Jessica's Guide to Dating on the Dark Side

  Lucius smiled, too, but in a caustic way. “That? Dorin rescued that. I keep it to remind me never to be an idiot again—indulging in ridiculous games when there is business to attend to.”

  I didn’t believe him, but I let it go.

  Shrugging out of his coat, Lucius bent to pick up a log, tossing it into a guttering fireplace. Sparks rose in a shower, and the fire fluttered back to life. He had tucked the stake back into his belt, and I could have snatched it at that moment while he had his back to me and hurled it into the flames. . . .

  “Do not even think you would be fast enough,” Lucius advised without even turning around, nudging at the logs with his booted foot, urging them to life.

  “It never crossed my mind,” I said.

  Lucius turned around, a knowing smile on his face. “Of course not.” He retrieved the stake again, running his hand along it, testing its point on his fingertip.

  “Lucius—you don’t really think you’re going to destroy me tonight, do you?”

  Instead of answering, Lucius came over to me, taking me by the wrist, and pulled me to the very center of the room, where the complicated design of the carpet culminated in a pale, worn circle. “Look down,” he ordered, voice suddenly very rough, his grip on my arm too tight for comfort.

  I did as I was told and saw a dark stain that spread across the fibers. Blood . . . It didn’t even look as though anyone had tried to clean it up. “Is that . . . ?”

  “Vasile. This is where I did it. This is where I destroy.”

  When I looked up again, tearing my gaze away from that stain to search Lucius’s face, I saw that his eyes were narrowed—and pure black again. We were so close that I could peer deep, deep into the wide irises, almost as if I could see his actual thoughts, read his mind directly through his eyes, as true vampires were supposedly able. . . . And the thoughts spinning through Lucius’s brain were so, so dark that I flinched. In his eyes, I could read my destruction.

  “Lucius, don’t,” I started to urge him, but in a split second, he was behind me, one arm firmly across my chest, my hands trapped in his, and the spike he’d been clutching in his hand upthrust under my breastbone, nearly piercing my skin, pricking the red silk of my gown. Stopping just in time. I held my breath, afraid to move.

  “You said you had a bargain to strike,” he growled. “Speak now.”

  “This is it,” I managed to say, pressing myself against his chest, away from that spike. “I left a note telling my family that I’ve abdicated. But my last act was to order them to submit to your leadership without a struggle.”

  “That is not a bargain.” Lucius laughed. “That is submission.”

  “No.” I shook my head, feeling my curls graze his stubbled chin. His arm was heavy and tense across my chest. In another time, under different circumstances, it would have been heaven to be held so tightly by him, in a way that could have felt protective. If not for the stake at my breastbone. “If you don’t destroy me tonight, as you seem intent upon doing, I’ll go home before Dorin wakes up and throw away the note. The war will go on.”

  Lucius paused, clearly thinking. “You know I have no qualms about continuing the war.”

  “And you say you have no qualms about destroying me. About sacrificing me,” I countered. “So just do it. Do it and prevent the war. I am sacrificing myself, Lucius.” I heard my voice rising in tandem with my emotions. “Just do it, if you’re so goddamn hardened! So goddamn vicious! Do what you claim you were going to do all along!”

  Fear and frustration and anger at his obstinance and changeability and refusal to accept our love for each other— feelings that had been harnessed in me for so long now—erupted to make me suddenly reckless, and I found myself pushing him hard, even though I knew the risks were tremendous. “Go ahead, Lucius! Do it!”

  “I will do it,” he swore, vehemence in his voice, and I felt him breathing hard, his chest heaving against my back. The stake pressed a touch more closely to my flesh, sharply, and I arched away from it. “Do not test me!” he cried.

  “That is exactly what I’m doing,” I said, gasping. When I spoke, the stake pricked at me, making my breath come short and ragged. I cried out a little and twisted my head against his shoulder, writhing away from the weapon, and he relented, slightly.

