Midnight Blood (Born Immortal)

Midnight Blood

by

Nicole L Yanski

Life is eternal; and love is immortal;

and death is only a horizon;

and a horizon is nothing save the limit of our sight.

Rossiter W. Raymond

MIDNIGHT BLOOD

The Beginning of Forever

Published by Nicole Yanski

Copyright 2012 Nicole Yanski

First edition in the Born Immortal series

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook is not to be re-sold or given away. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each additional recipient. If you’re reading this eBook, and you did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

DEDICATED

TO

My mother who is missed every day

and Tim Hoffman, who was always a great friend to me.

And to Luana and Cassandra,

without you two, Born Immortal might not have happened or come this far.

I love you both.

To my husband and children for

their support and input, and

for putting up with me through

the process.

Born Immortal:

Midnight Blood

By: Nicole L Yanski

PROLOGUE

The dull red glow, surrounded by white bright white light, was blinding to Shayna. Her eyes fluttered open, and slowly started to adjust to the light. She looked around, barely able to move her head. Oh my God! She thought. Unbelievably, she was back on the island. This time, instead of roses, there were white candles, burning through out the room. She realized that the candles were the red glow. Everything had gone horribly wrong. Her head was pounding, and she hopelessly wondered, where Aiden was. He was supposed to protect her from Cain, to stop this from happening, and make sure it didn’t happen at all.

A dark figure stepped into the room from the balcony, and walked toward the bed.

“You’re awake,” he said, and sat on the bed beside her.

He put his hand on her thigh, and Shayna trembled with fear. The only thing going through her mind, was that Aiden was supposed to protect her from this. She had trusted that he would do that.

“Don’t be scared Shayna,” he whispered to her.

He leaned down toward her, and with his soft, but deadly, fingers, he gently moved the hair off of her shoulder, exposing her throat. The veins in her neck throbbed with every beat of her heart. Right there. He thought, eyeing the biggest vein of all.

“This won’t hurt much,” he leaned in even closer to her, “If you don’t fight it.”

Shayna closed her eyes tightly.This is it. She thought. This is how I am going to die.

Chapter 1

Melina Verona knocked on her twin sister Shayna’s bedroom door, and huffed,

“Shay, lets go, I don’t want to be late.”

Melina could hear her sister stirring on the other side of the door, and she grew more anxious.

“I’m up,” Shayna groaned.

Shayna didn’t want to wake up. She wanted so badly to go back to sleep, so that she could see
him.
The mysterious handsome boy, that had been visiting her dreams for the last three years. She doesn’t understand the meaning of this boy in her dreams, but she feels deep inside that he symbolizes her father. When the boy appears he doesn’t ever speak, and he doesn’t really play a role in her dreams, he’s just there. Watching her, standing behind a tree, or walking down the street, sometimes his beautiful face appears in the clouds looking down at her.

She had been closer than ever to him, this time. He was sitting in her favorite coffee shop when she walked in. When she approached him he held out his hand to her with a gorgeous smile, and
that
was when the knocking began.

Shayna opened her eyes and realized she was awake. Her heart sank to her stomach, she hated that feeling. She had been so close, she didn’t like leaving him, especially not this time.

“I’m up,” she mumbled again.

Sitting up in her bed she looked out the window. It was a nice day, it was winter but it hadn’t been that cold yet. For northern Michigan the winter had been unusually mild.

Shayna rolled out of the bed and went to her bathroom to wash up for the day. She was not looking forward to it. It was the first day back to school after Christmas break, and almost every girl in school was anxiously awaiting their return. During the break a woman and a boy, who appeared to be high school age, moved to Interlochen. The woman came to town to run errands occasionally, but the boy was only seen when people drove past their house, which was two or three miles south of town.

Shayna laughed out loud to herself when she thought of how almost every available girl at the Interlochen Center for the Arts would be doing everything they possibly could, to catch the eye of this new stranger.

So fake.
She thought.  She pulled a brown hooded cardigan, and an old pair of blue jeans out of her closet. She felt like school had become more of a drama filled fashion show, than it was a learning institution. She couldn’t wait to be in New York in the fall, to start her new life, to be a new Shayna.

She put on the jeans, and pulled the cardigan over the white camisole that she was already wearing. She gave her hair a quick comb over, then pulled the top half loosely back and clipped it, letting the rest of her thick chocolate curls fall over her shoulders.

She was ready, no makeup, no hairspray, just Shayna.

Shayna grabbed her backpack, and opened her bedroom door. Standing there was Melina, arm raised, in a knocking position.

“It’s about time,” Melina barked, “Can we go?”

“Can I eat?”

“No, I have to hurry.”

 “Oh puhlease,” Shayna rolled her eyes.

“Grab an apple,” Melina looked at her sister pathetically as they walked down the stairs. “Come on Shay, you know the rules, ‘whoever sees him first’, I have to see him first.”

