It was hard to follow a finger that was shaking so badly, but I turned around again to see that he was pointing to my only other friend in vampiredom.
Ylenia Dragomir, who was already standing and pushing to get out of the room.
"She made me lure Claudiu to the foyer and help her destroy him, to ruin Lucius and you, too," Dorin kept babbling as Ylenia broke free of the seats and started to run. "She made me get Lucius's stake and call for a meeting with Claudiu at dawn...."
I didn't bother to chase after my cousin. I was royalty, and royalty didn't run. At least, not in public.
More to the point, I'd seen a trained assassin step from the shadows where he'd been watching everything, and I decided to let him do what he did best. Track down and bring the worst vampires to justice.
He wouldn't snap—because he never really had.
I turned back to Dorin, who was sobbing as he spoke. "And she was the one who really destroyed Claudiu. I struck at him, but she pierced his heart with a stake she carved herself, in case I couldn't do it. And I couldn't ... I couldn't..."
He might not have struck the fatal blow, but his crimes were unforgivable, and I announced his fate without pity, but without cruelty, either, because I had spent the worst of my anger. And a part of me would always know what it had been like to be weak, too. "Dorin Dragomir," I spoke resolutely, forcing myself to meet his eyes. "You have committed treason, and you will be tried in two days and face the penalty of destruction."
Then I turned to the guards who watched the doors and said, "Duceti-l la temnita. Take him to the cell that Lucius Vladescu will no longer occupy."
I messed up the Romanian, but I didn't care. I'd said the words the right way—with no room for contradiction—and that was all that mattered. I looked at Flaviu to see if he would dare protest my liberation of Lucius, but for once he seemed like the confused, ridiculous old vampire he really was. Like he wasn't sure what was happening, because he'd so expected me to fail.
And Dorin ... I heard him weeping the whole time I walked slowly and regally out of the room. I didn't look back, and I didn't run until I was sure no one would see me, and then I tore toward the dungeons ahead of the guards and Dorin to see if Lucius could still be brought back, or if we were both going to wander together in a realm of nightmares, trapped forever between life and death.
Chapter 118
Mindy
I FOUND RANIERO and Ylenia right outside the courtroom—she didn't get very far—but by the time I muscled my way through the crowd that was watching, he already had her trapped against a wall and was clutching a stake, warning her in the deepest, scariest voice I'd ever heard anybody use, "Because of you I am marked for destruction, and today you will be destroyed, too."
"You don't understand," she was blubbering. "I just wanted you to bite me that night. I just put a little salvia in the blood I gave you, because I'd heard of guys doing that to girls.... I thought if you bit me once, we'd be together, and I'd make you happy. If you just got to know me, you'd like me, but you'd never even looked at me..."
I watched Raniero's hand start to shake, and I'd never felt worse about being right about anything in my life. I'd known she'd drugged him—and Jess. I'd made that connection, 'cause I'd seen Ronnie's roommate freaking out, and it had looked just like Jess's meltdown. I'd guessed days ago that Ylenia'd borrowed some kind of trick from her stoner boarding school friends and messed with them both.
Too bad she didn't read the in-depth Modern Girl magazine article "Barely Legal: What Your Friends MIGHT Be Using to Get High." Maybe if she'd read that, she woulda stuck to giving him a little cough syrup, instead of salvia, a plant that was like LSD and could make you get violent.
Maybe then she wouldn't be trapped against a wall by a vampire whose hand, holding a bloodstained stake, was shaking harder when he snarled, sounding even scarier, "It is your fault that I destroy a vampire and become blestemata. It is YOUR FAULT that I am marked for destruction and believe myself to be even worse than I am. Because of you, I live every day for two years wondering if I might destroy wrongly again! I despise myself!"
I didn't know if I should run forward and grab his hand or if that might just make him slip and do something terrible, but before I could decide, Ylenia's face twisted up in a weird way, and all of a sudden she wasn't crying anymore. She was yelling. "You don't think you're anything but perfect! You and Lucius both think you own the world!"
