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Christian Met Nathaniel!!! (01-06-08)

FIRST POST OF 2008!!
Hurray for updates. You have all wanted to know (for, like, FOREVER) when and how Christian finds out he's a FATHER...well, guess what? I posted the scene. Now you can all read that tiny gimpse into the furture (as you hopefully read LMHtB) and are satisfied with knowing. I know Christian is pretty damn satasfied with knowing. Leave a review on the chapter and let me know what you think. :]

Happy late Christmas and New Years, btw.
In that time I drew pictures and posted chapters of LMHtB. Notice the new banner? I did that last night. Woot. I love this new plot I am throwing about, and Lissa is back!

I know she was Raine’s BFF, but I had few if any scenes with her in them, and killed her right off. You have to understand that I actually wrote her almost completely out of the story because she and I got in a huge fight (yes, I fight with “fictional” characters) and I just couldn’t work with her. She has grown up considerably in four years, and I have learned to forgive her, so guess who’s back? Yay! Already the story has improved, in my opinion.

So yes, read, and wait. I’m sure you are all tired of waiting, but hey, I might have stuff in bookstores soon, so THAT is something to look forward to, and you can all be like “I remember reading versions of that story when she was posting them online!” lol. Okay, I’m lame, and I’m out.

<3
Raine

Chapters/Bio/Art updates! (12-03-07)

Updates are fun. I have been working hard to get things posted and fresh on this site. There is a new poll on my work, so make sure to cast your vote. It’s anonymous, so don’t worry about being honest.

As for my updates, I have posted the first two chapters on LMHtB here on this site under Written Works, as well as on Fictionpress, with chapter 03 on its way. I posted really cool Character Bios for Christian and Raine that contain no spoilers, so enjoy them. They also have new portraits and bio-pics to look at. I have been drawing a lot, so if you check out my Deviant Art account you can see my drawings. I would post them here, but I am working on changing-up my gallery, so I really don’t want to spend all the time. DA is good, it is my old friend.

I am still working on posting the scene where Christian meets Nathaniel. Sorry that is taking SO long…my computer has been rebuilt, but that means that my files are all over the place, on different hard drives, and some things are copied twice, and…blah…but I found it and I am working on making it less ghastly.

One major thing that has changed about LMHtB since I originally wrote it is the time period. At first it was “present-day” and it was just getting annoying by how quickly it was getting dated, so now it takes place in 1996. That would make Raine about 30 present-day, which is tons-o-fun for me. *rubs hands together nefariously* With her being “Generation-X” I have had to take out some referances to things that hadn't happened yet at that time, and add others to help establish its time. The fashions are different (ah, good-ol’ Grunge, how I’ve missed you) and the music is different (Tool, Nirvana, Greenday…) and even things like television would be different (Real World was only in its 4^th season and they were in London…7^thHeaven, Friends, Dawson’s Creek…*shudders*) So it has been fun reliving my youth. Are you all too young to remember Furbies and Snap-bracelets? *is old*

Alright. Enough. I have no new news on the copyright issue either, that site is REALLY poorly run, so poorly run it doesn’t surprise me that they don’t monitor for these things on their own.

Happy Reading!

Raine

Chapter 02

Chapter Two

Raine arrived home just after one-thirty in the morning, her hair damp from the light rain that had come and passed several times. Reaching into her bag, she found her keys as she hopped up her three wet front steps of her porch and past her jack-o-lantern whose candle had burned out hours before. Her keys’ jingling was loud in the otherwise silent night as she raised them to shove one in the lock, but she realized then that it was all for nothing because the door had been left unlocked.

“Damn it, Mom,” she grumbled while thumping open the door with her shoulder. Leaning in, Raine ran her hand over the left side of the doorjamb, searching for the light switch. She flicked it on while dropping her keys on the narrow table beside the door with a clatter, annoyed with her mother for once again leaving their house unlocked well after dark.

Stepping carefully, she made her way over the mounds of rubbish that littered the floor. Shoes, food bits and wrappers, old boxes, and magazines were all strewn over the crumb-covered carpeting, stained from dirty footsteps and spilled substances. It was a sad state to see any house in, but it seemed particularly disappointing given what a nice neighborhood they lived in. Forget that the front door had been unlocked; any burglar who found himself in their home would likely have been sickened and left in haste, there being nothing of value inside anyways.

Raine tiptoed and bounced over to the stairs directly across from the front door, where she had created a narrow path on the left side that was now free of debris, enabling her to walk up and down in relative safety. She could hear her mother’s inebriated snores coming from somewhere in the downstairs area. They were so throaty and deep that Raine would have believed it impossible that they belonged to any human, let alone a petite woman, if she had not known firsthand. It was more of an animalistic noise than anything and it carried through the house and would easily keep her awake if she weren’t terribly used to it.

Taking a left at the top of the stairs, there was a short hallway that ended with a dark wooden door stamped with glittering unicorns and rainbows on the right. They were remnants of her childhood. The hallway was clean, though the carpet was still broken-in in the center from too much repetitive back and forth traffic, stained and worn a bit thin, but it did not reek of cigarettes and forgotten and spoiled food like the rest of the house.

As she entered the room she was greeted by the sweet aroma of blooming roses, the tension between her shoulders loosening considerably with that one satisfying breath alone.

“Hello my babies,” she greeted, speaking to her beloved rosebushes as she knelt on her lush bed that was to her immediate right from the door. She clicked on her bedside lamp, illuminating her purple décor. Purple curtains, purple carpet, purple bedding, lavender walls; it was no mystery to anyone who would find themselves in her room what her favorite color was. Her room was large, square, and neatly organized. Upon entering she was presented with two identical black dressers on her left and right, the bed in the middle. Large windows that faced the front of the house stood above the dresser on the left, and her matching wardrobe that was tall and bulky and a second door that lead to the adjoining bathroom, shared the wall with the one on the right. In the space at the foot of the bed were cluttered two guitars, an amp, and a mound of sheet music, all under a much smaller window that faced the neighbor’s house. To the left of that, in the corner, sat her computer desk, the machine quietly humming in its sleep admits her mail, school work, and numerous and brightly colored troll dolls.

The only other furniture in the room were two tall black bookshelves that stood crammed into the spaces between her bedside table and the corner by the bathroom, and the side of her bed and the bedroom door, framing the bed. They carried a large assortment of books, snow globes and small figurine statues of fairies and unicorns. Other decorations were not posters of hot movie stars, or her favorite bands, but indications of her heritage. Above the head of her bed was a vertically hung silk banner and two decorative fans, all oriental and in silks of pink and purple, portraying falling cherry blossoms. She had another over by her computer, of a geisha looking woman hiding her smile behind her hand, Raine’s name written down the left side in elegant Asian calligraphy.

The room looked like a typical teenager’s room but for one thing: in the space between the tops of the windows and the ceiling there was a long narrow shelf that wrapped around her room where atop perched a few dozen stuffed, sparkling unicorns. Their gold hooves hung over the edge slightly; their silver horns touching the ceiling where some glow-in-the-dark stars clung. They made the whole room look like it should belong to a girl much younger than Raine. Raine felt she was perfectly mature, and that she had simply never quite grown out of her love for the pearly and iridescent beasts. There was nothing really wrong with that, everyone had a secret obsession of one thing or another, but she still would never invite anyone in her room to see the incriminating nostalgic creatures. It was really something that was on a need-to-know-basis.

Raine grabbed her watering can from the underside of her bed as she crawled over it, on her way over to her bathroom. She placed the can in the sink, checking her reflection in the mirror as it filled slowly. She looked tired, which was hard to pull off with her tight up-tilted eyes, but she managed. She noticed that her jaw was red where the man, her attacker, had picked her up, leaving a nearly perfect handprint on her skin. She closed her eyes and looked away. It looked worse than it hurt.

