“But why?” I continued. “I mean, why would she do that? Aren’t vampires and witches enemies where you come from?”
He put a hand on his chest. “Do you think I would exist if they were?”
“I do,” I said, exasperated. “I exist. And my mom is the Queen of Witches, and my dad is the vampire king.”
“Oh, that’s not good,” Luis said. “What will you do when it’s time for the hunt?”
“Stop it, is what I did,” I said grimly.
“You stopped the hunt? That’s impossible. There is no stopping the hunt, only postponing it.”
“Yeah, I’m
kind of getting that,” I said with a sigh.
“Your mother will have to pick a substitute,” he said pragmatically. “But she will have to choose carefully. Everyone eventually resents a lottery, but unless someone volunteers, it may be the only way.”
I glared at him over the rim of my cup. “I’m actually looking for a way where nobody has to die.”
“And how do you expect to manage that miracle?”
“Magic?”
He didn’t look very impressed. “Let me know how that goes.”
Damn. I’d been really hoping he’d tell me all about some ancient spell he’d heard about or some fragment of myth or legend that I could go on. His flat-out disbelief made me lose hope. “I’m screwed, aren’t I?”
A bold sparrow fluttered down to peck at the squashed mulberries that stained the sidewalk.
Luis’s eyes crinkled like a kindly old man talking to a deluded teen. “Don’t you think if the witches had a secret, magical alternative to blood sacrifice, they’d use it?”
Maybe it was the caffeine kicking in or his slightly patronizing tone, but I sat up a bit straighter. “It’s possible no one’s considered it before, you know. Tradition, tradition!” I half sang. “Vampires and witches aren’t exactly big on change. All you ever hear is ‘It’s been done this way for thousands of years.’ My dad doesn’t even own a cell phone or have cable TV. What the hell does he know of possibilities?”
Luis
nodded, as if considering. Then he smiled. “Maybe there’s an app for that, eh?”
“Ha.”
He stood up and brushed his palms on his pants. “Listen, Ana. I don’t mean to be rude, but I couldn’t care less what you do about your hunt problem as long as this wedding goes off. It sounds as if you may be having some kind of internal crisis right now with your people, so I won’t expect you to cover the cost of the wedding or provide a dowry beyond the captain’s reputation and whatever goods and services he brings to the table. We can just take him home with us as soon as you release him.”
A dowry? Was he being serious? I tilted my head to look up at him. Prince Luis, as always, had a serious expression. I wondered if he ever smiled when he wasn’t trying to soften someone up for a deal.
I sighed and nudged at a mulberry stain with my bare toe. I couldn’t believe it was coming to this. Elias married? And to some vampire dude? It was too weird.
“He’s not really mine to give away,” I said dejectedly. I didn’t really want Elias to leave, but if he wanted to, how could I stop him? I frowned at my cup. “Why is this marriage so important?”
“Confarreatio,” he corrected. Then he said, “You have your problems; we have ours.”
“And this confarreatio thingie is going to fix your problems?”
“Partly,” he said. He studied me for a long moment, and then for whatever reason, seemed to decide that it was okay to tell me more. “Constantine will help a lot, honestly. We lost so much in the hurricane. My people are scattered, some gone forever, and we need to regroup. The East is spoiling for another war, and we won’t survive it without a strong military presence. Having someone like Constantine on our side will help tip the balance.”
“Because he’s a vampire killer?”
Luis’s eyebrows
jumped in surprise, but his voice betrayed none of it. “Just so.”
“I don’t want him to go,” I admitted.
“I understand it must be difficult,” Luis said. “But don’t misunderstand me, Princess. This is serious business. If you try to back out, we will fight. We will have to.”
“Even though—,” I started, but he cut me off.
“Yes, even though,” he said. “Because if my people can’t have a wedding, they will want a fight—a cause to unite us.”
I figured Luis would use that vague threat as an opportunity to leave.
Instead, he stood over me, frowning. “You care for Constantine, don’t you?”
“Duh.” What can I say? It was rude. I was exhausted, emotionally and physically.
“At first I thought he was your mother’s lover. Now I see he is yours.”
