The Rejection Contract

The Wonder Witch and The Blood Countess

It took everything in Hayley to not turn around once that cinnamon scent hit. Everything had been relatively peaceful until then because once she had woken up she had managed to avoid her father, thankfully, preparing for school as quickly as possible before leaving the house. Hayley’s father never paid the additional transport cost and as a result, she had to walk to the school and walk back home each day; even though her muscles were sore and she was numb down to her bare bones from the cool early morning breeze, she was grateful. Around her, the trees were artfully lined up the pathway, the warm sun rays peeking through the soft rustling leaves as she made her way down the open forest path. Hayley couldn’t help the broad grin that broached her lips. Usually, she allotted an extra two hours from her regular preparation time in the morning because her father had a habit of working himself into a foul mood in the evening or in the early morning (sometimes) and he also had a habit of taking out his foul mood on Hayley. Her father was an unpredictable man but his fits happened frequently enough that Hayley developed a system to survive it; since she didn’t heal as fast as the average wolf, she took the beatings and then spent another two hours cleaning herself up and healing, sometimes she would attempt to force her body to heal a bit faster depending on what wounds she endured but she could never push her body far enough, not without causing more damage to herself. The end result was that Hayley became skillfully adept at lying and managing to mask most of her wounds but not all of them; every now and again, she would sometimes have a classmate make a throwaway comment about her funny walk or ask her why she faintly smelled like blood but it was nothing she couldn’t explain away with sparring or simple accidents.

On days like these though, Hayley was almost glad she had that extra window of time because she could take the scenic route to school and indulge herself in it as she did so – and indulge she did. Through the window of her heightened senses, Hayley inhaled sharply, the crisp clean air made her tender lungs expand pleasantly, drinking in the scent of the damp dirt and pollenated petals of the wild flowers nearby as they tickled her nose cheerfully. She admired the way the morning dew caught in the sunlight, the sea of green gleaming all around her as her sensitive ears prickled, picking up on the gentle grunt of a stag grazing off in the distance, the cheery chirping of the birds that chorused nearby and as she approached the school, she could also hear the rev of engines cutting as students parked their vehicles and their animated chatter as they shared stories of their holiday breaks to their friends. The excitement in the air was palpable, Hayley could practically taste it and she could, for once, share in it because this was first day in her final year of high school, the first page in the last chapter of her time as a werewolf and despite everything she had to endure thus far, the thought that it would all soon be over sent a spike of glee through her.

Hayley had mostly forgotten about Alisha until the cinnamon scent had invaded her nose. She had arrived relatively early and had taken her seat in homeroom at the furthest end and corner of the room beside the windows and she had been successful in pushing any and all thoughts of Alisha to the back of her mind but now that she was here, they all came flooding back like a vault of repressed memories racing to be heard. In an instant, Hayley was bombarded with images of Alisha’s face from the fall, from the speech and from the gravy dish incident; anger and embarrassment flared up inside of her and fought to be her dominant emotion as her mind filtered through the images, her face growing warm as she did so.

‘Alpha Alisha is back!’ Someone yelled.              

Hayley didn’t dare turn to so much as glance in her direction as a wave of exhilaration passed through the class with some of the students barreling to the door to greet Alisha. Although Hayley had only been going to this school for a year, it came as no surprise to her that Alisha was popular; she had been to many different supernatural schools before and it wasn’t uncommon for Alphas and Betas to be popular among their peers, just like it wasn’t uncommon for certain vampires and witches to be more popular among their peers because of whatever significant name, title or connection they had both within their respective communities and the supernatural community at large. Alisha is an Alpha, she is the daughter of one of the strongest and most influential Alphas alive and the next successor of one of the largest and wealthiest packs in North America – obviously, she’d be pretty f*****g popular alright.

Hayley always found it strange how wolves and other supernatural creatures seemed to grovel at the feet of their leaders. Sure, it was no secret that all supernatural kin had their own structures, their own hierarchies and their own respective rules within them but it still baffled Hayley how so many people within the supernatural community held their leaders in such high regard, how a title or a birthright suddenly deemed these people worthy of godlike reverence regardless of whether or not they deserved it. The funny thing was, there were many people within the supernatural community who scoffed at humans, at how they blindly followed some of their horrible leaders but never found the irony in how they acted around their own leaders or just leaders within the supernatural community in general.

Werewolves, witches and vampires have fought with each other for centuries but they were all united by their common hatred of humans. Not all supernatural creatures viewed humans as evil or inferior, that was true but Hayley would be lying if she dismissed the fact that the fear and distrust of humans was very much present within the supernatural community if their insistence on secrecy and separation was anything to go by.

