Ainsley's drawing of one of Saint Vincent's school buildings

  No matter how hard I try, I can't seem to get the winner of the fight out of my head. I can say that the guy is skilled. His movements have a fluidity of someone who has been doing this kind of thing for a long time. And not to sound corny, it was like watching poetry in motion. Even though I am confident in my own fighting skills, I know with a certainty that frightens me a little that I wouldn't be able to beat him on a one on one fight.

  "You are no match for him." a nasty female voice sounds from my right. Turning my head I am met with a beautiful girl but her glare and the dark swirling colours around her tell me she is bad news. "You will never be able to touch him with your filthy half human paws." She sneers, looking down her dainty little nose at me. "It matters not that you might be related to the Count. Blood gets weaker and weaker with the wrong mating."

  Turning to face her fully, I can tell she is the one with the weak diluted blood not me. Tracing her features, I can tell she is the result of a string of careful breeding, sometimes even incest breeding. During my stare she shifts her weight from foot to foot. "One must know their place after al. Or get put there forcefully." As much as she wants to make it sound like a threat, I don't feel frightened by it. I can detect fear in her, fear for me and what I might represent to her and her carefully constructed, orderly world. After all, I represent an anomaly. I am the unknown factor in her meticulously build order.

  I snort at her measly threat, although the guys in the background who are giving me their best bad ass death glare might make good on that promise of pain for her. Although they look more like lackeys than the relatives they are. "Right and you are going to keep me from seeing him around campus how? This is a school I am bound to see him around some time. Whether you like it or not...Peaches." She looked a little green around the nose as I mentioned the nickname her father uses for her. Clearly not everybody knows about it, as her head quickly moves from side to side, I know it's not common knowledge that her father calls her Peaches.

  "Dude..." Jeremy whispers to me as 'Peaches' gets back to her seat after giving me one last glare. "that was so not a smart move. You don't pick a fight with Ruxandra Ceaușescu and live to tell the tale." He hisses quickly before the teacher comes in and demands all of our attention about what will be expected of us during this year.

  I don't like the way the teacher's eyes linger on me as I walk pass him as we are ushered out to take our orientation tour at the end of the introduction class. I thank God that we don't have body president Natasha as our guide.

  "So what do you think of our schedule?" Jeremy questions as we both look over our piece of paper with a timetable and subjects. Scanning the title of subjects, I snort softly at some of the titles. Like blood history, the parameters of the human mind and oblivion. Like seriously? The rest is alike with what I would get if I would have gone to a human high school. Like, gym, biology, maths, English, physics, chemistry, geography. Frowning, I see something that I can't seem to pronounce.

  "What the hell?" I mumble as I glare at the line of writing that keeps jumbling and tumbling over each other. Making it hard to make out what the words say and what they mean. Rubbing my eyes doesn't help as the line of symbols still blurs.  

  "What is it Ains?" Jeremy's concern wafts up my nose and I look up into his obviously worried brown eyes. "You have been rubbing at your eyes for a good few minutes now." He edges closer to me as he leans over the table, all up in my face and personal space. "Do you have something in your eye?" He takes my hands away from my face and tells me to look to the side so he can see if something in my eye. "I don't see anything in there. Maybe it was just a hair or something." I shrug it off and force myself not to look at the line of writing at the bottom of my paper.

  When the orientation is finally over, Jeremy and I drag our sorry asses back to our dorm to relax a little. When we get there I see one of the guys watching an MMA fight. That brings me back to the fight I witnessed the other day and I still don't know what Blood Heir means. "Can you tell me what Blood Heir means?" I ask Jeremy as we are in the kitchen grabbing a drink and he nearly dropped his glass. "What?" I say as he looks at me with wide and frightened eyes. He shakes his head and puts down the glass carefully on top of the counter.

  "A blood Heir is someone who is nominated to be the next Leader of one of the Houses. Usually he or she is the blood relative of the original Leader of the House. And in case they are not close related to the original Leader of the House, they are usually the ones with the most potential to do great things in their lives. Why do you ask?"

  I shrug lightly, "I heard the term somewhere and didn't know what it was. It seemed to be a big deal to the guy who said it. That's all." Jeremy gives me a look like he doesn't really believe me, but it's whatever.  