Lovers? I shook my head at the old-fashioned word. “Not really like that.” I felt the need to explain. “We used to be betrothed, but that was because I bit him once, during a fight … uh, not with him, but, anyway, my dad dissolved all that.”
“You’re blood-bonded?”
I leaned
back on my elbows to look up at Luis’s shocked expression. Why did I get the feeling that he was about to tell me something else about vampire culture I should have known? “I don’t know what that means.”
Sunlight reflected in his bright green eye, making it flash silver. “Did he give his blood freely, or did you take it?”
I tried to remember. I was pretty sure I’d asked before I bit him. “Freely … ?”
“Crap.” With that pronouncement, Luis sat down next to me again with a thump. He cradled his head in his hands as if he were the one with the sudden headache. Then he actually said, “Ai-yi-yi.”
“What? Is that bad?”
He peeked at me in disbelief through interlocked fingers. Lifting his head, he said, “A confarreatio isn’t going to last very long if you’re blood-bonded to someone else, is it?”
“I have no idea,” I said in all honesty. “I mean, I thought love had nothing to do with it.”
“It doesn’t, but the only thing more impossible to dissolve than a confarreatio is a blood bond.” His head dropped back into his hands. “This sucks.”
A smile twitched on my lips. I quickly hid it behind my cup. It was kind of awesome that every time I thought Elias was gone for good, another roadblock popped up.
But why hadn’t anyone mentioned this blood-bond thing? I’d only bitten Elias in front of a zillion witnesses during a fight between my parents and their various minions at the farmers’ market. I used to think that Dad kept things from me out of neglect or disinterest. Now I suspected it was intentional.
The gunk
on my jeans had congealed, cold and stiff. “Does that mean the wedding is off again?”
Luis pulled his head up quickly. “No. I’m sure there’s some historical precedent. The alliance doesn’t need to be jeopardized just because of a romantic mistake.”
He seemed to be trying to convince himself more than anyone else. “Okay, but what about Captain Cre—I mean, your captain? What if he finds out?”
“He won’t, will he?” Luis gave me a meaningful, threatening look. “Not until after the contract is settled. Then it’s between the two of them what happens next.”
“I hate to tell you this, but it happened in public.”
“If no one objects at the ceremony, it will be fine. You just have to make sure no one objects.”
So it was my responsibility to keep everyone hushed? Awesome, considering I didn’t really want Elias stuck in this weird political marriage. But if I didn’t, we’d have war. Given the state of my dad’s kingdom, that would be little more than a complete massacre.
I sneered at my nearly empty coffee container. “So you don’t really care what happens after the wedding, so long as the confarreatio goes through, huh?”
“I don’t. As prince, I’m obligated only to make arrangements and perform the ceremony. After that …” He shrugged.
I wondered what the ceremony would be like. Mom said something about cake, so was it like a regular wedding? Did the priest ask the groom to bite the bride—or the other groom? I was guessing not, since this whole blood-bond thing seemed superspecial. “Did you say you’re performing the ceremony?” I asked.
Luis gave me a
look as if I must be the stupidest vampire princess on the planet. “Of course. Your father must have done them when he was … feeling better. Surely you’ve had confarreatio here in the north?”
Hell, I’d never even heard the term before now. I shook my head. My back prickled with the growing heat and the constant pressure from the wards. My mocha was nearly empty. I swirled the remainder around the container.
Luis was shaking his head as if arguing with himself silently. Maybe he was trying to figure out how we survived up here in the north with a princess as dumb as me in charge. I might as well complete his assessment of me, by asking one last question: “Why are you embarrassed about being a dhampyr—or half vampire or whatever the polite term is?” I asked.
“I am a vampire,” he said, stiffly. “Dhampyr is the term for someone like us who hasn’t chosen a path.”
“Oh, you mean like me.”
Again, I seemed to have shocked him on some very deep, profound level. He actually jerked away slightly, as though I had announced I had the plague and he was afraid he’d catch it.
“How old are you?” he demanded.
“Sixteen, almost seventeen,” I said, confused by the sudden line of questioning.
“Your sixteenth birthday has already passed?”
“That’s what going on seventeen usually means,” I agreed, kind of perversely enjoying watching his face contort.
“You decided to be a witch,” he decided suddenly.
“No,” I corrected. “I decided to be neither, or, maybe, both.”