Raniero still had her pinned against the wall, but she balled up her little fist and stamped her foot like a spoiled brat, like she hated everybody so much she didn't even care if she got herself killed. "I hate you all, and I hope Lucius spends eternity twisting in limbo so she's miserable forever, too! She's a Dragomir and can't even speak Romanian or find her own room, and he still loves her—while you never even looked at me! I hope they both rot away and suffer forever—and you get destroyed, too!"
It was one thing to ruin Raniero's life and get him marked for destruction, but it was another to insult his friends and mess up their lives, and I guessed that was what made him finally really snap like he'd been afraid would happen for years. It wasn't a semilegal drug that sent him over the edge and made him crazy, it was a jealous, loser, teenage vampire-princess wannabe who was gonna ruin all our lives if I didn't say something, 'cause for the first time since I'd known him, Raniero actually looked ugly to me.
He pulled back his hand with the stake and his face got so I could hardly even recognize it, and I guessed that's why I closed my eyes—so I could picture the Ronnie I wanted back—when I cried out to him, as loud as I could, like I was a queen myself, "Stop it, Raniero Lovatu! Stop it right now, you stupid Italian vampire! Stop it, 'cause I love you, and I wanna live with you on the beach, and I want you to grow your goatee back and find your dumb taco shirt and get out of here with me on the next plane before we can't have anything together! I'm sorry I ever wanted you to change or fight anybody and just ... STOP IT! NOW!"
All the noise in the world stopped. Even the vampires who were translating everything into a bunch of Euro languages shut up and didn't move.
And when I had the guts to open my eyes, I saw Raniero's shoulders shaking, and his hand shaking, and I thought I would die before I could find out which Ronnie I'd see when he started to turn around to face me.
Chapter 119
Antanasia
THE GUARD WHO was preparing Dorin for incarceration had left the key to Lucius's cell in plain sight, and I mastered my fingers to undo the lock, then slipped inside the bars and ran to my husband, who lay on his side, eyes closed.
"Lucius." I shook him gently. "Please. Open your eyes."
Epilogue
Antanasia
I LAY DOWN next to Lucius and watched him sleeping in the sunlight that streamed into our room. His face looked so peaceful. He always looked serene now, and that comforted me.
"Wake up," I shook him. "The sun is out."
His eyes opened, and I saw once again that he had changed since his imprisonment.
He wasn't worried and sorry that he'd brought me into our world, and he considered me a true equal again. Was proud of me.
Edging back, I gave Lucius room to prop himself up on his strong arms—it hadn't taken him long to recover at all—and he looked over at the clock. Then he fell back on the mattress and grinned at me. "Why do you allow me to sleep so long on such an important day? Do you not want your husband, the future king, to look his best?"
"I still like you to rest."
He reached out and pulled my arm so I tumbled on top of his chest, and I could feel his muscles, which did seem just fine. Back to perfect form. "I have been well for months now, Antanasia," he said. "You need not baby me any longer."
It was hard to stop, though. He'd been so weak when he'd been carried to our bedroom that I'd barely been able to coax him to drink. I'd had to cut my wrist again and let the blood drip into his mouth. And when I'd first looked into his eyes, back in his cell, I'd sworn he would n
ever come back.
But he was Lucius Vladescu, and of course he'd fought to return to me so we could have that dream he'd whispered into my ear on our wedding night.
"Do you really think we'll get the vote of confidence?" I asked, staring into his black eyes, because I knew I would read the truth there. "Do you think all these vampires who are milling around inside our house trust us enough?"
"I think we have a fair chance," he said. "Better than I had at my trial, and I won that."
"I won that," I reminded him. "Me and Mindy and Raniero."
"Yes, yes," he agreed, laughing. "I know. So you often remind me."
