And before I could tell everybody that I wasn't drooling over that guy—I really wasn't—Dr. Prentiss slapped the magazine down on my desk and said just to me, "See me after class, Melinda."
"Yeah, I know the drill," I grumbled, sliding back down in my chair again.
All my professors at that stupid college were always asking to see me after class. And it was never to say, "Good job, Mindy!" They just didn't get that I'd never been so great at studying to begin with and now I couldn't seem to think at all.
I hung out as close to the floor as possible until my cheeks started cooling down; then I sat up again, crossed my arms on my desk, and buried my face, not caring that everybody would know I'd totally given up on even pretending to pay attention to Renaissance art and its "foundations."
STUPID ITALIANS!
And just when I thought I'd been humiliated as much as possible, my phone that I'd forgot to turn off started making noise, and by the time I got it to shut up—with the whole class laughing again at my Hello Kitty theme song ring tone and Dr. Prentiss sounding like it was the very last straw when he said, "Melinda, please!"—I saw I had two texts.
One from an Italian vampire who just would not give up, that said, "Buon grno, Mindy Sue!"
And one from a Romanian princess who musta been having a bad day, too, 'cause all it said was "."
Chapter 6
Mindy
"SPEAK UP, JESS," I told her. "It sounds like you're in a cave or something!"
A million miles away in Romania, Jess kept whispering. "I'm not in a cave. I'm in a bathroom. And I can't talk louder."
I held my pink Motorola flip away from my ear and gave it a shake, 'cause there was no way I'd heard that right. "You're, like, on the toilet? Because that is just gross."
"I'm not on the toilet," Princess Jess said, a little louder. "I'm just in the bathroom so my bodyguard can't hear everything I say."
I plopped down onto a bench outside Dr. Prentiss's office, which was in an ugly building full of cheap furniture. "You're a princess in a freakin' castle," I reminded her. "If you want privacy, go to a ... tower or something. Don't hide on the toilet!"
There was a big, long silence, so I thought the connection got cut, like it did half the time I talked to Jess. That was the only problem with Jess's whole life. Her part of Romania was more stuck in the past than Amish country. They didn't even have malls where she lived. I shook my phone again. "Jess, are you there?"
"Yeah." She sounded super bummed. "I mean, yes."
"So what's wrong?" I asked. "What's with the frowny-face text?"
How come my very best—let's face it, my only—friend never seemed into being the only thing I'd ever wanted to be in my entire life, which was royalty?
Well, that and a hairstylist to the stars.
"I'm just having a rough day," she said. "There was this trial, and Lucius came back acting weird—kissing me like crazy without even talking about how everything had gone wrong—and the whole thing is going to mess up our chance at being king and queen—"
I didn't mean to laugh at her, but seriously, that was a rough day? She was hiding from her servants so she could complain about how the incredibly hot, rich prince she was married to wanted to make out in their castle? And jeez, she might not get to be queen and just get stuck at princess for the rest of her life!
Yeah, I wanted to, like, cry.
For me!
I'd had a guy who coulda been practically a prince—and a really rich one, at that—but gave it all up to ... surf!
"Hey, Jess," I kinda cut her off. "This will make you feel better. I got a D on my Critical Thinking paper about recycling, 'cause my professor said I couldn't cite Elle as an academic source. Then my whole art class laughed at me, 'cause I got caught looking at a half-naked Italian guy, and now..."
I got this crazy feeling somebody was watching me, and I looked up and saw Dr. Prentiss standing in the door to his office. He had his arms crossed, and I couldn't tell if he was laughing at me or ready to kill me. Probably both. That seemed to be how everybody at community college looked at me.
He uncrossed his arms and crooked his finger, and I said, "Hey, Jess, I'm sorry, but I gotta go."
She gave a big sigh I could hear even from Romania and said, "I guess I gotta go, too. My friend Ylenia's supposed to come by any minute now."
I stood up and started following Dr. Prentiss's hideous tweed blazer into his office. "Okay, we'll talk later."
"Min!" I heard Jess try to stop me from hanging up. "You wouldn't want to come over here for a while, would you? I'll pay for everything—"
I didn't get a chance to answer, 'cause I was already clicking the phone shut. It was just too late to stop my hand. And what could I have said, anyway? "Yeah, Jess, I'll ditch community college and just hang out in Romania"?
But a few minutes later, when Dr. Prentiss swung his computer screen around so I could see all my grades in all my classes—the biggest bunch of 60s and 65s probably in the history of community colleges—I started thinking Romania might not be such a bad idea.
"You have got to focus," he kept saying, over and over.
"Yeah," I kinda agreed, looking past him to a big framed poster of that David Michelangelo statue and thinking, Could I possibly get away from naked Italians in Romania?
'Cause I knew that one half-naked Italian, at least, hated that place.
And when my professor said, "You understand that you're failing, don't you, Melinda?" I just nodded, hardly listening, 'cause the next-to-last thing Jess had said finally sank into my brain, and I felt like an even lonelier loser.
I could handle Jess having a husband who took her away from me. He was a guy, and he'd never take my place.
But did she really have a new girlfriend?