The phrase ‘keep your friends close and your enemies closer’ took on a whole new meaning when it was applied to the supernatural community considering that there was a whole governing body known as the Alliance of Supernatural Creatures (or ASC) that existed to ensure that creatures who had once despised each other for centuries were more than willing to lay their lives down for each other when the threat of extermination by the hand of the humans was an ever present danger.

The Alliance of Supernatural Creatures were also responsible for the Constitution of Supernatural Creatures (or CSC) where they sat down and drew up legislation that all supernatural creatures must abide by or suffer some severe form of punishment which can be anything from being locked up in the ASC prison, death or worst of all, banishment from the entity of the supernatural community. Banishment may not sound harsh until you consider how they not only leave you to fend for yourself but you are left to do so without any of your supernatural gifts since one of the requirements of such a sentence is having your supernatural side bound; no heightened senses, no shifting, no fangs, no claws, no super abilities which includes no super strength or speed – essentially, they would become human, the supernatural creature in question will have anything and everything that could have made them ‘super’ stripped from them and for a lot of them, there’s nothing worse than being a human.

Hayley, however, begged to differ. If there was anything she wished she could be, it would be human and once she is done with her final year at A.S.S that’s exactly what she was going to do, she was going to make herself human…sort of. No, she wasn’t going to do something so incredibly stupid it could cause her to be banished from the supernatural community as a whole (although if she was really desperate, she might just consider it) but she was going to apply for the Binding Contract which was a nifty piece of legislation that would allow her to undergo a procedure that would bind her wolf side and leave her with nothing more than her human body and she would be considered, for all intents and purposes, a human. The only downside to this being the fact that if she were to meet an actual human and chose to procreate with them, her werewolf gene would be passed on to her offspring, just like witches and vampires, her offspring would have their very first transformation once they reach their thirteenth year and even though she wasn’t exactly decided on whether or not she even wanted a child in the future, she knew that having one would definitely bring about some problems for her with the ASC because it was illegal for children of any supernatural background to be bound; they had to be at least eighteen years of age to undergo the procedure.

Then again…that wasn’t the only problem Hayley faced – there was also the problem of Alisha Guillaume. The girl across the room who kept a steady rhythm of conversation with her peers, whose loud obnoxious laugh echoed through the room and sent a wave of butterflies up her belly, much to Hayley’s annoyance. Even though Alisha was preoccupied with her friends, Hayley didn’t miss the way her eyes kept flickering back to her, she could feel the heat of her gaze on her skin every few seconds and the more she did, the more determined she was not to so much as glance in Alisha’s general direction, in fact, the sight of the virtually empty parking lot suddenly seemed far more interesting than whatever story she was telling; Hayley definitely did not listen in on the conversation, she did not bite her lip to keep from smiling as Alisha explained how she was ordered to do a human obstacle course while it was raining in her wolf form as a punishment and she certainly did not giggle at the image of a large wet wolf growling in frustration when Alisha recounted how she had slipped and landed face first into a pile of mud.

It was only when she glanced up to see the door open did Hayley’s eyes finally catch Alisha’s as she stood to move away from her group of friends, seemingly darting in Hayley’s direction as the teacher walked in. Hayley felt her smile freeze on her face. Alisha only managed a rather sheepish as she waved and smiled at Hayley but Hayley couldn’t forget what the events of the night before cost her; as much as she wanted to awe at the shy and adorable gesture, or marvel at the way the morning light made her smooth skin glow like a god, or admire the way her braided her fell over her dark eyes and brows in the most absurdly attractive way that vaguely reminded her of some ridiculously attractive human rappers – she couldn’t. Hayley certainly hadn’t forgotten and neither did her body with all the tenderness of the healing that was still on-going. She couldn’t smile at Alisha and Hayley could see her face visibly drop at this.

Thankfully, before she had an opportunity to say or do anything, a delicate yet oddly domineering voice spoke up:

‘Students, please take your seats.’ The teacher called.

Alisha was still halfway across the room from where Hayley was and she didn’t have enough time to occupy any of the seats that were within Hayley’s immediate vicinity, luckily and she was forced to sit at the third column, a row away from her. Hayley almost found herself squealing in success at this little victory, that is, until she noticed the overpowering cinnamon scent was right in front of her.

‘Hey.’ Carina said, turning to greet her in a quick cheerful whisper.

‘Hi.’ Hayley said with a small smile and wave.