I got serious. "Could you really not speak, that first day in the courtroom?"
He tucked one of my curls behind my ear. "You were doing well enough on your own. I had nothing to add."
I asked him that now and then, just to remind myself exactly how much faith he had in me. And the answer was always the same. Then I posed another question, just to see the mischief it always sparked in his eyes. "Where were you that night, when I tried to find you in your office and you came to bed so late?"
He gave me the look I'd hoped for. The arched eyebrow. "Jessica, do you really wish to know all of my secrets?"
Maybe ... Maybe not.
That look—and thoughts of that night—reminded me of someone else. "Is Raniero coming today?"
Lucius shook his head, and his short, neat hair gleamed in the sun. "No. He has done enough for us. I excused him from voting, although he offered."
We didn't mention the absence of my cousin Ylenia or my uncle Dorin, although they were never far from my mind. I was a princess, hopefully about to be queen, but I still suffered at the memory of handing down their sentences of destruction. It wasn't exactly guilt that I felt for presiding over their trials while Lucius recovered. It was a deeper, conflicted sadness, but one that I had to learn to live with.
Lucius must have seen me growing somber and didn't want that, because he suddenly and easily rolled me onto my back, and although I was already dressed for the biggest day of the summer convocation, our vote of confidence, he kissed me in a way that told me that he might be strong again, and not desperate for blood, but that he was still, and always would be, very thirsty for me.
Mindy
"DO YOU WANT, like, a taco or a burrito for lunch?" I asked my surfing vampire boyfriend, who ditched his board in the sand next to my cheap lawn chair and shook a bunch of water out of his long hair—right onto me.
"Hey! I'm paying for lunch, so don't make me mad!"
"I will buy you lunch today," Raniero offered. He bent down and kissed me, which helped make up for getting me wet, then plopped down in the sand. "Il mio trattare— my treat!"
"And you will use what to pay?"
"I win two hundred dollars for taking second place in the competizione, do you remember?"
I looked over at him and rolled my eyes. This was apparently how we were gonna live. Following surfing competitions from beach to beach, with me cutting hair when I got the chance. I really hadn't thought I'd do that again, but we needed cash, and I kinda had a reputation among the traveling surf circus already.
Then I looked out over the ocean, which was super rough that day, and I got reminded of the way Ronnie's eyes had looked when he'd turned around, just about to stake Ylenia Dragomir through the heart.
He hadn't lost control, but he'd been a lot closer than was comfortable for anybody.
And I never asked him if he'd known all along that Ylenia was evil ... or if he'd started to slip a little, for real, and dream about power and riches in those castle gardens.
"Better, for me, sand running through otherwise empty fingers than blood on hands full of money."
My surfer-practically prince-philosopher said that sometimes, and I had to agree.
All of a sudden, I remembered something I hardly ever thought about anymore, which was time. "Hey ... Isn't today Jess and Lucius's big vote?"
"Si." Ronnie nodded. "I offer to attend, but Lucius insists that the surfing is too good now for me to leave California. They will win or lose without my vote."
"They'll win," I said. And I hoped they lived happily ever after in their castle. Maybe we'd visit now and then.
Maybe not.
Maybe they should just come visit us. We could make room, now that I only owned, like, six pairs of flip-flops. All my sort-of-designer shoes were still in Pennsylvania, where my mom was holding them hostage till I wised up and came back to college or something—which wasn't gonna happen.
I reached down and grabbed Raniero's hand in the sand. He let me take it, and it felt good and cool against mine. "So, what is it? Taco or burrito?"
"I would like a vampiro," he said, grinning at me like an idiot. He was always bugging me about becoming undead now. "When do you allow me to make you mine forever? It is a good life, if you stay away from the violence."
"I don't know," I told him, yanking my hand free. "There's no rush."
I knew I'd do it someday, though. The more I was around him, the more I got used to the idea of drinking blood.
Okay, maybe I kinda wanted it.