She turned off the water, her room silent once again, and took her watering can back to her bedroom where she went around to all of her roses, watering them one by one, tenderly checking them over and wiping a bit of dust from their leaves here and there. She was tired, for sure, but she was also still on edge from the stirring events of that night, so caring for her little plants was something she could do to relax. She could feel sleep tug at her more and more with every leaf, and she knew it was working.

Once she was done, Raine made her way over to her dresser beside her wardrobe and took out a long, black, silky nightgown from the top drawer. She started stripping off her clothes slowly while walking over to the other side of her bed to turn down the sheets. She was not sure why, maybe it had just been the excitement, but her whole body ached like every muscle had been tensed for too long or something. It made taking her shirt off over her head a pain, and lifting her foot to yank off her boots more effort than it should have been. Standing in front of her now closed bedroom door, she glanced up at her reflection habitually.

As much as she hated to admit it, even if just to herself, she sometimes wished she looked like other girls: tall, leggy, fair and Disney Princess-like. It wasn’t like she was in any way ugly, and that helped he to not dwell on such shallow desires for long, but by contrast alone she did kind of stick out like a sore thumb in her school. Her legs were a little short, her face rounded, eyes slanted, lips full, nose fine and hair black, but there was something imprecise about her, that seemed to allude to the fact that she wasn’t pure orient, but it was hard to place. Maybe it was her blue eyes or fuller bosom.

She did have, however, a rather striking feature that had nothing to do with her heritage and had everything to do with why she stood out like she did. Across her delicately slanted left eye, hidden partially by her long swept-to-the-side bangs, was a narrow but very prominent scar. It started above the eyebrow, bisected it, and traveled down her eyelid to end above her cheekbone below her eye. It was white and old but still very noticeable despite her attempts to hide it with makeup and hair because of the slight indent it left in her otherwise unblemished skin. She was still a pretty girl, but the scar definitely distracted many from noticing that at first, if ever sometimes.

Raine gave herself a weak smile, but it wilted quickly. She was tired, too tired to try and be perky. It certainly said a great deal about her that it took work and effort for her to be sanguine.

Turning away she stripped herself of her last articles and slipped her gown over her head. As she sat on her bed, absentmindedly brushing her long hair with her glittery purple brush, her mind lingered on her encounter with the young man in the alley. She realized, with some frustration, that she had not seen his face clearly despite how close he had gotten, and she could not now make it out despite how hard she tried to recall it in her mind. She dwelled on the strength he had possessed, and the speed in which he was able to chase her down. When the thought that his voice had been rather sexy crossed her mind, she froze in mid-motion with eyes staring out into the empty air before then closing them and vigorously shaking her head, trying to rid herself of such a shameful thought. She must have been more tired than she had initially believed to think anything of the sort of someone who would have just as soon as raped and killed her as looked at her.

Sighing, Raine quickly braided her hair back and finished pulling down her covers with a little redirected aggravation. She had had enough excitement to last her the week –which had just started- and all she needed right then was some good sleep, time to forget the disgraceful little observation she had had, and rest away her anxiety and worries.

Raine closed her curtains tight so that the morning light would not wake her any earlier than she already needed to get up and crawled into her bed. Sleep pulled at her mind, making her movements slow and body stiff. She fell towards her pillow and sleep gripped her instantaneously. She was asleep before her head had even touched her pillow.

Her dream was oddly obscure, more than a dream would be naturally, more so than her dreams ever were.

It was dark as she ran down the alley, her silk nightgown and long black hair flowing behind her, the effort to run felt as though she were submerged in water. She seemed to be stuck in slow-motion while everything else was in its regular pace. Raine was always aware of her dreams, and she knew she hated this one already given what she had experienced already, yet she could not wake herself, could not stop running despite how seemingly futile the attempt was. Raine knew, though unable to make out any defining characteristics of her surroundings, that she was in the alley behind the coffee shop. It was a reenactment of earlier that night because the young man was chasing her again, and he was not slowed in the way Raine was, appearing at her back in mere seconds. He grabbed Raine’s long free hair and pulled her toward him, slamming her into his hard chest. He yanked her head back, exposing her throat at a sharp and painful angle, but this time she turned towards him rather than fighting him off, defying her barely cognizant mind. She fisted her hands in the front of his black jacket, his face in obscure shadow still. He laced his fingers in her hair roughly and pulled her into a strong kiss, pushing his tongue past her teeth and pressing it against hers.

Gasping, Raine sat bolt upright in her bed with a kick, nearly tearing her bedding away as she woke. She grabbed her hair impulsively before sighing; realizing that was still in the braid, not free flowing like it had been in her dream. She was in her room, safe and warm, not out in the damp alleyway with that man. Closing her eyes and realizing it had been a dream, Raine was able to slow her breathing and collect herself like the rational person she was. She had sat up too fast and now her head throbbed from the blood rush. Holding her head Raine fell backwards, but sleep eluded her this time. The fact really annoyed her since it was only four in the morning. Two hours of sleep would hardly be enough for class the next day.

The young man slowly sauntered into Carnage, pushing the heavy black-metal door open with his left shoulder while brushing his damp, messy hair away from his shining eyes with his free hand. Carnage was not all that dissimilar to most nightclubs one would see run by humans, and it was one of many in the clandestine vampire city Carthage. He chose this particular club, not because he liked it, but because he knew it to be the most likely place to find his brother.

It only took a moment for his sight to adjust to the strange lighting. It was dark but for the blazon red light from above that seemed to create a weight or thickness to the air. It trickled down from the high ceiling but did not quite reach the floor. There it was dark. The walls were lined with stained glass that was backlit to create an odd ambiance where the red light otherwise did not touch. The glass depicted all sorts of macabre depictions, of satyrs and young maidens, of vampires feeding, or werewolves feasting, of witches dancing. It was actually quite beautiful, though few took notice given how awfully trite the expression of art was throughout the city.

The young man looked about the floor with eerie blue eyes that shone like an animal’s in the dark when caught in a bright flash or light. Their iridescence was a result of his eyes reacting to the lighting. The vampires as well as select other nonhumans had eyes that glowed in the club’s red radiance.

Searching the crowd, he realized it was doubtful that he would be able to see who he was looking for from the entrance so he moved and let the heavy door slam behind him, the soft sound of splattering rain lost completely.

Moving slowly through the knee-deep fog that swept the whole place, he crossed the floor. The effect in a human run club would have been accomplished by fog-machines, here magic ruled and was the source of many small adornments. Bass heavy music boomed from the dark rafters above his head and reverberated off of the glass covered walls, driving people into fits of thrashing, bouncing, bumping, and dancing, all the while they laughed, clearly having a good time as the rubbed up against each other grotesquely. The vampire hunched his shoulders at being knocked into from behind, and raised his arms defensively while halting abruptly to stop another who stepped backwards and nearly knocked into his front.

“Sorry,” the human wisped while rejoining her group with an inebriated giggle, clueless as to how close to death she was. He curled his lips back so she could see his fangs before moving to a part of the floor that was not as crowded, over near the tables that encircled the open floor.

He scanned the room over the heads of those around him once again for Augustus. Unfortunately it was not Augustus that found him at that point.

“Hey, Chrrristian,” the vampiress said mockingly, imitating his thick accent, an accent that rolled Rs heavily like the Irish, made all Gs hard and replaced Ws with Vs like Germans, and pronounced th’s as Zs like a bad French imitation.

“Hello, Cassandra,” Christian replied heavily, not yet turning to face her. She was not a very pleasant person -or vampiress- to know or deal with, and if she were not the favorite of one of Carthage’s owners, she would probably have been killed off at an early age instead of being allowed to live to the ripe old age she had. As it was, he could do little more than put up with her as she teased him, while hoping she would get bored quickly.

Sighing as he was violently bumped into again, Christian turned to her. It was apparently not destined to be his night with women as she looked him up and down with an unmistakable smirk in place.

“How is my favorite little Russian tonight?” she purred.

