to make sure we don’t stay alive” Alex explained.

“Look, I don’t know what mess you and Mom got yourselves into but I promise you that it’s not my life. I am going to live a quiet and peaceful life. I wouldn’t  go looking for anybody trouble and hopefully, they wouldn’t  come looking for mine” Anna said.

“And you think it works like that? You’re hybrid, Annabelle. Someone somewhere is going to come after you when they learn of your existence. When you activate your wolf curse, thousands of people would feel it. They would automatically know about your existence and they would come for you” 

“Then I wouldn’t activate my wolf curse. It’s that simple” She said.

Alex looked at her and laughed. He didn’t know why he laughed so hard but he did. She was so innocent and so naive. She believed there was another way. She was going to get disappointed pretty soon.

 

“That is almost impossible” Alex said.

“Why?” she said.

“Because it is. Right now, because you are seen around me, you automatically have enemies. Because you’re the daughter of a queen, you have enemies. You wouldn’t have to do anything before somebody somewhere starts to hate you for no good reason. They would come after you and there is no peaceful settlement. You either kill them or they kill you. Your wolf curse can be activated with something as simple as a temporary kill. Once you kill someone temporarily, you have activated your wolf curse. You just have to wait till the next full moon for you to realize it. Once you kill someone, there’s no stopping it” Alex explained.

“Kill temporarily? Is that even a thing?” Anna asked.

“Well, it is. If you snap a vampire’s neck, that’s temporary death. For you to kill a vampire, you have to remove his heart. For you to kill anything, you have to detach it’s heart from it’s body. That’s the only way to make sure that he’s dead without looking back to check. You can always do that the normal way by ramming your fist straight into his chest and pulling his heart out or you can stab him straight to the heart. Either ways, you get the job done” Alex explained.

“What have you done?” Anna asked.

“I have done what I needed to do to survive and you should too. It’s that simple” He said as he drove on. 

“It is not simple” Anna replied.

“Yes it is” He replied.

“Why should any of this concern us? We are hybrids. This shouldn’t even be our business” Anna complained.

“Well it is. We are supposed to rule over these people and right now, our positions have been compromised. We are supposed to fight to get it back and not die in the process” He said.

“Die? I thought hybrids can’t be killed”

“We can apparently. One time there was a very powerful witch. She made some sort of dagger out of magic to kill anybody. It is believed that it can kill anything and anyone, including hybrids. Someone out there has it and is probably waiting for the perfect time to use it. Everybody I know has looked for it and nobody found it. Some even tried to counter the magic and that got them nowhere. The witch who created the dagger was that powerful. She was so powerful that even after she died, her body refused to decay. According to rumors, her body still contains an amount of magic. So we can be killed. That’s why you need to learn how to fight for yourself”

That left Anna speechless. She didn’t know what else to say. It suddenly felt like tebre was nothing to say.

“We are here” He said as he stopped the car and got down.

She got down after he did and they walked a bit. He took off his jacket and tossed it on the grass. He looked at her

“Hit me. Let’s rephrase that. Try to hit me” He said to her

“I wouldn’t do that” Anna said to him

“Why? You’re scared you would hurt me? Nah, you can’t. I am stronger and more experienced than you are so hit me”

She launched at him and he moved out of her way. She fell on her face. 

“Again” he said.

She kept trying and failing. After doing it for hours, she gave up.

“Again!” he said.

“No, I’m done. I am done with this. I can’t do this anymore. I am not a fighter or a warrior. I can’t do this. I want to go home” she said as she turned to leave.

“You can, you just need to be driven by something” Alex said as he removed a pocket knife from his pocket and slit his wrist.

She turned back at the scent of the blood. Her eyes became blood red and she growled at him. She sped towards him and she tried to fight him. This was what he needed, something challenging. He had to admit that she was good for a beginner. It was probably because she was hungry. She was a new vampire and she was supposed to feed on blood for a couple of days. He also knew that she would have issues controlling her hunger. He wasn’t expecting her to be amongst humans for a while but he could guess that she was going to decline his offer of her staying home for a while. She kept fighting and fighting till he got bored. He snapped her neck and she fell to the ground. He picked up his jacket and carried her to the car. He headed home. She still had a long way to go. He knew she was that good at fighting because of the hunger that drove her. The next time she would be fighting someone else, it would be the will to live that would drive her.