"Seriously, Ronnie, did you get a new phone?" I asked, 'cause it wasn't like him to get a new anything. "What's with the weird number?"
"I do not know whose phone this is," he said. "I am walking past a beach towel, I see a phone, I think of you, and I call."
I thought I heard him wrong—he was always messing up English, so past and present especially were just a big jumble—and I sat up in bed. "What? That's, like, stealing!"
"Not stealing," he said, like I was crazy. "I am borrowing. Just as I allow others to borrow from me. There is too much worry about who owns what in this world. But if it makes you feel better, I will leave the mango I have just purchased for dinner on the towel."
I flopped down again. Of course he wouldn't buy a new phone. It was a miracle he spent, like, forty-five cents on a mango, even though his family had a gazillion dollars.
"Honest, Raniero, I don't care if you give your fruit away. I am having a really bad day, so why don't you just tell me what you want?"
"I want nothing." He burned up some stranger's minutes on more philosophy. I could picture him shrugging those broad, bare shoulders. "I just think of you, and call." I could also just see his gray-green eyes getting all sad when he gave me some pity. "I am sorry to hear that you are unhappy, though. There is something I can do to help, no?"
"No!" I sat up again and crossed my legs. "Not unless you can fix my brain before I flunk out of college in about two days."
He got real quiet. All I heard was that wind. Then he said, "I think your brain is perfetto, Mindy Sue. Just perfect. And I think you will be happy to leave college, because I do not believe it was ever your dream to attend."
"You don't know what my dreams are," I said, getting mad at him. Maybe my dream was to have a boyfriend who would at least get a job, if not use his trust fund. And one who would stand up for me when I needed it. And who would at least offer to bite me, even if I didn't want that, 'cause it meant commitment, to bloodsuckers. "You do not know my dreams at all!"
"Perhaps not." There was that shrug again. He was always shrugging those hot, buff shoulders. "But I think you wish to be a stylist of hair."
"Yeah, like, to the stars," I told him for the millionth time. "But that's a stupid fantasy that's not gonna happen. If I go to some lame beauty school here, I'll end up cutting hair at MasterCuts at the mall, working on screaming little kids, and I'll never even meet a decent guy with a future, like maybe I would've in college!"
Oh, gosh. All of that came out wrong. I didn't mean to hurt him, 'cause in a lot of ways he was a decent guy. He was sweet. Too sweet...
But like usual, Ronnie didn't care at all if I put him down or talked about other guys. "Do you wish to come here?" I heard him smiling again. "There is sunshine, and always room for you—although perhaps not for all of your shoes! And I am sure you can find a place to study beauty here, very near the stars you wish to meet."
What could I say to that?
Of course I'd love to go to the world-famous Ashton Academy of Aesthetics in Hollywood, where pretty much every stylist ever featured in Celebrity Hairstyle had studied, but I didn't have money to get to California, let alone pay tuition if I got into the school. I wouldn't even be able to buy a mango for lunch. And the minute I got there, he'd probably go to Tahiti, like he was always talking about.
No, if I was gonna travel anywhere, it was to visit Jess, 'cause she, thanks to her rich husband, could pay.
"Melinda, are you there?" Ronnie asked. "You are considering my offer, yes?"
I didn't answer him, 'cause I was "considering," all of a sudden, Romania, where I knew Raniero wouldn't go, 'cause for some reason he didn't like that country at all. "It is too cold therefor me," he'd told me. "Much, much too icy and treacherous."
There was more to it than ice and snow and bad roads, though. I'd almost flunked high school English, too, and I didn't get metaphors and stuff like Jess and Lukey did, but I'd got just from the look on his face that Raniero was talking about way more than the weather when he said that place was "icy" to him.
"Um, I'm actually thinking about going to visit Jess for a while," I finally said. "Winter break starts in a few days, and she offered to fly me there."
