DOFAB#3

Chapter Eight

~ KINLEY ~

The warmth of the sun has no trouble making it through the mystic veil, the lawn of Nadora damp as a breeze blows the mist from the spraying water fountain feature sideways. Prisms of rainbows gleam as the sunlight catches the droplets before they fall onto the checkerboard cut grass. School bags rustle alongside trees while the clamor of students saturate the quad and courtyards, spilling over into the covered colonnade.

Joyous reunions, excited nerves from first years, and the botany-rich environment turns Nadora's gothic stone and brooding architecture into an obsidian pearl lily. The glee and sunlight allow the streaks of purple marbling the school's castle-like infrastructure to be seen. A detail easily missed if one fixated on the fact vampires are also crawling all over this campus. Vampires this school has brought us here to feed and help curb their predatory instinct to kill for the betterment of the generations to come.

No pressure, right?

"Guys, I cannot believe we are here. Someone pinch me, no slap me because I need to know this isn't a dream." Maya gawks at the vampires dressed in their school-issued color.

Nadora's dress code is simple. Devils wear black. Angels wear white while the exiled who attend wear black and white. And mortals can wear any color except full black or full white.

Smack.

"Ouch! Why'd you slap me?" Maya covers her reddening cheek.

"You told someone too," Beck replies. "Besides, I did you a favor. No vampire wants a slobbering human."

"Fair point, but next time don't hit so hard. Not all of us are extreme athletes." Maya attempts to rub the sting out from her cheek.

"Extreme athlete? She plays football. The only extreme thing is the amount of running those girls do on the field." Cora's miniature patterned leather backpack she carries couldn't fit a notebook. Her phone barely fits in the rear pocket of her denim jeans as is.

Nadora's simplistic dress code means there are no rules for how little or how much one needs to wear. Cora's mid-drift top, Maya's short shorts and UR t-shirt, and Ruby's Nadora sweatshirt fit right in. However, Cora could pass for a female vamp if she were wearing full black.

Maya holds up her phone, switching on an app that has her staring at herself. "It's a bummer Adalynn can't be here. She's going to miss out on the drama of selections."

Sterlings attend campus B while mayru and morru attend campus A.

"I couldn't sleep last night. I can't tell if I'm jittery because of the excitement or it's the six cups of coffee I had." Maya purses her lips, checks her teeth, and then flicks her hair forward so two sections drape over the front of her shoulders.

"Coffee. It's the coffee." Beck snatches Maya's phone. "Stop primping. Your fidgeting is making the rest of us more nervous."

Based on Adalynn's departure from us, I'd say she's thankful to be a sterling. She doesn't have to worry about what today holds for her. It will be like any other college experience. Whereas ours, I have no clue what to expect besides at lunchtime, we're what's on the menu.

"At least we're in the same coven. I wouldn't be able to walk in if I had to go in alone," Ruby says.

"What does that even mean anyway, same coven?" Cora's the first to walk through Nadora's double doors. The ceiling soars with stone rafters, arches, and a staircase that splits off into five different directions from multiple levels.

"Covens are exclusive to first years." Azlan materializes out of thin air in a burst of sparkling glitter. "And it is important not to keep the coven savant waiting." Azlan hurries us along, ushering us into a classroom on the third floor.