Chapter 7
Antanasia
I CLICKED SHUT my black luxury Vertu Signature cell phone—standard issue for Vladescu nobility—and sighed as I reached for the bathroom door.
I was pretty sure Mindy hadn't heard my desperate invitation before she hung up her own crystal-covered pink phone, which I could picture as clearly as my best friend's light brown eyes and wavy chestnut hair. Or maybe Min hadn't wanted to hear about spending winter break on a bleak mountaintop with vampires because she was caught up in the excitement of college, with new professors and "critical thinking" and... half-naked Italians? Seriously, though, who would choose to spend the holidays in a place that held executions?
Yanking too hard, I opened the door—and jumped to find myself face-to-face with a girl who had a head full of almost-black curls, a mouth that was a little too broad to be classically pretty, and dark eyes that were half hidden behind thick glasses.
A girl who looked—discounting the glasses—a lot like me.
Chapter 8
Antanasia
"I BROUGHT YOU some soup," Ylenia Dragomir said, pulling a Thermos out of a huge tote that was slung over her shoulder. At least, the bag looked big on my cousin. In reality, it probably wasn't half the size of Mindy's favorite Louis Vuitton knockoff with the faux leopard trim. "I thought it might help you feel better."
"Thanks." I accepted the container, not sure if I should tell Ylenia that I wasn't really sick, because we were becoming friends. I knew what Lucius would advise: "Trust no one..."
"Have some," she suggested, before I could decide whether to admit the truth.
I twisted off the cap and sniffed, trying not to make a face at the strange odor. "This smells ... great," I fibbed some more. "Delicious!"
"It's ciorba de pui," Ylenia explained. "Sour chicken soup with lemon. It's very healthy!"
"Did you ... make this?" I asked, stalling, leading us to the part of my office that was like a living room.
Ylenia followed me and perched on the edge of a chair while I sat down on the couch again. "Yes!" She smiled and shrugged. "Those of us who are still Dragomirs, not Vladescus, don't have a bunch of servants to prepare food. We learn to cook!"
She wa
s laughing, but I felt bad. Should I ask Lucius about spending some of the money in that budget to fix up and staff my family's old castle, which was pathetically supported by tourists who paid to gawk?
Ylenia must've realized that her joke wasn't funny to me. "Hey, I was just kidding," she said. "I feel lucky to just have a place to live, now that my father is gone. I didn't have anywhere else to go, and it was nice of you and Dorin to give me a room."
Poor Ylenia. Her mother had abandoned the family when she was a little girl, and her father had shipped her off to boarding school for most of her childhood. Until he lost his meager fortune in a bad deal with Dumitru Vladescu, which had led to a fight to the death. She was not just parentless but poor and homeless, too, and I felt a twinge of guilt for thinking my existence was difficult. I had parents, and Lucius.
I set the Thermos and cap down on the mahogany coffee table. "So, do you want to talk about the trial? Although I understand if you don't."
"No, it's okay." My cousin leaned forward and poured a good dose of yellowish liquid into the cap, pushing it toward me. "The trial was difficult. Lucius dragged the whole story out of my father's killer, and it was hard to hear that. But now I feel like justice has been done."
I took a sip of the soup and forced myself not to make a face. "How did Lucius get him to talk?"
Ylenia smoothed an outdated long skirt over her knees. "He's Lucius. How could anyone not give up information under that stare? Your husband was intimidating as a child, and the older he gets, the more powerful he seems to become."
I took another drink, and suddenly the soup didn't seem as strange as most of what she'd just said.
I'm an outsider in my own marriage. Ylenia had crossed paths with Lucius before I even knew he existed. They'd been attending those summer congresses back when I'd been raising calves for 4-H and swimming in Conewago Lake while Mindy sat on the shore, not wanting to touch dirty water.
"Ylenia?" I suddenly needed to know if I was the bigger wimp, too, of the two Dragomir cousins. "Did you stay for...?"
She clearly understood the question before I had to finish it, and she shook her head, so her curls, a frizzier version of mine, trembled. "No! I couldn't watch that, even to see my father's death avenged."
"I couldn't be there, either," I admitted then. "I just couldn't."
We sat quietly for about a full minute, me finishing the soup, because although I didn't love the taste, I actually felt hungry for what seemed like the first time in weeks, after having confessed that. I'd never had a close girlfriend, except for Mindy, and I needed one now that she was so far away. Dorin was great, but he was my uncle. And Lucius—while my eternal love—was also a guy. There were things he just couldn't understand or talk about like a girl could.
"I should get going now," Ylenia eventually said. "You look tired."
I was starting to get drowsy. We both stood up. "Yeah, I think I'm going to turn in."
"Sure." Ylenia screwed the cap back on the Thermos and handed it to me. "You can finish this later. Dorin says you hate trying to order food from the kitchen."
Lucius definitely would have frowned at that comment, but I didn't care right then. I have a friend here, who understands what I'm facing. "Thanks."
Then Ylenia led me to the door and used her fluent Romanian to direct Emilian to escort me to my room, because I was getting beyond tired. I was exhausted, and eager to get to the one place in that castle where I felt safest and most at home—at least, until later that night.
