My heart started pumping too hard again as I followed Raniero into the tunnels, into passages he hadn't marked for me, and which grew damper and more stale, until I felt like I was suffocating. It seemed like we walked forever—like we really were headed into the heart of the mountain, or maybe to hell—before Raniero finally opened a small, secret door that had to be the lowest in the castle, and I stepped out after him, crying softly, "Lucius."
As Raniero grabbed my arm, stopping me from running to the cell where my husband lay on a wooden plank, I understood why he'd been reluctant to bring me there.
Chapter 82
Antanasia
WHEN I STOPPED pulling against Raniero, he released me and stepped back, like he was giving me a private moment with the husband I couldn't even touch, and who was breaking my heart from across a dirty dungeon.
Lucius lay on his side on the wooden cot, without even a pillow, and his left hand dragged on the floor, the way it sometimes hung off the bed when we slept together. He always seemed to be reaching for something, like he was ambitious even in dreams.
His black hair gleamed by the light of the single oil lamp that did little to illuminate his cell—because the Vladescus didn't really want electricians snooping in their dungeons—and although he'd only been incarcerated for about nine days, I thought his hair already seemed to be longer. It reminded me of how he'd physically shifted into the role of a warrior the first time I'd come to Romania. He'd worn his hair long, carelessly tied back, when he'd declared war on my family.
But he'd looked powerful then. He still looked powerful, but also like he was fighting for survival. A part of me had braced for the worst, but I must have secretly expected to find the indomitable Lucius Vladescu pacing and alert, maybe even joking with his guard. Not like this...
I dared to take a few steps forward, needing to see his face better, and although I didn't want to wake up the guard, who was snoring in his own hard wooden chair—next to an empty bottle—I spoke his name softly again, hearing the dismay in my voice. "Oh, Lucius..."
I'd seen him sleep many times. I liked to watch Lucius sleeping, because that was the only time I could study him without getting distracted by his ever-changing eyes—or teased for daydreaming over him.
"You find your husband handsome, don't you?" my wonderfully arrogant prince liked to joke, whenever he caught me gawking like I was Mindy in the bleachers back in high school. "I've no idea why it took you so long to love me, as I loved you even in your worst horse-themed T-shirts!"
I almost broke into a smile, but it died on my lips as I watched Lucius stretched out on the rigid slab. Even on our soft mattress he was a restless sleeper, but that night he didn't move.
Is he entering that place of terrible dreams that drives vampires mad? I took another step forward, thinking, Screw rule of law. I'm going to him.
But before I could run, Raniero stepped up behind me and took my arm again. "No, Antanasia," he quietly ordered me. "It is time for us to go now."
I looked up at my imposing escort and almost protested. But I knew he was right. Lucius wanted everything to happen according to law. He wouldn't want me to ruin his grand design on impulse. Wouldn't want the guard to wake up and tell Flaviu and the others, "His wife comes to see him." Which would leave them all wondering what other, bigger laws we ignored, when it suited our purposes.
I turned to Lucius again, hoping that he would move—but he didn't.
"Come." Raniero kept his hand on my arm and led us back to the tunnels, with me still looking over my shoulder at the husband I was so desperate to talk to and touch.
I kept watching him until Raniero reached past me and sealed us in the narrow black passageway that was obviously as familiar to him as the feel of a stake in his hand.
"Does he ever move?" I asked. The words caught in my throat. "Ever?"
"He does," Raniero confirmed, and the rush of relief I felt nearly made me cry out in a different way. "He still speaks, even. But you see that he is growing very weak."
We started to walk into the darkness, but after about fifty feet, I reached for Raniero and stopped him again. I felt and heard him turn around. "Si? Yes?"
"I'm going to summon the Elders and set a trial date," I said. "I'll do it tomorrow."
Raniero paused, then said, "It is still risky. There is still no evidence to exonerate him."
