Read Online Aurora Sky: Vampire Hunter by Nikki Jefford - Free Book Online Page A

around my neck warily.
    “How are you feeling?” she asked.
    “I have a headache.”
    “I saw the empty bottle of champagne in your room.”
    “Had to celebrate somehow.” I shrugged. “Which reminds me,
Happy New Year.”
    Mom’s lip quivered. Tears gathered in her eyes.
    “Look, sorry about the scene last night. Obviously I was
under the influence. Tell Dad I was drunk and that it won’t happen again.”
    Mom blinked several times and nodded. “You shouldn’t have
had the entire bottle.”
    “I learned my lesson.”
    The lesson was to lie through my teeth so my mom wouldn’t
worry so much.
     
             
     
    While I had been off getting my neck chewed open, Denise
spent the holiday with her family at Alyeska Resort—skiing by day, hot tubing
by night.
    She and Erin sipped out of paper espresso cups in front of
the lockers the first day of school.
    Second semester. The end was near. Literally.
    I threw back my shoulders before joining the girls. “Hi,
guys! How was your holiday?”
    They exchanged looks at my cheerful tone. Mom had advised me
to be more peppy. Like if I acted that way, I’d feel that way. Fat chance.
    “Fine,” Denise said. “How was yours?”
    “Wild!” My mouth expanded on the word.
     “That’s nice,” Denise said, turning back to Erin. “So
anyway, like I was saying, Alan Baxter called me yesterday to invite me to the
winter ball.”
    Once upon a time, in a world without vampires, Denise would
have tracked me down to share that news.
    “When’s winter ball?” I asked.
    “At the end of the week.”
    “What did you tell him?” Erin asked.
    “I told him yes.”
    “Who do I want to go to winter ball with?” I pondered aloud.
    This was enough to pull Denise’s attention away from Erin.
“Aurora, you’ve been acting like a complete freak lately. Who’s going to want
to go take you to winter ball?”
    I never realized how little I cared for Denise until now.
    I straightened to my full height and took a step toward her.
“You mean I haven’t quite been myself since I nearly DIED?”
    She glared at me, keeping her ground even though I was
practically in her face.
    “Um, I should get going to class,” Erin said.
    Denise shot me a nasty look before turning to Erin. “I’ll
come with you.”
    Good . Denise should be friends with someone whose
mission in life was something other than killing vampires.
    I could make new friends, too. Maybe even ones who were
aware of ‘demonic beings’, as Melcher called them. I thought about the hickey
I’d seen on the black-haired girl’s neck. Only I no longer believed it was a
hickey.
    It was just a hunch, but there was only one way to find out.
    I made my way to the girl’s bathroom in C Hall and, sure
enough, I noticed three familiar forms: the juniors with their varying shades
of highlights. I followed them inside the girls’ bathroom.
    They were all short, like they’d formed a club—the Three
Mouseketeers.
    I set my backpack on the counter in front of the mirror and
made a show of digging through my bag. A toilet flushed behind me. There was a
spray of water at my side. The warning bell rang, and several girls rushed out.
The Mouseketeers kept their places at the mirror, applying liner and rouging
their lips. At least they didn’t chatter.
    When the final bell rang and it was just the four of us in
the ladies’ room, I unwrapped my scarf, folded it, set it on the counter in a
corner clear of water drops, and turned my exposed neck to the mirror,
reflecting the fading wound. I dug around in my pack again.
    The hooded girl looked over and nodded at my neck. “What is
that?”
    I pulled out a tube of pink lipstick, puckering my lips
after I applied pale pink shimmer. “What does it look like?”
    The girl with the red streaks in her hair laughed. “It looks
like you and your boyfriend had a heavy make-out session.”
    “Oh, please,” I said with a roll of my eyes. “Like I need a
boyfriend. What I’ve got is