Teeth

Prologue

“My night has become a sunny dawn because of you."

          -Ibn Abbad

”Belief in vampires and bloodsucking demons is as old as man himself”

-Brian Frost

“In a world of extreme beauty, anyone normal is ugly.”

-Scott Westerfeld: Uglies

Part 1:

The Beginning

Every Tragedy has a beginning...

1810

Prologue

Jamie

The pain was excruciating.

 Jamie lay in the middle of what was now known as Central Park in early New York and crying out in pain. The burn in her neck was the most painful thing she had ever had to feel in her eighteen years of life, even more painful than her brutal murder.

 She was dressed in a simple white night-gown which only sophistication was its effortless simplicity and the intricate pearl beading on the princess neckline. The rest of the dress was pure silk and was now stained with her blood. She was getting cold lying in the rain but she couldn't move a muscle due to the agonizing pain that she felt in her neck. The pain was slowly moving to the rest of her body.

She looked to her left where her brother lay, then up to the sky where she saw a full moon. Her brother was not motionless like her but he too was crying in intense pain. His body became disfigured, his shoulder bone was arching out, his back was hunched to an extreme that was humanly impossible and he kept viscously growling at the air where saliva dripped of his mouth like a terrifyingly angry dog. He even looked like he was starting to get the teeth of a great wolf.

She looked away from him immediately because she couldn’t stand to see him in this type of agony.

She was the cause of their pain. If she hadn’t fallen for that aristocratic man they’d both be alive... and human. But no, she had to proceed, even though her instincts had warned her to stay away.

But then again she just couldn’t, he was charming, handsome and dangerous: he was everything Jamie had looked in a guy.

The night she had finally accepted his offer to become his bride was the worst night of her life. As soon as she said yes she ran into his arms crying, a foolish act since if she had not, she might have seen that he was just using her as food.

His teeth sunk into her neck with such ferocity she couldn’t help but scream in pain. If her brother had not decided to barge in ten minutes into his feeding, she might have been long dead by now.

In a way she was thankful, but mostly angry that he had. If he hadn’t she’d be dead and not only wishing that she was.

She was lying in fetal position after Taylor staked her changer in the heart after he had drunk a large portion of her blood.

She didn’t know how she could still be alive but she was somewhat grateful.

As the beast lay on the ground bleeding fiercely, she took her mouth and put it on his bleeding flesh were she drank deeply from him and looked into his deep set blue eyes, they were closed for a minute but they opened soon after and once again his teeth dug into her flesh.

She shook the memory out of her head because the rest was just too much for her to comprehend at that moment.

She was crying now and her pain was only getting worse with every passing second but now a new emotion had arose. Hunger. No it wasn't hunger, more like thirst, a deep thirst for something she had not had once in her life and this new ferocious desire for it shook her.

She wanted blood, more than anything else she wanted in her whole life, so much so that she was desperate enough to drink the blood of her changing brother before it was too late.

So she gathered up the strength to stand up and she slowly limped her way towards her brother, her twin, her blood. That vessel of life that contained the all present blood and his blood contained the thing that would cure her from her pain. She hesitated before she bent down but her hesitation was short lived. He was bleeding from his shoulder and his blood smelt amazing, she had never smelt anything like it in all of her life and had never wanted it more.

Before her teeth could dive into his flesh, a man appeared behind her with the blood that smelt even greater than her brother’s

“Excuse me miss, can I help you?” the man asked in a deep English accent. His concern was shortly lived when he saw the agonizing pain in her brother’s eyes and his excruciating screams. She had blocked them out when she went for his blood but now they were crystal clear, but so was each drop of rain that hit the floor.

She screamed in pain as the sound burst through her ears with no mercy or intention of stopping and her brother’s screams were getting louder by each second.

“Make it stop!” she screamed in vicious agony but the sounds would not go away, instead they had only intensified when the sound of thunder came roaring out with no mercy whatsoever. She couldn’t stand to feel that pain so she focused on the sound of the man’s pulse, the smell of his fear and the light bumps that appeared on his skin after each passing pulse.

It was beautiful and utterly tempting; she couldn’t resist anymore so she got up and limped her way towards the man who now started to run. He slipped on the mud of the wet floor after only ten seconds of his disastrous attempt to get away.

When he was on the floor Jamie pounced on him and dug her teeth straight into the skin of his neck.