  “I am testing you, Lucius,” I continued, struggling to reach him while he showed the faintest bit of vulnerability. “I am risking my life to prove that you are not Vasile. That you are not damaged. That you love me too much to have ever destroyed me, let alone now. I am betting everything that you will spare me.”

  “I can’t spare anyone!” Lucius roared, his composure gone, abruptly and completely. His hand beneath my rib cage shook. “All of my options are cruel, Antanasia! I destroyed my own uncle, for god’s sake. I imperiled your parents—even as they tried to save me. My horse, destroyed. My mother, destroyed. My father, destroyed. You—no matter what I do, you are destroyed. I can’t leave you behind—you won’t let me. And I can’t drag you into this . . . this world of mine, either. Everything—everything around me gets destroyed!”

  He buried his face in my hair then, clearly spent, and his hand dropped away from my chest, the stake falling to the floor, rolling across the carpet, and I knew that I had won. I had gambled and won.

  I turned around slowly, still trapped against Lucius by his arm, and I wrapped my arms around his neck, pulling his head to my shoulder, comforting him. He allowed me to hold him that way, stroking his black hair, caressing his stubbled jaw, tracing the scar that no longer frightened me.

  “Antanasia,” he said, voice unsteady. “What if I could have done it . . .”

  “But you couldn’t. I knew you couldn’t.”

  “What if someday . . .”

  “Never, Lucius.”

  “No, never,” he agreed, lifting his head from my shoulder and cradling my face in his hands, wiping at my eyes with his fingers. I hadn’t even realized I’d been crying. I had no idea how long I’d been crying. “Not to you.”

  “I know, Lucius.”

  He drew me in again, resting his head back on my shoulder, as we both composed ourselves. We stood that way for a long time, until Lucius whispered, “There will always be a part of me that is treacherous, Antanasia. That will never change. I am a vampire, and a prince at that. A ruler of a dangerous race. If you are to do this, you will have to understand that . . .”

  “I don’t want you to change, Lucius,” I promised him, drawing back so I could look into his eyes.

  “And this world,” he said. “I worry about you in this world. You will have enemies . . . a princess does. And a vampire princess faces ruthless foes. Others will want your power and will not hesitate to do what I could not.”

  “You’ll protect me. And I’m stronger than you think.”

  “Indeed, stronger than me,” Lucius admitted, managing a grudging half-smile, although he was clearly still shaken, just like me. “I did all that I could to have my way—to keep you safe from me and our kind—but you would have your way, like a true princess.”

  “I wanted you, Lucius. I had to have my way.”

  We clung to each other in the center of the room, standing above the bloodstain that marked the passing of the vampire who’d tried to create in Lucius a real monster. Behind us, the fire crackled, and I thought back to the Christmas dance, when I’d been transported to this very scene, as we’d held each other. This—this had been the place I’d imagined.

  Lucius bent his head and touched his lips to mine, still cradling my face, and in the very heart of that stone labyrinth we kissed, tenderly at first, our lips barely meeting, again and again. Then Lucius drew one hand up behind my head and another down to the small of my back, a gesture both protective and possessive, and kissed me more fiercely, and I knew that he was finally taking me for himself as his destined partner, for all time. That we would fulfill the pact.

  He drew away, searching my face. All the softness was back in his eyes. I knew t
hat I would see the warrior prince again, many times. He was still Lucius Vladescu. But the hardness, the harshness, that was inside him would never again be directed at me. It never had been, really. Only in his imaginings and fears.

  “This is eternity, Antanasia,” he said, both warning and imploring. “Eternity.”

  He was giving me one last chance to leave—and begging me not to.

  I had no intention of going anywhere beyond that room or outside of his embrace. I bent my head back, wordlessly acquiescing, and closed my eyes as Lucius again found the point where my pulse beat strongest in my throat, and this time there was no hesitation, beyond the briefest few breaths during which we both savored the moment that would bring us together forever. Then his fangs pierced my throat, and I cried out softly, feeling him plunge, with sure force but infinite gentleness, into the vein, drinking me in.

