Hope Mikaelson

2. Hunter or Hunted?

Over the past seventeen years, Rebekah had me take tiny supplements of vervain each night to reduce the effect of the plant. Even when I was an infant, she put the tiniest bit in my meals, only enough to make human food taste fouler then usual.

Apparently, there was another vampire who had done this before, called Katherine, and she had become totally immune. Rebekah told me no more of her than that.

Each night that I took the plant, it burned my throat with such a ferocity it was as if a fiery hand was grasping my airways from the inside. It did eventually dull, although it still now isn't close to painless. Katherine must of done it for at least a hundred years for it to have no effect on her.

I  however, didn't have a hundred years to spare, so she increased how much I took to make my intolerance disperse even further. Even through the pain of the vervain during my childhood, it was worth it.

Yes, childhood. I may have been born a vampire hybrid but I also had witch blood which somehow allowed me to grow old. Will I stop at some stage? I don't know. Will I die? I'm already half dead.  I grew up much slower than a human, it took me 19 years to grow a body that looked about 17. Rebekah guesses that soon I will stop my growth completely but I'm worried I'm not as immortal as she is. Perhaps immortal to attacks, but to time? 

Anyway, the vervain bottles at night, helped me a hell of a lot now.

As Izzy grabbed my hand, my blood buzzed and tingled uncomfortably inside my veins and I fought hard to keep quiet as I ran up the court with a hunter on hand - literally.

We somehow managed to be the second team back and I pulled my hand from hers immediately, wiping my hands on my shirt to cover the abrupt action.

I couldn't be completely sure that she was a hunter, it could all be a coincidence. I'd heard there are natural products with vervain, like rare soaps and perfumes. But it was something about the way she expected me to react that made me lean toward the she's-a-hunter category. That and the fact I felt this indescribable hunger whenever I was around her.

'We make a good team,' she smiled irritably, breaking my thoughts.

She shrugged, flipping her long blonde hair and walked around me, so close that our clothing brushed and I got another whiff of - what I now confirm as vervain - perfume and dealt with the aftermath of sudden hunger that followed. Okay, so maybe she wasn't a hunter. Still, I have my suspicions. 

Izzy started to walk back to class as practical finished and after biting back a sharp line of questions, I followed.

******

Time dragged for the rest of the class and I was itching with curiosity that I had to contain if I wanted my true identity to remain secret. In the middle of debating whether to tell Bex all this after school, the bell rang soundly through my thoughts. Finally, it was 12:50 and lunch break.

I packed up my books early and got up as soon as the ringing projected through what sounded like a hundred speakers with my intense hearing. I wanted desperately to beat Izzy out. Slinging the bag over my shoulder, I quickly left the classroom.

'Hi!'

Nearly hitting the roof in surprise, I stumbled back, startled.

'My god, Zeke, you scared me half to death,' I grumbled, holding my fast 'beating' heart for dramatic effect. Haha, half to death. Sounds familiar.

Beating heart.

Alive but immortal.

It was thought not possible for a witch to remain a witch once turned into a vampire, but through the power of the original witch's blood in my system, the vampire blood and wolf curse, it pulsed through me unlike anything else.