Unraveling Soren by Marisa Maichel (books under 200 pages txt) 📕

Prologue

As I look back on my life, I notice some discrepancies. There was the little matter of my father lying to me half my life. Okay, so I’d been lying a lot recently, too. But there was a bigger mission at stake than my father’s trust in me.

CHAPTER ONE – SCARY

I leaned back and bit my lip. This was harder than I’d anticipated. Naming my weaknesses was easy. Naming my strengths…I had no idea. Still, I supposed that writing college essays wasn’t much different than a job interview. Unfortunately, I’d never had a job interview. The one job I’d had was a business owned by my father, Prince Mordecai Emerson of the vampire race.

I was his only son, Prince Reese Mordecai Emerson. My role was still undetermined in the grand scheme of things. I was never going to be king; if Grandfather died, the role would go to my uncle Soren, and if he died, the role would go to his son and my favorite cousin Louis, who was like an older brother to me.

But lately, we’d all been distracted. There was the little matter of the Vampire Council trying to overthrow us, and then the matter of an evil spirit named Jordan constantly trying to take over my human girlfriend, Sarah Harper Cresley. Then there was the werewolf pack, who were still angry with us about Sadie’s suicide over me. See, I’d made a stupid mistake. I slept with a werewolf.

Sleeping with a werewolf is like tying a knot of marriage to the wolves. And then I got back with Sarah, and then things took a turn for the worst. Maybe it is my fault that Sadie died. Either way, I was just happy to be back with Sarah. Truthfully, I just didn’t care about the pack, despite the fact that my father’s boyfriend, or ex-boyfriend as a possibility, is the pack leader.

My father and I shared a few things in common: our eyes, our tempers, our strengths, and our preference for both lads and lasses. I’d dated a guy before I dated Sarah, even slept with him. Father had not dated any guy before he dated Faolan, only women, including my mother.

Anyway, back to business. I could ask Louis; he’d be willing to share his tips. He went to college more times out of any of us. He even went to medical school and has the most recent medical expertise. I sent him a quick text, and he quickly replied back, giving me his own tips for writing the essay.

I knocked out the essay in less than an hour after that. I quickly sent it in e-mail form to Harvard. My grades were good enough that I’d get in. Not necessarily my dream, but whatever. My real dream was to marry Sarah and have babies. To turn her into a vampire. I purred as I dreamed about my future children. A daughter named Caitlin, like Sarah wanted, and a son, name yet unknown.

Plus Cirino, Sarah’s baby with Michael Nales. He was about eight months out of the womb, and he was growing big, even starting to babble. He called me “Ree”. He had yet to say “Mommy” or “Daddy”, which irritated Mother greatly.

I didn’t know anything about babies, so I didn’t know when he would stop babbling and start speaking in full sentences. He was growing, though. Already, we’d had to buy new clothes several times. He was crawling around, at least.

I finished the rest of my college essays and sent them. I was applying to several prestigious colleges, including North Hampton School of Music. Sarah herself had been applying to several colleges as well, including Los Angeles School of Fashion, Harvard, Oxford, Toronto School of Fashion, Dartmouth, Brown, Rhode Island School of Design, and so on.

Truthfully, I wrote most of those. I also made it so her grades looked higher than they actually were. Oh, she got As and Bs on her own, but I wanted the best for my girl. I sent copies of our transcripts to each and every school we applied to.

If that didn’t work, there was always the singing route. Sarah had been singing a lot at clubs and other places and celebrations. She let me teach her how to play guitar and the piano, which went well with her soprano voice.

I clutched my head. I couldn’t think anymore. I looked at the time, surprised to learn that it was already five in the evening. Time for dinner.

My dinner usually consists of drinking bagged blood warmed by the microwave, but tonight, I felt like hunting. I usually drink from the guys hurting people, but it had been a while since I’d killed anyone. North Hampton was unusually quiet on the crime front. It had been quiet for too long. I needed action, something to keep my mind off of my problems.

I flipped my long hair back. It was now long enough to go past my shoulders. I needed a trim. After a moment, I gave up and used a hair tie around my wrist to tie my hair back into a bun. I was on the roof of the house. I took a deep breath. I smelled the forest, the animals, the other vampires who lived in the house, including my father, Toby, Spencer, Uncle Soren, and Mitra. Mitra was here? She must have been with my uncle. And a few more guards scattered around.

I turned to the woods and smelled it. I smelled foxes, coyotes, rabbits, and…was that a wolf? Wolves usually didn’t hang around in our neck of the woods.

I took another deep breath and heard a car arriving.

That must be Augusta, I thought. Augusta was our new housekeeper. Now that we had more to do, less time to take care of our regular chores, Father had decided to hire a cleaner. She would clean the house every Saturday from now on. I jumped off the roof and onto the driveway.