“Pah-zhalu-stah, Cassandra, I am very tired,” he pleaded flatly as she circled him in a playful yet challenging manner, somehow unhindered by the other people thrashing on the floor close to their right while fog billowed out around her legs. The loud music did not obstruct their ability to hear each other clearly given their vicinity and sensitive ears.

Cassandra was the classic vampiress to the point of bordering cliché. Dark haired and pale, she looked like she stepped right out of a novel. She had the look, the accent, and the attitude any human would associate with a vampire and demand that they have. Her hair was straight, cut short and sharply just above her shoulders. Her face was pale and thin, her chin coming to a point. Her eyebrows were sculpted and looked like black lines. And her black eye shadow was expertly brushed to give her catlike eyes, set off by their glow. If in different light one would have seen the pure greenness they truly were. Crimson lips -to possibly hide fresh blood- kept her perfect fangs from view if she so desired. Her dress was simple, black, and tight, flaunting a strong figure.

She was one of the unfortunate fledglings of Gabriel, a vampire on the Council that ruled over them. His fledglings, all women, were tormented by him, brought over yet humiliated at the same time. There was no shortage of Cassandras in Carthage, or any of the other vampire metropolises, and none of them were any sort of pleasure to deal with. Christian didn’t know how he had wound up with an appendage such as Cassandra, how she had become so fixated on him, why she could not leave him alone, but she was the worst of them all in his opinion, much was the way of his luck.

“You look like hell,” she remarked as she moved through the fog in her six-inch stiletto heels as if it were nothing, tracing Christian’s body with her eyes, smiling nefariously the whole time. The older ones could be told apart by their smooth, almost too fluid of actions. Their movements were catlike, or birdlike, depending on the vampire, but too pure to be human, standing too still to be anything alive. Cassandra was a fine and respectable age, but she was still younger than Christian, though that did not mean she did not consider herself dominant to him. He had to occasionally remind her where she stood in the pecking order around there, he was just hoping tonight wouldn’t be one of those nights, he was far too tired.

“Not now,” Christian said slowly. He had mastered the deathly stillness his kind attain over time long ago and demonstrated it then while Cassandra circled him in the humming and lively club scene.

“I heard you got in a fight with Marry again,” she said referring to his ex and their little ‘fight’ they had had most recently. Christian wondered to himself for a moment how Cassandra always knew his personal business. He found it most annoying since he knew for a fact that Marry hated Cassandra and would never speak to the woman for anything other than to threaten her with considerable amounts of pain. Her knowing about something so trivial and personal made him feel insecure somehow. Damn her, his night was rapidly going down hill.

“I do not ‘vish to speak of it, not ‘vith you in any case,” he said pushing past her and looking for Augustus again through the crowd. Cassandra smiled and crossed her arms before disappearing from the spot where she stood, the edge of her body fading before it rapidly swallowed her form into nothingness. It happened in the blink of an eye, leaving only a swirl of the fog on the floor in her wake.

A few minutes and several collisions later, Christian finally located Augustus, sitting at the bar at the far wall, reaching over the counter and grabbing a random bottle from the shelf below.

“Gus,” he called out, happy to see his brother. They were not brothers by birth, but vampire brothers, siblings, fledglings of the same master, in their case a mother. They were of the same bloodline, and in their world, there was no family but for one’s master and fledgling-siblings.

“Hello, Chris,” Augustus answered calmly, not even looking up when he spoke.

Christian sat down next to him heavily, letting his head fall onto the bar. His forehead connected with the smooth black wood with a dull thump and he left it there.

“Rough night?” Augustus asked, looking completely unconcerned with his younger brother’s exasperated behavior.

“You have no idea,” Christian replied, his voice slightly muffled from talking into the wood.

He gave a quick but thorough rundown of what had happened that night and Augustus listened intently, until he busted out laughing that is and couldn’t listen anymore. Christian flushed. Augustus nearly fell off of his barstool laughing, a laugh that was genuine, joyful, but utterly masculine.

“Shut up!” Christian snapped, looking around quickly, hoping no one would look over at them and wonder something. “I mean it, stop! I came to you looking for some sympa’zy,” he grumbled. Despite his attempt to suppress his accent, it all got worse the faster he spoke or more embarrassed or agitated he got. It didn’t take much to get him to just go off in Russian entirely, which he was in threat of doing if his brother did not stop mocking and laughing at him.

“Sorry, but I just don’t understand how you could get your ass handed to you that badly by a teenage human girl!” he laughed. Augustus –Gus only to his friends- looked Roman still, even to this day. With a Caesar haircut, and dark features on a once tan face, he looked like he was modeled directly after an ancient Roman coin. Honestly, it might have been the other way around. He was one of the oldest vampires left in the world and was highly respected for it. Vampires did not live for as long as he had. It just did not happen. Witches saw to that. For a vampire to reach even three hundred it meant they were either exceptionally strong or very clever. Augustus was both, and being very old, and very powerful, he had lots of weight to throw around in Carthage and was respected, or at the very least feared, by everyone there. It did not hurt any that he was extremely handsome. Vampires were drawn to power and beauty. Augustus had both of those, in abundance.

“You don’t even feed from women, unless you are looking to lose some of your few more masculine features,” he said, eyeing Christian up and down with narrowed but thoroughly amused glowing eyes.

“’Zey are not entirely excluded,” Christian mumbled, “But I have no desire to start feeding from ‘vomen exclusively e’zer,” he grumbled. Augustus was overtaken by another roll of chuckles.

“I don’t know if I should go out, find this girl of yours, and kill her for insulting our ancient bloodline in this manner, or thank her for making a fool of you and providing me such a laugh!” he teased. Christian was getting red in the face with anger and embarrassment as Augustus continued to taunt him. “Or maybe I should just kill you, for being so damn nebbish,” he said calming slightly and speaking disturbingly serious, taking a drink from his dark bottle.

Christian flushed again. Despite his sometimes persistent insecurities while relentlessly comparing himself to his great line and those in it like Augustus, no one was allowed to imply that he was weak. No one. He was inherently stronger then most, he was a Third Generation vampire. There were so few of his generation -or those older- left, that he exacted quite a bit of respect. The First Generation was long gone, and the second was survived only by his master, Artemis.

Even so, what Augustus had implied in his taunting had been true, even a weak vampire could easily take down a teenage girl. It only made Christian feel worse to have Augustus point that out so harshly. What excuse did he have? Had he been incompetent, over-confident, stupid? Any excuse for what had happened would not reflect well back on him.

The bartender, Sarah, came over and served Christian a drink without having to ask what he wanted. He sipped his vodka with red ice cubes of blood, ignoring Augustus who continued to glance over and snort a laugh at him every once in a while until he became distracted. His young girlfriend walked in, carrying something colorful in her left hand. She made her way over to the two of them slowly around the edge of the bar.

“Hi boys,” she said in an uncharacteristically perky greeting as she snaked an arm around Augustus. Christian nodded and rested his chin on the palm of his right hand, leaning on his elbow on the bar in a very obvious pout. He watched as Clear, the five-year-old vampiress, slipped onto Augustus’ lap and gave him a little kiss with perked out lips. She was young, but she was still classified as a Fourth Generation since Augustus was her master, meaning she was not messed with like others her age normally would be due to having Augustus’s high protection, leaving her to be overly confident and smug, and thusly highly irritating.

“You’re in a good mood I see,” Augustus commented, teasing Clear’s neck with his lips lightly pressed his fangs against it, getting a purr out of her.

“I had a good meal,” she said. She glanced Christian’s way and cocked an eyebrow. “Have you not fed tonight, Chris? You look pale as death and I do not mean that in a good way.”

“Chris here had a rough night,” Augustus laughed. Christian sent him a warning with just a thought, through the communication all vampires shared telepathically. He could take teasing only so far before it became a challenge. Augustus looked at Christian’s very serious face for a moment and let enough of his power bleed from him to assure Christian that if he decided to pick a fight with him over this he would lose. Christian backed down slightly; figurative tail between his legs, and Clear looked between the two of them, having felt the wash and struggle of power and was left clueless.