<><><><>

   Sitting on a low brick wall that allows me to capture the natural beauty surrounding the school building, I let my right hand holding the coloured pencil flow over my A3 notebook. I love drawing, painting and photography. And since I already made a few photo's who kept coming out blurred, no matter what I did. I started a drawing journal. I have my arrival day, my dorm, several guys from my dorm, the student body president, the Headmaster, Walter and several others. At this moment I am working the winner of the fight I witness the other say.

  As I pull back slightly to look at my handy work, I hear a soft female gasp of surprise right beside me. Looking up, the girl beside me is obviously well off. She wears designer brand uniform just like everybody else, but there is something else about her that sets her apart from everybody else. I just can't put my finger on it.

  "Hunter" She whispers in awe, gently stroking a fingertip along the strong curve of his jaw. "You have talent." She has yet to look at me, her eyes glued to the page. "Obvious talent." There is a small tremor of sadness in her voice as she straightens up and finally turns to face me properly. "I am Roxana Duță."

  "Ainsley." I shake her stretched out hand. "Just Ainsley." I state as she cocks her head ever so slightly to the side as I don't give a surname." Not that I can give her one besides the one my mom gave me. The human one. I don't know if I want to use the Dragomir one. I don't feel comfortable with that one just yet.

  I know that she knows who I am. It has been all over the school the day came here. She doesn't push the subject any further, for which I am grateful. Instead, she changes subjects. "I didn't know you knew Hunter." She points to my drawing. "It looks like he can just walk off the page. I never saw anyone draw that realistic before. So life like."

  I glance at the drawing, still feeling unsatisfied with it. "I don't really know him." I mumble. "I saw him by chance, fighting some guy in the gym." She nods her head as she daintily sits beside me on the wall, staring out at the rolling lawns stretching out before us. Some emotion flickers in her gaze, but it is gone before I can identify it. "But the way he fought stuck with me and I haven't been able to get him out of my head since."

  Her hands tighten on the rough stone as her body tenses. "He is known for having that kind of influence on people." I hear some resentment and longing in her voice. "Just make sure you don't get too caught up in him Ainsley." Her serious gaze startled me so badly that I dropped my pencils and a few loose pages from my notebook fluttered to the ground.

  The rest of the day my head was filled with thoughts going endless rounds. Like, why would get caught up in him? Is he that dangerous? If he is I can take care of myself! But why would she warn me if it wasn't serious. Round and round my thoughts went, nearly succeeding in driving me insane.

  Groaning, I fall on my ass as I walk into a solid wall of muscle. Clearly too distracted by my thoughts to see where my feet are taking me. This of course result in loose papers from my notebook scattered everywhere. "God dammit!" Fuming under my breath, I get on my knees grabbing papers and stuffing them back in the notebook.

  "These are pretty good." An unknown throaty voice states and I turn back to see Hunter stand there looking at two drawings in his hands. Luckily he hasn't seen the portrait I made of him as I snatch it away several inches from his feet. I blush as twin orbs with the colour of smoldering embers look at me over the edge of one of my drawings.

  I don't like the way my heartbeat react to him as it suddenly starts to stutter and falter, doing all kinds of crazy shit in my chest cavity. Squeaking out something unintelligible, I jank the drawings of of his hands and dash away. Leaving a stunned Hunter and gwakers behind.

  Running around blindly in a building I have only been a few times in, results in me getting lost. Leaning against a random wall, I pant as I try and catch my breath. Leaning my forehead against the wall, I feel shame and mortification creep up on me. What the hell was with that?! Now he must think I am a freak. I frown at the blind wall in front of me, since when do I care what anybody thinks of me? Another groan leaves my lips as I gently bang my head against the wall. It's not like I will run into him again any time soon anyway so what is the problem?

  Of course my plan to never see Hunter again doesn't work out that way. It is ridiculous really, every time I turn around he is there. Like he is either stalking me or it is just pure coincidence that he also happens to be there. But, I have learned the hard way there is no such thing as a coincidence in life. Ignoring him doesn't work either, whenever I turn my back in him, I feel his eyes burning holes between my shoulderblades. Making me very uncomfortable about being in the same room as him.

  People whisper behind their hands whenever I pass them, just loud enough to hear them speak and the words Hunter and my name, but not so loud so that I can make out the rest. I jump when a hot hand Lands on my shoulder. "Mother f--" I trail off when I see Hunter standing a couple of inches away. "What do you want?" I snarl. 

  "We need to talk." He states infuriatingly calm, his red eyes burning into me.