It wasn’t Alisha but Carina who had taken the seat directly in front of Hayley which was odd because she was used to having at least two empty seats around her…but then again, this is just homeroom and there were more students this year so it shouldn’t come up as a surprise that the seats closet to her would be occupied. The problem wasn’t Carina, it was the fact that she smelt an awful lot like her sister because they were around each other (more often than she was, obviously) and by the smell of it, they probably drove to school together or something. A quiet sigh escaped Hayley’s lips and she visibly deflated. Will there be no end to her misery?

‘Good morning students. I am Miss Morgana and I will be your homeroom teacher.’ The teacher, Miss Morgana, introduced. With a casual brush of her hand, the black whiteboard marker pen floated up and into the air, scribbling her name onto the whiteboard before settling down. Miss Morgana was an ascetic looking woman; tall with an almost skeletal frame, deep blue eyes silently scrutinizing her students passed a pair of square glasses sat on the bridge of her sharp nose; she didn’t smile or frown, she didn’t give any indication as to whether or not she was impressed or disappointed with the class and her pale features spoke nothing of her true thoughts or emotions – she was impossible to read and Hayley got the feeling that she was going to be a rather common occurrence.

‘Good morning Miss Morgana.’ The students chorused back.

‘I am inclined to inform you that I am a new member of staff here and since I need your details to create some familiarity, I must ask for your forgiveness in advance because I am going to require for each of you to partake in the dreaded and most abhorred activity – the introductory speech.’ Miss Morgana said. Hayley bit back an amused giggle, she agreed with Miss Morgana but her rather contemptuous tone made everything she said twice as funny because she almost sounded like she was legitimately pained by this process, even though her eyes seemed to twinkle with a fraction of interest. ‘Alright, let’s see. How about we go by my list here. When I call your name, I want you to state your name, your age, background and an interesting fact about yourself.’

Hayley groaned internally. Introductory speeches were so…awkward. What was she supposed to say? Her name was pretty long and weird, she knew that she was pretty young to be a senior, her background was pretty rotten at best and she had no particularly interesting facts about herself; she was just a sixteen year old defected wolf with a dead mum, an abusive father and dreams of leaving this entire supernatural community in favour for a mundane, human life instead. What the hell was she supposed to say? The truth? Ha! Hayley already knew that she was going to have to tailor the truth, just a little bit.

Miss Morgana was just about to begin the roll call when there was a knock at the door. She waved her hand and the door opened, revealing a teacher accompanying two new students; one a girl and the other…well…Hayley couldn’t exactly tell. The girl was tall, slender with rich brown skin that caught in the morning sun and radiated with a beauty that saw many students suddenly straighten in their seats at the sight of her. The other student was at least a head shorter than the girl who stood beside them and they were petite but they took up an impressive amount of space with their presence alone; the sun cut into their narrow angular face drawing sharp shadows across their pallid glass skin and their white-blonde hair fell over their icy blue eyes stopping shy on their narrow shoulders.

‘Ah, new students! Just in time too. We were about to do our introductions.’ Miss Morgana said. She briefly explained the process to them before dismissing them to find a seat. The girl grinned, her blindingly white smile was infectious enough that it actually earned a small smile in return while the other students simply nodded in acknowledgement, their apathy clear in their countenance. Both students made their way to their seats and Hayley was hit with another sinking feeling in her gut; she was so preoccupied staring at the girl who carried herself with all the gracious gait of a goddess and noticing the way Alisha’s eyes focused on her, that she failed to notice the other student plop down in the chair right beside her until after they had reclined in their seat because all the could focus on in that very moment was the disgustingly friendly grin Alisha gave the girl as she crossed the isle and took the seat right behind her.

‘Alright class, let’s begin.’

Hayley didn’t pay attention to any of the introductions, instead she began doodling on a piece of paper, trying and barely succeeding in calming her nerves because she hated whatever it was she was feeling; was it anger? Jealously? Madness? It must be madness because how the hell was she getting worked up over witnessing Alisha smile at another girl? She didn’t know Alisha and she didn’t even know this new girl either so why did this bother her? It was stupid, she was being stupid and she had to stop. She had to –

‘Alisha?’

Hayley’s eyes perked up at the mention of that name despite herself. Alisha stood up and stood tall, taking the floor with a smug little smirk on her face.

‘Hey. My name is Alisha Guillaume. I’m seventeen years old. I’m a werewolf, an Alpha from the Lunoir pack and an interesting fact about me? Uh, I can play any instrument.’ Alisha said cockily.

‘Liar.’ Carina interjected with a roll of her eyes. ‘You can’t play any instruments.’ She said exasperatedly. Alisha didn’t look the least bit faze by this exposure, instead, her grin grew wider.

