Lucy
I was crawling in through my window when I heard the creak of the floorboards outside my room. I jumped into my bed, messing up the body-shaped pillows and crumpling the note into a little ball, just as my mom knocked and pushed open the door. She paused, eyeing me blearily.
“What are you doing?”
“Nothing!”
She swung the door open wider and marched in, flipping the corner of my comforter over. “Lucky Moon, why are you dressed? Where have you been?”
“Nicholas came by to show me the northern lights,” I explained hastily. It wasn’t technically a lie. And it worked. She looked distracted.
“Really, the aurora borealis is out?” Usually that meant she’d be out in the yard, naked, singing old songs. “Finally, a good omen.” She tucked me back into bed. “We just got word from the Drakes.”
“About Christabel?”
She nodded, looking sad. “Yes.”
I felt cold all over. “She’s okay, right? Right? And Connor?”
Mom forced a smile. “She’s okay. They both are. And they should be at the Drakes’ before dawn.”
I frowned. “Why’s she going over there instead of back here?”
Mom sighed. “She was turned.”
My mouth dropped open. “What? Christabel’s going to be a vampire?” I thought of Solange and all the Drake brothers and what they’d gone through, and I shivered. There was a chance Christabel might not survive. I suddenly felt heavy, as if I were wearing clothes made out of stone. “Can I go see her?”
“Soon,” Mom assured me. “They’re taking care of her. Try not to worry.” She ran a hand over my hair, as if to prove to herself that I was all right. It was supposed to be me, after all. I was supposed to be turning into a vampire, if Saga’s plan had gone as expected. “It’s late. You should sleep. You’re not a vampire, honey, and you shouldn’t be keeping their hours. It’s not healthy.”
“Mom, I’m fine.”
“Promise me you’ll try.” Her voice was strained and the lines at the corners of her eyes more pronounced. “It could’ve been you.”
“But it wasn’t.” I didn’t say it, but it might have been better if it had been me. At least I was prepared; I knew what was going on. Poor Christabel.
I couldn’t sleep, not until I got a text from Nicholas telling me he was home safely and Christabel was tucked into one of their guest beds.
The next day I tried to follow my mom’s advice and act like a normal teenage girl, one who didn’t know anything about vampires and whose life wasn’t constantly in danger.
If only because Christabel couldn’t anymore.
I sat in the sunshine at lunchtime with Nathan and Linnet.
“Where’s your cousin?” Nathan asked. “I haven’t seen her around since she kicked Peter in the balls.”
“She has the flu,” I said. “She’s all sweaty and gross.” If you embellished a lie with just the right details, people generally didn’t want to know more.
Linnet wrinkled her nose. “Is your mom making her drink that herbal thing?”
I nodded. “And anyone else who comes by the house, just in case.” Both Linnet and Nathan knew my mom’s herbal concoctions intimately. She made them for colds and headaches and allergies. You had to strain big lumps of valerian or hyssop through your teeth. Nathan shuddered.
“Tell her we say hi,” he said. “And thanks.”
“Sure.”
We talked about school and skipping gym class and whether or not we could sneak off campus for a latte before our next class. I tried not to think about Christabel or Connor or tainted blood being delivered to the Drakes.
After school we wandered down Main Street with mochaccinos and chocolate-chip muffins. We threw crumbs for the seagulls and I stopped to buy soothing incense for my dad. We had another latte and Linnet started talking really fast. Nathan and I grinned at each other.
“We need to give you extralarge lattes before your presentation next week,” Nathan decided. Linnet was deathly afraid of public speaking. She made a face at us and licked more milk foam off the lid of her cup.
We were crossing through the parking lot toward Linnet’s car when it happened.
We’d had a nice afternoon and I wasn’t even feeling particularly jumpy. Plus, the sun was still out, so there was no need to worry.
But when the guy came up behind us on his bicycle, I heard the squeak of his wheels, the soft scrape of rubber against the pavement, and everything in me went on high alert. Especially when a quick glance revealed he was wearing blue.
I gave a battle cry Xena would have been proud of and spun around, throwing my cup in the air with one hand and a stake at him with the other. The stake bounced off his wheel well and veered him off course. He went one way and his bike went the other. He landed awkwardly and rolled up against a garbage can.
“Oh my God!” I yelled. “I’m so sorry!”
“Oh my God!” Nathan yelled too. “What’s the matter with you?” I knew he was only saying that because the guy was cute. He rushed over to see if he needed help. I grabbed the stake before anyone got a good look at it and started to wonder why I carried sharp sticks in my bag. The biker got to his feet, his jeans torn at one knee and dirt clinging to shirt. He pulled off his helmet and stared at his bike, then at me.
