Reaper s Hollow

Chapter 1

"War is coming, Helena. War is coming."

Opening my eyes, I looked around, this time no longer fearing the nightmare that always had me clawing into my sheets and ripping it into pieces, a reminder that I wasn't normal.

That I had never been.

Today was going to be a good day, father had said.

More like a life sentence, but I always agreed with whatever Papa said.

Today is my eighteenth birthday and if everything goes well, I'm going to be shipped to Reaper Academy by the end of the week.

Too fast for you?

I'm Helena Shaw, a citizen of the Island country of Spatos, revered by the world for advancement in technology and harmony between different species, the species being the humans and vampires, the country governed by Councilors, who were of both species.

Eighteen years ago, another species, Lamias were part of the citizens of Spatos until the war and the creation of the magical mist that separated us from them.

The mist was on the outskirts of Antiope, the fallen city closest to the Milton Forest which was now also a part of the mist and Lamia territory.

Close to that great mist stood Reaper Academy, a training school for vampires and half vampires to harness their gifts because the mist was weak, they said.

Once you were sixteen, you were tested and if found to be of good health, sent to Reaper Academy to harness your skills in order to either become an enforcer for the city, a guardian for any of the councilors or what was called an elite team, set aside for the day the mist fell.

The humans also had an academy, the Enforcement, that trained those interested in becoming enforcers for the city. Very few got the honour of being a part of the elite team or Guardian status.

Being sent to an academy was every teenager's dream, except it wasn't mine. Especially because I wasn't vampire or human.

I was an abomination, a half vampire, half Lamia. A Vami. The first to ever survive birth.

After the war and the Lamia were banished, the rest that remained were hunted and killed off, save my mother, a Lamia, who'd hidden because she was pregnant with me.