Loving Layla
By Laura Panks
()
About this ebook
When her familys murderers ransack her home, Layla Rensetti, teenage vampire and donec , flees with her scientific genius of a brother, Ragner. Heartbroken from the loss of her lover, she is dragged into a marriage with the dangerous vampire prince Vladimir Dragonsweed. But the disturbed royal is Ragners worst nightmare, tearing at his dreams of finding his lost brother Nicolai.
Forbidden to leave their new home, the twins and distraught young prince run into secrets, lies, and missing answers at every turn. Why did their father never complete his lifelong project, what really happened to Nicolai that fateful night, and who exactly is Nick Renz?
Laura Panks
Born in 1997 at Doncaster, Laura is the eldest of three children. She now lives in Goole with her parents and younger brothers. She enjoyed reading, writing, and daydreaming from a young age. Laura has written stories from age five. The publication of this book is the realisation of a long-held ambition.
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Loving Layla - Laura Panks
Copyright 2012 Laura Panks.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written prior permission of the author.
Printed in the United States of America.
isbn: 978-1-4669-2989-0 (sc)
isbn: 978-1-4669-2990-6 (hc)
isbn: 978-1-4669-2991-3 (e)
Library of Congress Control Number: 2012908709
Trafford rev. 05/17/2012
7-Copyright-Trafford_Logo.aiwww.trafford.com
North America & international
toll-free: 1 888 232 4444 (USA & Canada)
phone: 250 383 6864 * fax: 812 355 4082
Contents
First and Foremost
Layla Sunrise
Felix Profane hell
Gracie Remember me
Asher Dimensions
Tobias A proposal
David Killing this way
Layla Nick Renz
Luciana-Jade Playtime’s over
Layla My reflection
Ragner My nightmare; Nicolai Rensetti
Layla Fight
Ragner Nikki-boy
Layla The bigger picture
Vladimir Memories
Ragner Tale of the future
Vladimir All shall bow before me
Layla Hunter
Vladimir Demon King
Ragner Basinda
Draco Vladimir
Layla Roses and Angels
Ragner It’s just dèjá vu
Vladimir In the morning
Layla The girl in the tower
Ragner Just like his father
Mary-Lou A vision of the tortured
Layla Puppet on a string
Draco The truth is torturous
Vladimir Angels and Brides
Draco Old friend
Ingrid Green Square
Caitlyn Nicolai and the silver man
Layla Meet your brother
First and Foremost
Remember the future, the hope, the dreams,
The story with the unknown theme.
But if hope is a dream of the soul awake,
The truth lies unknown until day break.
Look to the past, delve in the memory,
Tears stream with the wail of the Banshee.
Lost, forgotten, never to be known,
Nobody there, you can do it alone.
Watch it all, the fact, the fiction,
The lost, the known, the new dimension.
Three separate lives before your eyes,
But they’re all one person as they meet their demise.
When your reflection is not one you know,
When your voice is not one you can echo.
There’ll be an angel, wings of a black dove,
Prayer of a small child begging to be loved.
Layla
Sunrise
The room fills with the soft light of the sunrise as I lay, gazing into the beautiful display of colours stretching its long fingers across the clear bluebell sky.
Layla?
my brother’s voice drifts through the door. Are you awake?
Yeah,
I yell, dragging myself from the bed. Taking my favourite crimson shirt and denim jeans from the oaken wardrobe, I change, leaving Ella to sleep.
I gaze into the mirror, my doppelganger gazing back. I am tall, thin, with chestnut hair and blood red eyes.
I understand your confusion. Red eyes? At the risk of sounding clichéd, I am a vampire. All vampires, witches and donecs have an abnormality. Hide able, but bothersome.
