Vampire Seekers

Chapter Six

"Velika is in the draft?" Maria asks in disbelief. Emily giggles and nods, bursting into laughter, the sweet sound filling the air. Maria's laugh is not nearly as pleasant, but it makes Emily laugh even more.

"What even is that?" Emily chuckles.

"Stop it! You sound like Dani." Maria chuckles. "You know one of the new seekers thought I was dying of asthma or something?"

Emily's jaw falls open into a stunned smile as she releases a chuckle that makes her whole body shake. "That is terrible!"

"Dani thought it was hilarious. Honestly, could I not have got a cute little laugh like yours instead of sounding like a donkey." Maria shakes her head, "Anyway. You were saying?"

"Right, the draft." Emily says while grabbing her bottle of red and pouring herself a drink. "So my mother thinks that should me and my sisters take part in the draft and have that be public knowledge that more of our kind might follow our example."

"And she did not tell you?"

Emily scoffs, "Yeah right! You know what my sisters are like. Helena does not want a mate and Velika. Well she is Velika." Emily shrugs

"Pfft. That was a great explanation. But seriously, what is Velika's big problem with it." Maria wonders out loud. Maria knows that Helena does not want a mate, not yet, and she has always claimed that it was because she still has a lot she wishes to do before her time is taken up by love. 

Velika? She says nothing. If Emily hadn't spend a whole twenty minutes going round the houses telling her what happened when Velika found out then Maria wouldn't have known Velika is against the draft. Well, not so much the draft as being matched through it.

"Velika wants a mate. It's how we obtain our mates she doesn't like." Emily shrugs, flicking through her eyeshadow pellets, "Apparently, she dislikes that being matched through the draft would take away her mates rights, if they were human, would be -"

"Taken away?" Maria offers, "I get her point. Dragging unwilling mates away from their home, their family, and everything they know to live with a complete stranger, mate or not, isn't exactly the most civilised ways to start a relationship."

Emily frowns, wiping the blood from the corner of her mouth. "When you put it like that."

"There's no other way to put it." Maria says, "I see more unwilling matches than willing. Sometimes they actually look hopefully. When they realise we're human. They think we might let them go."

"Why would they? You can't." Emily's brows furrow, "You would face harsh consequences. Imprisonment if caught, especially if the mate belongs to an aristocrat."

"I know." Maria says, picking up one of Emily's many bottles of nail vanish. "But they do not. We do not broadcast when a Seeker slips up. We must be seen to hold ourselves separate from everyone else. Siding with neither side."

"And if you weren't a seeker?"

"Doesn't matter. I am a seeker so they're all outta luck." Maria shrugs, "Its that kind of thinking thats dangerous."

Emily takes the bottle from Maria's hand and examines it. "Not like you to take interest in painting your nails. You meet someone?" Emily teases with a smug smile.

"Ha! Not a prayer." Maria dismisses, taking the bottle back, "I've an interview tomorrow."

"An interview?" Emily questions, "What for. The newspaper?" Emily asks cluelessly.

"Erm. No. Why would I interview with a newspaper?" Maria questions.

Emily pulls at her sleeves until they half cover her hands and bites the inside of her lip. They have not spoke about the draft or what almost happened last time they met. Emily was was just happy Maria came at all. When her human friend walked through the front door of her families palace Emily had been over the mood. Emily hugged her friend, who seemed a little startled and even more confused.