I knew that. But I also admitted to myself then that I had been selfish to play it safe. I'd known all along that Lucius would rather be destroyed outright than fade away in a cell, slipping into a netherworld that was neither death nor life. He would never want to exist by half, and would choose the crypt over a fate that diminished him or left me to care for a shell of his former self. I couldn't let my fears dictate his existence. Or my own existence anymore, for that matter.
"Then we better find some evidence," I said. "And fast."
The passage was pitch black, but even that profound darkness wasn't enough to hide the incredibly white teeth of a vampire when he smiled with approval. I knew then that Raniero had never seriously intended to discourage me from seeing Lucius. Maybe he'd even planned to take me there all along, when he judged that the time was right.
Chapter 83
Lucius
R—
Thank you for removing Antanasia before she could approach me. (You will not be surprised to know that I have been aware of your frequent presence in those shadows, too.)
It took all of my self-control not to displace the rat which now always sleeps curled at my foot, rise, and call for her to come closer so that I could see her face more clearly, touch her through the bars.
It is strange how love is a source of power—can spur the desire to fight to the death, or to fight back from something that seems like death for long enough to write a coherent note—but also of weakness. I nearly abandoned everything upon which I intend to base my kingship, not to mention my best (only?) defense, just to share a few moments with her.
And now I cannot think, except to recall her face...
L
I am not mistaken and dreaming, am I? She WAS there, correct?
Chapter 84
Mindy
I SLEPT THE whole night in Raniero's room. It was light when I woke up to find that he never did come back. I was sure I was alone.
Then I rolled over and saw that I was wrong.
Raniero wasn't just in the room, he was on the bed. Sitting right next to me and not moving a muscle. Just watching me.
I rubbed my eyes to see him better.
Well, I was kinda right. The Raniero I used to know hadn't come back.
And the guy who was sitting there, who had carved all those stakes and who was wearing Lukey's clothes—a gray tee that cost at least two hundred bucks, 'cause I could smell the Prada label—I shoulda asked that guy a million questions. Like, What have you done with my ex-boyfriend? Where did you lock him away inside this vampire with the cold eyes and the hot clothes? And why did Ylenia Dragomir say you were wicked?
And he probably had a million questions for me, too, like, Why are you here after you pushed me away for months? Why are you in my bed after I finally agree to leave you alone?
We probably shoulda had a talk that ended in a big fight and a flood of tears, 'cause it was like there was a time bomb sitting between us.
But this was me and Raniero, and right before that bomb blew up, I caught a little glimpse of the old Ronnie—the one that used to love me—in his awesome gray eyes, and we exploded in a different way, when he moved closer to me, and I put my hands on his face—his stupid, scruffy beard—and his mouth pressed against mine like he was starving for me, just like I was for him.
We kissed for a long, long time, and it was like we said a million different things to each other that we couldn't say in words, like I'm sorry and I'm crazy about you and This is so wrong and Let's never stop and maybe it woulda gone on forever if I hadn't changed everything by whispering in his ear the one thing I thought I'd never
say, when his fangs—his incredible, sexy teeth that used to scare me—started brushing against my throat, again and again.
"Bite me, Raniero," I begged him. "Bite me and stay with me forever."
Chapter 85
Mindy
HE PULLED AWAY, and I was so glad that the old Raniero was still with me. The sweet one. I wasn't sure I liked the new one, even if he dressed better and took charge of things. "You know, don't you?" he said, very quiet. "You have guessed at one of the worst things which I have done. Equal almost to destruction, in my culture."
I was starting to guess that Raniero Vladescu Lovatu had done a lot of bad things in his life. Stuff I probably didn't even wanna know about. But I'd heard Ylenia talk about him and seen the way she looked at him—and he didn't look at her. And I'd seen that photo in the Romanian Enquirer with the screaming headline that was, like so much stuff in Europe, printed in two languages—"Partidul Vampir Expus! Vampire Party Exposed!"—and where she was holding his hand...
"Yeah, I think I know."
