The Blood Rite

Chapter Twenty Two

The large group was split into two and Jeremy and her were separated as his group went off with Viviene. Ruby was stuck in Miss Jeanie's group. He hadn't been joking when he'd said she was cold. She yelled at the slightest mistakes and threw them through killer drills.

She dedicated the first part of the class to building up strength and speed. Ruby was used to the workouts they did from her time in sports. By the time Miss Jeanie ended their workouts and ordered them to find partners, she felt more confident. But then they started sparring.

"Ruby! What kind of form is that?"

"A puppy could punch harder than that!"

"Where is your head?"

The rest of the hour was made up of Ruby narrowly dodging her partner's strikes and missing with her own. Miss Jeanie watched her like a hawk. The moment Ruby messed up, Miss Jeanie stopped her, showed her what she was supposed to do, then yelled at her. It was a cycle of starts and stops and insults.

Ruby took all of it. She had little choice either way. By the end, she felt entirely exhausted. Thankfully with her supernatural healing, all of her pain faded quickly. She had enough time to rush to her room and change before hurrying to her next class. Vampire 101.

She collasped into her seat with a grateful sigh. The entire room was large and full with long tables. Every seat was taken up but she didn't recognize any of the vampires in it. Their professor was a man with a long, frizzy gray beard, kind dark eyes wearing a plaid jacket.

Since she didn't own any of the material the other vampires did, Ruby was forced to lean over her seat neighbor's shoulder and observe throughout the hour. After was Vampire History and then lunch.

At lunch, Ruby and Halle discussed their days. Halle had ended up part of the lucky group who got to work with Viviene and she ended up making a friend in her Vampire History class. Ruby tried not to feel too deflated by the news. They were both already dealing with so much and creating envy between the two of them wouldn't help.

She had an hour free in the library after lunch where she spent most of the hour collecting the books, notebooks, and pens she needed then working on the homework her classes had assigned. The rest of her day would consist of Power work. Power 101. Power 202 and Power training.

The first class was filled with any vampires from the Rite who'd had a Power and due to this, the teacher only offered a long winded introduction to the course and then allowed them to do as they wished. But the next class was a mix of new vampires and old. Ruby felt fairly lost in the science of what was discussed for most of it and before she knew it, she was heading towards her last class.

Katrina appeared beside her, "Hey, are you ready for training?"

"I don't know. If it is anything like Combat then no."

The vampire laughed, "No, it is absolutely nothing like that wretched class." Ruby laughed too.

Something occured to Ruby then, "Who is your Maker?"

"She died a long time ago. Why?"

Ruby shook her head, "Mine is Jeffery but I haven't seen him since the day I finished my transition."

Kat huffed out a laugh, "Oh honey, don't wait. Orpheus has men who literally have 'New vampire recruiting' in their job descriptions. You are probably one of the hundreds Jeffery has turned. You wont see him again."

"Oh," she breathed, brows pinched.

There was a weight pressing down on her chest. It had been there since she'd woken up that morning but it'd grown worse the more time passed. She felt like she was suffocating, drowning and wasn't sure she'd survive this class.