I heard wind and waves for about fifteen minutes—some poor sucker's minutes getting totally wasted—and then for the first time since I met Ronnie, he sounded super, super unhappy. "I wish that you would not."
"Well, I think I am." I pretty much made up my mind right then. I had to cut off this thing between us. This thing that kept me talking to and daydreaming about the world's most homeless, jobless, no-ambition, New Agey, long-haired undead guy. A bloodsucker whose very worst fault was the way he'd shrugged at me when I'd told him, "I really don't think this is working out, Ronnie."
I knew he didn't believe in fighting and had an arm full of peace tattoos to prove it. But couldn't he have at least fought for me? Offered to change, just a little?
"I gotta go," I told him.
The last thing I heard before I cut the connection was a vampire standing on a beach at sunset telling me, "I love you very much, Mindy Sue."
I jammed the phone under my pillow like I could snuff out those words, which didn't mean anything. Raniero loved everybody and everything. Even bugs, which he wouldn't kill if they crawled on you in that disgusting apartment in Lancaster where he'd crashed for a while.
If I'd really been special, he would've fought—and changed—for me.
STUPID, STUPID ITALIAN VAMPIRES!
Chapter 11
Raniero
To:
[email protected] From:
[email protected] Lucius—
It is good to hear from you! But I think from your words that you secretly envy the cousin you are much too kind to call brother, who is just now waking up, at noon, thinking only of eating a fresh pineapple and not even needing to shower before going into the ocean for the day. A king-to-be has many burdens by comparison, yes?
I am sorry to hear of your worries. I beg of you—do not waste any of your regal energies fearing for Raniero, who does taste the waves of the Pacific, occasionalmente. What is a little water fouled by fishes to one who has dined on the dirt of the Vladescu dungeon floors, my poor, suffering head crushed to its present emptiness by the heel of your boot? (LOL!)
Like you, I joke—too much, I think, with a prince. You are kind to indulge my teasing and not remove what is left of my head for the sheer amusement of doing so. So I become serious now, yes?
Lucius ... I do not understand this "faith"you have in me. It is misguided, no?
You sat at the table when the Elders decided my fortuna, my fate. You know what I am. What I have done. You see the look in my eyes when I kneel above you, stake in hand!
I wish to help you. I wish to repay what I owe you, and for you to become king, because while I do not share your desire for worldly power anymore, I believe that you do possess a very rare and unworldly power inside of your heart. Compassion. Yes? Something new for a vampire ruler, and very much needed!
It is unfortunate, though, that I am just learning to find such a quality within myself. I fear that the Raniero who was, just two years before, still exists inside of me—even peeks out at your wedding to catch a glimpse of his uncle Claudiu. Then, I am happy to say, I soothe him back to sleep by riding the steady waves, watching the restful sunset, and breathing deep, peaceful breaths.
Let us leave that unruly, angry vampiro undisturbed again, yes?
Certainly we should not allow him anywhere near to your wife! I see you look at Princess Antanasia when you speak your vows, and I do believe that you would destroy any who pose a threat to her. I prefer very much that this dead vampire not be me!
I am sorry, Lucius, that I cannot do more than stay far from Romania. If, though, you should ever wish to leave the pressure of your royal life behind, for even a few days, know that while my home is humble, the view is nice. And the door is never locked ... because there is no door, rea
lly. Just a shower curtain with fishes on it. Push aside and come in!
Pace, Lucius ... Peace!
Raniero
I forget something and so "P.S." to you, too. I am afraid that per una volta—for once—you are wrong, my future king. Mindy Sue is not with Raniero. (I think she is very surprised, when we return to America, to learn that I do not wear a tuxedo every day!) We are opposites who attract very much, though, and I wait patiently for her to realize that clothes are not so important. There is time, yes? Unless, of course, this very sweet girl comes to harm in your home, for I understand that she plans to travel there without myself.