“Did I just miss something?” she asked.

“Nyet,” Christian said.

“Yes,” Augustus said at the same time. Clear looked between them again.

“You two aren’t fightin’ are you?” she asked.

“Nyet,” Christian said quietly, the loud music nearly overpowering him. He was backing down and revoking his challenge. It was folly to pick a fight with Augustus over anything, least of all this. Clear looked a little unsure, but she seemingly let it go.

Clear had been a young, blonde high school student with a bit of an antisocial attitude once. She had stumbled across the knowledge that vampires existed quite on accident and, instead of believing herself insane and then panicking like most humans, she thought it was –in her words- “nifty”. She caught the sights of Augustus and after courting her for two years he had brought her over on her eighteenth birthday, surprising most of the community since he was one of the oldest vampires around, and did not abide the frivolous bringing over of someone for lust or love. Clear, as she had come to name herself after death, was now unnaturally brunette with lovely sea-foam green eyes and a full set of lips giving her the appearance that she was always pouting.

She turned on Augustus’ lap and threw what she held in her hands onto the bar’s smooth top and kissed Augustus more passionately. Christian ignored the two of them, and rather, focused on what Clear had tossed aside with his tunnel vision. The papers were each folded, tattered, and of a different color. One bright lime green, one a nice shade of blue, and the last, yellow.

“What are those?” Augustus asked after pulling away, indicating with a casual roll of his hand the three odd colored papers. Christian would have asked himself if his pride had allowed his curiosity.

“Oh. Those are some flyers from a club I like to hunt…you know the one. They sometimes have people come and play live music there, those are advertising for it,” she said, indicating the fliers. “Would you like to come with me tonight? It’s only,” she glanced at her watch, “Damn, it’s almost morning, where did the night go? They won’t be open for a few more hours,” she pouted. “How about tonight? Come with me tonight. The music’s not bad, and the people are yummy,” she purred into Augustus’s ear.

“Sounds like fun,” he said as he licked her ear. Christian rolled his eyes at them and downed the last of his drink with a snap of his head, sucking on one of his ice cubes before spitting it back into his glass. He understood his presence was no longer appreciated and got up. He was about to walk away when Clear called to him.

“Hey, kitten, you can come too. I know you like to hunt those helpless little teenagers out in the sunshine, but a change of scene would do you some good! There are plenty of people there to go ‘round, and you look like you could use a decent blood meal and day’s sleep for once,” she said teasingly as she rubbed herself provocatively against Augustus’s lap as she straddled him.

“Nyet, Spahseebah,” Christian declined courteously with a slow shake of his head. “I do not ‘vish to be, how you say, ‘zird ‘vheel?” he said with a dull smile.

Not waiting for her to argue, he used his powerful mind to take him home, fading away in a blink like Cassandra had earlier. It was a rather simple vampire trick to disappear from one spot to appear in another within an extremely limited distance instantly. It was a defensive capability actually, to get away when all other options were exhausted, but it had its other uses too. Older vampires did it causally, as a means of transportation; the newer generations seemed to be losing the ability to do it altogether.

Witches were finding ways to get around such a handy trickery, however. Centuries of hunting and observing had made them clever and more organized. They were better equipped with powerful magic. They were getting smarter, and as a result, vampires were living shorter and shorter. It was becoming a real threat to their survival actually, but that was the Council’s problem as far as Christian was concerned. His survival was all he could afford to worry about and all he could be bothered with.

The sunrise was coming; Christian could feel it like the sensation of the hairs on the back of his neck standing on end. He was in need of some good sleep before he would have to get up again, far too early, in the daylight hours, something he never enjoyed.

His mind was dwelling on Raine, his pretty little Asian girl that smelled so sweet and he had thought to be so harmless. He did not understand what had happened, and, thusly, his mind was unwilling to let go of that night’s events.

It just wasn’t right.

He did not want to accept it.

He decided as he stripped his clothing off and curled up in his blankets he would have to actually, finally, for the first time, talk to her. He had watched her for weeks, months now. He knew her- or thought he had- but he was sure she didn’t even know he existed. That was kind of the point; vampires were the best stalkers out there. He needed to talk to her now, however. He needed to try and discover what it was that she was. Surely she wasn’t human, she couldn’t be. But, he had been around her since September, how could she be anything but human without him noticing, without him knowing?

She did not feel like a witch, she did not feel like a morphanthrop, she did not give off any ritual magic or sense of power that would suggest that she had some kind of shielding talismans or charms. He was able to read auras, just like any other psychically inclined paranatural being, and she seemed just like any other girl. He did not know much about witches -other than they were evil and bad for his continued health- but he had been sure he would know one on sight. He hadn’t lived this long by being ignorant of such things.

That all established, why did he still not believe her to be human? Was it his pride that would not allow that to be true even though all evidence seemed to prove otherwise?

He was not that insecure…There was just a really good explanation for this all that centered nothing on his skills and ability to perform.

Christian laid down for a brief sleep. There was no coffin for him to lie in, no need for such a refuge in this city. He had a squishy mattress that was broken down in the middle so that it sagged slightly where his body always rested, with messy warm sheets and a feather pillow to snuggle into and wrap up in.

He really was not all that dissimilar from the average human teenage-boy. Minus the being dead and drinking blood part; he hated mornings, found girls utterly perplexing, and dreaded school.

He was perfectly ordinary.

Raine stirred as her alarm went off, cutting through the peaceful silence of her room. Exhausted, she smacked her abused clock and literally rolled out of her bed where she then crawled into her bathroom. With a smidgen help from the sink she hoisted herself up. The little sleep she had gotten had not been good sleep and she was not a morning person to begin with.

After a cold shower, she was finally awake, or as awake as any seventeen-year-old could be at six-thirty in the morning after three and a half hours of restless sleep. She brushed her teeth and hair, and then found something to wear. She felt very pink that day, so she settled for her hot pink tank top, tight black jeans, and her combat boots that she never tied, allowing the loose laces to drag. With a little make-up to hide the fact that she got virtually no sleep, the faint bruises that were on her jaw and throat still from the night before, and her daily vain attempt to cover up her scar, she was ready to face the day.

Raine grabbed her black hoodie and her bag for track as she left her room, hurrying down the clutter filled stairs.

She was in a relatively decent mood until she unrepentantly ran into her mother.

“Where the hell…” her mother shouted before grabbed her head, her own yelling voice giving her a headache, “…are you going?” she garbled. It was only seven in the morning and already her mother sounded drunk, or possibly the slurring was caused by the nasty hangover. As Raine turned to face her mother, she knew the later of the two was more accurate given the dark circles under me mother’s crystalline blue eyes she shared.

“I’m going to school, the same thing I do almost every morning,” she sighed as she retrieved her keys from the table beside the door, really wishing she didn’t have to go through this with her mother, not after the bad night she had already had.

“You know, I don’t like your attitude, missy,” she slurred, pointing at her firmly, blond hair unwashed and snarled around her face and down her back, night shirt way oversized and stained with things Raine could not identify, though she really didn’t want to even try. “You are always gone, look at the state of this place! Who’s gonna clean all this up?” she demanded, swinging her hand with the bottle, indicating the mess that covered a vast percentage of the house.

Raine looked to the right where the living room was once. Now it was a large smelly pit of filth with a small spot in the middle near the black and white television where here mother had made a little nest for herself of blankets and half drunken bottles of booze.

“I have to go to school, Mom, and I have a job afterwards,” she sighed while looking away from the living room, not adding the snarky argument that if she were ‘never home’ then clearly it wasn’t her that was making the mess that now needed cleaning. Raine knew better than to get cheeky with her mother. She just talked in low defeated tones, swearing that she was sorry for whatever it was she was being accused off, and assuring her mother that whatever it was she was being told to do would be done right away. It was the only way to appease the woman, to get her to stop shouting, even if Raine had no intention of actually doing anything she was agreeing to.