“It’s unheard of,” he said, and he made some gesture with his hands. Was he making a vampiric sign against the evil eye or something? “You have two animuses?”
What the hell was that? It sounded like “hippopatomuses” or some other ridiculous made-up word. “What are you talking about? Why are you so freaked out? It’s actually kind of cool. I get all the vampire superpowers, plus I can still practice a bit of magic, though I need blood to do it.”
“You’re an abomination.”
Well, okay then. That sort of ended the constructive part of the conversation. I’d have been hurt if I’d actually cared what he thought of me. I stood up and made a show of straightening my shirt. “Thanks for that lovely assessment, but I have things to do, people to see, so you can go screw yourself. ’Kay? Bye-bye now.”
Even though the wards stung like a slap, I walked to the door without hesitation and let myself in. I left him staring, openmouthed at my back. What a jerk. I couldn’t believe I wasted all that time talking to him when I could have been napping, especially since we ended up where we started with Elias. I hadn’t resolved the stupid confarreatio problem, nor was I any closer to figuring out how to deal with the hunt, my dad’s madness, or any of it. I could just cry.
I braced myself against the wall near the open staircase and took a breath. It came in jagged, and I felt my muscles start to shake. I’d managed to suppress my emotions long enough to try to get information out of Luis, but, now that he was gone, everything started to surface again. If I thought about it too hard, I thought I might break. Instead, I concentrated on breathing and emptied my mind. It was the only way I was going to stay focused, and I needed to stay on target. I couldn’t let myself break down.
As far as I
knew, Elias and I might be the only fully functional vampires right now. And he wasn’t doing that great either. In this case, maybe being exiled actually helped him. But who knew how long he could hold out? It might be down to me.
Once I felt more in control, I dashed up the stairs to the bathroom. I started the water and stripped out of my pants. At least the stuff no longer looked like blood. Dust and road grit had covered all the spatters, and it appeared as if I’d been rolling in mud more than gore.
Still, the jeans were a disaster. I didn’t think even a power wash would save them. At least they weren’t favorites. I wadded them up and stuffed them into the garbage can.
Hot steam filled the room. Exhaustion swept over me. I felt so worn down, I wanted to sob. When I looked in the mirror, the feeling doubled. I had a big blue bruise on my shoulder where the Igor had hit me with the broomstick. My cheek was scratched. I looked like I’d been in some kind of crazy fight and lost—big-time.
The tub was nearly filled, so I stripped out of the rest of my clothes. I lowered myself in gingerly, the heat reminding me of all the other injuries I’d sustained.
What was I
going to do about my dad? I wanted to just ignore the whole thing and focus on figuring out how to stop Elias’s wedding, but Elias was starving too. … He wouldn’t even make it to the ceremony if I didn’t solve the problem of the hunt first.
I pulled myself out of the water and leaned over to where the radio sat on the far shelf. I flicked it on. The robotic voice of the National Weather Service told me today’s high was expected to be eighty-seven, with ninety-percent humidity. Blurgh. I rolled the dial over to the music station and nudged the volume up a little. I knew Mom was still asleep, but I was kind of hoping to wake her. I had a lot I needed to talk to someone,
anyone
magical about. Mom was rarely my first choice as a sounding board, but, well, she might actually know something about the hunt and what exactly the vampires needed from it. Despite Luis’s nay-saying, I still held out hope of some magic spell that might satisfy their need to kill.
I was forced to sing along with several songs—very loudly—before I heard my mother stir.
“Why can’t you sleep in like most teenagers!?” A pillow smacked the door of her room, and I had to chuckle. She sounded like the petulant kid in our relationship. I was draining the tub and had put on a terry cloth robe when she knocked on the bathroom door.
She squinted at me with bleary eyes. “Seriously, when I was your age I slept in until noon during the summer.”
“If it’s any consolation, I haven’t been to bed yet.”
She grunted. “A little.”
I got out of her way and went to my room to get dressed. I didn’t think I’d be spelunking through any vampire caves anytime soon, so I opted for cutoffs and a tank top. The bruise on my shoulder looked purple under the white strap, so I grabbed a loose, cotton shirt. I hoped if I left it open and unbuttoned, I wouldn’t get too hot.