Who, I wonder, needs protection more, Lucius? A vampire princess brave enough to enter your castle, eyes open, or an innocent young woman who is blind to evil and wishes only to make the world beautiful, one hair at a time? (This is the very thing that I love most about her. That, and her ossessione with shoes. How can this be, when I own but one pair? But it is true!) You spare my life twice, and I do not dare to ask you the favor of protecting one whom I very much love, but the question is something to meditate upon, no?
Chapter 12
Antanasia
"LUCIUS, WAKE UP!" I screamed. Tears were running down my face, and I shook his shoulder as hard as I could, even though I knew that might hurt him more. If it was still possible to hurt him, because he had to be..."Wake up! Please, wake up!"
The blood on him ... On the sheets ... The stake discarded between us...
I raised my hands to my face. The blood on ME.
I grabbed his shoulders again, shaking him so the blood got everywhere.
"Lucius, NO!"
Chapter 13
Antanasia
"JESSICA, DO NOT let memories of a nightmare unnerve you now," Lucius urged quietly. "You have nothing to fear from phantoms conjured by your subconscious. I am quite obviously alive and well." He smiled. "You will not rid yourself of me so easily!"
Yes, obviously he was fine. We stood alone in the anteroom where we always waited before meetings with the Elders, giving them a chance to gather before we made our entrance, and Lucius was adjusting his tie, which covered his unpunctured chest. And yet...
"It was so vivid," I told him again. More than just a nightmare. A vision. A hallucination. I felt the stake in my hand, and the sticky blood on my fingers, because I had been the one who'd wielded the weapon...
Am I going crazy from the stress?
Lucius must have seen the unbearable loss, guilt, and confusion that I still couldn't shake hours after I'd been screaming in our bed, because he took my shoulders, steadying me, but venturing to joke. "I could have warned you about the dangers of eating sour chicken soup before bed. It is enough to induce unpleasant thoughts in broad daylight—much like your father's carob tofu ice cream substitute! If you want something edible, simply lift any phone, dial six, and say 'Häagen-Dazs.' The old woman who answers will understand, for it is a command I issue often."
I tried to smile, too, but I couldn't. The last thing I remembered—lucidly—was drinking that warm, strange soup and drifting off to sleep, then waking up to find Lucius with a gaping hole ... I'd been awake.
"Jessica." Lucius grew serious and released my shoulders after giving them one more squeeze. "Try to put aside the dream, for we have reality to face—right now."
And suddenly, on some command I never saw issued, the door swung open and I faced my third formal meeting with the Elders—not counting a gathering at a Western Sizzlin' steak house in Pennsylvania, where I'd first met them all and where they'd beaten Lucius to within an inch of his life.
Chapter 14
Antanasia
AS I WALKED to my seat at the far end of the long table, I did my best, like always, to remember who was who among a bunch of vampires who looked way too similar, as if the passage of the hundreds of years that many of them had already lived through had worn them to gray uniformity, like rocks in a river.
Of course I recognized Dorin, who gave me a reassuring smile. And Horatiu Dragomir, whom I always knew because he'd lost a hand back in some war fought when catapults were cutting-edge technology. And there was an empty seat where my uncle Constantin would have sat...
Lucius, who had followed me, pulled out my chair, and as he helped me slide in, I recognized Flaviu Vladescu sitting next to Claudiu, and my skin crawled. Those two had been among the vampires who'd beaten Lucius on that awful night in Lebanon County, when the Elders had tried to force a suddenly rebellious prince to marry me and fulfill the pact.
My eyes darted to Lucius, who was calmly taking his own seat, and I couldn't understand how he could deal with Claudiu and Flaviu every day and never show that he despised them. Because he had to hate them. Had to long for revenge.
I stared at Lucius's strong hands, and I also couldn't understand how he'd allowed his uncles to beat him, because I had no doubt that Lucius could crush either one of his older relatives. But of course he'd been raised to accept punishment from the Elders and hadn't struck back against his uncle Vasile until directly challenged to fight.
