Chapter 37 - Raven O' Connor

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The shock was short lived and Raven's smile slowly dissolved as the twins gathered before the bed shielding Marina. He was offended by the notion. Surely if he meant her harm he would've done so already. He watched Jane touch the pillars of the bed no doubt drawing a protection ward over it before linking hands with Julie and joining in the chant. It was the same one they used on the vampire that night in Rosalie's room:

'To be protected from you,
This magic charm we do,
With these words we banish thee,
For you to let us be,
To be protected from your harm,
With light we now seal this charm’

'Marina, look away!'

A warm light spread into the very corners of the room and the last thing the twins saw was Raven shaking his head as if he expected it and then everything went white…

Julie let go of Jane's hand to shield her eyes, but this time it lasted a lot shorter than that night. With her hand still in the air, she blinked to see Raven's hand also in the air; waving. Did he just wave their spell away? Jane's mouth fell open when she saw that the spell that delivered much damage the last time they used it, didn't even scratch him. 'Are we done with this?', Raven said lowering his hand.

Both twins took a step back, behind the bedposts. Did it fail because Rosalie wasn't there? All sorts of questions went through them as they moved closer to Marina. It wasn't until they heard her gasp, that they noticed Raven's eyes were red. The spell obviously didn't have the desired effect, but it didn't do nothing.

'What are you?', Julie shrieked.

'A vampire, like you said', Raven answered, crossing his arms once more; his blood-red eyes fixed on her.

'That spell would've damaged a vampire. I saw it myself…', she shrieked again.

'Please. You think that spell would work on me. Me? The one that taught it to your grandmother in the first place? Yes,-', he continued seeing the surprised look on their faces, '-she knows who and what I am. Maybe you should take a chapter from her book on handling things that have nothing to do with you'

'You lie!'

'Of course! I just happened to have spent 2 days under the roof of one of the greatest witches I know and she had no clue of who I am. You are right, that sounds more believable'

'What do you want Raven, if that's even your real name'

'It is, and I want nothing'

'You lie!'

'You really need to start telling me when it is that I am not lying, Julie', his red eyes all but cutting through her.

'Why should we believe you? You've lied about everything. What you are, the amnesia…'

'Perhaps someone-', Raven's eyes shifted to where Marina was looking at him from behind the twins, 'will recall that I never said anything about amnesia. It was the way in which I answered that you concluded that. My only fault lies in that I never corrected you and for that I apologize'

Marina said nothing and just looked at him. This was all so much to take in. The fact that vampires exist; the fact that her boyfriend was one and that she just witnessed magic for the second time in her life. Anxiety and confusion were the main emotions running through her where the most natural one in a situation like this, namely fear, was absent.

'I'll ask again. What do you want Raven?', Julie held on.

'World peace', he answered flashing a full set of teeth; fangs included. Julie had enough of him and was getting ready to strike once more. Whether it would hit or not was a chance she was willing to take. Her hand was already halfway up when a chuckle from behind halted her. Even Raven's teasing abruptly left him and he frowned at Marina who hastily lifted her hand to her mouth. Did that really come out? She looked at Julie with a face asking if it really wasn't as funny as it sounded.

'Seriously Marina? Can you really not grasp the danger of this situation? The danger you're in?'

'I'm not in danger-'

Raven snarled at those words, making them all look up. 'What makes you so positive?'

Marina sighed and took a deep breath. What she was about to do was plain crazy and quite stupid taking in the situation, but she felt like she needed to prove a point. She moved from behind Jane, despite the latter trying to hold her back, and slowly walked towards Raven. He snarled at every step she took in his direction. 'You didn't turn into a vampire today Raven. You were already one when you were brought to me. And despite the evidence before me, I still find it a bit hard to believe. In the last few weeks there were plenty of opportunities for you to hurt me… but you didn't… Instead you let me get close to you'

To her the person that she came to know in the last few weeks was Raven, not the being her cousins were describing. She still didn't know all that much about him, but those few weeks they spent together at least gave him the right to explain himself. Marina halted in front of him. For some reason he seemed larger than she remembered. 'I'm not afraid of you Raven! It makes no sense, but I'm not', Marina said lifting her hand to touch his face even though everything screamed at her not to.

'I'm not afraid of you Patrick. It makes no sense and I know I should be, but I'm not'

A flashback hit him about the very exact scene before him; a different raven-haired beauty caressing his face. But as warm as that flashback was, it quickly changed into a not so pleasant one where that same raven-haired beauty lay still on a carpeted floor. Her skin whiter than before…

It was that particular image that made Raven pull back before Marina's hand could touch him. He moved away from her and sat down on the small stairs next to the wardrobe. 'You should… She made the same mistake and look what happened!'

She? Who's she? Marina had been so caught up in caring for him, helping with the, now proven fake, amnesia to even stop and consider there being someone in his life. A girlfriend? A wife? She felt a twinge of jealously at the mention of another woman, but decided not to jump to conclusions. His words did let her to believe that that person was either dead or missing.

'She?', Marina said kneeling in front of him, 'your girlfriend?'

