And I woke up, flat on my back.
It was dawn, and the sunlight was streaming in my windows. I was breathing hard. Wow.
I rolled to my side, curling up, and was reclaiming reality when the sunlight glinted off something shiny on the floor near my closed door. A silver bookmark, poking out of a book. A thin volume.
The book hadn’t been there when I’d gone to sleep. Someone had obviously slipped it under the door.
Crawling out from under the covers, I picked it up, turning it over to read the title: Growing Up Undead: A Teen Vampire’s Guide to Dating, Health, and Emotions. The top of the bookmark was engraved with an LV, in bold script.
Oh, god, no. The guide Lucius had referenced on the first day we’d met. I vaguely recalled him mentioning it—right after he’d announced his plans to bite me.
I sank to the floor, staring at the unwanted gift.
Then, against my better judgment, I flipped to the marked pages, reading the chapter heading, “Your Changing Body.” Oh, for crying out loud . . . There was a passage underlined, too, in red ink. It read, “Young ladies will naturally feel confused, even ambivalent, as their bodies change. But don’t be ashamed! Developing your curves is a natural part of becoming a womanly vampire.”
I resisted the urge to scream. I do not need Lucius Vladescu’s advice on becoming “womanly,” especially a “womanly vampire.” And who printed this stuff, anyhow? Who would publish a sex ed book for mythical beings? It would only fuel delusional people’s lunacy. . . .
Before I hurled the thing in my wastebasket, where it belonged, I took a quick peek inside the cover, looking for the publisher. A handwritten note caught my eye first, though.
Dearest Jessica,
Of course I never required advice on any of these topics—really, “emotions”?—but I thought perhaps you, as a “newcomer,” so to speak, might find the guide helpful. In spite of the gratingly frothy tone, it’s really quite respected among our race.
Enjoy—and do consult me if you have questions. I consider myself quite an expert. Except on the “emotions.”
Yours,
L.
P.S. Did you know you snore? Pleasant dreams!
He just didn’t give up.
As I slammed the cover shut, I noticed that there was something tucked in the back of the book, too. An envelope. I started to slip it from between the pages. The little packet was waxy and nearly transparent, and I drew a sharp breath as I realized it contained a photograph. Even through the paper, I could make out the indistinct image of a woman.
No.
I knew without looking whose picture I held. My birth mother . . .
I shoved the photo back inside the pages. Lucius would not manipulate me, would not force the past upon me. He couldn’t make me look at the long-deceased, disturbed woman who’d given me away.
Fighting back anger—at Lucius, at the sad, embarrassing secrets of my past—I tossed the book under my bed. I didn’t want my mom to find it accidentally if she emptied my wastebasket. I could tear it up and bury it deep in the compost pile later.
As the slender volume spun across the hardwood to land amid the dust bunnies, it struck me: Had Lucius been standing outside my door as I’d dreamed about him? Shame washed over me. Why had I had that late-night fantasy? And what had Lucius meant by “pleasant dreams”? Why had he written that?
I hoped desperately that, along with snoring—which I did not do—I didn’t talk in my sleep. And I recalled, with more than a little misgiving, my agreement to meet with Lucius alone in his apartment later that night.
Chapter 12
“WELCOME,” LUCIUS SAID, swinging open the door to his apartment. He stepped back to usher me inside. “You’re my first guest.”
“Holy shit.”
Lucius closed the door behind us. “Well, that’s a pleasant reaction. Very ladylike.”
I gasped. “What did you do here?” As my eyes adjusted to the dim light, I noticed more and more details in the room. “Wow.” The apartment, once decorated with flea market junk that was vaguely “country,” had been overhauled in the fashion of what I assumed was a Romanian castle. A bloodred velvet blanket covered the bed, a tastefully worn Persian rug overlaid the beige carpet remnant, and the walls had been painted a deep blue-gray. The color of old stone. My survey came to an abrupt halt at a wall-mounted display of what appeared to be antique weaponry. Sharp things. Spiky things. “Um . . . what happened to Mom’s collection of indigenous, fair-trade folk dolls of the world?”
