Jessica's Guide to Dating on the Dark Side (5 page)

If Lucius felt the same shock I did, he didn't betray it as he focused intently on the document.
Am I getting dizzy from sniffing cologne? Imagining things?

I shifted slightly in my chair, trying not to touch him again, as our arrogant visitor ran his finger beneath the first line of the scroll. "This declares that you, Antanasia Dragomir, are promised in marriage to me, Lucius Vladescu, shortly after the achievement of your maturity at the age of eighteen, and that all parties in witness agree to this covenant. And upon the marriage, our clans shall be united and at peace." He leaned back. "As I said, it's quite simple, really. And see: your adoptive father's signature. And your mother's."

I couldn't resist glancing when he said that, and sure enough, Mom and Dad's scrawled signatures were on the document, amid dozens of unfamiliar Romanian names.
Traitors.
Shoving the scroll away, I crossed my arms and glared at my parents. "How could you promise me away like . . . like ... a prize cow?"

"We didn't promise you away,' Jessica," Mom soothed. "You weren't our daughter then. We were merely there to witness a unique ritual, in the interest of my research. This was weeks before the purge, weeks before we adopted you. We had no idea what the future held for any of us."

"Besides, no one promises cows," Lucius scoffed. "Who would promise cattle? You are a vampire princess. Your destiny is not entirely your own."

Princess. . . He honestly thinks I'm a vampire princess. . . .
The strange, almost pleasurable, sensation I'd felt when he'd brushed my cheek was forgotten as reality hit me again. Lucius Vladescu was a lunatic.

"If I were a vampire, I'd want to bite someone. I'd be thirsty for blood," I said in a last ditch attempt to interject reason into a discussion that had devolved into the absurd.

"You will come into your true nature," Lucius promised. "You are coming of age right now. And when I bite you for the first time,
then
you will be a vampire. I've brought you a book— a guide, so to speak—which will explain everything—"

I stood up so fast my chair tipped over, smashing to the floor. "He is not going to bite me," I interrupted, pointing a shaky finger at Lucius. "And I'm not going to Romania and marrying him! I don't care what kind of
'betrothal ceremony' they had!"

"You will all honor the pact," Lucius growled. It wasn't a suggestion.

"Now don't get dictatorial on us, Lucius," Dad urged, kicking back in his chair and stroking his beard. "I told you. This is a democracy. Let's just all just take a deep breath. Like Ghandi said, "We must become the change we want to see.'"

Lucius had clearly never grappled with a master of passive resistance before, because he seemed genuinely caught off-balance by Dad's firm, yet mellow, and totally off-kilter, assessment of the situation. "What does that even mean?" he finally asked.

"No one's making any decisions today," Mom translated. "It's late, and we're all tired and a little overwhelmed. Besides, Lucius, Jessica is not ready to contemplate marriage. She hasn't even kissed a boy yet, for goodness' sake."

Lucius smirked at me, raising one eyebrow. "Really? No suitors? How shocking. I would have thought your pitchfork skills would be attractive to certain bachelors here in farm country."

I wanted to die. Die right there. I wanted to run to the knife drawer, grab the biggest blade I could find, and plunge it into my heart. To be exposed as never even being kissed ... it was almost worse than being a vampire princess. The vampire thing was a ridiculous fantasy, but my total lack of experience . . . that was real. "Mom! That is so embarrassing! Did you have to tell him that?"

"Well, Jessica, it's true. I don't want Lucius thinking you're some sort of experienced young woman, ready for marriage."

"I shan't take advantage," Lucius promised seriously. "And she can't be forced into a marriage, of course. It is a new century. Unfortunately. But I am afraid that I am compelled to pursue this courtship until Antanasia realizes her place at my side. As she will."

"I will not."

Lucius totally brushed this off. "The linkage of our clans is mandated by the oldest, most powerful members: the Elders of the Vladescu and Dragomir families. And the Elders always get their way."

Mom stood. "It will be Jessica's decision, Lucius."

"Of course." The condescending half-smile on Lucius's face said otherwise, though. "Now where shall I stay?"

"Stay?" Dad blinked, confused.

"Yes. Sleep," Lucius clarified. "I've had a long journey, endured my first stultifying day at the so-called public school here, and I am weary."

"You're not going back to school," I objected, panicking. I'd forgotten about school. "You just can't!"

"Of course I shall attend school," Lucius replied.

"How
did
you
enroll?" Mom asked.

"I'm here on what's called a 'student visa,'" Lucius explained. "The Elders thought it would be difficult to explain my extended presence here otherwise. Vampires don't like to raise suspicions, as you can imagine. We like to blend in."

Blend in? In a velvet topcoat in summer? In Lebanon County, Pennsylvania? The conservative, bologna-making heart of the state's farm country, where sturdy people of Germanic descent still think pierced ears are radical and possibly portals to hell?

"You're really a foreign exchange student?" Dad was frowning.

"Yes.
Your
foreign exchange student, to be exact," Lucius clarified.

