Blood Haven: Year One: A Mayhem of Magic World Story Read online

  Blood Haven Academy Year One

  Nicole Zoltack

  Copyright 2020 by Nicole Zoltack

  Cover Artist: Milktee Studios

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Created with Vellum

  To all star-crossed lovers

  Contents

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  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Other Books By Nicole Zoltack

  About the Author

  Acknowledgments

  Author’s Note

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  Chapter 1

  Romelia

  The moon is so solemn and bright tonight, and I gaze up at it, wondering at its beauty. Everyone tends to associate werewolves with the moon, but the night doesn’t just belong to them. No, the night very much is also the domain of the vampires.

  I run my tongue over my fangs and sigh. Although I ate a light meal for dinner, my stomach is a bit queasy. Some blood might help with that, or maybe it would make it worse.

  My door bursts open, and I jerk, startled, the book I was supposed to be reading thudding to the floor.

  “Tyra! Is something wrong?”

  Tyra’s red eyes glitter with excitement. She’s not just one of my housemates in the small castle we live in at Blood Haven Academy. She’s not just a friend either. Tyra’s a cousin of mine.

  Yes, vampires can have family relations. It’s possible to be related by blood. Blood is, after all, what ties people together, vampires more than most.

  She rushes over to me and clasps my hands, drawing me to stand. “You will not believe what just happened.”

  I sniff, my nostrils flaring at the scent of blood. “You drank from the source, didn’t you?” I ask.

  "No," she grumbles, some of her excitement fading as she releases my hands and crosses over to my bed. She sits on the side of it, and I follow suit. The moonlight shines against her from the window, the illumination highlighting the golden specks in her brown hair.

  “Are you going to leave me in suspense?”

  Tyra’s back to grinning. “That is what a vampire does best, isn’t it?”

  I laugh and shake my head. “You do realize you like to be a bit cliché at times, don’t you?”

  “Not at all!” She giggles. “Well, maybe a little.” She leans closer and whispers, after all, I did just fight a werewolf.”

  “You did?” I gasp, horrified. “Where? Not here on campus!”

  "No, of course not. Werewolves know better than to prowl about our academy grounds." She sniffs her delicate nose.

  All vampires are beautiful. We're evolved to be that way so that we can lure humans away so we can feast on them. I've never once drunk from a vein, though. Mother and Father saw to that. We have to be cautious, we meaning all vampires. Humans don't know that we exist, and we cannot have that change. Witches have tried time and again to move out of the shadows, but without fail, every time, the humans fought back, killing what they fear.

  Right now, I feel that fear for Tyra. Now I’m the one to grasp her hands. “You didn’t cross over onto their academy grounds, did you?” I ask.

  “Moonstone Academy.” Tyra rolls her red eyes. “No, no, I would burn to a crisp if I set foot there. Besides, I’m sure the stench of wet dog would make me want to shrivel up and die.” She frees a hand to dramatically place it across her forehead.

  Blood Haven Academy and Moonstone Academy. We’re bitter rivals, and I don’t mean that in the same nature that humans say that two schools are rivals. Not because of sport. Because of life itself.

  Vampires, by nature, take blood to survive. Werewolves view that as an abomination, yet they have an animal nature to them that can cause madness. People are not meant to be animals. As it is, vampires do not have to kill to take the blood we need.

  We’ve always been at odds for more than just our differences, though. There has always been bad blood between the two supernatural creatures. How exactly that all started, I don’t know. I suppose I could ask one of the professors, but I honestly haven’t given werewolves much thought at all.

  “Romelia Covenshade! Are you going to listen to me or not?”

  Without realizing it, I’m back to staring at the moon. I turn back to my cousin. “Tyra Bloodsworth! If you would just tell me what happened without going off on tangents every chance you get—”

  “I do not go off on tangents!”

  I lift my eyebrows. “No, not ever,” I murmur.

  Tyra shoves my shoulder, and I allow myself to fall back onto my bed as I collapse into a fit of giggles.

  “I was in the Silver Ironwoods and—”

  “What were you doing there?” I ask, confused. I sit up and appraise her. “That is right against their campus.”

  “Yes, well, it’s beautiful, especially at night. Have you ever been?”

  “No, and beautiful or not, you can’t deny that you were looking for trouble.”

  “Maybe.” Tyra grins, her red eyes gleaming like rubies. “I just wanted to see the forest. It really is a sight to see.”

  “You went alone?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you provoked a werewolf.”

  She crosses her arms. “You would blame me,” she grumbles.