“They’ve repatriated.”
From the grimly pleased look on Lucius’s face, I had a feeling the dolls’ exile was permanent.
“Mom and Dad are going to kill you when they see this.”
“Impossible.” He laughed. “Besides, it’s all cosmetic. Easily reversed. Although why anyone would prefer gingham to this . . .” He gestured around the room. “How about you, Jessica? Do you like what I’ve achieved?”
“It’s . . . interesting,” I hedged. “But when did you have time to do this? Without anyone seeing?”
“You might say I’m a night person.”
As my astonishment faded, my anger with Lucius resurfaced. “Speaking of your late-night activities, I didn’t like the book,” I advised him. “Or the way you delivered it.”
Lucius shrugged. “Perhaps in time you will find it useful.”
“Sure. I’ll keep it on my shelf right next to The Idiot’s Guide to Becoming a Mythical Creature.”
Lucius actually laughed. “Very funny. I didn’t know you made jokes.”
“I’m a funny person,” I defended myself. “And by the way—I don’t snore.”
“You do snore. And you mumble, too.”
My blood froze. The dream . . . “What? What did you hear?”
“Nothing too intelligible. But it must have been a rather pleasant dream. You sounded ecstatic.”
“Don’t lurk around my room,” I ordered him. “I mean that.”
“As you wish, of course.” Lucius lowered the volume on an old record player, which spun a warped vinyl disk that wailed unfamiliar music, scratchy and whiny, like cats fighting. Or a coffin with rusty hinges opening and closing over and over again in a deserted mausoleum. “Do you like Croatian folk?” he asked, seeing my interest. “It reminds me of home.”
“I prefer normal music.”
“Ah, yes, your MTV with all the bumping and grinding. Like a shot of raging adolescent hormones administered via television. I’m not averse.” He gestured to a chair, which definitely hadn’t belonged to my parents. They didn’t buy leather. “Sit, please. Tell me why you’ve called this meeting.”
I sank down, and the chair nearly swallowed me. It was buttery soft. “Lucius, you have to stop following me around. And you need to go home.”
“You are direct. I like that about you, Anta—Jessica.”
“I’ve made up my mind.” I plunged ahead. “The ‘marriage’ is officially off. I don’t care what the scroll says. I don’t care what the Old Country old people—”
“The Elders.”
“The Elders expect. It’s not happening. I’m telling you now so you don’t waste any more time. I’m sure you want to return to a real castle . . .”
Lucius shook his head. “No. We must learn to coexist, Jessica. I have no choice in this matter—and neither do you. So I suggest that you at least try to work with me here, to use the popular expression.”
“No.”
Lucius smiled a little. “You do have a will of your own.” The smile faded. “This is not the time to use it.” He began pacing, like he’d done in Mrs. Wilhelm’s class. “Not to honor the pact . . . it would not only result in a political crisis, it would dishonor the memory of our parents. They wished this, in the interest of peace.”
I looked at Lucius with a little surprise. “What happened to your parents?”
“They were destroyed in the purge like yours. What did you think?”
“Sorry. I . .
. I didn’t know.”
Lucius sat down on the bed, leaning forward, lacing his fingers together. “But unlike you, Jessica, I was raised within our race, with proper role models.”
“The so-called Elders?” I guessed.
“Yes. I was sent to live with my uncles. And if you knew them—as you should—you would not have that smirk in your voice.” He ground his palms together, clearly masking some sudden frustration. “They are fearsome.”
I frowned. “And living with fearsome Elders was a good thing?”
“It was a proper thing,” Lucius said. “I was taught discipline. Honor.” He rubbed his jaw. “By force, when they deemed it necessary.”
My anger at him was forgotten. “You mean your uncles hit you?”
“Of course they hit me,” Lucius said very matter-of-factly. “Time and again. They were making a warrior. Forming a ruler. Kings are not created with sweets and hugs and kisses on Mommy’s knee. Kings bear scars. No one wipes your tears when you sit on a throne. It’s best not to be raised expecting it.”
