Sleeping Beauty (3 page)

“Lucette!” Her mother sprang out of the bed and strode over, her long nightdress shining in the moonlight.“ What was that noise? What
are you doing out of bed?” The queen, nearly five inches shorter than her daughter, grabbed the young girl's shoulders.

The door to their room slammed open and in strode King Stefan, followed by six royal guardsmen. “Catia, what is going on in here?” he demanded.

“Nothing, Dad,” Lucette answered, before her mother could. She hid her hands behind her back. “It's not Mom's fault. I just knocked something over.”

“Catia,” Stefan yelled, “ how could you let this happen?”

Her mother pulled her long blonde braid to the side and reached for her robe. “Will you please ask the guards to leave my daughter's bedroom?”

Stefan nodded to the guards and they stepped back into the hall.

While her father's attention was focused on her mother and the guards, Lucette grabbed her gloves from atop the vanity table and slipped them on before her father could notice her bare hands.

“Dad.” Lucette walked up to her father, took his hand, and looked up into his eyes, wishing she were still small enough to jump into his arms. “It's no big deal, really.”

He pressed a kiss into her forehead, then turned back toward her mother. “If you can't handle the responsibility of keeping our daughter safe at night—” He paused and rubbed his stubbled chin.

“Stefan,” said her mother, her voice calm but stern, “she's perfectly safe.”

Her father dropped her hand and stepped toward her mother. Lucette's chest tightened.
Don't fight. Don't fight. Please don't fight.

“Catia,” her father said, “it's bad enough you don't enforce the safety rules when I'm not around—don't think I don't hear about it—but I
can't believe you let her leap about the room at all hours of the night. There are dangers everywhere in the dark.” He narrowed his eyes. “If you can't handle it, we'll hire someone to watch our daughter while she sleeps.”

Lucette felt sick. Her father wanted to hire strangers to watch her sleep? This was over the top. “No, Dad! Please! Mom keeps me really safe at night. She'd never let anything happen.”

“Your mother proved to me long ago that she can't be trusted.”

“Stefan.” Catia's cheeks burned red and Lucette fought back tears. “Your extreme measures are highly unnecessary. Until she's sixteen—”

The king raised his hand and Catia stopped.

It wasn't the first time Lucette had heard references to her turning sixteen, and she couldn't wait until she reached that magical age. It must be the age at which her parents would consider her old enough to take care of herself. Maybe when she turned sixteen she'd be able to do things like walk down a flight of stairs without holding an adult's hand, use a pencil, and cut her own food—things most four-year-olds were allowed to do. She knew she was a princess, but her parents, especially her father, treated her like glass.

He was so obsessed with protecting her, especially her hands, claiming she needed to develop good safety habits for the future. It all seemed crazy. Good safety habits for what? No teenager or adult she knew wore gloves or protected their hands so well.

Her mother patted the bed. “Lucette, get under the covers and go back to sleep. I need to talk to your father.”

Lucette did as she was told, turned onto her side, and pulled the covers partially over her head. Closing her eyes, she pretended to fall back to sleep as her parents continued to argue outside the bedroom door.

A tear slid onto her pillow. She was always causing arguments between her parents. She tried not to, but it was like a curse with her—as if everything she did or said drove disagreements between them like stakes. Everyone else in the palace seemed to hold her responsible for the king and queen's bad relationship, too. They were all so cold to her—no one even looked her in the eye.

She had to be more careful, to pay more attention to what she said and did. Maybe if she were really good, her parents wouldn't fight.

A few months later, Lucette rolled over onto her back, atop the thick pile of animal skins on which she'd been instructed to stay. Utterly bored, she stared at the night sky.

It was bad enough that—after offering her a rare night outside the palace—her parents had brought her to this dull concert of the slowest, most tedious music she'd ever heard. To add insult to injury, they'd insisted it be a private concert, claiming Lucette could not be exposed to crowds. Some treat. Even while traveling to the concert, held in a huge grassy field surrounded by woods, she'd been bundled up in the back of a padded carriage. She was barely able to breathe in the heat of the warm summer night.

What did they imagine would happen if she were seen in public? Barely anyone in the kingdom even knew what she looked like, and even if her parents didn't want to take her to a public concert, would it have been so horrible to bring along some other members of the palace household, or some of their kids? Even Gloria and Heather, who barely talked to her, would be better than this. But no, it was just
the three of them in a huge, grassy field with the orchestra fifty feet away on a clamshell-shaped stage.

Maybe if her parents had other children they wouldn't be so overprotective, but the few times Lucette had asked about that, it had opened more of a rift between them. And now that she had learned how babies were made—well, given how little time her parents spent together, especially at night—Lucette wasn't banking on a little sister or brother to take off the pressure of being an only child anytime soon.

She studied her parents, who'd risen from their chairs to talk—more likely to argue—then she turned toward the woods at the edge of the grassy clearing, imagining what it would be like to walk through a forest. In the stories she read, kids often played among the trees, and Gloria and Heather had shown her drawings of flowers and animals they'd seen there. Tiny lights flitted around in the darkness. Startled, she sprang to her feet. The lights flitted and dove, as if they were chasing each other. Fireflies! She'd read about them in her books. If only she could actually see one up close.

She looked back toward her parents. Her mother's slender arms were crossed tightly over her chest, and her father towered above his wife like an angry mountain.