  I lean forward to touch her wrist, my wavy brown hair falling forward. “Tyra, I just want you to be safe. There’s been talk of the werewolves being in their animal form more often lately.” I hesitate and draw back. “Did you attack the man or the beast?”

  “First of all, he attacked me.”

  “He?”

  “Yes. And he was his beast.”

  “The wolf attacked you? Unprovoked? How do you know it was a he?”

  “I think size alone makes it easy to determine male from female,” she says dryly.

  I tilt my head to the side. “I’ve never seen a wolf in person,” I confess. “Not the animal or a shifter.”

  "You don't want to, but I will say that the wolf was huge! Monstrously huge! His head reached…" She holds out her hand to about five feet tall. "Maybe even taller. I don't think it's possible for an animal wolf to get so large."

  I shudder. "The werewolf really attacked you unprovoked?"

  “I might have flashed my fangs at him,” she says, “but yes, he came at me, and he almost bit my leg.”

  My hands fly to my mouth as she lifts her left leg into
the air so I can see the dirt streaks marring her pale skin. There's no cut, though, but of course there wouldn't be. Even if the werewolf sunk his claws into her flesh, the wound would've healed by now. Not everything that humans believe about vampires is true, but we do heal rather quickly.

  “What did you do?” I ask, my question muffled because of my hands that I slowly drop to my lap.

  “He went for my leg, so I lifted it and kicked him square on the snout. He went flying backward and slammed into a tree. I thought about waiting for him to climb back to his feet to see what he would do next, but I thought of you.”

  “Of me?”

  “Yes. ‘What would Romelia want me to do?’” She laughs. “I know you wouldn’t have even attacked him in the first place, and I don’t want to be on the professor’s bad side—”

  “Which professor?” I interrupt.

  She shrugs. “Any of them, honestly. I might be failing a subject or two.”

  “Tyra! Why?”

  "I just don't think it's necessary for us to attend here. We all know how to use our abilities. This academy should just be for newbie vampires, the ones who are bitten and don't know or understand their abilities yet. We do. We were born vampires!"

  “Not everyone who attends here is like us,” I remind her, “and there’s always more to learn Besides, some of the classes are about history and—”

  Tyra’s fake yawn is obnoxiously loud, but I just laugh, which makes her laugh too.

  “Yes, even I’ll admit that it’s a little boring at times. There’s only so many times we can learn about Vlad.”

  “He wasn’t even the first vampire!” Tyra throws up her hands. “Why do they act like he’s one of the best vampires ever?”

  “I think it’s because he’s the only vampire to have actually been somewhat out in the open,” I explain.

  “Yes, well, there’s Dracula too.”

  I shake my head. “He really was real,” I murmur. “So many humans don’t think he was. It’s crazy the misinformation they have.”

  "I suppose the misinformation is important." Tyra shrugs as she stands and heads over to my mirror. She examines her fangs before turning to face me. "Don't worry. I won't head back to Silver Ironwoods again. Not alone, at least." She grins, flashing her fangs. "Do you want to go and see them?"

  “The same night that you fought a werewolf? I don’t think so.”

  "Then, tomorrow night?"

  “No.”

  “Well, we can’t the night after,” she muses, tapping a finger against her cheek.

  “Why is that?” I ask suspiciously.

  "Because of the party! We're going. Everyone attending the academy is going. The Red Moon Ball. It's a tradition that the year's biggest party is held that night, and it's always a bloody good time."

  I roll my eyes. “We have a huge test—”

  “One night,” she repeats. “You’re coming.”

  “But—”

  “You can study now and tomorrow,” she says breezily.

  “I can’t study now,” I grumble. “I’m too worried that my idiot of a cousin is going to get herself killed.”

  “I won’t get myself killed,” she protests.

  “No? You were asking for that werewolf to attack you! Flashing your fangs? Why on earth would you do that unless you wanted him to attack?”

  “I just wanted to see what he would do,” she protests.

  I blink a few times. “And you honestly thought he would react any other way?”

  “No.” Tyra heaves a deep breath. “Sometimes… I just feel rage, you know? I hate that we have to live like this, live in secret. We have to pretend we’re human, wear special fake teeth to hide our fangs. We have to put on colored contacts so they can’t see our red eyes. We have to walk around as if we’re humans just to survive. Why? Why can’t we just go where we want? I enjoy walking in that forest, I do, but I want to go to the beach.”

  “I know we can walk under the sunlight,” I say dryly, “but the beach? We can’t tan.”

  “The water. I want to see the water.”

  “Running water is also a no go,” I say gently.

  “Because nature itself hates us.” Tyra scowls. “Sometimes, it feels as if the world hates us.”

