Thirsty for him
5. The bounded ones

“What’s all this noise?” Hearing someone ask with an angry tone echoing through the hallway. Afraid of who it might be, I look around. This is not going to be good, I think, as we try to make our way down the hallway to the car.

At first, I had indeed a feeling there were more, but the boys only looked interested, and I could tell from their emotions that they didn’t want to hurt me. This man, whose voice this is, sounds anything but friendly, only very dark. Although I am not afraid for myself, only for Daisy’s safety. “Go Avery and don’t come back,” Varnic says, commanding me as he continues to stand in the middle of the hallway, waiting for someone if he wants to protect us from something.

Not much later, I remain standing stock-still in my spot when I hear a voice from not far from us. I see a large man with white-blond hair and a dark stare towards us, but I have to listen to Varnic and get out of this house safely. He distracts the man as we try to make our way down the stairs. Even though, I notice a change in the air, as if I am being pulled back to them. “Son, you are hiding something. Do you think I am a fool? I have lived for many centuries, and you think you can fool me,” says the powerful voice of a man. Who appears to be their father, which I could have expected from his hair color and the same bone structure as Varnic.

I encouraged Daisy to walk down the stairs when I remained frozen to the ground until I felt a cold hand around my neck. “Well, well, what have we here,” the man speaks to me, causing me to angrily start wriggling in his arms to break free, which makes me squeal like a cat as he takes an even tighter hold of me. I had just told Daisy to go without me. Which she had done, but she kept looking at me. Before she ran down the stairs, back out of the house. “What do you want from me,” I hissed like a cat about to attack. “Oh, a mean one. She’s just a little kitten who left the nest. Thank you son for this surprise. I like a Nicroat for breakfast,” says the man who is the father of Varnic with my neck still clasped in his hand.

I look up at him to find out what could be his soft spot. The only thing I could figure out is that he is covered in darkness. His statue is also bigger and more muscular than his sons, it looks like he trains daily. He doesn't look any day older than thirsty, which makes all their words true, they are vampires.

He had some same characteristics as his sons, but he is pure evil. “She’s just a Ninocrat who doesn’t even know what she can do,” Varnic tried to save me, but I knew at this point that talking to him, would only do more harm than good. I’m still figuring out what I can do if Varnic keeps trying to reason with his father, which makes him even angrier. “She tasted you, didn’t she?” He asks more kindly of his son, even though you can clearly hear the arrogance in it.

“What do you mean, father?” Asks Varnic back to his father. To which the big man took me even more firmly to look underneath my t-shirt to look at the mark. “You stupid idiot, she marked you. You’re her next prey. Now I know for sure, I have to kill her before she kills us all!” He shouted as he wanted to snap my neck like a small twig he had clamped between his fingers. I must act now goes through me, it is now or never.

It’s like I’m being led by my instinct. I can feel his heartbeat through my arm, just as his blood pours through his veins. Not blood, but plasma. I let my sharp teeth sink into his arm and felt the plasma slide onto my tongue. Which gripped me so much that I set my teeth even deeper. He screamed and wanted to knock me off him, but I was faster and ran down the stairs and jumped out.

I feel my feet collide with the ground every time I run through the woods. When I look back I don’t see anyone following me, which makes it clear they are vampires, but how did they go to school if they are afraid of the sun? Then I heard it, a cry for war to me. Now I had to use all the strength I had in me to create more distance between me and the vampires before they could find me. I could also now hear my feet hitting the hard earth with every step I took. I must find a way to be able to quiet myself more because I assume they have the same power of hearing as us.

I could almost feel my feet, listening to my head. As I heard my footsteps become still, like a feather hitting the ground after it had flown out of the sky, from some bird that had flown by. It felt like I was floating above the ground. I was still running and didn’t even feel tired or less strong because of it. Which was strange, because in school my grades for the gym were so low.