Raine just stood there, her taking the blame for all that her mother shouted about, growing more and more frustrated and angry as the minutes crawled by. She could not tell her mother she had to go, that would only send her mother off again, this time on Raine being dismissive and trying to snake her way out of blame, and she could not defend herself, that would only start a shouting match, something Raine did not want so early in the morning. She stood there; wishing she could just tell her mother she had to go, wishing her mother would stop: stop yelling, stop stomping, stop blaming her for everything that was not her fault.

Raine’s face grew warm from her suppressed anger and the empty bottle in her mother’s hand exploded, sending shards of glass flying outward. Raine’s eyes widened and she turned, running from her mother who was screaming and shaking her bloody hand while trying to force out the glass.

Raine yanked the door open, ran down the drive, and hopped into her black convertible that was parked outside in the drive. She thrust the key in the ignition, started the car with a roar of the engine, and backed out of the drive quickly. The car screeched to a stop in the street and she put it in drive, speeding away as the neighbors watched. The women had come out to kiss their husbands goodbye for work, the kids were running around with their plastic lunchboxes, waiting to be driven to school. They all had perfect little lives they had built for themselves or had been given to them by mommy and daddy. Raine often wondered how her and her mother wound up in such a neighborhood.

Taking a few slow deep breaths to calm herself, Raine turned off her street and realized she was going almost fifty and slowed that down too.

It had been a long time since she had made something explode like that. Yes, she knew it had been her that had made the bottle explode. It was not something she could doubt though she sometimes wished she could. She knew it had happened because of her, even if she did not know how. She knew why though. It was because she had gotten angry. She was sure that her mother would be fine and that she was just a little scared, but all the same she could not stop herself from shaking.

Things had seemed normal when she was a little girl. She never felt different…well, more different than her fractured heritage, low economic status, and eye’s disfigurement made her…but nothing odd had ever happened, nothing like what had just happened now. Since she had been about twelve, however, strange occurrences started.

She could remember things like objects moving unexplainably, or things inexplicably catching fire. Thoughts started appearing in her head that were not hers, memories she had never lived through originally started to invade her subconscious. It came and went in waves of intensity and there were times when Raine thought her head would explode with the white noise of the thoughts of everyone around her. Yes, they were the thoughts of those around her. She had had years to figure that one out.

A boy that had once made the mistake of picking on her had since labeled her a “witch”, and proceeded to call her that every time he saw her. She had done nothing “witch-like” to him, near as she could tell, but still, she could not explain any better than anyone else how she had managed to throw him through a window. He had been, and still was, three times her size and yet he had become airborne. All that had kept her from getting in any serious trouble was that the principal, who had not witnessed it, could not honestly believe her capable of such a thing.

She also, according to the school administration, had a problem with “pyromania”. Though she could honestly say she had never once ever purposefully set anything -like school property or other students- on fire, the administration had a suspicion that suggested otherwise. Being unable to prove a thing was all that had kept her from being expelled on more than one occasion.

That boy called her a witch, others: the same only with a B. She honestly didn’t know what she was, or maybe just what she seemed capable of, but it scared her enough to never enquire, and never attempt anything. Things happened by accident, and she was going to keep it that way, keep it her dirty little secret.

The night before, Raine had assumed that she had gotten away from the mugger because she had been lucky, and he had been an idiot. But now she was thinking, and believing, that her powers -for a lack of a better word- were flaring up again.

They always did around Halloween.

Chapter 01

Leave Me Here to Bleed

Quick summary:

Vampires, Witches, and Lycan are not as story bound as people would like to believe. Life for Raine, a seventeen-year-old senior misfit and unlikely cheerleader at her school, has not always been so easy, but when Vampires start to take an interest in her, Raine’s life starts to spiral out of her control.

Dating a Vampire, hunted by Witches; all Raine really wants to play with her friends in her band, if only she had the time.

What will she do when there are unexpected and dangerous complications to her love for her undead boyfriend?

Warnings and Ratings:

This book is rated T for "Teens"

This book contains some mild language, implied sexual situations, depictions of violence and murder, homosexual references/situations, bigotry, “occult” and witchcraft, and some scary moments.

THIS STORY, PLOT, AND ALL CHARACTERS ARE UNDER COPYRIGHT. ANYONE FOUND WITH ILLEGAL COPIES OF THIS STORY OR ITS CHARACTERS WILL BE PROSECUTED!

It was exceedingly dark, even for night, thanks to the heavy clouds that blocked out the stars and moon. Rain lightly drizzled down the large glass windows beside a girl who sat in a teal booth near the back of a small, brightly lit coffee shop located -as though misplaced- in the heart of a dark noisy city. It was about forty-minute walk or an hour drive from the girl’s home in a clean, snobbish neighborhood full of houses that all looked just like the next. Since the drive was always inevitably longer than the walk given the unrelenting traffic, despite the dreary weather and dark hour, she had opted to amble this way by foot.

The girl looked just as out of place in the old-fashioned and quiet shop as the shop did in the metropolis. She did not fade into the background with her long raven-black hair spilling down her back to her waist, black mini-skirt, torn fishnets, and blood-red tank top that showed off a great deal of her fair-skinned cleavage. The heavy black boots she wore had left a puddle under the table on the clean white linoleum where the water from the wet ground outside had collected in the treads.

She swirled her coffee slowly, looked up with her delicately slanted eyes at the clock that hung on the wall above the counter, and sighed tiredly. It was nearly midnight and she knew she needed to head home. If she was lucky her mother would be asleep, or passed out drunk. Either worked for her, so long as she could get in and off to bed without a fuss or hassle.

The old man that owned the little coffee shop called over to her in his weak but friendly tone, his hands -brittle and lumpy with arthritis- clutching an old but very clean rag and a cup.

“Raine dear, don’t you think you should head home? It’s getting late and I have to close up, and you have school in the morning,” he said.

Raine smiled at the kind concern of the old man.

“Of course, Mr. Henry,” she said sweetly, thinking much the same thing, though with less enthusiasm. “Besides, I would hate to worry my mother,” she added with a hollow smile, earning her a nod from the old man across the empty shop. He clearly did not see the lie the tired smile was and did not know how much she disliked going home every night.

Raine heaved herself out of her booth and downed the last of her coffee. It had long since cooled while she had been sitting at the table, thinking to herself in the silence of the shop she enjoyed so much as she watched the rain pass outside. She scrunched up her nose in disgust at the cold coffee, cleared her throat, and grabbed her bag from the bench.

“Night, Mr. Henry,” she said perkily, or as near as she could come to it, as she waved good-bye to the old man. He returned the gesture enthusiastically as Raine pushed out the glass front door.

“Goodnight, Raine dear. You walk safely, there are loonies out!” he warned, raising his other trembling hand to push his rounded eyeglasses up his old, rather large nose before shuffling around the counter to collect Raine’s cup as quickly as his rheumatism would allow him.

Raine looked back at him with a genuine smile this time and nodded as she stepped out. She couldn’t imagine anyone out there that could rival her loonyness, but did not exactly welcome anyone to try.

Coffee was a life-giving substance, and though any shop would have sufficed in supplying her fix, she came so far out of her way to dine at this particular shop because unlike the conglomerate retailers that had the same, sterile, cookie-cutter stores on every corner, this one had a soul. The shop was as much Mr. Henry’s home as the apartment that topped it where he lived. An antique toy red wagon hung from the ceiling, and rusted road signs were on the walls. If asked, Mr. Henry would tell how he acquired such things in long winded nostalgic tales that could sweep away anyone’s stress and frustrations, even for but a moment. He never grew tired of telling his stories to anyone who would listen, and Raine found herself talking with him several times a week after a long night’s work as he was always willing to open shop just for her, his warm coffee and even warmer stories just what she needed to unwind before heading home to her mother. He did not judge her, criticize her, lecture her. He was kind, and believed her to be darling, and Raine cherished the time she spent with him, he being one of the few, the rare, the truly kind.