Mom raised a cautionary hand. "We never agreed to that."

"Yeah," Dad added. "Wouldn't we have to sign something? Isn't there paperwork?"

Lucius laughed. "Oh, paperwork. A small detail worked out in Romania. No one with any good sense turns down a request from the Vladescu clan. It's just bad form. And the consequences of refusing us a favor . . . well, let's just say that people everywhere tend to
stick their necks out
for
us."

"Lucius, you should have consulted with us first," Mom objected.

Lucius's shoulders slumped, but just slightly. "Yes. Well, perhaps we did overstep our bounds there. But you must admit, you are honor bound to welcome me. You knew this day—and I—would arrive."

Dad cleared his throat and looked at Mom. "We did promise the Dragomirs years ago that when the time came—"

"Oh, Ned, I don't know. We need to consider Jessica's feelings ..."

"You made an oath to my family," Lucius reminded them again. "Besides, I have nowhere else to go. I will
not
return to the so-called country inn downtown where I slept last night. The room had a pig theme, for god's sake. Pig wallpaper, pig tchotchkes everywhere. And a Vladescu does
not
slumber with swine."

Mom sighed, laying her hands on my shoulders reassuringly. "I suppose for now, Lucius can stay in the guest apartment above the garage while we figure things out. Okay, Jessie? It's just temporary, I'm sure."

"Hey, it's your farm," I mumbled, knowing I was defeated. My parents always took in strays. Nasty cats, nippy dogs ... if it was homeless, it could live on our farm, even if it threatened to bite you.

----------------------------

And that is how a teenager who claimed to be a vampire came to reside in our garage at the start of my once-in-a-lifetime senior year. And not just any vampire. My arrogant, overbearing vampire
betrothed.
The last person in hell—or
from
hell—I wanted to share a ride to school with, even, let alone be bound to for eternity.

I lay awake half the night thinking about my ruined life. My birth parents: cult members who swore they drank blood—and whom I'd try never, ever to think of again. There was nothing I could do about them now except put them out of my mind. Their story could—and would—remain hidden in the past.

But the future ... all I'd wanted was a chance to go out with Jake Zinn, a normal guy, and instead I'd gotten a freakish fiancé, right in my garage. As if everyone at school didn't already think my family was bizarre enough, with Dad's yoga and his unproductive, organic, anti-meat farm, and my mom being the breadwinner, studying make-believe mumbo jumbo. Now . .. now I would really be a pariah. The high school girl engaged to the ghoul.

And what a ghoul.

Lying in bed, I couldn't stop recalling the smell of Lucius's cologne, as he'd leaned close to me. The power he'd exuded striding around my English lit class. The touch of his fingers against my cheek. His assertion that one day, he would
sink his teeth
into me.

God, what a psycho.

Tossing back the covers, I sat up and pushed aside the curtain, looking out the window toward the garage. A light still burned in the second-floor apartment. Lucius was awake out there. Doing what?

Swallowing hard, I fell back on my pillow and pulled the covers up tightly around my throat—my tender, vulnerable, as yet un-kissed throat—half wishing for and half dreading the morning.

Chapter
7

DEAR UNCLE VASILE,

I write to you from my "loft" above the Packwoods' rundown garage, where I am housed, not unlike some sort of unwanted automobile or forgotten piece of luggage, no doubt breathing in stale vehicle exhaust day and night.

Although here only a few weeks, how I mourn the rugged splendor of the Carpathians, the way the wolves howl in the night, chilling and beautiful. Only when one is in a place that completely lacks danger or mystery can one understand how profoundly the dark places of the world can be missed.

Here, one worries only about colliding on the narrow lanes with a wagon overloaded with hay (and people say Romania is backward!) or whether there will be a "good show" on the television at night. (The Packwoods have been kind enough to supply me with a
TV
out here in my backyard exile, to which I can only reply with the Americanism "Whoopee.")

But of course I realize that I am here not for the entertainment, the arts, or the architecture. (Can I ever again be happy in our soaring Gothic castle after walking the halls of Woodrow Wilson High School, a literal ode to linoleum?) Nor should
I
be focused on the cuisine. (Really, Vasile
—vegans.7) Or
the scintillating conversation of my fellow students. (The word
like
has become completely unlikable.)

But I digress.

The girl, Vasile. The girl. Imagine my shock at finding my future wife
—
my "princess"
—
knee-deep in animal waste, barking at me from across a barn and then attempting to stab me in the foot with a farm implement, like a demented stable hand. I will not address the fact that the horse excrement seemed permanently encrusted on her man-boots; it is probably bad manners even to bring it up.

Regardless. She is rude. She is uncooperative. She lacks any appreciation of her culture
—
and certainly of her duty, her destiny, the rare opportunity being afforded to her by the simple fact of her birth.

In sum, Jessica Packwood is
not
a vampire. Living in America seems to have cleansed our future princess of all traces of the royal blood that we
know must
have coursed through her veins at birth. She has undergone a terrible cultural dialysis, so to speak.