Then I looked back at Claudiu, who had a weird smile on his thin lips, and who interrupted Lucius just as he began to call the meeting to order, by saying to me, just like I'd feared, "And how are you, Princess? We are all very concerned about your health, and hope for a full report on the illness that took you from the most important trial of this century!"
Before I could recover enough to answer—I was frozen in place—Lucius spoke for me, issuing a two-word command that would change everything.
"Silence, Claudiu."
Chapter 15
Antanasia
"LUCIUS, DO YOU honestly silence your uncle?" Claudiu asked, seeming genuinely surprised. "In that tone?"
I was shocked, too. Lucius was always in control in meetings, but I had never seen him address one of the Elders so sharply. But it had been clear that Claudiu was taunting me, and Prince Vladescu was letting everyone know that wasn't going to happen.
He's protecting me again. I should say something for myself...
But I didn't, and Lucius spoke again, less harshly but in a way that still didn't leave room for debate. "You spoke without requesting recognition, Claudiu. And our custom—our law—demands that you seek acknowledgment from me or Antanasia."
"I merely inquire about your wife's health," Claudiu nevertheless protested. "You repeatedly ask me to accept a Dragomir as my superior, and yet when I make a friendly overture, you are displeased!"
"Displeased by your failure to abide by law," Lucius clarified. "I have made myself clear in this forum: we are now a culture that abides by law."
"Law!" Claudiu snorted, abruptly dropping all pretense of concern for me—and daring to directly confront Lucius, too. "You speak too often of law, Lucius! In the past, Vasile allowed us to speak at will. He did not worry about law."
"You speak too often, period," Lucius advised his uncle. He leaned back in his seat, as if still totally at ease. But I could see the tension building in his jaw. "And Vasile is no longer in charge here. So I suggest that you become accustomed to new leadership."
"For how long?" Claudiu muttered, shaking his head.
His voice was soft—but just loud enough to make sure everybody heard.
I sat shocked and silent. The other vampires got quiet, too, but when I searched their faces, I saw excitement, not concern. Only Dorin seemed worried, like me.
"What did you just say?" Lucius demanded, his voice dropping an octave. "Or do you wish to hide your words, like a coward?"
"Lucius..." I heard myself make a tentative attempt to interfere, but nobody even noticed me. Their eyes were all locked on Lucius and Claudiu, whose grayish cheeks got a little pink when he said, "Fine, Lucius. I will speak, for I have kept silent for too long."
Then he turned in his seat to point at me, and it seemed like the whole world stood still as Claudiu Vladescu voiced what every Vladescu—and maybe some of the Dragomirs—at that table probably believed was t
rue. I believed it was true.
"She is not ready to rule, Lucius. She cannot even hand down justice!"
No...
I knew that Queen Mihaela Dragomir would have handed out some justice right then and there, but I stayed frozen, watching Lucius, whose eyes were getting completely black, just like on the night he'd taken me prisoner in the castle and nearly lost control.
Claudiu seemed oblivious, though. He was too busy voicing his own pent-up rage to recognize that the young vampire he'd long controlled was no longer under his thumb—and was getting angry, too.
"Lucius!" Claudiu's voice suddenly shook. "I have accepted Dragomirs at this table, as Elders, for nearly twenty years now. But I cannot—and WILL not—accept one as my sovereign. NEVER!" He turned slitted eyes on me. "Especially not a girl who knows nothing of leadership."
There was complete silence in the room as his words died away.
And then Lucius rose, and I saw again the warrior prince who'd stormed my ancestral castle vowing to vanquish the Dragomirs. Except this time, he was protecting a Dragomir—and that only made his power more threatening as he stalked toward his uncle, fangs bared.
Claudiu rose, too, and I saw that his whole body had started shaking. Maybe with rage—or maybe because he finally understood what he'd provoked in my husband.