“That’s . . . that’s just wrong,” I objected, thinking of my parents, who couldn’t bear to exterminate the termites that were gradually chewing away the barn, let alone hit a child. “How could they hurt you?”
Lucius waved away the sympathy. “I did not speak of the Elders’ strict discipline to generate your pity. I was a wayward child. Strong-willed. Difficult to control. My uncles needed to groom me for leadership. And they did.” He looked pointedly at me. “I learned to accept my destiny.”
I groaned. We were back to square one. “Lucius, it’s not happening. The cult or whatever it was or is . . . it’s not for me. I’m not joining.”
Lucius stood up and started pacing again, raking his long fingers through his shiny black hair. “You’re not listening.”
“You’re not listening,” I shot back.
Lucius rubbed his eyes. “Damn, you are infuriating. I told the Elders long ago that it was insane to raise you outside of the culture. That you would never be a suitable bride. A suitable princess. But everyone, both clans, were insistent that you were too valuable to risk your life by keeping you in Romania—”
“I’m not a princess!”
“Yes, you are,” Lucius insisted. “You are an invaluable woman. Royalty. Had you been raised properly, you would be fully aware of that already. Ready to rule.” He jabbed a finger at his chest. “To rule at my side. But as it is, you remain an unschooled girl.” He nearly spat the word. “I’ve been paired for eternity with a child!”
A little shiver zipped down my spine. “You really are crazy.”
He moved to the bookshelves, reaching high. “And you are impossible.”
I popped out of my chair. “What are you doing? What are you getting?”
“A book. The item I wanted to show you.” Lucius dragged a massive, shiny, leather-bound volume off the top shelf and hoisted it onto the mattress, where it sank into the plush blanket. He pointed. “Sit here. Please.”
“I’ll stand, thanks.”
Lucius arched his brows, mocking, and sat down, patting the spot next to him. “Are you afraid of me? Afraid of vampires?”
“No.” I joined him on the bed. He edged even closer, until our legs were almost touching, and opened the book over both our laps. This time, I recognized Romanian script on the pages, and the branching lines of a genealogy. “Your family?”
“All the vampire families. The nobles, at least.”
The parchment crackled as he searched through the pages, smoothing two open. “This is us. Where we connect.” He tapped his finger at the juncture of two lines. “Lucius Vladescu and Antanasia Dragomir.”
Not again. “I saw all this before, remember? I read the smelly old scroll.”
He shifted slightly to meet my eyes. “And you will see it again. And again. Until you stop saying flippant things like ‘smelly old scroll’ and understand who you are.”
For once, I didn’t shoot back with a quick retort. Something in his expression stopped me.
After a long silence, Lucius returned his attention to the book. I realized I needed to breathe, having stopped for a few seconds. Dammit. My stomach felt like it held squirming kittens again, too. I ignored the genealogy for a moment and watched Lucius in profile. A shock of his ebony hair fell over his high forehead, and a muscle twitched in his jaw. A small scar ran right along the jaw line where he’d rubbed his face.
Honor. Discipline. Force. What did these Elders do to him?
I was used to men like my dad and the other fathers I knew. Nice guys. Guys who wore Dockers and played kickball with their kids and put on funny ties at Christmas. Lucius was as different from those men as his weapons collection was from Mom’s dolls. He was undeniably charming when he wanted to be, his manners were smooth, but there was a roughness just below the surface.
“Those are your parents,” Lucius continued, his voice very quiet. I returned my attention to the genealogy as he ran his fingers over the names Mihaela and Ladislau, just above my own.
My birth mother. And biological father. Their death dates were scrawled there, too.
