Darkness of Desire

Chapter 3

Within days, Celeste received packets of paperwork for herself and her parents to fill out. Celeste wanted everything to be done before the deadline so she constantly hounded her parents to complete the the necessary paperwork. Celeste had to do a video conference with an advisor to sign up for the new semester courses and, thankfully, her advisor was nice enough to give suggestions on how to make a smooth transition into the school.

As the summer was approaching, it was time for Celeste to start packing. Karla started getting emotional about her baby girl leaving her. Celeste could see that everyone was trying not to cry, but it was only a matter of time before that became impossible. Gabriel was grumbling around her, muttering how this was a bad idea but she ignored him and continued on with her plans for college.

Eventually, news of Celeste leaving for college quickly spread to the rest of her family. Well, most of the family, as not all of them knew of Celeste’s existence, but the few that knew like aunts and uncles on both sides of the family, were happy with the news.

It wasn’t long before there was only a few weeks before her flight to the UK and the family planned a going-away party for Celeste. It was impossible to keep it a surprise with Celeste’s abilities, but for her family’s sake she pretended that they actually succeeded in surprising her.

She saw Gabriel gave her a side-eye in her fake acting of being surprised, and she saw her three werewolf bodyguards snickering in the corner. She sent them all a quick glare before regaining her composure before anyone could notice. Gabriel couldn’t help but be mentally proud of how well she could control her emotions.

Her parents planned a wonderful party and had a full spread of food that was made with the werewolves in mind, as the three of them could scarf down food faster than possible.

Celeste spent the majority of the party holding and hugging crying aunts and uncles making promises to be safe. While trying not to be embarrassed by her parents' speeches. On the side, her older sister Tamara told her how they were going to do a slide-show of all the pictures that were taken of her in her life, and it took her days to finally convince them not to. Celeste had never been so grateful to her sister in her life.

Eventually, the party was winding down to a close and everyone started to clean up. Once it was all done, her aunts and uncles said their final goodbyes and her parents and siblings headed off to bed. Celeste couldn’t sleep so she went up to the roof of the house and stared at the night sky.

“I hope you realize the sky isn’t all the different once you get to Oxford,” a deep male voice said behind her.

Celeste laughed, “Duh I know that, you jerk”, she didn’t have to turn around to see who was speaking so causal with her.

“Just making sure”, Carter smiled widely while pushing his dark-brown hair back and moved to sit next to her. Carter was one of her werewolves, who were her bodyguards and at the same time one of two best friends. In fact all the werewolves were more closer to her than the vampires but that’s mostly due to Gabriel.

“Are you coming to Oxford as well?” Celeste asked and Carter nodded, “Good because I don’t think I can survive Gabriel without you”

“Gabriel means well. Sometimes” he muttered

Celeste pretended not to hear him, “He didn’t even want me to go to Oxford, to be honest I don’t think he wants me to go to college at all.”

“Vampires are over-protective by nature, but when it comes to you, they become smothering over-protective.”

“I just don’t get it. What’s so bad about Oxford?” Celeste sighed

“Were you not told?” Carter asked, looking him

“Told what?”

Carter sucked his teeth,“What the hell? You should’ve been aware of this.” He groaned

“Aware of what?” Celeste asked impatiently

“Well it’s not exactly England that they don’t want you to go to but it’s how close England is to Ireland and the Nordic regions.”

“What’s wrong with that?”

“Well, those countries are a big hot-spot for supernatural beings. Don’t ask me why, but for some reason it is. I’m sure you can understand that means that other beings and vampires will be there along with Hunters as well.” Carter explained.

Celeste has never encountered a Hunter (due to Gabriel’s smothering) but she’s heard stories about them from other werewolves who had. Armed with holy weapons and ancient spells, stolen by witches they hunted, a Hunter one's mission is to hunt and kill all supernatural beings. It was unclear to Celeste if that meant they would even kill off creatures who were good, but she had the feeling that the Hunters didn’t care who they killed.

“Thankfully, since people don’t know of you, we would like to keep it that way.” Carter continued.

“I had no idea”

“Not surprising; Gabriel made sure things like this would be kept from you, for your protection”

Celeste sighed, “Of course, that doesn’t shock me at all.”

Carter chucked, “You should rest, Celeste, you-”

“Carter!” Gabriel growled through the mind link. "Address our Princess properly, you damn wolf!”

“Damn how strong is that damn that vampire hearing of his?” Carter groaned

“Isn’t a vampire hearing as strong as a werewolf? Celeste chuckled, “Besides it shouldn’t be surprising.”

“First of all, werewolves have stronger hearing than vampires, and second, I know.” Carter smirked “Like I was saying you should rest, Celeste.”

“Carter! Respect our Princess!” Gabriel yelled through the mind-link.

Carter sighed, “See you in the morning, Celeste” and jumped off the roof, landing on his feet and walked further away in the backyard before Gabriel could yell at him again.

Celeste smiled and looked back up the night sky, ‘I wonder if I’ll make any new friends?’