  “I love you, Lucius.” I gasped, feeling myself drawn into his body, becoming a part of him. “I always have.”

  My own fangs were liberated, the ache ending, and when Lucius was done, my throat burning with an unimaginable, stinging pleasure, he drew me to one of the couches, pulling me onto him so I could reach his throat easily, and it seemed so natural to press my own mouth against him.

  “Here, Antanasia,” Lucius whispered, softly placing his fingertips beneath my chin, guiding me to the proper spot, and the moment I felt it, his pulse pounding just below the skin, I couldn’t wait any longer, and I sank my own fangs deep into him, tasting him, making him a part of me.

  Lucius groaned, pressing me closer, so my fangs punctured more deeply and the blood flowed more swiftly, coursing cool and rich into my mouth. His blood tasted like power and passion touched by sweetness . . . just like Lucius.

  “Oh, Antanasia,” he whispered, caressing my face and helping me to ease out my still-unfamiliar fangs as I finished drinking, reluctantly. “I have always loved you, too.”

  We slept in each other’s arms on the couch in front of the fire, exhausted, completely satisfied, completely happy. At least I slept through the night. Lucius, at some point, arose and slipped away, because when I woke up just before dawn, realizing that I needed to hurry back to my home to destroy the note—before I accidentally abdicated—Lucius advised me that the young vampire guards had already been dispatched in the wee hours to ensure that my reign did not end unexpectedly early.

  And as I lay curled up next to Lucius, my head on his chest, protected in the circle of his strong arms, fingers testing the tender puncture wounds on my throat, I realized that he had done more than order his minions to do his bidding.

  The stake that had fallen to the carpet was gone.

  Lucius never told me what became of it. Whether he’d tossed the reminder of his most violent deed and our darkest moment into the fire, which had been fed during the night, or hid the stake away somewhere in the castle, in case he should ever choose to use it again. And I never asked.

  Acknowledgments

  Writing seems like a solitary act—until you sit down in the aftermath of creation and think about all the people who really made “your” book possible.

  Special thanks, of course, to my agent, Helen Breitweiser, a force of nature who not only initially promoted the book, but held my hand throughout its entire production. I couldn’t ask for a better advocate.

  I am also indebted to my editor, Gretchen Hirsch, both for her incredible insights into the story and her adept handling of a new author with countless questions. I was lucky to have such a great partner in the process.

  And thanks, too, to Liz Van Doren, who was the first to give me guidance.

  Finally on the editorial side, I’m grateful to Kathy Dawson for stepping in at the last minute and seeing it through.

  As for the “home” team . . . I would never have even started a novel without the support of my fantastic husband, Dave, who not only offered moral backing, but kept our wacky kids occupied and out of my office so I could work. My parents and my in-laws, George and Elaine Kaszuba, also stepped up repeatedly to serve as babysitters, always with an encouraging word for me. Thank you.

  And speaking of wacky kids—thanks to Paige and Julia, preschoolers who have absolutely no clue what I’m doing sitting all those hours at a computer, but think it’s cool, nonetheless. Now that’s support.

  Prologue

  “MOTHER?”

  The snow swirls around her, and she stands with her back to me, her body enveloped in a bright red cloak. Crimson . . . Mihaela’s color. The queen who once ruled the Dragomirs looks like a splash of blood against the expanse of white, and yet she is as strong and substantial as the jagged Carpathian rocks that rise out of the lonely Romanian mountain where we always meet.

  I step toward her, not understanding. Why doesn’t she turn to greet me? “Mother?”

  And then Mihaela Dragomir does turn, her face obscured by the cloak. And in her hands she holds an object, something she presses against her chest the way a nun would cradle a cross. But Mihaela is no humble, pious sister, and that thing . . . It is no holy relic.

  The stake . . . The bloodstained stake . . .

  Lucius’s stake, which he used to destroy his uncle—and which he’d once nearly used to—

  “No! Never!”