Raine stepped out of the shop as she threw her bag over her shoulder and pulled her jacket closer to her chest. It was a cool night, late in October, and the street was wet from the short rain that had passed while she had been inside. The streetlamps’ warm yellow bubbles of light reflected across the cracked pavement, and when the occasional car drove past its headlights illuminated the street momentarily before vanishing again around the bend.

She set off toward her house, thinking about how long it would take to get there if she walked slowly. Her boots crunched loudly in the nearly silent night as she walked over the pavement, grinding the small rocks and cracks.

It was her favorite time of day, or rather, night. She loved it when everyone was asleep and she could enjoy her own company. Living so close to a large city, she had grown to enjoy and appreciate the short peace night brought from all the hustle and bustle of its inhabitants during the daylight hours. She was a bit of a night-owl, which did not bode well for someone with daytime commitments like school and a job.

Raine made her way home slowly, kicking a small stone as she went. She was in no rush, the rain didn’t seem like it was coming back, her coffee was still coursing through her body so getting home quickly wouldn’t mean she would be sleeping any sooner.

A sudden, loud, metallic crash from behind her caused Raine to jump and spin around reflexively, a gasp caught in her throat due to the startle. Without thinking she reached into her bag as she turned. Looking around in the semidarkness hastily, she realized -as a black cat ran out from behind the tipped over garbage can- that it had been nothing, nothing dangerous that is.

“Jeeze,” she breathed with a laugh at herself as the cat dashed by her ankles. “Jumpy much?” she asked herself, letting go of her bag and letting it fall to her side as relaxation took the place of the momentary adrenaline rush that had her still a bit shaken.

Nevertheless, she could not help her jumpiness because she knew well the dangers of being a young woman walking around alone at night and did not want to become a statistic and cautionary tale to be printed in the next day’s newspaper.

Without looking up from her feet after she turned, Raine started walking again.

Walking right into the chest of a young man dressed in black who stood only inches before her, however, stopped her, causing her to gasp audibly this time, catching her completely off guard.

Off balance and flabbergasted, she stepped back to keep herself from falling. The young man reached down and clamped his hand over her mouth, quieting her gasping shout instantly. Using only that one hand he had clamped over her mouth, he then lifted her up and turned her so her back was to him and his arm wrapped around her to hold her against his chest.

Raine closed her eyes at the pain of being lifted by her jaw but marveled despite herself at how strong the man must have been to manage such a thing. She was not a heavy girl by any means, but she knew of few that could lift her deadweight with one arm so easily.

She got over her awe and regained her bearings with her feet back on the ground. Instinct was taking over, fight or flight setting in; only one thought in her mind at that point: survival.

The man pulled her head back roughly, exposing her neck at a painful angle. Raine felt herself panic. She did not know what the man was doing, but she had no doubt that he was going to hurt her. She had an overwhelming desire to protect her neck at any cost, to scrunch up her shoulders and tilt her head down to guard it best she could. He held her though, and she could do little but tense and struggle, grunt and whimper

She heard him speak, his voice resounding in her head and sounding distant even though he was standing right behind her.

“Stay still and ‘zis vill not hurt,” he comforted. His accent sounded vaguely French, but his ‘R’s were thicker, rolled and heavy, in an accent she could not place at that moment of panic.

Raine felt her stomach drop. She did not revel in the idea of being mugged, and she certainly didn’t want him to hurt her, but she feared rape above anything else from him at that point with his warning. Tears burned in the back of her eyes, she could not bear even the thought of anyone doing that to her.

“Do not scream,” he ordered, his voice soft as a sexual confession as he lowered his lips to her neck, kissing her skin lightly.

A pang of anger shot through Raine at that point now that she had her fill of surprise, panic, and fear. A familiar fury filled her, something that she always clung to for security. She did not like him being so authoritative and in control of the whole situation. How dare he demand anything of her!

If he had been looking for easy pickings, she had been the wrong lone walking girl.

With the fear of rape still pulling her stomach into knots, Raine lifted her right leg and stomped down on the man’s foot with the heel of her boot with all her might. Lifting his lips from her neck, he hissed in pain and loosened his grip on her slightly, clearly caught off guard by her bold act. Raine was able to take advantage of that and put her elbow in his gut. He grunted and doubled over, clutching his stomach, giving her the chance to spin out of his grasp and run.

Raine did not think to scream for help at that point as she dashed down the alley away from her attacker. Some amount of pride in her would not allow that, but it also wasn’t her first instinct to call for help either. She had been raised to fight, and fend for herself, and that was what she was going to do. Instead of calling for help she used her breath to run. Her heavy boots and awkward bag at hip level slowed her down, but she still ran with impressive vigor that had a lot to do with adrenaline. The man seemed to be rather fit in his own right, and with nothing to impede him, despite the fact that she was a superb runner, he was gaining on her.

Thinking quickly, she reached into her bag again as it beat against her right thigh. She had a plan. She hoped beyond all hope that it would work lest she make things worse for herself. She had to risk it though, she had not the stamina to run long enough to lose him, and he was showing no signs of being winded, in fact, he seemed to be gaining on her faster than before.

Raine started to slow, as though she were tiring, and dared a glance back to see where her attacker now reached. He was about ten feet behind her, still somehow in shadow so she could not make out his features. It was dark but for some reason the only thing that was fully shadowed was him, more specifically his face.

If Raine had not been so panicked, she might have found that fact odder than she did at that moment. It was like the light was avoiding him, like darkness clung to him like smoke.

As he drew closer, Raine closed her eyes, not believing in a god but vainly hoping for some kind of divine intervention, daring a prayer before she would act, wishing for her plan to succeed.

She let him get close so that he tried to grab her again, and that was when she had to act.

Raine stopped suddenly, sliding slightly on the wet pavement, and threw her leg out. Her attacker, not expecting her to stop, partially passed her while trying to stop and turn, but ended up tripping on her leg and falling face first into the damp, cold pavement. He threw his arms out to catch himself but there was a thump when his chest hit and then a crack when his chin then connected with the ground despite his best efforts to prevent it.

Raine smiled, satisfied, pleased, surprised that her plan had worked, but her attacker was already pushing himself up off the ground so he was on his hands and knees so she backed up. He shook his head slowly before he looked over his shoulder and around himself to Raine, revealing glowing blue eyes, glowing as though they were florescent. They were not normal eyes. They could not have been human, but there was nothing else he could be.

“That’s not…normal,” she muttered, backing up a step. Whatever trick of the light, or funny contacts he was using was effective in frightening her, if that had been his intent.

His chin was bleeding enough to drip and splatter the pavement while mingling with the puddles. He bared his teeth angrily and they revealed themselves to be sharp, causing Raine’s heart to skip a beat. Trick of the light, that is what she told herself. It being obvious he would lunge for her legs at that point, Raine pulled her hand out of her bag and sprayed pepper spray in his freakish eyes before turning and running in the other direction, back towards the coffee shop which was now probably dark and closed, Mr. Henry already in bed.

The man shrieked in pain as the pepper burned his bright eyes and shallow cuts. He rubbed his watering eyes and wiped away some blood from his already healing scrapes. He got up after a moment, still disoriented but driven by rage, and started chasing his prey again. He was determined not to let a human girl humiliate and out maneuver him like that and get away with it.

He was a better hunter than that…he was a better hunter than this!

He had to catch her, to kill her if not just wipe her mind of any recollection of this night, because he could not have anyone knowing what a humiliation he had made of himself, of his kin. He could not let a girl go with even the faintest impression of what he was tickling in the back of her mind.