I stifled a groan of frustration and anger. Why do we have to keep returning to my birth parents? This was supposed to be a happy year for me. A carefree time. But Lucius had arrived, and with him my past. He didn’t just drag me down with a nonsensical story about vampires and weddings, but he kept trying to lasso me with my real past, too. To loop a noose around my neck and drag me through a graveyard. Lucius’s presence was a constant reminder of who I might have been in Romania. A reminder of not just vampires but ghosts. The ghosts of Mihaela and Ladislau Dragomir.
They were strangers, really . . . I wouldn’t grieve them . . . And yet I felt sad.
His own sorrow made Lucius’s voice even softer. He traced the unfamiliar words Valeriu and Reveka. “And these were my parents.”
I wanted to say something. The right thing. But I didn’t know what that might be, for either of us. “Lucius . . .”
“See this date,” he continued, not looking at me. “Under our names? That marks our betrothal ceremony. Our parents wrote that date. At least, one of them did.” A whisper of a wistful smile played upon his lips. “That was a great day for the Vladescus and Dragomirs. Our two warring clans at peace. Prepared to join together. So much power in one place. How many times have I heard that story?”
“But that’s what it is . . . a story.”
“It’s an edict.” Lucius slammed the book shut with a thud. “We are meant to be together. Regardless of how we feel about each other. Irrespective of how much you despise me.”
“I don’t despise you . . .”
“No?” His eyebrows arched, and his mouth twisted into a wry smile. “You could have fooled me.”
I turned the tables. “You talk a lot about obligation and duty and chivalry, but I don’t get the sense you really like me that much, either. You can’t tell me you want to marry me. You just called me a child!”
Lucius took a long time choosing his words. “You are a puzzle to me, Jessica,” he finally said. “A mystery. But at least I am open to the possibility of exploring that which I don’t understand.”
The dim light glimmered in his black eyes, and we were so close that I could see the faint shadow of stubble on his cheeks. Most guys I knew still seemed more like boys than men. Did Jake even shave? But Lucius . . . he had crossed that line. And I was sitting on a bed with him. Alone. In a darkened room. Talking about “exploring” my so-called “mysteries.” I edged away.
“What would happen, anyway, if we didn’t get married?” I asked, trying to change the subject. Distancing us again. “How bad could it be?”
Lucius moved away, too, reclining back on the bed, propped on his elbows. “Most likely a full-scale war, your family against mine, some five million vampires struggling to fill the power vacuum, building coalitions, leaders rising and falling, destruction and bloodshed on a massive scale. And when vampires war
. . . well, as the old adage says, ‘an army travels on its stomach.’”
I wasn’t familiar with the saying, so—against my better judgment—I asked, “And that means . . . ?”
“Armies need to eat,” Lucius clarified. “So the streets will run with human blood, too. There will be chaos. Countless loss of lives.” Lucius paused, shrugging. “Or maybe nothing would happen. Vampires are a very capricious people. It’s one of our best—and worst—traits. But really, it’s probably not wise to risk it.”
“Why do Vladescus and Dragomirs supposedly hate each other so much?”
Lucius shrugged. “Why do all powerful nations and cultures and religions clash? For control of territory. For the simple lust for dominance. It has always been so between our two clans—until the pact secured a tentative promise of peace through unification, as equals. If we fail to complete the bargain—you and I—the blood is on our hands.”
Images of blood-drenched streets—my fault—kept flashing in my brain like a movie scene being replayed over and over, so I stood, shaking my head. “That’s the stupidest story I’ve ever heard.”
“Really?” Lucius’s eyes were now inscrutable, which was somehow scarier than his anger. He rose, too. “How shall I make you believe this ‘story’?”
“You can’t.” I backed up a little. “Because vampires don’t exist.”
“I exist. You exist.”
“I’m not a vampire,” I insisted. “That genealogy means nothing.”
Anger flashed in Lucius’s eyes. “The genealogy means everything. It is the only possession I prize.”
I retreated a few more paces. He seemed to loom taller than ever. “I have to go now,” I told him.
But with each step, Lucius advanced toward me, slowly, and I found myself halting, spellbound by those black eyes, mesmerized. The shiver down my spine came stronger, rooting me to the floor like an electric shock.