Struck (A Vampire Novel) ✔

Eighteen

 

I woke up to the soft tunes of what I immediately recognized as Fleetwood Mac’s “Landslide”. For a moment I stayed still in case the music was just a drifting memory from a dream, but when I realized as I continued to wake that it wasn’t fading I looked for the source. There was no one else in the bed with me. I assumed Aveline and Xander had coterie business to deal with and had left me alone once again.

On the bedside table was a new object. It was a small radio-clock, from which not only did the beautiful Stevie Nicks sing to me but also showed me the time written in bright green numbers. I nearly lunged for it as though it were life’s greatest possession. It was 3:06am. Oh I wished there was a date on the clock as well, but it appeared it was only a cheap digital alarm clock. Still, I was grateful and hummed along to the song.

It was only after I had changed into new clothes and about three more songs from a variety of artists, some I hadn’t even heard of, before I noticed there was a whole new other object in the room. There, opposite the bed and now installed against the wall was a flat screen television. I widened my eyes. Aveline had been serious when she said that they needed to get one for me.

The radio forgotten, I stumbled over to the television, looking around for the remote which I found nearby on top of the desk. I turned on the television, fumbling with the controls being that I had a growing excitement buzzing through my veins. When I clicked the guide button for the channels, sure enough I found the date on the top left corner.

July 3rd. What day had it been when I’d been abducted? Sometime in June obviously, but what day? I couldn’t recall, being that I had been in a monotonous schedule of going to work and going to bed. I sighed. At least I could keep track now. Maybe I’d make it to my next birthday, which was November 26th. Highly unlikely, but one could hope.

I looked at what programs were on. A lot were late-night infomercials or weird soft-core porn. I hesitated on Adult Swim, considering watching Robot Chicken. That or some sitcoms like Friends. Then my eyes wandered to the small collection of vampire books I still had to read, which were sitting on the desk against the wall nearest to where the full body mirror previously had been.

Friends or Civil Rights and Laws as Passed by Royals?

I shrugged. Why not both? Now happily decided, I grabbed the book from the desk and spread out on the bed on my stomach. I watched a piece of an episode of Friends I’d already seen probably a million times before opening the rather small book and paling slightly.

Jesus, that’s a lot of random laws. I flipped through the pages quickly just to skim what it looked like. Then I moved back to the beginning of the book where it had the Table of Contents listed. A majority of the laws had to do with Territories between coteries. This meant everything down to how to obtain territories all the way to the proper steps to take when entering another coterie’s territory. There were so many rights a vampire was given in their own territory. I only skimmed it, finding it to be too much information and way too much detail into something I didn’t really think I’d ever have an issue with myself. I wasn’t planning on joining any coteries or owning any territories.

I skipped to the laws regarding Royals themselves. From what I could tell, Royals were the judge, jury, and executioner so laws didn’t typically address them directly especially being that they made them. The only law they had in place was that of not bonding to the Master of a Coterie. Apparently, it was so dangerous – they still don’t specify why, though I could guess it probably would be because of the amount of power bonding to an entire coterie would give them – that even the leading Royal could be executed by the subsequent Royals if violated.