This time he started to catch up a little easier than before. She could run, run well, this he already knew, but it would not save her, not tonight, not against him. He would not tire like she would; he would not become winded like her. He could run for miles, she would be tired within minutes. He commended her despite himself for her steady breathing, her not allowing panic to wind her. She showed that she was anything but ordinary. It was what had drawn him to her in the first place, why he was here tonight, and his curiosity only increased with each step, but that would not be enough to keep him from killing her once he got his hands on her.

After a few moments, despite her running abilities, he had caught up with her. He could tell by her movements, though not by her thoughts -they seemed intangible as he pursued her despite his efforts to see them for some reason- she was going to try that sudden stop trick again, but it was not going to work because he would not fall for it a second time. This time, when she stopped, he put out his right arm to grab her around the middle, but she was ready for him it seemed. She bent at the middle so his arm past over her back, and he ran past her for a second time that night!

So mad that she had duped him again, he did not slow right away, but he quickly realized the mistake in this since she was now behind him and looking quite pissed.

He did not even get a chance to turn his head more than a fraction before she kicked him in the side of his ribs and used his forward inertia to send him straight into a wall.

Caused to stumble so that he crashed into the garbage cans, the side of his head hit the brick wall with little grace or cunning on his part. Little dancing black spots appeared in his vision that he was unable to blink away. As he leaned against the brick he slowly allowed himself to slide down to the cold, wet pavement amongst the black garbage bags. Raine walked up to him, looked down with her expression fierce, him able to only just make it out before she kicked him in the face with her heel.

“Bastard,” she muttered, straightening her coat and adjusting her bag on her shoulder, apparently believing to have knocked him out. She spat at his feet before walking away down the alley with a confident but forceful stride. As confident and capable as she felt, she was going to use streets with some traffic so she would be less likely to be mugged again.

Once a night was more than enough for her.

Raine was gone, around the bend in the street and out of sight, before the young man stirred.

“Urrr…” he moaned, rubbing his now sore head. “Chyort poberi,” he mumbled to himself in his native language. ‘Damn it’ expressed his frustration perfectly, him not caring that the girl was getting away as he spat a mouthful of blood onto the wet pavement beside him.

Resting his forehead on the palm of his hand and pulling his knees up, he wished he could make the night start over again so as to have never tried to hunt Raine, but sadly, that was not one of his abilities, one of his gifts.

He could not explain what had just happened, how he could have messed up so badly after so much practice, but there it was, or rather, there he was, sitting in a pile of garbage, bested by a teenager, more than just his pride hurting.

After a moment of disbelieving brooding, he got to his feet, not sure at first if he could keep his balance if he moved too quickly. His head really did hurt, but more so was his ego. It was a truly crippling blow to one like him.

Cracking his neck to each side with a tilt of his head, he brushed some filth away from his long, black leather coat and straightened it on his shoulders with a brisk tug by the lapel.

“Okay,” he admitted softly, “’zat did not go exactly how I planned,” he muttered with a sigh, spitting out another mouthful of blood from his already healing face.

He touched his chin and grimaced for a moment at the pain.

With one last look in the direction Raine had run off in, he turned and walked down the shadowy alley. He was too angry, and on the whole: ashamed, to try and go after her again. She had somehow been immune to his abilities, and the precautions he normally took when hunting had failed him that night to say the least. He had not expected it to be anything but easy. Sure, that meant he might have underestimated her, but she was Raine, she was a teenage girl! What could have happened to make this night go so wrong?

Stepping into a nasty little restaurant, he walked into the bathroom without a glance at the man behind the counter who was looking at him with wide-eyes. Closing the bathroom door behind him with a frustrated snap he found it empty, rancid, and quiet. He wrinkled his nose at the state of the place and its moldy smell. He found it nauseating as anyone would, but for him everything was a much harsher assault on his senses due to their heightened sensitivity.

Looking around, he saw that there were no mirrors, and for that he was grateful. He turned on the water in the stained and chipped sink beside the urinals, and proceeded to wash, able to guess that he was quite a mess without the aid of a wretched looking glass. Using paper towels from a poorly functioning dispenser and some water, he was able to mop himself up, wiping away the blood from and dirt off his already healed face. His jaw was still slightly sore, but he knew -the injuries minor- that there wasn’t even a mark to show for his disastrous evening already.

Once he was satisfied with his supposed appearance, he tossed his used paper towels into the trash bin with a snap of his wrist.

“Some vampire you are,” he said bitterly, voice echoing hollowly off the tiled interior of the cubical room, “cannot even hunt helpless little girl as she ‘valks unguarded, at night, down deserted street,” he said sulkily.

Pacing in the lavatory for a moment, he ran his hands through his unruly curling hair, sighing angrily, taking out some of his frustration on the sink.

Slamming his fist down on its edge he fractured the sink in half, part of it falling with a loud thud and a crack of the tiled floor as he swore and lifted his foot quickly so that it just barely missed his toes.

He was not having a good night. He was still hungry. He was also exhausted. He had not slept in the daytime hours like his kind normally did, and early in the evening he had run into his ex and gotten into yet another fight over basically nothing. He was always a tad irritable when forced out into the open sunlight or confronted with a former lover of his. The combination of both just made him flat out cantankerous.

He was now in a positively miserable mood given how his evening was going as he left the restaurant, once again ignoring the looks from the man behind the counter.

In all the years he had lived, or existed, had never met a girl, or any human for that matter, that could successfully fend him off and get away unharmed like she had. As a vampire he was stronger than them, not to mention faster with unmatchable endurance…but when he had been chasing Raine his powers seemed dulled, even diminished. He could not explain it, but somehow he seemed to lose his effectiveness around her.

That fact made him wonder.

He had to admit that maybe he didn’t know her as well as he had thought. But he was unsure what he could have possibly missed that lead to this night's disaster. If she had powers to rival his own he would have known, so what had happened? Sure, she was pretty, but that had never caused him to trip up –literally- so badly before with anyone else.

As he looked for his next meal, he made up his mind to talk to Augustus when he got back from hunting.

New Chapter Posted! (11-28-07)

Alright, there have been no new developments on my little copyright infringement issue to report on. The owner of the group has not gotten back to me via email like I requested which leads me to believe the group is either abandoned/dead, or the members just do not care, either way I am not a happy sphinx. I will be contacting the sites Administration next and discussing with them the situation.

Anyways, onto less cantankerous news.

I have removed from Fictionpress Leave Me Here to Bleed. I know, “gasp! What? Why?” but understand that the reason behind this is just a technicality of the FictionPress.Com Content Guidelines. It states quite plainly under Actions not allowed: “Multiple entries of the same material. There can only be one copy of any unique story on the entire site. No exceptions.”
This means…yes, I am reposting LMHtB with the new edits I have made to the story over these long dry months. I felt bad that any and all work I have been doing has not been shared with my readers, and after my fifth or sixth review from a reader expressing their concern that I was no longer writing because I haven’t updated since February of this year, I decided enough was enough.
Though I still plan on getting published, and posting my work online might be mildly counterproductive to that, I am not so decided on being published that I have even started looking into a publishing company yet or what exactly it means. So right now I am just a shmuck with a website and a FP account, posting chapters of her original stories, like so many others.
I encourage you all to take a look at my new and improved LMHtB on Fictionpress. I do ask that you forget what you already “know” about my characters because a lot of if is no longer necessarily true. Instead, look at them like an all new cast, with an all new story. It may seem similar at the beginning, and some aspects remain the same, but the overall plot is going in an all together different direction that excites me and I hope thrills you.
Reviews are also helpful. Feedback from fans helps me understand how they are seeing what I am describing, how they like or dislike scenes, and it gives me insight into how I should attempt future scenes or notice things I have overlooked. I am not looking for endless praise (though I do welcome that too ) I am always looking for useful and informative opinions. I hope to write something people enjoy and aren’t confused by.