Raven looked at her, but said nothing. 'Your wife?', she felt a bit more. This time he didn't need to answer, because the vacant look his eyes said it all. A wife. The jealousy reared its ugly head back in all Marina could do was sigh. It was either that or break something and she was fond of everything in her room.

'Will you tell me about it?'

Her question brought his eyes back into focus and he frowned at her, 'To what end?'

'I want to know about you. About your life before you were brought to me and… about the vision Julie saw'. Raven squinted his eyes at her wondering why she would want to know about all of that. No one knew about his life apart from his family. It's not something he freely shared… with anyone!

'Marina, perhaps you should keep some distance… the red in his eyes is starting to worry me!

'Despite the fact that you only just attacked me, I still like you Julie! Do not make me change my mind', Raven answered in a voice so low it was downright scary, but that emotion was still absent in Marina. She straightened up a bit, blocking his view of Julie. She was not about to let anyone change the subject; not when she managed to get this far already. Marina said nothing; just looked at him attentively awaiting his decision.

It dawned on him that she was right in the middle. On one side her cousins, on the other him still needing to clarify on his part. He was this close to losing her and that was one thing he couldn't take. …not again! Raven nodded and gave in. He would tell her his story even if that could push her out the door all the same.

'Very well then'

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'My name is Patrick Raven O' Connor. I am the youngest son of my father, born and raised on the plains of old Ireland. My family was the only distributor of wheat and bamboo at the time and you could say we were pretty well off. But after a while my father started getting weak from unknown causes and we sought help from the medicine man. A local witch-doctor, but now that I think of it, he was more witch than doctor. His ritual included my father and all the sons born from my mother, thus blessing us with this curse'

'Blessed with a curse?', Marina frowned.

'Blessed- for it gave us strength, speed and stamina to work in the fields and continue our business. Cursed- because of the bloodlust. The ritual he did required for us to drink the blood of a hunted animal, mixed with the blood of the witch we later learned, creating a need for it should the weakness return. Vampires he called us; after the blood-drinking bats he had encountered during his many dream-walks. Naturally we called him insane when he warned about controlling the bloodlust. Why on earth would we want to partake in that nasty ritual again?

It was a rude awakening that came in the form of great sorrow and pain. As warned, my father lost control and attacked my mother and we knew what the man said was true. We searched for him to undo the evil he had bestowed upon us, but he was nowhere to be found. My mother died shortly after that… Shame and guilt washed over my father and it drove him insane. Every day he spend in the house they built together it got worse. He began feeding on everything that moved; chickens, cows… and the villagers! We were able to cover the tracks, but not for long. The villagers started panicking because of a beast in the woods and no matter what was said, they were afraid. There were many hunting sessions that came up empty and they switch over to accusations of witchcraft, resulting in innocents being burned at the stake. We made the decision to leave. Father's insanity reached a point where he no longer recognized us as his sons and tried to attack us as well. We restrained him with shackles and starved him out. Killing him wasn't an option, not just because he was our father, but because he had already tried it himself after our mother died and it didn't work.

The attacks would stop if we left, of course, so we refrained from feeding for two weeks to let all calm down and not make it obvious that we were the ones. After that we spread the news that our father had died as well and that we would leave that place after the burial'

'You pretended to bury him to convince the villagers?', Marina asked.

'It was not pretend. We did bury our father; next to our mother. The starvation made him weak and a vampire that weak goes into a comatose state'

'Is he still there?'

'I believe so, yes! We have not returned since. My brothers and I vowed to keep our bloodlust in check even if it killed us; and by the time we reached a new world, the place of new beginnings, we had grown quite adept in it. That new world, you know now as New Orleans, was a big stretch of land with only a few houses. We blended in fairly quick and with our gift of strength we helped make the town  flourish. We gained a new name… the builders. A new profession with a new life. However, when my brothers and I stopped aging in the first few years of adulthood, we had to come up with a plan yet again, to keep the people from noticing; so we left. Waiting for years and years to pass, basically for generations to die off, so that we could return pretending to be look-a-like cousins or whatever was needed as long as they believed; and believed they did. The O' Connor name was included in some books as founders, but nothing official'

'I thought the French founded New Orleans', Julie said, thinking back to her history lessons.

'More funded than founded! The resources to build came from them, but the man-power, or vampire-power in this case, came from us. After that, it did make it harder to pass of as distant family members with everyone knowing who we were, but somehow we managed.

One year, we returned to find a new establishment they called a high institute for learning. Something equal to a college in these days. Due to our appearances, we were able to pass as students and were accepted into the institute. It was quite a memorable experience; even more thanks to our family's name, although my younger brother Calum would most likely disagree. He wasn't very popular with the girls next door. They had separate institutes for the boys and girls of course, but they were next to each other so we could still communicate with them over the concrete wall. It was so high, we could only see each other from the chin up…

That was when I saw her- a beauty with sun-kissed skin and hair as black as coal. She walked by the wall with the cutest nose to have ever been stuck in a book. Word around was that she and her sister were new in town; arrived only a week ago.

Her name was Camilla Lewis'

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*A/N:
~Congrats Deej – for being the first to squint at Camilla's disappearing mirror trick in Ch. 17~

~Congrats Aeon – for suspecting Raven to be the 3^rd Elite~

You were right!