  I stand and envelop my arms around her. “Tyra, you can be sad and upset, and that’s fine. We all experience that, but to want to pick a fight with a werewolf… that’s not smart.”

  “Yeah, well, we can’t all be perfect,” she huffs, breaking off the hug and turning her back to me.

  “I want to study for that test because my grades are far from perfect,” I tell her mildly.

  She doesn’t say anything.

  “Listen. Let’s make a deal. I’ll go to this party, and you’ll avoid any contact with werewolves.”

  “For how long?” she asks over her shoulder.

  “Forever! Come on, Tyra!”

  She giggles and faces me again, this time hugging me before drawing back and pushing my hair back from my shoulders.

  “We are going to have so much fun,” she gushes.

  "It's fine to have fun here but not off campus. Off campus, you only ever find trouble."

  “I can’t help it if my last name is Bloodsworth!”

  “That doesn’t mean that you have to find trouble!”

  We laugh, and Tyra and I end up talking until the moon is well on its way to dying so that the sun can live again. There’s no more studying for me, but I can’t blame Tyra for that. I hadn’t been studying when she entered my room.

  As I finally climb into bed to get maybe two hours of sleep before classes start in the morning, I wonder and worry that Tyra might find trouble at the party despite her promise.

  Little do I know just how much the party will affect the future in good and not-so-good ways.

  Chapter 2

  Julian

  The scents of the oaks, pines, and maple trees fill my nose as I inhale deeply. There's a connection to nature that I always feel, but it's muted when I'm a human. When I unleash my wolf, I feel the closest to nature, but I also feel the furthest from myself. It's a dangerous game, unleashing my wolf. It takes years and years of practice to tame the animal within. All shifters feel this, but I almost wonder if it's harder for werewolves. A wolf shifter had been the first among all shifters, after all.

  A hand lands on my shoulder, and I don’t have to look over to know who stands beside me.

  “Mercy Lance,” I say.

  The blonde blinks her blue eyes at me. She’s one of my closest friends here at Moonstone Academy.

  She’s trying to look innocent, which tells me she’s guilty.

  “What did you do?” I ask with a groan.

  “Me? I didn’t do anything.”

  Her cocky grin tells me there’s something there, even if she’s not the culpable party.

  “So who did?”

  “I’m actually not sure of the name of the werewolf in question, but I do know that he went up against a vampire and almost broke a tree.”

  “A vampire? Where? Here on campus? They wouldn’t dare.”

  “They didn’t, and it was only one vampire. A hulking brute of a vampire from what I hear, but then again, who knows? It was just the one vampire and one werewolf, and you know how stories can grow.”

  “You know better than most,” I say.

  She shrugs, her grin growing. “What can I say? That I’m guilty!”

  I just shake my head.

  “You’re just walking around campus aimlessly again, aren’t you?” she asks.

  "I'm taking in the beauty of the castle, the ancient trees, the stones that have been walked on by countless werewolves over centuries… I'm not aimlessly walking. It's peaceful."

  “Why do you need peace?” she asks. Her eyes narrow. “You aren’t still thinking about—”

  “Julian Moonblaze!” a deep voice calls.

  Hearing my name, I turn to greet my best friend and cousin. “Bermon Von Hagen, how are y
ou?”

  “I’m good, quite good.”

  “Did you hear about the vampire attack?” Mercy asks him.

  Bermon stares at her with unblinking brown eyes. “No,” he says flatly.

  Mercy shrugs. Bermon's never been one to worry about idle gossip. He prefers peace whenever possible, and what's tragic about that is that he has a scar to prove it. Once, he got in the way of two werewolves at war, and he got slashed and clawed when they went for each other. Normally, werewolves can heal at incredible clips, but when claws are dipped in certain venom, that isn't always the case. At least the scar is on his chest, so it's not visible most of the time.

  The two don’t fight often, and I hope they won’t now. To distract myself, I look up at the bright sky, trying to find the moon. The silver orb always calms me, and right now, I need that. Not because of a small squabble between a werewolf and a vampire. Something inside of me is unsettled, troubled.

  “You’re thinking about her again, aren’t you?” Bermon asks.

  I eye the werewolf. “No.”

  “Which her?” Mercy asks. She brushes her braided blond hair off her shoulder.

  “Bellanore Shade,” Bermon explains for me.

  “I am not thinking about her,” I protest.

  “You like her?” Mercy asks me. She turns to Bermon. “Why didn’t I know about this?”

  Bermon shrugs. “Probably because Bellanore doesn’t return Julian’s feelings.”