Blood Spell, Episode #2

School Sucks

“Fix your face before we walk into that building.” My mother sat straight and serene across the backseat of our driver-driven town car. Her legs were crossed primly at the ankles and her hands were folded tightly in her lap. Her dark hair was in a loose side ponytail that had been styled and curled and set by her personal stylist earlier this morning. Her makeup was exactly as it should be for someone of her position, simple yet striking. And her skin was as flawless and ageless as ever. The vampire queen looked the part.

And apparently, her only daughter, did not.

I took a steadying breath and unclenched my jaw. My father was oblivious to the tension in the car. He was too busy typing out emails at lightning speed on his phone to notice my mother was seconds away from losing her head. To my fangs.

Or vice versa.

Running my tongue over my stumpy incisors, I deflated a little. After the . . . incident, my teeth never retracted. I saw countless vampire specialists and doctors and even a human psychiatrist that specialized in PTSD, whom my father later compelled to forget she’d spent the weekend conducting an intensive with a real-life vampire. But nothing worked. My fangs had remained extended, often cutting my bottom lip and tongue. I’d been embarrassed to be seen even by our estate staff. And I straight up refused to leave our grounds until they went back to normal.

They were a haunting reminder of who I was and what I was capable of.