I landed perfectly on my feet, and then went around to the back. I heard Augusta’s car pull up, and she got out. I went to the backyard, where a new fence had been built to keep the cats in and the predators out. A white picket fence, just like in those old movies and those perfect houses you see in nice neighborhoods.

When I was younger, my father taught me to do my own laundry and warm my own blood, because “a little manual labor never killed anyone”. I used to mow the grass, take care of my own room. Until the cats came along, then my responsibilities shifted to litterbox duty. My sensitive nose took a beating when that was my job.

Now we had Augusta, who happened to love cats, so she eagerly cleaned out the litterbox in addition to everything else.

My own cat made his appearance quickly enough, going through the dog door that led into the pool area. His new collar twinkled, and I checked his stats on my phone. He had burned three hundred calories this week just following me around.

“Where are you going?” he asked. Oh, and all the cats can talk. Shadowfang was the first to talk, and he said that he was my familiar. I had thought only witches had familiars, but according to Father, vampires can have familiars, too. All the usual creatures are usually a vampire’s familiar. Spiders, snakes, bats, rats, cats, and dogs. And all familiars can speak intelligently. Some can even shapeshift. I’d yet to see that with Shadowfang.

He rolled around on his back in the grass, chewing on one of the blades.

“I’m hunting,” I told him.

“Can I come with you?”

“No. What if a dog finds you?”

“Look at me. I’m bigger than most small dogs.”

“Small dogs. What about big dogs? Are you finally going to let me harness you?”

He growled. “Fine. But if I see a dog, I’ll beat him to pulp just to prove you wrong. On second thought, I changed my mind. No harness, no leash.”

I sighed. He changed his mind about it every single day.

“Can I have milk?” he asked.

“All right, give me a minute.”

I went in through the door leading to the pool area, with him on my tail. I went into the kitchen and poured him a dish of kitten formula. Spoiled cat. He’d disagree, of course. He thinks all cats should have the right to milk. He won’t listen when I tell him cow’s milk isn’t the best for cats. If you want to give your cat milk, get kitten formula.

I went back up to my room and finished the rest of my homework. I went over Council notes next, laws suggested.

Register each and every vampire currently living

Register each vampire death

Register the humans killed by said vampire

Register each human/vampire marriage

All humans informed of the vampire world MUST be Turned

All Vampire Hunters are to cease operations immediately.

All Vampire Hunters are to register the vampires they have killed and the crime committed

Each Coven, Brood, Pack, or Family must register with the Vampire Council

Each Coven must choose ONE leader by elect

Each Coven Leader, Head, or Alpha must register their coven.

Some of these laws made sense, and some of them were already in place. Example: Vampire Hunters were already required to register each vampire they kill to the Council. But registering each marriage, each coven, and each vampire was positively Draconian. I and my family did not agree with some of these suggested laws.

Getting rid of vampire hunters was also a good idea, I thought. The Head of the Vampire Council, Bram King, was one of our least trusted allies. Now he was an enemy, fond of the power he had. He wasn’t too fond of me, truthfully, as I’d once embarrassed him in front of the Council and my family by stating a proven fact: more and more vampires each year choose to consume donated blood, instead of taking it.

My father had suggest a poll, a vote among vampire citizens. The Council, or the Nicolai/Emerson clan? So far, we’d gotten the word out to the rest of our allies; among the guard, servants, maids, cooks, housekeepers, groundskeepers and gardeners, and so on. I was told to dress more conservatively when I was awake. I had to look like a young banker or lawyer, and Father had begged me to let him cut my hair. I said, no way. It’s my hair.

Work was constant, never-ending. I had college applications and essays, homework, and Council notes to go over.

I looked at the suggested list of laws again and sighed. Bram King was out of his fucking mind if he thought the entire Council would agree to this. Oh, I expected a huge fight; a massive, politically-shattering, heartbreaking, humungous fight.

I sighed again, then brightened. I smelled Sarah. She was close by. She was behind me. She walked forward: I could hear her tiny feet walking on the carpet, and she wrapped her arms around my waist.

I grinned and turned to face her. The one thing brightening my exciting, dangerous life, was my human girlfriend. I loved her to death and back. I picked her up and held her close, and she wrapped her muscular legs around my thin waist. I held her up and squeezed her pert bottom. I loved her curves. I loved every part of her. I love her soft brown curls, her bright green eyes, her clear, smooth light brown skin, her personality and sweet nature. I loved her intelligence, her stubbornness, her unconditional love for her family, especially her younger sister, Sabine.

She giggled and tugged on my large, curved nose. She loved my nose. Then she pecked my lips and buried her face in my shoulder.

“I missed you,” I said.

“I couldn’t get away from the restaurant,” she said. She currently worked as