Ruler [Blood Magic, Book 3]

Chapter 1: Blood Thirsty

"Freak!"

That was my two-second warning.

I tucked up my shoulders, stiffened my arms, planted both of my feet firmly on the off-white tile floor of the high school hallway, imagining my body to be an immovable tree trunk rooted deep into the earth, inhaled and...

Alan Kelly swerved into me from behind, body-checking me into the lockers with a ferocity he usually reserved for the hockey rink. The clang of the metal doors as my torso bounced off them turned every head in the hallway in my direction. Everyone was staring. And there were more than a few snickers accompanying those stares.

The hit didn't hurt half as much as what I saw in their eyes. Not pity, which would've been awful enough, but disgust, like they honest-to-god believed I deserved whatever was coming to me. Worse, some of these people, like Jeremy Cline, I'd been friends with since grade school: we'd gone to each other's birthday parties when we were little and continued hanging out long after we'd grown too old for gaudy cardboard hats and candy-filled goodie bags. But you wouldn't know it now. I was toxic, and no one wanted that splashed all over their reputation. There wasn't even any point in issuing any pleading glances to the gawping crowd: no one was going to come to my rescue. If the Alan Kellys of the school were picking on me, then they were safe - at least for a while.

"Slut," added Alan's equally vile buddy Christian. As he passed me, his arm shot out and karate-chopped the books out of my hands. I watched helplessly as they hit floor and were promptly kicked out of reach, passing from foot to foot like soccer balls as the hallway sprung back to life around me - the latest episode of the "humiliate Mills" show now over. I lost track of my calculus textbook when it passed the drinking fountain; the American history and biology ones vanished seconds later.

I leaned against the row of lockers, wishing I could melt into them and disappear. All the while, I kept my eyes closed and exhorted myself to stay calm, but my fury was molten. If Alan and Christian knew what I could do, they wouldn't be so quick to use me as their punching bag. I just had to press my thumbnail into the fleshy part of my forefinger, draw a droplet or two of blood and...

No!

Bruce and my father would have my hide, and when they were done figuratively skinning me, the League of Sorcerers would kill me for real. It didn't matter that I wasn't officially one of their ranks or that I'd been banished for life due to my bond with a vampire: I still had to adhere to the rules about keeping magic secret from humans. That's why, when the rogue sorcerers had been hunting me a few months back, they'd used automatic weapons and not magic. Even dissidents had to play by the rules, or die.

I took a dozen or so deep breaths, forcing myself to focus on my diaphragm expanding and contracting, and tuned everything around me out - the laughter, the chattering, even the other potential bullies, the ones who would leap in for the cheap shot if they thought they'd caught me in a weak moment. Nothing was more important than keeping the anger contained. Not easy when it seethed and roiled and lapped up against my lungs and heart like lava, threatening to burst through my chest, Alien-style. It'd be so easy to reach out and reclaim my dignity and get a little bit of retribution in the process, but I wasn't suicidal. I was just blisteringly mad.