He stroked my cheek, and I wanted to shove him away, but I couldn't. "I am sorry," he said. "Of all the acts for which I despise myself, it is that one which causes me perhaps the most remorse."
I believed him. He looked a million miles past sorry. Which didn't make it any easier to ask, "Then why did you bite her?" I sounded pretty bleak, too. Like I was gonna cry. "Why?"
Raniero rolled onto his back and stared up at the ceiling, like he couldn't tell me to my face. I wasn't sure I wanted to look at him, either. There was a good chance I was gonna have to hate him soon.
"It happens at the congress of vampires when everything falls apart," he said. "I am such an angry vampire then. I have been on the road for many months, doing terrible things, and when I return to Romania, Lucius is the only vampire who greets me with warmth. My own parents, who give me away years before, look at their child, the assassin, with something like fear in their eyes. I am no longer even a bitter but powerful son of wealth and privilege. I am a pariah who has lost everything but one friend, whom he does not deserve."
There was so much wrong with what he was saying. Like ... he was an assassin? I needed him to explain that, and hoped he was using English wrong, like he did all the time. But I didn't ask questions yet. I wanted to hear the rest of the story first. The part that might kill me.
"I am alone at the biggest party, watching the uncles whom I despise smiling and plotting their evil for the coming year, and from the darkness, Ylenia approaches me. I know her right away as a Dragomir, and I am pleased in two ways. A small, sad part of me is happy that someone other than Lucius even speaks to me, for most avoid the vampire who may one day destroy them." He finally turned his head to look at me. "And I know that it will horrify my uncles to see me with a Dragomir girl, for I have been raised to loathe all Dragomirs."
When I saw his sad eyes, I couldn't hate him. Not yet. "Yeah? And...?"
"We talk, and she suggests that we share something to drink." He added, real quick, "Only to share blood in the way many young vampires do. Drinking from the stores in the cellars. And she is very sweet. Seems to understand that I am not happy and offers to find something for us, too, although the estate is my home." His jaw twitched, which I'd never seen before. "Or, it was where I lived once. Never a home."
That little flame in my brain flickered again. "So Ylenia got some ... blood and you drank it?"
"Si, and we walk to speak privately." He must of known better than to say much more, sparing me the gory details—maybe 'cause he'd asked me to take a walk like that once, too. Either way, he skipped to, "I did not intend to drink from her, Mindy Sue. Never. But she urges me, again and again, and it is like everything changes, and I lose restraint...."
He sat up and buried his face in his hands, and I sat up, too, so I could hear when he said, very fast, like he had to get it out, "All of the anger inside of me rushes out, and I am sinking my teeth into her, and the strangeness I already feel ... it becomes molto peggio —much worse."
"Ronnie?" I kinda choked on the words. "Did you ever—ever—think seriously about being with her, forever? 'Cause that's what's supposed to happen, right, if you bite a girl?"
He kept his head down. "I do not have a chance to consider that. For that very night, soon after I taste her blood, I destroy a vampire for no reason, and I am marked for destruction on my hand—a mark which no one has carried long. There is no chance to even speak with her again—and there could be no future for her with a doomed vampire, regardless. It is a mistake best forgotten."
He had lost me with half of that, but I was pretty sure I'd heard the worst of his "wickedness" spilling out of him in one gushing, messy rush. He'd bit Ylenia, like I'd thought, and done a bunch of other awful stuff, too. Stuff nobody could forgive.
"Show me the mark," I said, real soft. I took his hand with all the tattoos and he lifted up his head, and I saw that he had been crying. Just a little. Just, like, one tear down his face.
All I'd ever wanted was a tough guy, but I never loved him so much as I loved him when he cried. Even though I hated him, too. I had to hate him, not for biting Ylenia, but for keeping so much stuff from me. Like the fact that he was a killer and it sounded like, doomed.