‘But I can learn, so, technically, I can play any instrument if I learnt how to play it.’ Alisha countered, earning a laugh from the class.

‘Okay, take your seat.’ Miss Morgana waved dismissively, looing neither amused nor awestricken by the title of Alpha that Alisha boasted as she continued down the list. You know, Hayley was really starting to like this teacher…that was until she called on her to do her introductory speech.

‘Uh, Hi. My name is Hayley Murburdeach. I’m sixteen years old and I’m a werewolf and a relatively new member of the Lunoir pack as well, I’ve been with them for about a year. I don’t really have any interesting facts about myself but I do like taking walks in the woods.’   Hayley said.

‘You are right, walking in the woods really isn’t an interesting. Next.’ Miss Morgana said. Hayley took a seat, hardly fazed by the dismissal as Miss Morgana went through the list. Beside her, Hayley noted how the new student’s gaze caught her own, their expression blank, however, she thought she saw traces of amusement in their eyes as she took a seat but it was gone before she could affirm it and she chose to ignore it. It probably wasn’t anything.

The roll call kept going and so did the introductory speeches. Hayley hardly paid any attention to them, her eyes kept fluttering back to Alisha and the new girl; they seemed to be passing notes beneath the table and although that wasn’t any of Hayley’s concern, she could feel her pulse rise for half a second when she saw the way the new girl quietly giggled at the piece of paper before passing it back with a quick response scribbled on it. When Alisha fixed her posture to receive the note, her eyes locked on Hayley and she beamed innocently at her, as though she wasn’t just passing notes to the pretty new girl and rattling her very core. Hayley frowned and turned away, choosing to focus her attention out the window until she heard a name that made her peak passed her curtain of hair and actually pay attention.

‘Hey! I’m Maya Chiana. I’m seventeen years old and I’m a witch. My family is part of the Chiana Coven and although I can play all instruments, I only play the flute.’ Maya, the new girl, said. A witch from the Chiana Coven? Huh. Hayley would have never guessed that. In fact, she probably would’ve thought that Maya was a siren or something, because sirens were notoriously known for having stunning beauty which they use to lure unsuspecting men to their watery graves – she had all the tantalizing qualities of a siren…but then again, all vampires had that quality as one of the many weapons in their arsenal. Werewolves and witches have it too but hardly ever use it because unlike vampires who use their charm to lure and hunt their victims (namely humans), witches and werewolves alike aren’t as dependent on it – to each other, most vampires, werewolves and witches are pretty average looking but to humans, the most average looking wolf, vampire or witch, generally tends to be more ethereal by comparison when they chose to be. That aside though, Hayley made a mental note to read more on the Chiana Coven, she’s certain that she’s heard of them before but she never really paid much mind to matters outside of the werewolf kind that directly affected her.

The class introductory speeches went on and on and on…finally, the last student was called on to make their introductory speech.

‘Zyean?’

The new student that sat beside Hayley, Zyean, rose.

‘Hello. I am Zyean Dracali. I am sixteen years old. I am vampire from the Dracali Division and I like to paint.’ They said apathetically. Their voice wasn’t a deep baritone nor did it pitch like a sharp soprano but it was a medium of both; their tone was cool and airily commanding, oozing with the natural dominance Hayley expected to see in Alphas but she didn’t know what else to expect from someone who hailed from the Dracali – even if she didn’t know too much about them, she’d heard the stories about how menacing they can be; they were known for producing some of the world’s most fearsome fighters, as well as upholding and enforcing the respective laws within the vampire community. They could be ruthless when provoked which is why the the stunned few seconds of silence that followed Zyean’s introductory speech was understandable – the harsh contrast between the warrior image of the Dracali pitted against this frail looking person and their pension for painting was almost comical but no one dared to laugh at this.

‘Lovely!’ Miss Morgana said clapping her hands into the quiet space. ‘Now, here are your schedules and here is you class timetable. Fill out the necessary information and once you are finished, you may leave.’ She said, snapping her fingers. Sheets of parchment papers appeared on the desks of each individual student once she did.

‘Oh! One more thing. Maya and Zyean, since you are both new to the school, you were meant to be assigned some guides for the week. Maya, you’re assigned to Alisha, maybe then you can teach her how to actually play an instrument.’ Miss Morgana said, her tone laced with mild displeasure. Hayley could feel her fingers stab into her parchment paper when she heard this. She hardly had an opportunity to process what she had just heard when Miss Morgana added: ‘Zyean, you’re assigned to Hayley, maybe then you can teach her a new skill that she could use as a hobby because walking isn’t a hobby.’

Hayley froze.

Wait…What?!