“I’m so sorry,” I said again. “Really.”
“Shit,” he muttered. “Are you crazy?” He rode away before I could apologize again.
I’d almost maimed a guy because he was wearing a blue shirt.
In my defense, I associated that particular shade with Hel-Blar determined to tear my head off my shoulders.
Still.
“You need to lay off the caffeine, too,” Nathan told me, his eyes wide. “There aren’t so many cute guys in this town that you can just throw shit at them like that.”
I groaned and shook my head. “I know. He just spooked me.”
Aside from my spazzing out, the day had been nice. And I really did try.
But it was clear that this girl just wasn’t me.
Like being a girl who hung out only with the Drakes and never with Nathan and Linnet wasn’t me either, and neither was being monitored like a criminal by my own parents.
Besides, I had a better idea.
I just had to make one stop first.
“He spooked you?” Nathan snorted, oblivious to the conclusions I was making in my head. “It’s Violet Hill. Nothing ever happens here.”
Nathan dropped me off at my house around sunset. I didn’t go inside, just hopped right into my mom’s car and took off before she could stop me. I texted her to tell her where I was going and that I wouldn’t be long. When she called me back, the phone ringing insistently, I switched off the sound.
The drive to the Drakes’ was uneventful. I passed three guards on my way into the farmhouse. Solange’s uncle Geoffrey’s barn-slash-laboratory had all the lights on and the door shut tight, which meant he was hard at work on something scientific. The dogs raced up to greet me when I reached the house and got out of the car. They chased me up the porch steps, drooling on my knees. I knocked hard.
Nicholas answered the door. He still looked sleepy, his dark hair mussed, his shirt unbuttoned.
Yum.
I launched myself at him and he caught me with one arm, burying his head in my hair. “ ’Morning,” he mumbled. I clung to him for a long wonderful moment before reluctantly stepping back.
“Hey, where’re you going?” he asked. His serious smile had a wicked glint. “I wasn’t done.”
I smiled back, despite all the anxiety churning in my stomach. “Is Christabel okay?”
He shoved his hair back. “Too early to tell,” he said gently.
“Can I see her?”
“She’s unconscious,” he said. “What’s going on? You’ve got a weird look on your face.”
“You’re so romantic.” I snorted.
“And you’re being sneaky.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I kissed him.
“Misdirection,” he said against my lips, smiling again. I kissed him deeply, slowly. He dug his hand into my hair. “Hey, what’s wrong? There’s something else.”
He’d known me long enough to read the brittle edge to my movements. I nodded. “First, how’s Solange?”
“Okay.” He lowered his voice, touching his finger to my lips. “Shh.”
“You know I still want to track that Constantine down, right?”
“I know.”
“What are you doing here?” Solange asked suddenly, coming down the hall toward us from the kitchen. She didn’t look drunk anymore, or even hungover. Just angry. At me.
I glowered back. “What do you think?”
“I want you to stop threatening Constantine.”
I blinked at her. “That’s seriously all you have to say to me?”
“Until you promise, yes.” She folded her arms.
“Solange, do you even remember what happened last night?”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” she said frostily.
I laughed bitterly. “Too bad.”
Nicholas cringed and looked deathly afraid. He’d faced down crazy Lady Natasha with less fear than he had right now for his girlfriend and his baby sister. Not that I blamed him. I was as mad as Solange looked.
Well, almost.
She pointed to the door. “Go home, Lucy.”
I just crossed my arms, too. “Make me.” We hadn’t had a fight this immature since we were eight.
“Fine, I will.”
She leaned in closer. “Go. Home. Lucky.”
I leaned in just as close, until we were like two prizefighters, practically nose to nose. “Your pheromones don’t work on me, princess,” I taunted, even though the soles of my feet were actually itchy with the need to move. That had never happened before.
“But they work on him,” she said haughtily, angling her head in Nicholas’s direction.
“Hey!” He held up his hands. “Leave me out of this.”
She stared at him. “Nicholas, make her leave.”
He jerked as if he’d been stuck with a pin. “Solange, don’t.”
She was getting stronger for her pheromones to work not only on other vampires but on a member of her own family. Nicholas was struggling, the muscles of his forearms and across his chest rippled as if he were lifting weights. He was in pain.
I suddenly wanted to punch Solange right in the nose, and she was one of the few people I never wanted to punch.
“Leave him alone!” I tried to go around him to reach her, to get her out of his personal space.
She just lifted her chin. “Now, Nicholas.”