Now, I have more to explain. Donecs are humans or vampires with a genetically occurring curse. My family, Rensetti, can contort time. Donecs form into colonies, most using Latin to create names. The most famous include: a global vampire group called the Vamps, a hardworking British cluster of donecs who call themselves Angelorum Custodum, the Yankoso vampire-slaying colony from America, and last but definitely not least, the Inferos Superbia, the most extreme, terroristicly hell-bent demons to walk the earth.
I feel a small pair arms wrap around me. Ella stares at the girls in the glass with me, her lacy pink dress seeming to glow in the light of the sunrise.
Ella is big for five years old, with blonde hair and huge blue eyes. Miss Lodger describes her as the ‘perfect child’; polite, helpful, friendly, and an all-round pleasure.
The door shudders, Carlisle knocking furiously at the wood. Hurry up! Miss Lodger won’t give us any food until you two get here.
Lifting Ella into my arms, I wander from the room. Carlisle scowls, as usual, hatred boiling in his copper eyes. Bruises line his blotchy, stretched skin, his clothes clinging to his plump body. His blonde hair sticks up from his potato shaped head, as if he’s been electrocuted.
The noise of the dining room hits me like a bullet. Dozens of orphaned children scrabble to claim a seat, each shunned from human care homes.
Sitting Ella down, I place myself between her and Ragner. My brother is tall, at least a head taller than me, and lanky, with floppy brown hair and emerald green eyes. Purple shadows cling under his eyes, the result of nightmare-pursued nights.
Ragner stares blankly, ignoring everything around him. Blood dribbles from the corner of his mouth. Carlisle has been at him again.
I watch my twin as he shakes slowly. I’m not sure if it’s from his lack of sleep or if he really is going crazy. I don’t know what I would do if Ragner went into an asylum. He’s the only family I’ve got left. But I daren’t say anything. He still believes Nicolai survived the attack.
Our parents were killed by ever-famed slayers, Meade and White. We had been found in our cradles, days old, our parents torn to shreds by metallic shots, Ragner’s identical brother Nicolai stolen from his crib.
Ragner pokes at the food on his plate. I’ve got that gut feeling again, Layla,
he says, but doesn’t turn towards me. He rocks gently back and forth.
Miss Lodger says Ragner’s shakes are the product of his loneliness, his confusion. But I and his room-mate Carlisle stay with him when he wakes, screaming, from the hellish visions stalking his dreams.
Gracie?
Ella’s voice snaps me back to reality. Are you alright?
I glance at the ten-year old sat across the table from me. Gracie stares awkwardly into her lap, not daring to make eye contact.
I’m fine,
she stammers.
I eye her, searching for a reason for her behaviour. I find one, just one. A curious jingling sound whenever she moves. Like keys.
What’s little Gracie doing with keys?
Felix
Profane hell
I clutch the rifle as close to my chest as my spare limbs will allow me to, beads of sweat rolling down my forehead. I have worked alongside David for almost three years now, but I cannot shake the fear. The fear of the monsters I kill.
In the murky green light, I can make out the shape of David’s receding head, the dark skin glimmering as he turns, his orange eyes scanning me.
David does not trust me. He does not trust anyone. Not even his own daughter.
I run my eyes over the garden. Dozens of monstrous abominations playing in the grass, unharmed by the beating sun above them.
My grip on my gun tightens. You must now forget everything you think you know about vampire slaying. They are like humans, just slightly stronger, faster and more intelligent, with superior senses. They can still be killed anyway we can. I like my rifle, lightweight, easy to take apart and hide in my school-bag. David prefers his machine gun, an efficient choice, which he hides in his closely-parked car.
Tobias!
a group of children run up to a boy near the gate. He is of medium height, with sapphire eyes and midnight-blue hair. A young pink-clad girl wrapped around his waist starts calling to the house.
Two teenagers; a red-eyed girl and a tired looking boy, poke their heads through the door. The blue boy starts towards them, wading through the sea of neonates.
I watch the door close smoothly behind him.
David turns towards me, his orange eyes luminous in the murky green light wafting into the thick hedge we hide within.
"Which one’s little