Shayna sat down to put on her boots, and finally took a good look at what Melina was wearing, and shook her head at the outfit.

“What?” demanded Melina when she noticed.

“If  Mom sees you wearing that she’s going to freak,” Shayna said,  lacing up a pair of brown, leather boots.

Melina had on a white blouse, a pink floral skirt, that by Shayna’s standards was too short, and a pair of white almost knee high boots.

“Mom’s not going to see me, Miss Perfect,” Melina responded, then whispered, “Now lets go, before she wakes up.”

Shayna rolled her eyes again and stood up from the bench that was at their back door, “Lets go.”

They walked to the car, and Shayna knew inside, that the day would be good. She had an odd feeling that something was going to happen. Then she remembered that something
was
going to happen today. This new boy, no one was quite sure of his name, should be at school today. He would join the few locals that attended the Academy, but she couldn’t figure out why
she
would feel anxious about that.

On the way to school Melina talked Shayna’s ear off about the new boy. Wondering what he looked like, if he was cute, how old he was, blah, blah, blah. Shayna wanted to hum along with the sound of their Honda Prelude’s motor, and tune her sister out.

“You know, your whole ‘whoever sees him first’ rule is childish,” Shayna finally said to Melina, “You’re interfering with fate.”

“Who is to say we all even like him,” Melina defended, “That rule is just in case more than one of us like a guy, whoever saw him first gets the first shot.”

“Obviously,” Shayna glared at her sister.

“Whatever Shayna,” Melina was getting more defensive, “We’re not interfering with anybody’s fate!”

Just his. Shayna thought, and looked out the window. She was silent the rest of the way to school. She wished she was still dreaming.

Melina and Shayna are fraternal twins. They live in a small northern Michigan village with their mother Sarah. Their father, Marcus, died when they were thirteen. They are now half way through their senior year in high school, and will both be going to college in the fall. Melina to Michigan State, and Shayna to New York.

Calling them unidentical twins is an understatement. They are worlds apart. Melina, with fine straight blond hair, brown eyes, thin lips, and a medium build, like their mother, and Shayna with chocolate curly hair, big bright blue eyes, and full kissable lips, like their father. Although no one is quite sure where Shayna got her petite body from. To top it off their personalities are polar opposites. Melina is obsessed with her looks, boys, and material objects, and Shayna likes art, reading, and being in nature. Most people don’t even believe that the girls are sisters, let alone twins.

They pulled into the student parking lot almost a half an hour early.

“I’m going across the street to the coffee shop,” Shayna told Melina when the car was parked. This was the coffee shop in her dream, “Good luck…with your…thing.”

“Okay, see ya,” Melina said over her shoulder, she was already out of the car and on her way.

Shayna got out of the car and took a deep breath. The air was cool and crisp. It felt more like fall than winter. She walked across the street to the coffee shop, inside was a kid that she had gone to school with forever, but could never remember his name. A couple of freshmen cheerleaders, and Evan, an attractive boy from Italy, who was always oddly staring at her, but no dream boy. Shayna knew she was silly for even thinking he would be there for real. She ordered a white chocolate mocha and a banana nut muffin, and walked outside and sat at a table to read. She was reading
Utopia
by Sir Thomas More. She had found it two years earlier, along with a couple of other valuable and sentimental keepsakes of her father’s, in their attic.

She was just opening the book when she heard the sound of a fast car approaching.

She looked up. Was this the new boy? She watched as the black BMW whipped around the corner, and into the school parking lot. When he was out of the car he was too far away from her, for her to get a good look at him. She could tell he had shoulder length hair that was the same color as hers, and that he was dressed all in black.

“Here we go”, she mumbled to herself.

There was no doubt in Shayna’s mind that Melina would see this boy before Delany and Maria, her two best friends. Maria rode the bus, and Delany refused to get out of bed early for a boy, even if she
did
live at the school. So as long as he arrived early enough, which he did, Melina was gauranteed to see him first.

The boy approached the doors to the office, and reaching to open them, he stopped and turned around, and looked right at Shayna sitting across the street at the coffee shop. Shayna quickly looked back down at
Utopia
. She could not see his eyes when he looked at her, but she could feel them. Had he felt
her
looking at him too? That’s ridiculous. She thought, and peeked back up, he was gone.

Shayna walked into the school, and to her surprise, Melina and Maria were standing by the inside doors to the office, boyless and looking flustered. Shayna smiled to herself, and walked down the hall to the Biology Lab. She would have to ask Melina at lunch what had happened, she found herself interested to know.

The rest of the morning her thoughts were on the new boy. The lunch bell rang and she all but ran to Melina’s locker. She knew Melina would be there, she always went there before meeting her “girls”. She rounded the corner to the hall Melina’s locker was in, and like clockwork there was Melina.

“Well?” she asked, as she approached her sister.