Sleeping Beauty (7 page)

Miss Eleanor's heels clacked across the gymnasium floor. “Lucy, you are on warning! Behave or I'll have you expelled. You're a young lady—even if you don't much look like one—and I'll have you act accordingly.”

Lucette's cheeks burned. Having her appearance derided in front of half the boys in the school—not to mention her blond lifesaver—both enraged and embarrassed her.

She would not be treated like this. She would not be held back by people like Miss Eleanor. Somehow, she would learn how to fight.

That night, Lucette stared into her bathroom mirror at a face that looked back at her with angry red cheeks, and lifted another clump of her long, wavy black hair to the side. Her father loved her hair, and she considered it her best feature, too—her only feminine feature, even though she usually kept it bound up in a braid. But what good was a lot of nice hair on top of a toothpick body, or around a bony face?

Grabbing the knife she'd smuggled out of the gymnasium, she sawed her hair, and a three-foot-long section fell onto the marble floor. She'd show her father she wasn't some dainty doll for him to put on display for boys. She'd show Miss Eleanor what she thought of her grooming lessons. With short hair, she'd look even more like a boy than she already did. Maybe then the school would see her slayer
potential. Maybe she'd reenroll in the Slayer Academy under a new secret identity—Luke.

Somehow, she'd make everyone see that she needed to train, even though no one could know why it was so important.

She cut off another chunk of her hair, close to her scalp, and furrowed her brows. Her eyebrows might be thick and ugly, but no way was she letting Miss Eleanor's tweezers within ten feet of her face. The other girls all looked permanently startled with their overplucked arches.

“Lucette, what in the world are you doing?”

She spun away from the mirror to see her mother standing in the doorway, her face stricken with concern. But Lucette refused to cave in to her mother's obvious hurt. She turned back to the mirror and sawed off another chunk of hair. Her father hated her for not cooperating on his matchmaking project. Miss Eleanor hated her for not playing nice at school. That tall, handsome boy Tristan hated her for being careless in the gym. Now her mother could hate her, too. She didn't care.

“Go away, Mom! Leave me alone.” She shut the door to the bathroom and continued to hack away at her hair.

Two weeks later, things still hadn't turned out as she planned. In spite of her new haircut, the teachers had not let her train with the boys, and Miss Eleanor forced her to wear an itchy wig at school. Worse, her haircut had broken her father's heart. He could barely look at her now, yet still insisted she meet boys every Friday night.

But Lucette wasn't one to let rules interfere with what she wanted. She peered through the posts of the balcony railing and studied
Tristan. He trained here every day at three o'clock, once classes were over, and she never missed it. From up in the balcony where he couldn't see her, she copied his actions, learning as much of his training routine as possible.

After watching his last sequence, she leaped, spun, and kicked into the air. Without a real stake or the straw dummy to strike, it was difficult to tell if she had used enough force or if her form was correct, but it felt good. She felt strong, having developed so many new muscles since beginning this shadow-training regimen.

Tristan threw a spear down the length of the gym to impale a straw dummy. With nothing to throw, Lucette wound up and launched an imaginary spear, visualizing it sailing through the night air to pierce a vampire's heart.

“Why don't you come down and try with a real spear?” Tristan called, and Lucette froze. He had seen her.

“Come on,” he said. “I can hear you up there and I see your shadow. Your form on your roundhouse kick is getting better. Pretty good, considering all you're attacking is air.”

She stepped up to the railing and, after drawing a deep breath, leaned over to see if he was serious. If he were mocking her, she'd try out one of those real spears—on him.

He smiled and ran a hand through his short blond hair. “Come on down. I don't bite.” He flashed a wide smile.

“No,” she said, “but you do tackle.”

He chuckled. “Hey, I saved your life. The least you could be is grateful.”

“Yeah, well, if they'd let me train as a slayer, then maybe one day I could pay you back and save
your
life.”

He laughed again and crossed his arms over his chest. “Not if you stay up there.”

Excited, she headed for the stairs. If he was serious about helping her train, no way was she going to turn that down.

“Hey,” he called up before she reached the first step. “Do you want to be a slayer, or not?”

She walked back to the railing and looked down at him. “Why else would I be up here every afternoon, copying you?”

“Great.” He grinned. “Then why are you headed for the stairs?”

“Um, you said I could come down to train. Do you want me to come down or not?” she asked. Tristan was strange and infuriating, even if he did make her feel kind of fluttery inside.

He folded his bare arms over his broad chest.“A real slayer wouldn't use the stairs.”

She looked down to the gymnasium floor and shook her head. “It's at least a twenty-five-foot drop! I can't jump that!”