But I wasn't gonna let him know that yet.
First he had to prove that he really was gonna take me to Tahiti. Then we'd talk eternity.
"Come on." I stood up and brushed the sand off my butt, then held out my hand for Raniero to pull him up, too. "Let's go eat lunch."
The jobless guy with the shaggy hair, and the goatee, and the Goodwill swim trunks—and the killer abs that I got to see all the time now, since shirts were completely optional—grabbed onto me again, and kept his fingers wrapped around mine the whole way to Terrible Taco, and I was really proud that he was mine.
Acknowledgments
Like all books, this one is the result of collaboration with and support from a lot of wonderful people—way more than can be credited here. However, I would like to take a little space to thank, in particular, all the readers who asked for this novel. Without you, it definitely wouldn't exist.
And special thanks, too, to my editor, Margaret Raymo, whose guidance and insights always amaze me. Not to mention her patience.
Thanks, in fact, to everyone at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt—and to Cliff Nielsen, who's created the beautiful covers for all three of my books, as well as Lieucretia Swain, who maintains my website and went above and beyond the call of duty to make Jess and Lucius's wedding happen.
I'm also incredibly grateful to all the e-mailers, bloggers, booksellers, and YA librarians who supported Jessica's Guide to Dating on the Dark Side and helped to ensure a sequel. I wish there was room to acknowledge you all, especially those of you who've become genuine friends.
I also want to again credit my agent, Helen Breitwieser, for always making me feel like I'm the only author she has to handle, and for doing such a great job on my behalf.
Finally, I have to acknowledge my friends and family—including my Pilates pals; Patti and the Lewisburg, Pa., McDonald's crew; the stylish women at the Styling Nook; as well as everybody in our little town who cheers me on.
And the biggest thanks to my husband, Dave; my parents, Marjorie and Don Fantaskey; and my in-laws, George and Elaine Kaszuba, all of whom not only support my projects but help to watch my fantastic kids, Paige, Julia, and Hope—a trio who still only vaguely get what I do, but who encourage me with boundless enthusiasm.
Without all of your help and guidance and good wishes, this book wouldn't be here. Thank you!
Bonus E-book Exclusive: The Wedding Chapters
* * *
Mr. and Mrs. Ned Packwood
Request the honour of your presence
at the marriage of their daughter
Antanasia Jessica Packwood
to
Lucius Valeriu Vladescu
Son of
Mr. and Mrs. Valeriu Vladescu
Saturday, the tenth of July
Vladescu Castle
* * *
Ch
apter 1
MY BEST FRIEND—I hoped I could still call her that—Mindy Stankowicz, looked completely baffled as crowds of Romanians who knew where they were going pushed past her to get to the baggage carousels at Bucharest's busy Aeroportul International Henri Coandă.
I knew that I should rush over and help Min, but I held back, just watching as she searched the crowd for me, her eyes now and then darting to signs in a language that my brief time in Romania hadn't prepared me to understand, either.
BAGAJE PIERDUTE. CONEXIUNE GARA. CARUCIOARE BAGAJE.
Mindy took a hesitant step forward, then stopped again, obviously not sure where to go, and I still didn't move, either. My feet seemed bolted down as I tried to sort out all of the emotions that rushed through me just to see a friend from my recent past, someone who'd witnessed everything that had happened in high school, from the day Lucius Vladescu had walked into my life to the night I'd feared he'd been taken away from me forever.
Looking back on our last months of school, I still wasn't sure if Mindy had deserted me or if I'd abandoned her as things with Lucius had gotten more intense. Mindy had wanted to help me deal with all that I'd been going through with Lucius and Faith Crosse and Jake Zinn, but I'd pushed her away, scared to confide the truth about my feelings for Lucius—and the truth about what he was. Not to mention what I was becoming. Still, the day that Mindy had yanked her arm away from me in gym class, sort of renouncing our friendship, I'd been hurt...