Cameron felt on the verge of tears as she looked in the mirror. She hoped she wouldn't actually cry and ruin her mascara.
After three weeks you'd think she'd be over the mess that was her Prom, but the whole night still haunted her. The memories were woven into the beautiful light blue gown she now wore. How could she get through this night in this dress?
By being on the arm of a devilish handsome blonde... that was how. And in front of Melanie too. After everything was said and done she was really starting to like the idea of hurting Melanie for what she did; show her that she had overcome everything and ended up on top. Elias could help her prove that.
With thoughts of Melanie came thoughts of Gavin Ovidan. The guy gave her the creeps! She knew now he probably did something to Melanie; had given her that blood urge that Cameron herself had experienced. So why then did he do it? Cameron hated the thought that it wasn't Melanie's fault for tackling Trent but really... why couldn't she find a single guy? And why was Trent down there in the first place? He was supposed to be her date... he could have waited until she got back from the bathroom.
It was on the way from the bathroom that Cameron had first seen Gavin Ovidan at Prom. The look he'd given her was appraising... no doubt he was the reason she was here at this school. Well, he wasn't getting her. He could have Melanie, the little tramp. Cameron was content with her blonde warrior.
Cameron sighed and smiled, thinking of Elias' hands on her. She felt his touch all over her body, the whispered memory of caresses on her legs, her breasts, between her legs... she was getting turned on just by thinking about it. When she looked at herself in the mirror this time, she saw the fire in her eyes put there by the Head of Arinson House and the devious things they'd done while she was supposed to be getting interviewed. He'd taken her virginity, and despite the tenderness she could still feel -- even after taking some painkillers -- she was already interested in another tryst.
The girl in the mirror was different, Cameron now realized. Despite wearing her hair down -- not up like she had at Prom -- she could see herself in a new light. She still looked like a girl of eighteen, but she was now a woman who'd known a man's -- not a boy's -- touch.
***
Kristie MacFarland had purposefully skipped Prom. Instead, she and Dylan met up with his cousin from college and other older kids and gotten trashed. While her classmates partied it up to boy bands crooning love-pop songs, she and the others were lounging in a pot-filled haze listening to Hendrix, Zepplin, and mixing in a little Rammstein, which was making its rounds amongst the angsty young adults these days. German sounds about hate. Very not Prom. Still, the beat was awesome and with the pot in her system making her drowsy, Kris had laid there, propped up against Dylan's shoulders, both of them focusing on nothing but the music and the feelings a night of bingeing brought to the human body.
So Kris had missed the drama of Prom and the experience of buying four hundred dollar dresses that would only be worn for a night with a boy. Darn. Now she stood in front of a floor-length mirror, checking herself out. Was it fate that she was dressed in black silk? She loved the innuendo of black hugging her body so tightly as this dress did, a slit up her right thigh allowing her to walk. You didn't wear something like this to a high school dance. This kind of dress was for the big boys.
Kristie was saved from wearing jewelry on her neck (that she didn't have) by the dress's high collar which wrapped around her neck, leaving her back bare all the way down to the dimples above her ass. Sexy. She was sure some of the dads from earlier would be eying her again, waiting impatiently for nightfall when they could bang their wives into oblivion while thinking of her. Smiling wickedly at herself in the mirror, she knew she shouldn't have such thoughts, but Hell, she was human.
And... she wondered how many others she would see tonight... were not.
She was really going to do this. Kristie was going to attend a vampire college. Was she truly serious about this? 'Cause vampires could get you dead pretty quick. At least, that was what the myths told her... and her only defense so far was that the myths had gotten a lot wrong.
Daman's warm fingers....
Kris licked her lips and took her hand away from her abdomen where it was threatening to touch lower. Smirking to herself she turned to leave her room and join her parents on the walk to the gala.
***
Melanie Carver stood in front of the ornate stone building, chilled by the spring air; she wrapped her coat tighter around her as she studied the ornate structure. It reminded her of the pictures she'd seen of Versailles. Roanoke House... so this was Virginia's monstrosity.
Melanie shivered; this time it wasn't from the cold. Virginia Roanoke had taken her down through some underground passageways, past a room she called the Crossroads, and into a hallway straight out of seventeenth century France. Her House had been decorated with the swirly fashion of builders who have too much time on their hands and plenty of money at their disposal. Melanie had sat across from Virginia in a golden chair with plush fabric, stealing glances at large paintings on the walls depicting men in tights and women in wigs.
Virginia had been honest. There was no disputing that; and Melanie had left the interview afraid for her life. As it turned out, the girls who didn't get the scholarship became... snacks. They weren't killed, and if they accepted their positions at the university, they could still wind up with some really great connections so a little blood donation was worth it.
If you were sick and twisted.
Melanie was more determined than ever to get the scholarship now, hoping to be one of the special girls who escaped such a fate. She was already told she was attending here, and had foolishly asked Virginia what would happen if she said no.
Death.
Once a person knew of the school's hidden reality, they were either with it or against it. Those against it were not trusted to live out in the world where they could speak of the precious secret the vampires kept tucked away in the mountains of Appalachia. It was painless, Victoria promised, but it was also final.
No thank you.
Melanie sighed. She had had three people in her interview, and Virginia had explained that those were the Heads who were interested in her. John Harvard had left early, and according to Virginia, that didn't mean much, just that he didn't feel the need to interview Mel. It was rare but a Head who didn't interview a girl could still pick her if the others he or she chose did not live up to the hopes that Head had for their House.
So if Harvard was out, that left Roanoke and Ovidan. And Melanie really didn't want to be with Ovidan. She had thought briefly of running to him and begging him to take her into his House, but there was no way she could; he'd gotten her into this mess in the first place and she refused to forgive him, despite what she'd been taught at church. She doubted the Catholic faith would enforce the forgiveness rule when referring to the damned.
Oh... Sweet Baby Jesus... would she be damned?
"Stand like that too long and you could get a crick in your neck."
Melanie turned to see Kristie striding up the walk in a tight black dress that flapped around her ankles when she walked and a black leather motorcycle jacket. The two pieces of clothing were so wrong together it almost looked sexy; like she'd borrowed a jacket from a guy. Kristie's hair was in it's usually style, the red-orange bangs falling down into her eyes; with hair that short it was hard to fix elegantly.
"Have you noticed that all the structures on campus contradict each other, yet still manage to go together?" Melanie asked.
"What you mean like the Egyptian building setting next to this French Renaissance thing?" Kristie looked over at the obsidian structure looming up into the darkness of the night sky.