His hands closed around my arms and he walked me backward toward the door, forcing me when my feet dragged. His eyes were wild. He was still struggling but she was stronger.
“Nicholas,” I whispered, leaning into him, trying to unbalance him. “Please.”
“I’m sorry,” he whispered back, his jaw clenched.
His gray eyes were still on mine when he closed the door in my face, leaving me alone on the porch.
I cursed all the way home.
I hadn’t even had a chance to tell Nicholas what I’d decided.
Solange and I were going to have it out—just see if we didn’t.
I tried to act normal around my parents. Mom gave me the look for sneaking out to the Drakes’. I waited until we were drinking tea and eating mango slices at the table, the candles still burning at the windowsill. Dad wasn’t rubbing his chest. Mom was playing Ravi Shankar on the CD player. Even Gandhi and Van Helsing were content, gnawing on massive rawhides.
Now or never.
“Um, Mom? Dad?”
“Yes, honey?” Mom added honey to her cup.
“I need to ask you something.”
Dad closed his eyes. “Please let it be about a new car.”
I was briefly distracted. “Well, that—no,” I said sternly, telling myself to stay focused. “That’s not it. It’s about … you know.”
Dad actually blanched, like curdled almond milk. “Sex? Is it about sex?”
“No! It’s about vampires.”
“Oh. Thank God.” For the first time in months he sounded thrilled to be discussing vampires. I guess it was all a matter of perspective.
“I want to go to Helios-Ra Academy,” I blurted. It sounded weird coming out of my mouth, even to me.
They stared at me.
“Seriously,” I added, a little disgruntled when they didn’t otherwise react. I pulled the application Hunter had given me from my bag and slid it across the table. It was already mostly filled out. I’d even used blue ink instead of my signature purple glitter ink so it looked grown-up.
“Oh, Lucky,” Mom said, touching the papers and looking concerned. “I don’t know. Have you really thought about this?”
I nodded, biting my lip. “Yes.”
“You know how I feel about cultivating a culture of violence. And that kind of environment is so restrictive. You’re not exactly good with rules, honey.” Mom pointed out, smiling. “We raised you that way on purpose. We wanted you to question the establishment.”
“I know. And it’s not that I don’t want to be here,” I rushed to explain. “But I can’t have a sunset curfew all through winter. I’ll be trapped inside by four-thirty every night. I can’t handle that. And I don’t want Dad to get another ulcer. And I can still come home on weekends.”
“But … boarding school?” Dad said.
I knew it was a lot for them to take in. Frankly, I was still dealing with the idea myself. They were hippie homesteaders at heart, and to them family lived together. You didn’t send your children away. And I was a vampire lover. To me, you didn’t run away to join a league devoted to killing them.
But I needed a place to call my own and people who understood me. Right now, I felt lost.
And I’d nearly killed a guy in a blue shirt.
Not that I’d tell my parents that.
And I needed to find a way to help Solange.
Not that I’d tell my parents that, either.
“I was kidding when I said that earlier, Luce,” Dad said.
“I know, but it got me thinking.”
“I thought you didn’t like the Helios-Ra?” Mom asked, perplexed.
“I didn’t,” I admitted. “I really didn’t. And I still kind of think they’re silly with all that macho ritual and their lame code words. But Kieran and Hunter are cool. We share the same language.” I shrugged. “And, I guess, I see another side to them. You know, as long as it’s only Hel-Blar they go after. The minute they break the treaty with the Drakes, I’m out of there.” I fiddled with my chamomile tea. “Mom, I know you think I’m obsessed with this vampire stuff, but they’re family, too. I can’t help being the way I am. This way, you don’t have to worry so much and I can learn to take care of myself. I mean, Dad, think about it. There’s nowhere safer than on the Helios-Ra campus, surrounded twenty-four-seven by vampire killers.”
Wait. When, exactly, had that become a good thing?
Dad rubbed his face. “I can’t deny I like the thought of you being surrounded by people who know what to do when a vampire attacks.”
“Dad, not all vampires attack,” I felt forced to say, even though my best friend had just temporarily turned my own boyfriend against me, proving me wrong.
“I know. But the Drakes are in the center of the storm right now. And you’re known to their enemies.” His expression was stark, angry. “Look what happened to your cousin. That was supposed to be you, Lucky. You.”
“All the more reason to send me to school there. I could start next week. I’m pretty sure Liam could get Hart to put in a good word for me. And Kieran and Hunter already said they’d vouch for me. I’ve been going there anyway.”
“I suppose.”
“Please?”
They exchanged a glance. Mom sighed. “Maybe. We’ll think about it.”
That meant yes.
Everything really was changing.