I step out of the woods into town and see people walking in and out of stores, so trying to hide from them among the people walking down the street. Later I manage to shake them off after I’m a few blocks away and feel like they’ve gone back. I can finally breathe easy as I walk home. I arrive at the familiar heavy door, which I close as quietly as I can. Although Mom had heard me anyway and came steaming down the hall, clearly in a bad mood, “What have you done!” She yells at me. How could she possibly know what I did?

“Don’t act like a fool! Your father saw you running through the forest with a couple of bound ones behind you! Are you trying to let them know we’re around?” Mother still looks angry as she asks me this sarcastic question. I know it was stupid of me, but how could I know what they were up to? They never told me what to do or what to expect from this curse. Still standing there with her hands on her hips and her black hair braided back in a braid with all kinds of pins in it. I take another good look at the pins in her hair and see that they look exactly sharper now. Why hadn’t I seen that before? I’ve never looked at things in as much detail as I can see them now.

The veil has fallen, it is as if the hazy side of my eyes is gone, and now I can see everything that the veil was hiding until this moment. Father also suddenly steps into the hallway and looks at me angrily, “Why are you going to the Elys family home? Are you crazy? They are our enemies. For centuries, we have waited for them to come back, and you have almost ruined everything. They don’t know it’s us. When we heard them talking, all they said was that a new one had come into their house. Promise me you won’t go back?” he asks me sternly, causing me to nod my head in a “yes.”

Even though I know they know what I am now. My father was like a god in this house. If he said something, we all listened and obeyed him without any dissent. Even our mother does everything he asks her to do.

After his conversation with me, he stepped out again and Mother walked back upstairs. “Why do you always go upstairs, Mother?” I ask her, causing her to suddenly stay still on the third step of the stairs with her hand holding the banister. “Now I don’t have to pretend anymore, and I need to rest for the hunt,” she replies bluntly exasperated by my question, causing me to hear their bedroom door slam shut five minutes later. Still looking up, not knowing what will happen next. How was I supposed to know they were our enemy? I just found out in the first place what we are ourselves.

I decide to go to my father’s office, to search for some books to help me understand. Never we were allowed to get close to Father's office, but my curiosity could no longer getaway. In his office I go to the bookshelves where I get drawn by a book that I take out of the bookshelf and read the name; “The House of Ghosts.” I seated myself down on the old rug. I open the book with a heavy feeling in my bones.

On the first page, I start reading about the history of the haunted house.

I read about the house being an estate from one of the richest families in town. Everything was fine at first before the husband got mad about some curse that landed on his wife and kids. It's all so weird how they tell this story like it's just a horror novel of some kind.

“Avery, you are playing a very dangerous game. Father will be angry when he finds out what you are doing,” says Diana, my sister, as she pulls me up from the carper. She pulls me to the stairs and pushes me into her room, where she starts talking to me in a quiet tone, “I heard you were with the Elys family. I know they are handsome Avery, I know that very well, but they are just out to destroy us or do something and get ahead of us. They use us to lure our kind and kill us before we can kill them. They have been changed by the witch who put this curse on us. It’s complicated, but know that this book you were holding is just all tales, no real story.” Sᴇaʀ*ᴄh the Find_Nøvel.ɴet website on Gøøglᴇ to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.

What, is it all a lie? When I think I’ve found something, I find out again that it’s not true. She hands me an old book that looks like it could fall apart at any moment.

“This is the truth, this is our history. The books you’ve been looking at are the books they sell to people to scare them,” she explains as I look at the first page; The Bound and the Cursed.

I take it upstairs to my room as I go sit on my bed and open the book, immediately there falls a yellowed page which felt so fragile that I had to take it slow to not break it. I start reading the text that hasn't faded in time:

The Bounded ones: Those who are bound by the witch Medina to live as immortals and feed on human blood.

The cursed ones: Those who are doubly cursed, not like the bound one. They do not live on human blood, no. She had a different plan for them. The bounded one activates them. They are cursed to keep this thirsty feeling until it takes them over if they do not feed them.

I look at the page, startled. If it's some kind of evil paper. This is creepy, it feels like I am in some kind of horror story.

What have I done to these people to deserve this, and why does this curse continue? Why has no one in all this time broken the curse?

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