"It is the Cyrillic 'b.'" He traced it with a blank finger. "It tells other vampiri that I am dangerous and will be destroyed if I commit another act of violence. And that is why I cannot fight, even for you, because I fear that I will lose control again and cost even more lives."
I found the mark and kept holding his hand and leaning against him, feeling his hard body that was so soft and busted up inside.
That's why he didn't wanna come here. And why he shouldn't be carving stakes. But he came for me and Lucius and Jess...
"I have kept so much from you, Mindy Sue." He sounded sorry for that, too. "I try to make myself believe that the old Raniero does not exist and you do not need to know him, but I have lied to us both. Buried the lie in philosophy, even, which says that only the present matters."
Even though I believed him, we both knew he'd kept way too much from me, so I didn't even say anything. We just leaned against each other and held hands, and I tried to keep myself from crying by blowing on that little flame that was lighting up in my brain. That little connection.
Ylenia Dragomir, super jealous one-time member of the stoner-loser clique at a boarding school. Jess, freaking out. Raniero, being extra "wicked"...
I didn't know anything for sure, but I squeezed his hand and asked, with the tiniest bit of hope for his future, even if his past was awful and our present was done, "What if that really wicked Raniero never actually existed? What if somebody, like, created him?"
Chapter 86
Mindy
"MELINDA SUE, I do not think that Ylenia Dragomir poses any kind of threat to Antanasia or anyone else," Raniero said. He got up out of bed and started pulling on the gray tee that had come off while we were kissing, so he started to look like the new Raniero again. His head popped through, then the arms I could still almost feel around me—and wouldn't again. "She is timid by nature, and sweet."
"She was brassy enough to come up to an assassin at a party," I reminded him.
"She felt sorry for me, Mindy Sue. And she was afraid of me, but her pity overcame fear. I remember how she approaches me, as if she is a nervous bird approaching a wounded lion!"
I didn't know why a bird would ever approach a lion, wounded or not. "And then she begged you to make her a full-fledged vampire. That's pretty gutsy!"
It still hurt so much to say that, and to picture Jess's cousin with the guy who was sitting down on the bed again to put on Lucius's cool "Euro sneakers, which had come off, too. He shoulda been mine, but never would now. That was both my fault and his.
"It was a strange evening, Melinda, and I believe that she was hurting, too." He tugged hard on the laces. "She is like me, that night. Alone. I think she has always been a lonely girl. I see her at the Athenaeum, and always she
watches Lucius and me from her seat far in the back—and always she is alone."
My eyes got wide. "You remember her? 'Cause she sure remembers you being there."
Ronnie just shrugged and started tying his other shoe. "I am an assassin and trained to watch a prince, Melinda Sue. I notice everyone. Especially those who watch Lucius and myself, in crowds." He sat up again. "I think you are good to wish to help Antanasia, but what we deal with here has nothing to do with an unhappy schoolgirl. It is an attempt to overthrow a government and destroy a prince." His voice got quiet. "What is happening is almost certainly the work of Flaviu Vladescu. It Is just a matter of trapping him."
I crawled to the edge of the bed and sat next to him. I probably shouldn't of touched him, but I took his hand again. "Ronnie, you think like ... royalty, and you know about plots to bring down princes. But I know hurt, jealous high school girls, and I am telling you that even if she didn't outright kill your uncle Claude, Ylenia is messed up in this somehow. And if you wanna help Jess and Lucius, you'll start taking a closer look at her."
I could tell he still didn't buy into what I was saying, but he looked me in the eye. "You honestly believe this?"
"I do. I think she's got all kinds of secrets and anger bottled up inside her little body, and if they ever spilled, they'd blow you away."
"And how do you suggest that I expose these secrets?" he asked. "For I do not think that she is likely to tell me anything. Not after what I have done to her."
I didn't wanna say it, but I had to. And me and Ronnie were done. It didn't matter what he did with another girl. "Maybe," I said. "Maybe you should just ... get to know her better. Ask her to do something..."