Blood Hunter (The Grandor Descendant Series) (22 page)

“Well, when do we start?” she asked finally.

Chapter 11 – Blood Candy

One full month passed before Ari had an opportunity to practice controlling her powers with Chris. What with the extra study she’d had to take on to keep up with fourth year vet, as well as finding a time that Ragon wouldn’t be suspicious about her absence, it wasn’t until half way through February when she and Chris were finally able to set aside a Saturday to get together. Though she was looking forward to the practice session with Chris, she was also nervous about anyone seeing them together, or more specifically, she was nervous about what would happen if Clyde saw them. She had tried repeatedly to tell Clyde that what he had seen outside of Omega Halls had been nothing; that she had been going to see Ragon, when Chris had been doing the ‘walk of shame’ back from some girl’s dorm, and that Ari had only run into him. Though Clyde appeared indifferent when she had explained all of this, there was something suspicious about the way he had been avoiding her for the past month, which made Ari certain he didn’t believe her. She tried to ignore the glowering looks he shot at her whenever they was around Ragon, constantly telling herself that she had nothing to feel guilty about- at least not in the way that Clyde thought.

She still had not told anyone that Chris was a wraith. She knew that she ought to feel guilty for keeping this from Ragon, but she kept flashing back to when he’d attacked Chris, simply for helping her clean up her room. She didn’t want to imagine how Ragon would react, if he found out that his girlfriend was hanging out with a wraith, let alone a wraith that knew about what she could do and was trying to help her get control over her powers. She was certain that Ragon wouldn’t try to use Chris, the way that Chris feared, for his wraith magic, but she was confident that Ragon would tell Ari that she wasn’t to be friends with him anymore. And it wasn’t just that she didn’t want to lose Chris’s friendship; she was also hopeful that he would be able to help her learn to control her gifts. After all, Chris had been through something similar himself. Besides, the coven weren’t any closer to finding out anything about the Grandor legend or Mary Grandor in the vampire library.

As a way of trying to convince herself that keeping Chris’s secret was the right thing to do, Ari kept recalling the way Chris had said that he’d rather leave behind everything he had worked so hard, rather than allow vampires to know what he could do, and use him for it. And Ari defiantly could sympathise with him. It was, after all, because of vampires that she’d had to leave her studies and normal life behind, and go on the run. She would not wish that on anyone, least of all Chris.   

“So what’s the plan for today?” said Ari, as the pair left Omega halls and made their way towards the forest at the end of Delta, deciding that the ‘Three Prong Trek’ would be the best place to conceal their activities for the day.

“I was thinking we spend the day trying to get you to use your powers as much as possible, and then at 5pm we have to go to the campus bar to meet Lisa and Rick,” Chris added, saying this last part as fast as possible.

“What, why?”

“Because if you don’t practice, you will never learn,” said Chris, purposefully avoiding mention of Lisa or Rick.

“I meant, how come we have to meet up with Lisa and Rick?”

“Because it is the first day of the holidays and that’s what people do when they are friends and have finished their exams. They hang out together. Besides, this is like the only day we get to celebrate. We have that stupid parasitology exam on Thursday, which is ridiculous because it is supposed to be a mid-sem break. If you ask me, Dr Jones is a bit of a parasite himself, setting an exam in the middle of our holidays. But there is no avoiding it. So we’re going to have to study for that for the rest of the week. We might at least enjoy a night off.”

Ari’s eyes narrowed and she said, “I thought you and Lisa were more than friends.”

“What gave it away? Was it the BFF broken heart necklaces that we gave each other,” said Chris laughing, “or the shirts with each other’s faces?”

Ari smiled but at the same time felt a pang of irritation… or was it jealousy? What on earth did Chris see in Lisa?

“What’s wrong?” said Chris, watching as Ari kicked away a stone that was in her path.

“I just don’t know what you see in Lisa.”

“Seriously?” said Chris, stopping dead in his tracks. “There are so many things wrong with what you just said… I don’t know where to begin. First off, Lisa and I aren’t together. I was being sarcastic; did you actually think that we had shirts with each other’s faces on it? You clearly don’t know me very well at all. Secondly, you are dating a vampire… as in a person who feeds on blood. I know Lisa can be a bit of a cow… but come on.”

“Please don’t start.”

“Ok, ok, just saying. What gave you the idea that we were dating, anyhow?” asked Chris.

“Well she is a bit obsessed with you; that and the fact that she said you two were together… or at least sleeping together.”

“Huh?” asked Chris, sounding confused.

“I was talking to Rick and Lisa the other day during prac. Rick said that you were seen doing the walk of shame from Delta and then Lisa sort of implied that you had been with her.”

For a moment Chris looked confused, but then his face lightened and he broke into laughter.   

“Yea, after I found you in the forest and we got attacked by that vamp bitch, I was too wounded to maintain my dog form. When your blood sucker turned up I high tailed out of there, but my clothes had already been shredded into pieces. I thought if I waited in the forest until it got dark, no one would notice me coming home, err, naked.”

“So you and Lisa-” Ari started to say.

“-yea, we definitely haven’t slept together.”

“Right, well,” said Ari, hurriedly trying to change the subject now that it had been established that Chris was not dating Lisa, “so who else knows about what you are?”