With all that is changing, you can understand why I have not updated LMHtD in a while. So much is just not applicable anymore, but, me being someone who hates being left at a cliffhanger by writers, I feel awful for having not presenting you all with the scene where Christian meets his son…so I am working on digging up that scene for you all, cleaning it up, and posting it as a final chapter on LMHtD. It will not be exactly how the scene will play out eventually, but it will be close enough, and it will offer you all some kind of closure…I hope.
I will be posting an update with news of that post once it is completed.

As for this site, I am still in negotiations with Rob. I want to bully that poor boy into changing the Gallery and I’m not sure how much time and effort I will be asking of him, so I am not pressing the matter too heavily…yet.

So yes, stuff is in the works. I am always over in DA if you need me or are looking for art updates. Drop me a message some time there since I am always logged in.

Raine

Sad Developments (11-16-07)

Gosh, I do love some good writing.
Hello, this is just Raine, giving a little update as to what I have been up to since my last post. For the most part: writing. And then working, and then sleeping when I have the time, and drawing. Sadly not much on the way of my characters as much as pokemon commission work...but hey, anything for a little bit of money.

I have been working on LMHtB and it is going really well, so well that I might start updating it, testing out the new plot with you faithful readers. It makes me so happy, I can’t even describe it.

You know what doesn’t make me happy?
Blatant copyright infringement.

I found an adorable little group on a role-playing site, using my art, characters, and story as part of their “clan” without my consent. If that were not cute enough, they started assigning off my characters to each member to be “played” seemingly disregarding the fact that not ALL my characters are Vampires and such.
To put it simply, I am NOT pleased. I sent a message on the website to each posted member of the group, and I am in the process of contacting the webmaster in charge of the site that hosts this forum/club/group.
Though they did give me creative credit for all art and characters, and even linked my site and named me by name, they did NOT get my consent to post anything, and that is what has me in such a foul mood.
I am a nice girl, I really am, and I would have kindly extended them the right to use my characters and art if they had but asked so that I could provide them with watermarked pictures and authorized samplings of my writing.
Instead, they chose to steal it, and it makes me sad because they are apparently fans of my writing and I cherish my fans.

As it is, with this new development, I am considering the removal of my art galleries, and written works section from this website, so that my works cannot be accessed so readily online and be taken without my knowledge. It is harsh, I know, it doesn't seem fair, I agree, but please look at it from my POV. These characters are all my children, they are my life. Their world is my own; my art and words have flowed out of my own two hands for years. So to have someone come in and unceremoniously crop/edit/deface my works for their own use disgusts me.

If anyone would like to have a look at the situation, I give you permission to check out this link HERE. It shows quite plainly what I am not very pleased about.

I will keep a post of the developments in this matter, and please bare in mind that though saving art from websites is flattering, posting it on other site (credit given or not) is STEALING.

Raine

Working, writing, drawing. (09-14-07)

Oh-My-God my computer hates me SO much.
I am still revising LMHtB furiously, lots of work being done, lots being cut out (sorry to say) including several characters. It just seems like the fates are cruel. If I am not working 40 hour weeks my computer is not working. Right now it is not.
I have been drawing, however, and Rob has been working on this site, as you might have noticed. Maybe not. I noticed the 10 billion adds on here. lol. Do not fear them, they are not spywear, but if you click on them we make money. Sounds like fun.
If you would like to see what I have been drawing, check out my DeviantArt account because I won't be posting anything new here until I have the new art-gallery up.
Here is what I did most recently:

CLICK-da-LINK

I hope you like, and I hope you are all still here with me. I am looking for some test-readers. People who can give me some good hardy feedback on what I am doing because it is a lot for one girl to take on by herself. If you are good at spotting inconsistencies (due to me cutting things but not their every mention from then on out) please send me a message.

xoxo
Raine

Progress (08-21-07)

Hello!

I’m sure you all think that I have died, and sorry, that is not the case. I am still as undead as ever. :]

I have been away for a while, but I have not abandoned this story or you loyal fans. I am actually working REALLY hard on my first story, Leave Me Here to Bleed, because I hope to be published sometime next year (2008-2009). I have not been working on Leave Me Here to Die much because of the time consuming nature of re-working an online story into a book format, but I promise to post chapter 09 soon. I have it written, it just needs to tender editing.

Rob and I are in the works for making a new website layout. There will no longer be forums (sorry for those of you who liked them) and the Art Gallery will be different (probably). I hope to make the website a whole lot less complicated and very neat looking. I would love some feedback as to what you would like in a website, otherwise it will all just be left up to me.

As I continue to write, you may all feel free to bother me. My contact information is on the now updated “About the Author” page.

Enjoy the newbanner I made up real fast for you all, and wish me luck as I am off to work some more.

-Raine-

Happy Valentine's Day! (2-14-07)

Hello, my lovelies.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

I hope you all enjoy the banner I posted for the occasion. I just finished it tonight, as in morning since it is 4:55am…where did the night go!?

I do hope it’s not way too large. My monitor is a 21 inch flat-panel with high definition, so what looks tiny to me is usually just about well-sized to everyone else. I made the picture 600 pixels wide, and I could not remember if that is “large” or just “decent” on a normal screen.

If there is a problem, leave a message in my guestbook telling me just how much “too big” it is (and the monitor settings you are using) and I will know by how much I need to size it down.

Also, I have a beta now. Her name is Kerby, and she has been working with me…brave brave girl. We have the first FOUR chapters of LMHtB done. WHOA! Okay, hush, all of you, seriously, that’s a lot. I reposted those chapters, on both this site and Fictionpress. Sorry that I keep “reediting” and “reposting” the first 25-or-so chapters over and over, but honestly, those are the ones that needed the most work. I will hopefully, with Kerby, get through all the rest of the chapters within a reasonable (but obviously not too quick) amount of time.

Wish us luck!

Remember: Chapter 08 is posted. Read it if you haven't.

Need to contact me, tell me about the site, complain, praise, whatever, just drop a message in the guestbook or message me on AIM at: RaineMalfoy.

~~-Raine-~~

Chapter 08...be HAPPY damn it!

Hello my faithful fans. Guess what? I’m not dead… to quote Mark Twain: the rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated.

I have been…in a bad place for a while…but I hope to get back to work. Sorry if my

prolonged absence worried any of you. I doubt it did and you were all simply a little annoyed over the long wait for an update, but I will take that as you showing concern. You all need me.

My computer has been functioning at a substandard level and it is quite irritating. My scanner refuses to acknowledge that it does in fact exist, so I cannot even post new art. What a shame, I know

I have posted a new chapter on Fictionpress however with my newfound determination to get back to work on this story and this site, and I thought you would all ENJOY the update.

Noticed I screamed “enjoy”? yeah, that’s because I am rather disheartened by the first reviews I have received for the update. Jeeze, I do something you have all been asking me to do for months and no one seems all that happy about it. I feel rather disinclined to ever buckle to the fans again.

Well, check out Chapter 08…I don’t know, I thought it was a decent chapter.

I have been working on my Draco Malfoy fanfiction: Blue-Eyed Angel, for a while, and it has been fun, got a little fan base going for that, but I found I have actually distracted myself with that story rather than loosen myself up for some more serious writing in the LMH series.

That and I have developed Carpal Tunnel in my left wrist and my left and is rather useless and numb. It’s funny at times, but rather frustrating when I’m trying to work and my fingers don’t move.

I’m currently working on LMHtB and reposting that chapter by chapter, yeah, yeah, no new news there….If you feel the need to harass me over something, feel free to message me. I’m RaineMalfoy on AIM and I’m always willing to be a grump towards a loyal fan. I’m looking for someone that is patient and good with English to possibly work with me in editing/cleaning up my stories…you know, correcting my improperly used homonyms, poor grammar, and bad spelling mistakes…if you are interested, send me a message. I have dyslexia, cut me some slack.

Check out the new poll.

~~-Raine-~~