Chapter 9
Lucius
To:
[email protected] From:
[email protected] Raniero—
Instantaneous greetings from the heart of Romania, where the arrival of "broadband" is rendering it so much easier to keep in contact—and thus in control—of all my far-flung kin and kingdom. (I refer specifically to you, "nightsurfer3," as one cannot get "flung" much farther from the cold, wild heart of the Carpathians than onto the "mellow," sunny sands of Southern California, can one?)
Assuming that you've not yet been swept away by the "tasty waves" of which you speak so reverently—you don't actually taste that water, do you, Raniero?—I write, first, to inquire as to how you've fared since we last met, at my wedding. (I will restate that it was an honor to have you stand at my side—and the fact that you deigned to wear pants, as opposed to "board shorts," was a source of great appreciation on my part. Appreciation—and no small measure of relief.)
I will also admit: your failure to respond to my written invitation to serve as my best man did give me pause. Yet I did not ask anyone else to stand with me in the event that you should fail to show up. Not only could I think of no one whom I respect enough to fill that most meaningful role, but I trusted you, Raniero, to do the right thing, just as I trusted you to stay your hand in that pivotal moment when you could have ended our training—not to mention my existence—in a pool of blood in the Vladescu dungeons.
It is that unshakable faith I invest in you that also compels me to write today.
The next six months are crucial to my future as leader of the newly united clans. My goal is to press for a vote of confidence at the July convocation and coronation before the year is out.
You know me well enough to understand half of my motives. I have never been shy about seeking power, and I am confident that I have the vision and capacity to lead the clans out of the dark ages in which our families seem irrevocably trapped, socially, educationally, and technologically. (Honestly, Raniero, are we the only noble-born Vladescus who would know, for certain, that Bluetooth is not some dread, vampire-specific disorder involving lack of oxygen to the gums? I fear it is true.)
Beyond my personal ambitions, though, I wish to expedite this process for Antanasia's sake. She is striving, admirably, to transform from human teenager into vampire princess, yet the road is difficult for her. Even more difficult than I anticipated when I married her.
I was selfish, Raniero, in my desire to make her mine. And now, to protect her, I must put more weight upon her shoulders, pressing for early coronation so that I, especially, may rise to kingship. For as our ruthless but undeniably shrewd uncle Vasile always noted, "'Prince' is to 'KING' as 'cub' is to 'LION.' And one may kick a cub—but NO ONE baits a lion!"
So what do you say, brother? Will you temporarily—or permanently!—hang up your surfboard, shelve your Buddhist texts, and become once again the "wise warrior" that your very name, "Raniero," destines you to be? Will you assume your place at my right hand? There would be no dire consequences, as you fear. The past is past. Do your "philosophies" not teach you that?
I will add that it would ease my mind to know that someone else in Romania who doesn't suffer the contagion of cowardice was looking out for Antanasia. She forges alliances with vampires who seem harmless but whose very weaknesses pose threats she cannot recognize. She instinctively seeks out the soft kittens of her upbringing—and ones that are declawed, at that. (Actually, to equate Dorin Dragomir to a newborn cat is to insult the mettle of kittens everywhere. And of course, you recall Ylenia Dragomir's disposition...)
I look forward to your response, not demanding your presence here, which would be within my rights, but asking as a friend.
Lucius
P.S. Did you know that tradition holds that the "best man" is not a second for the groom but rather guardian of the bride? Believe me, brother, I would not leave that responsibility—even symbolically—to a vampire whose self-control I did not trust. Indeed, if I believed you posed the slightest risk to Antanasia, I would destroy even you, my closest friend, without mercy, before I let you come within one hundred miles of our home. Can you not have faith in yourself ?
P.P.S. Bring Mindy if you like!
Chapter 10
Mindy
I WAS LYING in bed reading Celebrity World magazine to forget about how I'd pretty much flunked out of community college, when my phone rang. I almost didn't answer it, 'cause honestly, if Jess was gonna t
ell me she was bummed 'cause Lucius was buying her, like, a solid gold tiara instead of the platinum one she wanted, I was gonna scream so loud she'd hear me in Romania, even if the connection got cut off.
But when I flipped open the phone, I didn't recognize the number, so I answered. "Yeah?"
"Buona sera, Mindy Sue." There was a lot of static on the line. Or maybe that was wind. Or waves in the background. "Ciao!"
I smacked Celebrity World against my head. "Oh, gosh, Raniero ... What are you calling about?" I pulled the phone away and checked the number again. "And whose phone is that?"
I could, like, hear Raniero Vladescu Lovatu smiling in his peaceful beatnik way. "I am standing with my feet in the warm sand, watching the most beautiful sunset, with many colors, and I think of you, because you are very beautiful and colorful, yes?"
I totally ignored the compliment. And I tried, real hard, not to picture Raniero standing on the beach in his olive-drab surf trunks that kinda hung off his hips, maybe with some drops of water on his broad, muscular, tanned, naked chest. The arm that held the phone would be bent, so his bicep would be like a perfect, rock-hard ... rock, and his teeth would be so white...
No, Mindy! Focus on the shack in the background! The way those teeth change!