Thirst for Vengeance - Victoria Sinclair (to read list .TXT) 📗

Copy Right © Victoria Sinclair

All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, without prior written permission from the author.

Publisher's Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author's imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.

A small sweat bee landed momentarily on my nose, causing my head to jerk back. Alex took the momentary distraction to lunge, striking like a serpent. I jumped back just in time. I shoved my knife into its sheath and then lunged forward, snatching Alex's right wrist in my right hand. I threw it back behind him while I used my left hand to gouge his eyes.

Alex swore and swung wildly with his left arm. I quickly pulled his blade arm and myself behind him. At the same time, I grabbed his jaw with my left hand, pulling it left as I attempted to force him to the ground. Alex wasn't going to lose easily. I could feel it in the way he pushed back. His heels dug into the dirt, legs bracing against my weight. My arms were starting to hurt, I knew if I didn't finish this quickly, it would be over.

I kicked off with my weight, letting my feet bear down on his arms as I tried to break his defensive stance. I heard his knife hit the floor with a clatter that brought an instant smile came to my face.

"Yes! Finally!"

"Oh Aurora we are not don't yet!" Alex said. He had picked his blade back up. He quickly twirled around and sent the blade flying toward my face. I knew I was not going to have time to dodge it. I quickly brought up my hands up together and caught the blade between my palms, the blade was less than an inch away from my nose.

Alex walked over to me and took his blade out of my hands. "That was perfect! Don't get me wrong though, I went easy on you," Alex shot me a wink.

I gave him a smile, "Whatever you say old man."

"Ouch, throwing insults now are we? That's no way to treat your mentor!" Alex dramatically leaned his head back.

"Oh please, you're the one who raised me this way," I stated as I headed toward the door of the training room. I could see that the sun was getting lower in the sky, we only had an hour or so before nightfall. A chilled breeze rolled over my shoulders as I walked out the door. It was getting close to fall and the trees were already turning beautiful colors of red and yellow. Alex and I had been living in a small clearing a couple miles from the closest village.

I walked across the clearing toward a small cabin covered in green moss. I stopped a couple feet before I had reached the door and looked he little cabin over one more time. It had been my home for thirteen years now and tomorrow I could finally I would be leaving it to start my own life. Tomorrow was the day I turned eighteen, the day I could finally take on my own contracts, the day I would finally be a step closer to avenging the death of my parents. I chill went down my spine as I recalled the memory, forever fresh in my mind.

Alex had rescued me after after my village attacked by rogue vampires. He had heard my cries and had come into the house to find me hiding in a corner covered in my parents' blood. They had been massacred. I never knew why the vampire that had done it left me alive, but I knew I would never forget those wicked ice blue eyes laughing at me and his wicked smile. Alex took me in after he tried, and failed, to find any of my relatives and trained me to become a monster slayer like him. Ever since that night I have sworn to find the vampires who had destroyed my village and my way of life.

I had been training since. From dawn until dusk I had trained myself to the point of exhaustion. I was already considered one of the best knife fighters at a young age. When I had turned fifteen Alex had let me work contracts with him. Well, 'let' is an overstatement, I had bugged and nagged him to the point where he would let me do small contracts with him, such as a rogue werewolf or lone vampire. However, he would never let me do big jobs with him such as a nest of vampires or a griffin. But that was going to change after tomorrow.

Tomorrow was my eighteenth birthday, the day I had been waiting years for. The day I could finally take on my own contracts and make my own living. The day I could finally be on own. A shiver of excitement went down my spine as I thought of all the possibilities that were opening up in front of me.

To be a monster slayer you had to be at least eighteen. I never really knew why this was in place. I guess to keep young kids from going out and getting themselves killed. Walking into the cabin I started toward my back bedroom to finish packing my supplies. Tomorrow Alex had agreed to take me on a big contract. Alex said the person who issued the contract was going to pay a lot of coin and has promised to split it with me so I would have coin to start my own life. With all the excitement I was feeling I didn't know if I would be able to sleep tonight or not.

"Are you sure this is something you want to go through with?" Alex said from my doorway. "You could just stay here a couple more years" I turned around and smiled at him. "I'm going to miss you too Alex." I rapped my arms around him and squeezed. He was a good 6'3 and I was barely 5'5 so he had to lean down and kiss the top of my head. "Don't you forget about me, you are always welcome here."

"I know that and I promise I will at least come and visit for the holidays."

I looked up at Alex and could have sworn I saw the beginning of a tear begin to form. Alex quickly blinked and backed out of the door. "I'll go. You get some rest, we have a long road ahead of you tomorrow." He turned around and left leaving me to my thoughts. Walking over to my dresser I pulled out the bottom drawer and got out a couple things I would need. My clothes mostly consisted of leather shirts and pants and a couple of black cloaks. I also pulled one or two dresses out of my top drawer that I rarely ever wore except for recon. Putting all these into my leather riding pack, I then went to the middle drawer. As I opened it the shine of silver met my eyes. This is where I kept all my knives and blades that I used on the job, my most treasured possessions. Which mainly consisted of 4 different blades. My favorites were two seven inch blades made of pure silver with turquoise hilts. They were a gift from Alex on my sixteenth birthday. I pulled out the last two knives that were slightly smaller, about 5 inches of steel with leather hilts. I sheathed all four blades and put them aside.

Those would not go into my back, I would straps those on before I left the cabin tomorrow morning. I hunter could never go out without her safety. Next I went over to the chest at the bottom of my bed, inside lay my second most treasured possession. Pulling out a long steel broadsword I looked into the metal and saw a perfect reflection of my pale face, my amber colored eyes looking back at me. I stared at my reflection for a moment, I had thick black hair with a patch of white blonde on my right side. I had an oval face that I didn't really like. I had never thought of myself as pretty. My body looked more like a stick than anything. Don't get me wrong, I had a little bit of curves to my body but nothing like other woman I had seen in town. On the rare occasions I had gone into town when I was younger, I remember the other girls laughing at me because of how pale and skinny I was. They would call me 'vampire girl' and had told me I would never find a man with the way I looked. But I hadn't really cared, my focus was not on finding a man.

I shook the memory out of my head as I laid the sword on my bed. Those times were behind me and I was ready for a new start. My goal was to become the best monster hunter in all of Clearwater. My second goal was to hunt down and find the vampires who killed my parents. Alex always said to never hold a grudge, that vengeance will get me killed. I had told him I would not seek vengeance, but with the recent nightmares I had been having on that fateful night I knew that I was lying. Loudly sighing I turned around and reached for the last thing I would need on my journey. My bow and arrow. It has saved my life a couple of occasions and I was a good shot. It was made of sanded oak and had cost me a good bit of coin. But it was worth every dime.

I laid down on my bed as the sun finally set behind the mountain. As I was beginning to relax into the bed, I heard a loud SNAP. I jumped out of the bed and grabbed one of my turquoise blades from beside the bed and unsheathed it. Slowly I walked over to the window, listening for any other noise. It had probably just been an animal passing by in the woods, possibly deer or boar, but I had learned to never take any chances. As I reached the window I slowly peeked over and looked out, the moon was just starting to come out and the forest lit up under its eerie glow. 

I'm not sure how long I stared out the window, but I didn't catch any movement until I was about to put my blade back in my sheath.

SNAP

Another twig broke and I quickly scanned the tree line again. Come on Aurora there is nothing there other than some animal. You are worrying yourself for nothing. I thought to myself as I surveyed