Lucette's parents were absorbed in their argument, so sure of their obedient daughter that they probably wouldn't even look back at her until the music was over. And the boring music showed no signs of stopping.

A rush of adrenaline flooded through her. If she bunched up the fur and put one of the cashmere coverlets on top, they might assume she'd fallen asleep on the blanket if they glanced back to check.

She scanned the area. Some guards were chatting, and others were looking for approaching intruders. Keeping one eye on her parents,
she built her decoy, and then stepped off the blankets onto the grass.

She took one step—two, three, four—then turned to look over her shoulder. Her parents hadn't noticed her, so she ran faster toward the woods, joyous at the feel of the dew splashing up onto her ankles and the fresh night air filling her lungs.

As she entered the forest, wonderful musty, mysterious scents swarmed around her. Moonlight filtered through the trees, and the fireflies seemed even brighter, but in spite of the warm night, a chill traced down her spine.

It was the first time in her life she'd ever been truly alone. It felt pretty great, but also scary. What if there were vampires? Big, horrible bloodthirsty vampires!

She blinked, hoping her eyes would adjust more quickly to the darkness. Then, seeing a group of fireflies whirling around a tree, she bounded toward them, but they were too fast. The fireflies wound down through some underbrush, so she cautiously walked forward, not wanting to scare them away. Placing her hand on the trunk of a tree, another rebellious idea flashed into her head. What would the surface of the bark feel like without gloves? After checking behind her to make sure her father hadn't followed, she slipped off one glove and placed the tips of her fingers onto the bark. Hard. Rough.

A twig snapped above her. Heart racing, she slipped her glove back on and looked up. An owl flew between two trees. Scolding herself for being frightened of a bird, she tried to shake the uneasiness inside her. If she were a slayer, she'd never feel fear.

She needed a weapon. Scrounging in the underbrush, she selected a fallen branch. It certainly wasn't as strong as a proper stake, and probably wasn't sharp enough to pierce a vampire's chest—if she even
had the skills to do so. Still, she felt better armed.

“Are you lost?” a male voice asked. Lucette jumped back, almost tripping over a large fallen branch behind her.

She froze. “Who's there? Go away!” Her heart galloped. “If you hurt me, you'll be in big trouble!”

A pale, red-haired boy, not much older than she was from the look of him, stepped out from between two trees a few feet away.

She raised her stake—doing all she could to keep her hand from shaking.

He chuckled. “Don't worry, I'm not going to hurt you.” He stepped into the light of a moonbeam. He was skinny and tall, at least four inches taller than she was, and his skin was so pale that it appeared to glow.

“My name's Alexander,” he said. “But you can call me Alex. What's yours?”

“Lucette.” Her voice came out lower than she'd expected, and wanting to hide her fear, she threw her shoulders back and raised her chin. “And you'd better not mess with me.”

He raised his hands, palms out.“ I surrender!” He grinned mockingly and pointed at her small branch. “What've you got there?”

“A stake.”

“What for?”

“Slaying vampires. What else?”

“Really.” He stepped forward slowly until he was close enough that she could touch him with the makeshift stake. Another step and she could touch him with her hand.

“Funny, you don't look like a murderer.” He smirked.

“Don't make fun of me.” She stepped back and furrowed her brow.

“So you're not a murderer?”

She thrust her chin out. “It's not murder to slay a vampire.”

“Really? Why not?” He leaned against a tree.

“Because it's not murder to defend yourself against an evil, bloodsucking monster, that's why.”

He cocked his head to the side. “What makes you think vampires are evil monsters?”

“Everyone knows that.” According to her mother, anyway.

“Name one thing that makes vampires evil.” One corner of his mouth turned up and he crossed one leg in front of the other as he leaned against the tree. His casual manner was both calming and annoying, his confidence fascinating. She felt oddly comfortable with him, as if something about him seemed familiar. Still, he was misguided about vamps.

“Vampires bite people's throats, suck their blood out, and kill them.”

“Not true.” He held up a finger. “First, it takes three bites to transfer enough venom to kill, not just one. But more to the point”—he dropped his hand—“most vampires never bite animals, never mind humans.”

Lucette crossed her arms over her chest. “You don't know what you're talking about. I know all about vampires. I've seen them attacking slayers outside the—outside my house.” She didn't want him to know she lived in the palace.

He twisted his shoe in some dead leaves and looked down. “So, you'd condemn an entire species by the actions of a few?” He looked up. “Drinking human blood is gross.”

“No kidding.” She loosened her grip on her branch, as all the conflicting information she'd heard about vampires swirled in her mind. “It's gross to us, but not to vampires. They live off blood, everyone knows that.”

“True, but most don't suck on living things to get it.” He twisted his lips in disgust, then tipped his head to the side. “Besides, do you eat meat?”

“Of course, but there's no comparison.” Lucette rolled her eyes. It wasn't like she killed the animals herself—with her teeth.

“You're right.” The boy crossed his arms over his chest. “There is no comparison. In fact, vampires are more compassionate than humans. Vampires live off animals, but they don't need to kill to get their nutrition. It's more like drinking milk.”

“But after three bites—”

“I already told you,” he said and stepped forward, “most vampires don't feed that way. It's so old-fashioned. In Sanguinia, blood comes from farms and it's bought at the market.”

“How do you know?” She'd never considered that vampires might feast on anything but necks—with a preference for human ones.