Katie leaned back in her chair, trying to get comfortable. At almost 6 feet tall, she wasn't built for the furniture. Being a small village, everyone attended the same school from primary all the way up to age eighteen, at which point most of them, Katie included, had an insane growth spurt. The official school curriculum, consisting of everything the human world covered, had officially ended. However, there were a few more things for the teens to learn before being sent out into the world.  "In humans, the hormone oxytocin enforces building relationships, social bonding as well as supporting childbearing and breastfeeding. We have substantially elevated amounts of this hormone, and this is the reason our society is so tight-knit and close." The teacher took a deep breath. "Now, oxytocin is released during a sexual encounter—" Some of the boys whooped and cheered at the word sexual. 'H

Katie ran to the school building so fast she almost skidded right into the hotdog food truck. Catching herself, she turned and breathed deeply, scanning the air for his scent.  "This way," she shouted to Haley, who was only a few steps behind. The world became a blur again as she started to run, the rasp of her breathing and clatter of her footstep being the only sounds. As she slowed, another noise grew in the distance—the cheers and shouts of fight spectators. "Kill him!" one shouted.  Katie pushed her way through the wall of bodies, ready and prepared to jump in—to use herself as a shield to save her love. She stared down at the ground, frowning in confusion. "Jason," she whispered to herself, standing limp as Haley caught up, clinging to her form to steady herself. "What the heck?" Haley muttered. 

Haley squeezed in next to Katie at the windowsill, trying to get a view of the exchange between Theon and the new guy. She was shocked to see he was only taking a battering of the verbal kind, then surprised further when a group of females appeared. The girls materialised from the bushes like a team of phantoms. The tallest and most highly decorated of them stepped forward to talk to Theon.  "I want to hear what's going on," Katie whined. Her fingers grasped the window frame little white spots appeared on her knuckles. "Let's sneak outside," Haley suggested. "If we slip out the open back door, they might not hear us." "Right." Katie nodded. "Oh, wait." She grabbed her hand, pulling her back to the window. "I think they are coming inside." Haley nodded in agreement as she watched the women follow Theon and Devlin toward the house. She jumped out of the wi

After arriving and waiting in Angelica's quarters for a day and a half alone, Jen finally joined her. "It's done," Jen informed her. "The new deal has been negotiated." Katie exhaled as she nodded, expelling a tensive lungful of breath she hadn't noticed she was holding. After following the quiet girl to the town centre, she waited patiently in the town meeting hall for the princess to gather the other omegas to join her. Some of them cried while others remained outwardly strong, but they all huddled together in a cluster of shared terror and mistrust. These people had been pulled from their lives and forced to make the ultimate sacrifice.  'And this has been happening for years,' Katie thought, filled with a sudden burst of pride that she and her kin were about to end this evil tradition.  Unable to comfort the others, she had no choice but to imitate the

Angelica waited by the gates of the graveyard. The black cast iron that curled and formed wing-like patterns was cold against her back. A chill worked its way up her spine—a feeling she was not accustomed to, being a warm-blooded creature of such elegant design.  As she looked around, she saw no one visiting the tombstones to tidy the dying flowers or tend to the grass. The dark church windows seemed to watch her, but nobody occupied this building—at least, the boarded-up door would suggest as much. It struck Angelica as a rather cliche choice to use as a meeting point with a vampire—an abandoned graveyard. They might as well have asked her to join them in a Transylvanian castle. The smell of their arrival hit her nose just before she heard them rustling through the thick blanket of leaves. Her smile was joyous and automatic as she realised they had kept their word. Harley was with them. She would