Sleeping Beauty (21 page)

“Leave Thunder alone.” She drew back her stake.“If you don't want human blood, then go back across the mountains and get your blood in Sanguinia.” She didn't fully believe his claims and, as the only one awake, she had to defend her family, these animals, and herself.

“I'd eat at home if I could.” He looked down, ashamed. “I lost my job. And when the queen came into power, she canceled the blood stamps program, so I have no money to eat. The farm animals in Sanguinia are guarded at night, and if I get caught stealing blood there, I'll end up in jail. A friend told me if I crossed the mountains it'd be easy to get a free meal in Xandra.”

“You cruel, cruel thing, killing defenseless animals.”

“I don't
kill
them.” The vampire looked genuinely offended. “Why would I kill my food source?” He leaned back against the stall's wall. “If you want cruel, talk to the vampires who drink human blood.”

“How do I know you're not one?”

He made a face.“No self-respecting vampire bites humans. I've never even tasted human blood, but”—he leaned forward and flicked his tongue on his fang—“if you don't leave me alone, I might try a taste.”

A shiver traced through her, but she refused to show fear. She'd trained to kill vampires, to defend her kingdom, and she wasn't going to back down. “You're lying,” she said. “Vampires do drink human blood. Innocent people in my kingdom are attacked every night.”

He shrugged.“There's money in drinking Xandran blood. Especially around the palace.”

Lucette gasped. “If you want to live, you'd better explain.”

“Not unless you lower your stake.”

“Not a chance.” She raised her stake even higher and she struck her strongest fighting stance.

“Okay, okay.” He held up his hands. “Someone in Sanguinia is paying vampires to attack Xandrans, especially around the palace. They pay extra if you prove you've taken blood from a member of the royal family.”

Startled, Lucette accidentally banged the back end of her stake against the wall behind her, and Thunder reared up.

Fear raced through her. Her family was in danger—big danger. This vampire claimed he didn't plan to bite her, but he had no idea she was the princess. He'd admitted he needed money. This was not the time to show weakness, so to quell her trembling she gripped her stake harder.

To cleanse the fear from her voice, she drew a deep breath before speaking. “How would vampires prove they've fed from the royal family?”

“They bring back a blood sample. Whoever's behind this knows the royals' scents.”

It was the vampire queen. It had to be. Anyone who would curse a small baby must be insane with anger and hatred. And for some
unknown reason, all that malice was targeted at her, at her parents. As if the curse weren't enough. The vampire queen wanted to see her dead, too.

Suddenly, Lucette felt sick and she bent over, sucking in air, trying to regain her composure, but the smell of horse urine rose up from the straw and sent her into another round of nausea.

Thunder whinnied, and she straightened. But she was too late. The starving vampire had taken advantage of her distraction and attached itself to the vein in Thunder's neck. Without thinking, she stepped onto an upturned bucket, vaulted over Thunder, and brought her stake down into the vampire's back.

The vampire slumped to the floor. She kept her stake raised in case her first strike hadn't hit the vampire's heart. No chance was this creature going to do any more damage on her grandfather's estate.

From the barn floor, the vampire shrieked and looked up at her with terror in its eyes. Its body shook violently and its eyes turned back in its head. After a few horrifying seconds, it was dead.

Lucette's entire body shook. What had she done? Yes, this vampire had threatened to bite her, had bitten her grandfather's favorite horse, but did that mean it had deserved to die? Had the creature been telling the truth when it claimed it hadn't ever tasted human blood?

She'd never know the answer because she'd killed it.

She'd killed
him
. She'd killed a living, breathing creature.

Lucette backed up a few steps and collapsed onto the straw-covered floor. Somehow taking a vampire's life hadn't yielded the rush of pride she'd always assumed it would. And now, unsure she could ever kill a vampire again, she knew for certain that her family was in grave danger.

When Lucette's grandfather came in from burying the vampire, his hair was damp from rinsing himself under the garden pump. Arms crossed, he stood on the other side of the kitchen table. Lucette pulled her feet up onto the chair and hugged her knees. After the danger she'd faced and the horror of taking the vampire's life, she could deal with whatever scolding she now faced.

Her grandfather spread his large hands on the table. “You should have woken me, Lucette. You should not have taken on that monster by yourself.”

Lucette bit her lip. She'd been thinking the exact same thing, but coming out of her grandfather's mouth, the words sounded patronizing, so she straightened her back and squared her shoulders. “I've trained as a slayer. Have you?”

Her grandfather's face remained calm, but his eyebrows drew closer together. “Young lady, princess or not”—his voice was deep and low—“you will not talk back to me. Not while you are living in my house.”

Lucette dropped her feet to the floor and her cheeks burned. “I'm sorry.” She kept her eyes on the blue and white checks of the tablecloth. Everything about this place had seemed a paradise, and now it was ruined. Ruined by her. Ruined by that vampire. Ruined by the stink of his death.

Her grandfather pulled out a chair and its legs scraped along the stone floor. He sat opposite her. “Sweetheart, even with your training, going outside alone at night was reckless. You might have been bitten or killed.”