“No one knows about me! In case you haven’t noticed, but wraiths aren’t exactly on the top of most peoples Christmas card lists; I think we fall just short of vampires.”

“So you’re saying that I am the only person in the world who knows what you are?” Ari asked sarcastically.

“Yep, well you and my father.”

“But… why?” she asked.

“Well I wouldn’t have told you but you figured it out. I never thought in a million years that you would be able to see my wraith brand; otherwise I might have covered myself up in your company.”

Ari flushed and immediately changed the subject.

“Riiiiight, well, what’s with the back pack?” she asked, indicating the black and yellow carry-bag that Chris was holding.

“Spare set of clothes… just in case.”

“Hmm, good thinking,” said Ari, as an image of Chris being naked flashed into her mind and she blushed.

The pair continued to chat like this as they walked deep into the forest of the Three Prong Trek. Despite their previous encounter with a vampire there, they were determined to go in as far as possible, just to be sure they weren’t noticed. Chris had been fairly confident that they wouldn’t run into any fanged friends, explaining that on weekends most vamps hunted at the campus club, not in the forest.

“How can you be sure?” asked Ari, when Chris had said this.

“Well, I can turn into a dog you see, which I happen to enjoy. But, I can hardly wander around the campus as one; someone might take me to the Pasteur Vet Clinic, thinking I’m a stray. So when I first came here I found this forest.”

“And what does using the Three Prong Trek forest as your own persona dog park, have to do with vampires?” asked Ari.

“Well, I don’t think I have ever seen a vamp here on the weekends. Why would they come to some dingy forest looking for wildlife, when they could go to a club to get a drink?”

Ari nodded. The pair had finally come to a stop in a wide clearing. It had taken them an hour or so to get there. Chris had decided to take the first of the three paths, and Ari, having never been in the Three Prong Trek before, not counting her more recent attack, did not object. Though they had left around midday, this far in to the forest made it feel as though it was close to dusk. Hardly any of the heavily clouded light was able to filter down past the heavy canopy, giving the dark forest an eerie quality.

At first Chris had tried transforming into a dog and leaving Ari alone for a few minutes, before scaring her by creeping up on her. This had the effect of working on some occasions, where Chris would be frozen mid-leap, or else being entirely useless, in which case Ari was knocked off her feet and left winded as she lay on the thick grassy forest floor, recovering.

“It’s definitely about instinct,” Chris said, when he returned from behind a large fig tree after he had transformed back into a man and gotten re-dressed. “I’ve noticed almost all the times that you have frozen me, you have thrown your hands up in the air, so maybe that has something to do with it. I think you need to concentrate on what you’re trying not to do, rather than what you’re trying to do.”

“Ok grasshopper and what is that?” Ari asked, brushing the damp leaves and grass blades off her coat as she struggled to her feet.

“Well, the first time I turned into a dog, it took me almost a whole week before I could transition back into a man. In the end, when I had given up and accepted that I might be stuck as a dog forever, I finally found myself transforming back.”

Ari thought about this analogy hard as she tried to freeze a butterfly which was floating in front of her.

“You were seriously stuck as a dog for a whole week?”

“Yep.

After several more failed attempts, a few successes, and what was most certainly going to turn into a giant bruise on her arse, Ari was only just starting to get the hang of freezing time. She had expected Chris’s efforts to help her to be a bit disappointing; she had been utterly amazed to find that his words of wisdom made a huge difference to her self-control.

“That’s great,” said Chris, smiling after Ari had frozen him for the second time in a row. “Although I think you need allot more practise, but we have defiantly made progress.”

“What time is it?”

Quickly she reached for her phone and realised that there was no cellular reception where they were.

“Um,” Chris said, pulling up his sleeve to reveal a small black leather watch, “it’s almost 5pm.”

“Crap, Ragon is going to kill me. I don’t have a phone signal. I bet he has been calling me.”

“What did you tell him you were doing?” Chris asked casually.

“Studying… which is sort of true.”

“Liar, liar pants on fire,” Chris said, grinning. “I wouldn’t have thought a girl who could stop time, would be freaking out about her boyfriend finding out.”

“You’re the one who said we had to meet Lisa and Rick at the campus bar at 5pm.”

“We do,” Chris said, “and it’s not like I was the only one who agreed; I seem to recall you telling Rick that if you passed your pharmacology exam you would buy the first round of drinks.”

“Yea, but I didn’t think anyone would hold me to it. Oh well… looks like we’re going to be late. It took us over an hour to get here; by the time we get back, Rick and Lisa will probably already be under the table. Or if we’re lucky, Lisa might have already left. Hopefully Ragon won’t realise that I wasn’t at the library this whole time. I hope he hasn’t been trying to call me.”

“Yea, that would be a real tragedy,” Chris said sarcastically.

“You know, you can be a bit of a jerk when you want to be.”

“Why thank you,” said Chris, bowing low. “But seriously,” he added, reaching out a hand to stop her. “I may have a faster way for us to get back. I wouldn’t want you to err, get in trouble with
Ragon
.”

“I’m not going to get in trouble; I just don’t want him to worry.”

“So do you want to get back faster or not?” asked Chris, still with one hand on Ari’s shoulder. “Do you trust me?”

“Um, well…”

“Ouch! Don’t tip toe around my feelings,” said Chris, laughing to himself.

“It’s not that; I just don’t feel like running back and-”