  Thrashing, fighting off something that seemed to press against my chest, I struggled to sit up and opened my eyes to see firelight flickering against stone, and for a second I wasn’t sure where I was.

  Gradually, though, my surroundings sank in. I was in Lucius’s home—our home. In our bed. That pressure on my chest . . . it wasn’t . . . it was just the heavy blankets that we always needed in his—our—huge, chilly bedroom, even though a fire burned in the fireplace.

  Taking a deep breath, I stretched out my arm and rested my hand on his shoulder, reassuring myself that everything was okay. As long as Lucius was with me, I’d be okay.

  Still, images from the nightmare came rushing back.

  The stake, which I hadn’t seen since the night Lucius pressed his fangs against my throat and recreated me as a vampire . . .

  Why had I dreamed about it? And why had my birth mother—who would never harm me—been holding it?

  I’d started dreaming about Mihaela back in Pennsylvania, and those dreams had become more frequent since I married Lucius and moved to Romania. It was like my mother, destroyed shortly after my birth, was trying to protect me as I tried hard to follow in her footsteps and become a ruler, relying on a journal she’d left for me for help. A posthumous wedding gift to guide me as I learned to be a princess.

  My heart started beating faster again. Was I learning? I was trying . . .

  Wriggling back down under the blankets, I moved toward Lucius in the massive bed—in which, as he’d once confessed, he’d probably been expected by the Vladescu Elders to take my life, conveniently removing his Dragomir bride from power and allowing the Vladescus to have unchallenged dominion over both our families. I kicked at the covers, sort of swimming through them, suddenly impatient to be right next to him.

  Everything in his home—our home—seemed so big sometimes. Including the burdens.

  Lucius slept on his side, facing away from me, and I pressed myself close to his back, feeling the coolness of his body. I shared that coolness, too, since he’d bitten me, sealing our fate and a decades-old pact that had decreed our marriage in the interest of stopping a war between our rival families. Pressing tighter against my husband—how weird that still sounded—I listened to his steady breathing, which always calmed me down when I got nervous. Lucius wasn’t scared. He thrived on ruling the clans. That was what he’d been born and raised to do.

  Or did he worry sometimes?

  “Lucius?” I got up on one elbow and shook him gently, needing to see his dark eyes and hear his deep, reassuring voice. “Lucius?”

  “Yes . . . yes?” he mumbled. He rolled onto his back and fumbled for me under the covers, which were expensive and stiff and made me miss the soft, worn-in flannel
sheets on my bed in Pennsylvania. But how could a princess ask for flannel? “Yes, Jessica . . . ?”

  Resting my hand on his chest, I felt it rise and fall so slowly that I wondered if he had already fallen back asleep. But I couldn’t help asking in a whisper, so the guards outside our door wouldn’t hear, “What does it mean if a vampire dreams about a stake?”

  Lucius didn’t answer, and I realized he was definitely sleeping—probably exhausted from yet another day of struggling to unite our obstinate families—so I lay back down and nestled against him again. In response to the pressure of my body, he turned and pulled me close, so I could feel the entire length of his powerful warrior’s body against mine, like a shield at my back.

  High on top of that Romanian mountain, in the heart of a confusing castle that I supposedly governed but where I still got lost in the twisted corridors, the night got very still. Even the crackling fire seemed to get quieter. After a few minutes of forcing myself to forget about the nightmare, I started to drift off to sleep again, when suddenly Lucius muttered, barely whispering, his breath chilly against my neck, “Betrayal.”

  I stiffened in his arms. Was he answering my question or caught up in his own dreams? His own nightmares?

  Even if it was the latter, that wasn’t exactly comforting. Did my husband have disloyalty—treachery—on his mind? And Lucius, like all vampires, put great stock in dreams . . .

  “Betrayal.” I said the word out loud, trying to make sure it was even what I’d heard him say. “Betrayal.”

  At the sound of my voice, which was soft but audible enough to break the profound mountaintop silence, Lucius, seeming to get restless, wrapped his strong, scarred arm tighter around me, so I was trapped against his chest.