My Blood to Shed

Lost Soul Mate

Hey peeps! This is a chapter that I sort of added so that we could get to know the character of Angyre a little better. This chapter will explain why he likes Ari so much, and it also includes an epic background story.

E N J O Y !

XXX

Every day after school, I train with Angyre in the small, well equipped gym that our coven uses. It’s pretty much the same thing every day. Run laps, scale the wall, beat up dummies, all that fun stuff. Today, I am running laps faster than I ever have before, and Angyre is still yelling at me to run faster. I can feel my heart pounding in my chest and my throat aches for a drink of cold water.

The floor of the gym is completely made of touch screen pads that also line the walls near the ceiling. At a certain point, one of the pads along the track will turn from green to red. Then I have to touch it again, turn around, and run the other direction. Then, a few of the other pads on the floor will randomly turn red and I have to touch them all within 15 seconds. When I hit the last pad, one of the pads on the wall turns red and I have to scale the wall and hit the pad. At this point, another pad on the floor, near the wall I have scaled, will have turned red and I have to jump of the wall and land on that pad. A bunch of other pads rise up and I have to punch and kick them all, then run more laps until a pad turns red again.

When I finally finish the whole sequence, Angyre clicks the timer.

"Excellent, Ari. You shaved a whole minute off your previous time." Angyre says, smiling at me. I’m breathing heavily and, instead of answering, I give him a thumbs up. "You can take a short break and get some water now." Angyre rewards me for my improvement.

I collapse on the bench and pull out my water bottle. After draining it dry, I am finally able to breathe again.

"Anger, why do you push me so hard?" I ask. Angyre looks at me curiously, as if trying to decide the best way to answer me.

"Because you are like Affectu." He finally says softly, sitting down on the bench opposite me and putting his head in his hands.

"Who’s Affectu?" I ask, curious. I know that 'affectu' is the Latin word for 'affection,' but I’ve never heard of the person, Affectu, before.

"She was my soul mate."

"Was?"

"She was killed in battle many years ago." Angyre sounds choked up, like he’s going to cry. I’ve never experienced losing a mate myself, but I’ve heard that most vampyres who do are never the same again. Most of them go crazy and have to be killed. Losing a mate is like losing part of yourself and its gotta be a pretty awful experience.

"What happened?" I ask softly.

"It was about 200 years ago, that I met Affectu." Angyre starts and I settle back, ready to listen. "I met her the same way I met you actually. I was sent to track her down and bring her to the Elders to be turned into a vampyre. Well, I found her, I brought her, and the Elders changed her.  Her element was lightning." At this, I perk up.

"Just like me?" I interrupt.

"Just like you." Angyre confirms, not unhappy with my interruption, "I was assigned to be her mentor. She was young, beautiful, and eager to learn. I taught her everything I knew, and the more time I spent with her, the more in love with her I fell. She was falling for me too.

"Affectu even looked like you. She had long brown hair and the most beautiful blue eyes. She was horrible at history, and she was the most amazing artist. She loved to dance and sing and laugh. I’ve never been the type to dance or sing or laugh, but when I was around Affectu, I couldn’t stop laughing. She pulled me into a crazy, wild dance of life. I was never happier than when I was with her.