Blood, Fire and Vampire Slayers: Jasper Hale love story Book #2

4: Folklore

"Dragons come from Europe and Asia," said Edward, voicing Astrid's thoughts as they walked into school. "They fly at high altitudes and have a lot of red blood cells, which is why Klaus has such good stamina. He's probably older than he looks and the fiery smell is obvious now. Plus, Klaus could sense the open telepathic link between us when we were talking, and some dragons have a sixth sense that allows them to do that." Astrid nodded. She was too cheerful to be annoyed that he was reading her mind. It saved her a verbal explanation anyway, but Bella didn't like it.

"Could you guys please stop doing that. It's weird," she said.

"How did you see the tattoo?" Emmett asked.

"I didn't get a really good look at it," said Astrid. "Just a few glances. It was so hot yesterday we all decided to have a water fight, and the guys took their shirts off.

Last night I also read that there might be another explanation as to why Klaus is unreadable. Some dragons have natural shields against mental and emotional manipulation from other magical beings. Unless you use certain spells, or things like torture, you probably won't get to them."

"Let's hope he doesn't have that," said Alice. "We want to know what he's thinking."

"We'll find out this afternoon when he takes his tags off," said Jasper. "You just have to get him to think about the murder, Astrid. A guilty mind and conscience will reveal themselves immediately." Edward could hear Astrid's reservations about what they were planning. She had been the one to think of the idea, but she no longer wanted to do it.

"I'll be really discreet," said Edward.

"But I can sense you in my thoughts. What if he can too?"

"We'll think of some excuse," said Jasper.

*****

When Astrid walked into the gym after school Bella was already standing awkwardly in her gym shirt and a pair of yoga pants.

"Look who joined the group," she said, nodding towards the corner. Melissa and Casey, another girl from ballet, were there chatting. Astrid and Bella were at least happy to see Angela and Jessica walking in. Klaus entered with Tyler and left his dog tags on top of his gym bag.

"There's Alice," said Astrid. Alice waved to them as she took a seat in the stands to watch, along with a few other students. Brad was among them. Interest in the class had increased since Melanie's murder. Chief Swan wouldn't be there for the Monday classes, but Beverly Jensen, the retired cop from last Thursday, was present with a kickboxing and Jiu-jitsu instructor called Percy. Two punching bags had been installed in the gym over the weekend and a collection of judo mats had been laid out on the floor."

"We'll start with skipping as a warm-up and some punching combinations before we learn how to escape chokeholds," said Percy.
For the next minute Bella was tripping over her skipping rope and Melissa and Casey were there giggling at her.

"Forget them," said Astrid. "You'll get it eventually." Bella managed to jump over the rope a few times in a row before the minute was up. Gloves with thick pads attached to the palms were handed out.

"These are focus pads," said Percy. He demonstrated the correct punching technique and started the clock for a minute. Bella had seen plenty of action movies where the characters fought for minutes at a time, but she was wondering how they kept it up for longer than ten seconds. She was already sweating.