Bloodstained Lily

Chapter 22-And So...The War Begins...

One Year Later

So now I’m twenty one and Jordan is sixteen. I won’t lie, our new maturity, if we had any more to gain, would not let us lift our eyes from what Zayn had done a year ago but we blamed it on his zombie side and tried our best to put it behind us.

He really was a nice guy, I believed that deep down but somehow I couldn’t bring myself to connect with him the way we had before. Harry on the other hand, would hardly leave my side which was nice. It did get a little old after a while but he knew when he was suffocating me too much and would always back off slightly which I loved. He knew our boundaries and respected them.

This year the werewolves started making their move and they are gathering forces to try and attack Zayn here from what I’ve been told. Harry suggested we move but they would only follow us until Zayn AND Harry were both dead. They hated the royal court and everyone in it which obviously consisted of Harry too.

I had heard that they took out half the city’s vampire population but in a sudden act of kindness, the remaining zombies in which Jordan had not killed drove them away. I found myself having a new respect for them and seeing them as almost noble creatures. They were beaten and pushed around by the vampires as if they were slaves and yet the still managed to push away any remaining bestiality within them and help out the vampires.

I respected Zayn slightly as he enforced a new rule after that, giving a few select zombies a place in his castle to live with him and living as equals among the vampires though he also put in place a new rule, one for us humans.

Previously, there was a rule that humans may not kill any supernaturals without being killed themselves, it was a crime to even try to touch a being beyond our own but now, he acted as if we were an endangered species that needed to be saved, which I guess came from his personal encounters with Jordan and I.

As I awoke early that morning, I headed out to find Harry and Zayn standing behind the safety of the walls, looking out into the forest as if they were waiting for something. I ran up to them and Jordan followed quickly behind me and pulled me back just before I reached them.

“Something’s coming…” He whispered and lifted his finger to his lips.

I looked back at the direction Harry and Zayn’s eyes were planted towards. I couldn’t help but feel a tingle run down my spine as I saw the look of horror on not only Harry’s, but Zayn’s face too. If something worried or scared Zayn, it couldn’t be good.

I walked up to them, with Jordan by my side and completely ignored the sharp, stone knife he clutched in his hand.

“What’s going on?” I asked frantically.

Zayn shushed me and Harry turned around to look at me, I swore I could see tears forming in his eyes, something I hadn’t seen since I died.

“The werewolves aren’t the ones who started this…the witches are, and they are sending an army for us which will arrive here shortly.”

I shuddered. I had never thought something so brutal would ever find us and I probably should have remained quiet to keep my thoughts from spiralling out of control, but I couldn’t help but continue to ask possibly the most important question I could think of at the time.

“An army of what?”

Jordan looked down at me, concerned. I hated how he towered over me and now that he was old enough to make his own decisions, it always felt like he was my older brother. His light blonde hair had turned to a golden colour over the years and he remained as thin as a stick except for a few tiny muscles on his arms and legs, still he was one thousand times stronger than he looked.

“Werewolves, vampires and zombies.” Zayn replied quickly.

My eyes widened. I had expected werewolves but the other two? Recently, zombies seemed to be the one thing standing between werewolves and domination, what could have gone wrong? Did the witches get to them? And what happened with the vampires? They were the civilised people of the city and now they were cowering before werewolves and witches? How did it come to this?

But surely Zayn will be able to come to some sort of agreement with them, right? I mean, he is the king of not just vampires but everything, of humans, of zombies, of witches, of dracaena, of any living creature that seemed to roam the Earth. So that means he could tell them off right? I mean they are all afraid of what he can do, him being the only hybrid on Earth, they should all cower before him, right?

“Can’t you just kill them all? You are the most powerful creature on Earth!”

He turned around to face me and shook his head. I didn’t know what he was trying to say but whatever it was, it couldn’t be good…He was either telling me he couldn’t kill them all or he was no longer the most powerful creature on Earth and whichever one it was, I was not about to waste my time to try and find out.

“It’s true I was, and still am the most powerful being on Earth but they are forming hybrids of their own, if they pin all of them against me then no matter how hard they try, they won’t be able to kill me but they will most certainly be able to distract me long enough to kill all three of you.”

I wouldn’t accept that answer, I refused to. I ran ahead of them and a little way into the forest until Harry cut me off, followed by Zayn and finally Jordan at slightly faster than normal human speed.

Jordan and Zayn looked on ahead, moving a few paces to the right of us and anxiously looking around. Something wasn’t right and we all knew it, we were all wary and alert at that very point in time.

“Stop…Did you hear that?”

It all fell silent. I stood over next to Harry and looked over at Jordan fearfully as Harry pushed me behind him. I saw Zayn and Harry nod at each other but Jordan and I just stared at each other and I smiled as a smile crept its way across his face.

For once, I loved that hatred in his eyes, it burned like fire and whatever was coming would surely have to watch out because Jordan was the biggest human beast that ever did walk our Earth.

I was so sure we were just hearing things when suddenly out of nowhere, we heard a loud and mighty roar, more terrifying than any lion or large animal and before I knew it, Harry was on the ground trying to fight off and free himself from underneath a large, hairy, pitch-black beast…