“Take a look around you,” he said, his voice calm and deep. “What can you use to help?”

There was a rope hanging a few feet away from the balcony. It should be a relatively easy jump, but she'd never tried anything like that before. She had only recently been allowed to walk down a flight of stairs unaccompanied, and had never tried anything where failing had real consequences. She wondered what would happen if she died before she turned sixteen. Would the kingdom be saved—or cursed forever?

“Just concentrate,” he said, breaking her out of her morbid thoughts.

“Focus on the rope, see yourself grabbing it, and don't think about the floor. It'll take care of itself.”

“That's what I'm worried about.”

“Slayers don't worry. They train, they develop skills, they practice, and then they act.”

Trembling, she nodded. He was right. If she wanted this, it was time to prove it. But to leap for the rope, she'd have to stand on the railing. She briefly considered whether she could sit on it, but she wouldn't get enough momentum for launching from that position.

She looked down. Tristan looked up at her with calm encouragement on his face. He wasn't prodding or daring, he wasn't teasing or goading—he simply nodded encouragement. Confidence flowed into her. She had good balance. She was a good climber. She could jump. She could climb ropes. She'd tried all these things over the past two weeks of sneaking into the empty gym. Other than falling, there wasn't one part of this challenge she hadn't done before. The problem was, she'd never done all those things together.

Pulling courage from deep inside her, she pushed to rest her hips on the railing, then lifted one foot up. After testing the railing with her bare foot and centering herself, she leaned to the side and brought the other foot up.

She wouldn't win any prizes for grace—balanced in such an awkward side lunge on the railing with her hands holding onto the wood between her legs—but grace wasn't what this was about. This was about proving to herself she could do it. And if she didn't believe she could do it, how could she possibly convince the school's administration?

She drew her second foot closer, shifting her weight until she was securely in a crouch. Then she raised her hands in front of her, and balancing, she slowly straightened her legs until she was standing on the railing.

“Lucy,” a voice came from behind her, “what are you doing?” Miss Eleanor's high heels clacked on the wooden balcony floor, approaching quickly.

“It's fine!” Tristan yelled up. “She's coming down to train.”

“Lucy, if you go down there . . .” Miss Eleanor's voice trailed off, as if she'd run out of threats. “If you go down there, I wipe my hands clean of you. I won't send anyone down to rescue you.” She really had run out of threats. That last one sounded like more of a promise.

It was now or never. Lucette blocked out everything except the rope, and then leaped. Her hands gripped the rough rope, but she slipped, wishing for once she was wearing her gloves. She wrapped her legs and feet around the swinging rope to stop her rapid, hand-burning slide, and then, with her heart racing and her feet squeezing together to control her speed, she lowered herself, hand over hand, until she was close enough to the floor to jump down.

She landed and turned to Tristan.

He nodded, looking impressed. “Not bad. Not bad at all.”

Her entire body felt flush and her mind raced.

Maybe finding true love wasn't so impossible, after all. Maybe if she kept training with Tristan, they'd fall in love. Maybe Miss Eleanor's flirting and seduction classes wouldn't go to waste. Maybe some afternoon soon, if Tristan didn't kiss her, she'd kiss him.

Cheeks still pink, she smiled as seductively as she knew how.

He reached out and rubbed his hand over her chopped-off hair. “Nice haircut, by the way. Now you fit in with the boys.”

She flinched and backed up a few feet, crossing her arms over her flat chest. “Are we going to train or not?” No way would she show him how much his comment had hurt.

Queen Natasha stood in front of the elected Sanguinian military council.
What a bunch of weaklings
, she thought. Using the Stone of Supremacy, she could crush them all, and she felt a smile form as she imagined their throats closing, their heads exploding.

But more delicious was the fantasy of these same strong and powerful vampires bowing down before her, exclaiming their admiration, demonstrating their devotion. There was no greater thrill than exercising cruel power over those who thought they were safe. Killing King Vladimir had taught her that. Seeing the love and devotion in her late husband's eyes right before she'd driven a stake through his heart had been the ultimate rush. And she wanted more. Soon every vampire in Sanguinia would worship her. Then, and only then, would she be ready to act. Ready to invade Xandra, capture its riches, and crush its royal family's heads between her hands.

“Ha!” She realized she'd exclaimed aloud only when the faces of the generals turned toward her.

“You are amused, Your Highness?” General Adanthas, a broad-shouldered vampire with a head full of thick brown hair, addressed her.

“Amused at your naïveté,” she replied.

“Naïveté?” The general rose.

She leaned onto the table, her long sharp nails scratching the stone surface. “Would you rather I questioned your loyalty to Sanguinia?”