Blood & Bone: The First Vampire's Mate

CHAPTER 1: THE GIRL WHO COULDN'T SHIFT A single drop of blood hit the dirt. Bright crimson against the brown earth. Aria stared at it for one heartbeat before the world tilted. One second she was standing in the Ashthorne Academy training grounds with her fists raised. The next, her knees buckled and the air left her lungs in a wet, tearing cough. "Aria!" For years, Aria had pretended the sickness in her veins wasn't killing her. The training ground swam around her. Around the field, dozens of students had already shifted into their wolf forms.while the instructors watched. Silver, gold, and midnight black fur shining in the morning sun. All of them staring at the only girl who couldn't shift. Ashthorne Academy looked like an ordinary private university. Humans saw nothing more than an elite private school. Only those born into the hidden supernatural world knew that many of its students belonged to ancient werewolf bloodlines, quietly trained beneath its ordinary surface. And Aria was failing. "Again?" someone whispered from the edge of the circle. "She's broken." Laughter rippled through the pack. Sharp and cruel. Instructor Marcus Vane's voice boomed across the field, "Shift!" The command shook the air. It was an Alpha command. Bones cracked, muscle twisted, fur erupted. In thirty seconds, everyone had answered except her. Aria closed her eyes and reached for the wolf inside her. Please. Just this once. Nothing. Only smoke. Only that heavy, dark thing sitting on her chest, drowning the wolf she knew was in there. The black veins beneath her skin pulsed once before disappearing beneath her sleeve. The silence that followed was worse than laughter. Kieran circled her in his massive silver wolf form, tail raised in dominance, teeth bared. The other she-wolves looked away with pity. That was worse. Pity was worse than hate. Marcus walked over, his expression softening. Even he had given up on her. "Maybe you should sit today out, Aria." "I'm fine," she snapped. She moved to the scarred wooden post in the corner of the grounds. She raised her fists. Thud. Thud. Thud. She hit harder. Faster. Like she could beat the weakness out of her own body. Sweat soaked her shirt. Her heart drummed so loud she couldn't hear anything else. Then she coughed. The blood on the dirt wasn't the end. It was the beginning. Her vision went gray at the edges. Another drop fell. Then another. Her legs gave out completely. The ground was cold when she hit it. She heard Marcus shouting her name, heard panicked feet running toward her. Then nothing. *** Warmth woke her. Arms around her. A chest against her back. A heartbeat that wasn't her own. She didn't need to open her eyes to know who it was. "Leon," she whispered. "Don't speak. Save your strength." He carried her like she weighed nothing, through the silent crowd. No one dared to stop Leon Ashthorne. The Alpha heir. "Put her down," Kieran's voice tried to sound brave and failed. "She's not your responsibility." Leon stopped at the edge of the clearing. He turned his head slowly and looked at Kieran. "No." One word. Quiet. Final. Like gravity. The crowd parted. No one followed them into the trees. Leon's cabin smelled of cedar and old books. He laid her on the bed and knelt beside her, his green eyes dark with fear. "You scared me," he whispered, taking her hand. His fingers were calloused and warm. "I'm sorry." "Don't." His jaw tightened. "Don't you ever apologize to me for being alive." He brought water, pressed a cold cloth to her forehead. He stayed awake all night, sitting in the chair beside her bed, his hand never leaving hers. At dawn, Aria watched him sleep. His head was resting on the mattress beside her hip, dark circles under his eyes. He looked like the boy who dared her to climb the highest oak and bandaged her scraped knees. She had loved Leon for as long as she could remember. And she was going to destroy him, one drop of blood at a time. Because he didn't know the truth. He thought she was just sick. He thought the healers could fix her. He didn't know her wolf wasn't missing. It was drowning. And what was drowning it... was black. She carefully untangled her fingers from his and slipped into the bathroom. She gripped the sink and stared at her reflection. Pale. Ghostly. Lips colorless. She coughed once. Twice. The third one tore through her chest like a blade. Black blood splashed into the white sink. Not red. Not the bright crimson from the training ground. This was thick, viscous as oil, smelling of rot and old metal. Like liquid shadow. It pooled in the basin, wrong. So wrong. It did not belong in a living body. Her fingertip came away black. "It's getting worse..." she whispered to the empty room. Behind her, in the bedroom, Leon was still sleeping. The man who loved her. The man who once told her, "I didn't fall in love with the wolf. I fell in love with Aria." He loved the girl who couldn't shift. But if he knew what was really inside her veins, he would run. Far beyond Ashthorne Academy, beneath the ruins of an ancient estate where sunlight had not touched the stones for centuries, a pair of crimson eyes opened The scent of black blood had finally returned. And the First Vampire smiled.