“I thought you said you didn't get vampires out here.”

“Not ones who go after humans,” he said. “There's never been a human vampire bite in these parts.” He drew a deep breath. “Foolish as it was, what you did was also brave.” He pressed his big hands into his knees and leaned forward. “I thank you, and Thunder thanks you, too.”

She kept her eyes down.“I don't think he drank much of Thunder's blood, but some venom will have been transferred.” Her head snapped up. “Has he been bitten before?”

Her grandfather ran his fingers through his red hair, and a few gray strands sparkled in the early morning light. “No—thankfully. One small mercy is the vampires who attack my animals don't seem intelligent enough to strike the same animals three times.”

“Or,” Lucette interrupted, “they're intelligent enough not to kill their food source.”

“Hogwash.” Her grandfather frowned. “Has that father of yours been filling you with his ridiculously liberal ideas about vampires?”

Lucette realized where some of her mother's misconceptions about vampires had come from. She wasn't sure of everything, but she did know vampires weren't dumb creatures. “Gramps, I believe vampires have as much intelligence as we do. In fact, the first time I met one, I mistook him for human.”

Her grandfather stood sharply and his chair skidded back on the floor. “You've been cavorting with vampires?”

“Cavorting?” Lucette wasn't even sure she knew what that meant.

His expression darkened. “I should have insisted that Catia bring you here years ago. With all the trouble he caused in this family, I knew Stefan was not a man who could be trusted to keep his family safe—king or not.”

Anxiety crept through Lucette. As if causing fights between her parents weren't bad enough, now she was throwing fuel on some feud between Gramps and her father, too. No wonder she hadn't spent much time with her grandparents before now. Still, she felt an overpowering need to defend her father.

“My father has done a lot to keep me safe. You have no idea. If he'd had his way, I'd have never trained with a slayer or met a vampire. I disobeyed him, lied to him. He's very protective and knows how to keep his family safe.”

Her grandfather grunted. “Knows how to pit family members against each other is more like it.”

Lucette wanted to ask what he meant, but her mother entered the room.

“Isn't it a beautiful morning?” She smiled and stretched.“Lucette, I didn't even hear you get up.” She bent over to kiss her head. “Did you sleep well, darling?”

Sunlight streamed down over Lucette, heating her skin. She sat on a big rock in of one of her grandfather's fields and her eyes filled with tears as she reread the latest letter from her father. He was no longer begging her to change her mind and come home. In fact, he said he was glad she was away from the palace. The nightly vampire attacks had increased and intensified.

More and more, she believed what that vampire in the barn had said was true. He'd had no reason to lie.
He.
She shook her head at how she now humanized these creatures. Since that night, she could
no longer think of a vampire as an “it.” From what she'd seen, vampires were living, breathing, intelligent creatures, and she'd taken a life—
his
life. She'd done it to protect Thunder, but still, it hadn't seemed right. Clearly, she was not cut out to be a real slayer.

She folded the letter and slipped it into the pocket of her loose-fitting slacks. One bonus of living in the country was that no one seemed to mind if she dressed how she wanted, so she chose to dress like the farmhands, keeping her hair in a tight braid. She'd received a few winks and smiles from some of the men who worked on the estate, but even though her mother knew true love might prevent or end the curse, Catia seemed to consider all the men living here unworthy of Lucette. No wonder her mother hadn't married a local boy.

The thought made Lucette realize she'd never heard the story of how her parents met. Tonight she'd ask her mother, and see if maybe she would be more willing to talk about her late sister than her grandmother had been. Right now, Lucette planned to take a long walk up to the hills and visit the shepherds guarding the grazing sheep. She'd been here nearly a month now, and it was time to make friends.

Her breathing grew heavier as she got higher into the hills, and she inhaled deeply the scents of the grasses and wildflowers that grew in the fields. Her grandfather had shown her drawings and pressed versions of every species that had prickles. He'd done his best to remove them all from the property, but as he'd told her, it was impossible to rid the countryside of every raspberry, every thistle, every wild rosebush.

Reaching the top of a hill, Lucette stretched her gloved hands up to the bright blue sky. Not even the horror of killing that vampire, or the reports of attacks in her father's letter, could dampen her fabulous mood on a day like today. She shielded her eyes with her hand and
spotted the flock down in the valley, where some of the sheep were drinking from the creek. The shepherds sat atop the hill opposite her, and she waved, but they clearly didn't see her because they didn't wave back.

Filled with fresh air, sunshine, and joy, she started down the hill, then had a wild idea to roll down it. As long as she made sure her gloves were on tightly, what could it hurt? Excitement coursed through her as she stopped and sat on the grass. It might be slightly reckless, but really, what could happen? She tugged on her gloves and tightened the ties that kept them snug around her wrists, then she turned to the side, stretched out, and let herself roll.

“Whee!” The grass rushed past her with each revolution. She bumped her knee on a rock, then another dug into her back, but as long as her fingers remained prick-free, a few small bruises would be worth it for this exhilarating fun.