I wasn't. Neither was Gretchen, who looked as ill at ease as I felt. Our father had been a career military man, so we'd grown up in modest surroundings that frequently varied depending on his change of duty stations. When I struck out on my own at eighteen, I'd scrounged for jobs that didn't involve technology or touching people - and all decent-paying jobs required one or the other. If I hadn't met Marty and joined his traveling carnival act, I might have ended up on the streets.
I certainly wouldn't have wound up at Vlad's, smiling at strangers through a sea of crystal glasses that servants filled with a dark red liquid too thick to be wine. Those same servants then brought out enough food to feed everyone twice over despite Gretchen and I being the only humans. Nerves had stolen my appetite but I dug in with feigned gusto, wondering when Vlad would reveal the true purpose behind this occasion. He didn't invite over two dozen people to his house merely to show off. Vlad was many things, but pretentious wasn't one of them.
The bombshell behind this event dropped during dessert. I'd just helped myself to a spoonful of bourbon butterscotch creme br?lee when Vlad stood and all chatter stopped.
"Thank you all for coming," he said in the sudden silence. "As you are either friends or honored members of my line, I wanted each of you to witness my actions now."
Then he moved behind my chair, resting his hand on my shoulder. I resisted the urge to twist around so I could see him. What's going on? I thought nervously.
He ignored the question. "Most of you know that Leila has been my lover for the past few months. In addition, she also risked her life to save my people and demonstrated unwavering loyalty even during torture. Because of her great value to me, I now offer her an eternal bond, if she accepts."
Then he leaned down, breath warm on my neck as he whispered his next words. "You've wondered if I felt differently about you since your abilities diminished. Let this serve as your answer."
I caught a glimpse of his scarred hand before he placed a small velvet box in front of me. My heart started to pound while my mind overloaded with shock and joy. At the far end of the table, I heard Gretchen gasp. Out of all possible reasons behind the surprise fancy dinner, I hadn't expected this. Things had indeed changed between us, in the best way possible.
"Vlad, I . . ."
Coherent thought and words might have failed me, but my motor skills didn't. With hands trembling from joy, I slowly opened the ebony box.
Gretchen rocketed out of her chair to come toward me. At some point, happy tears must've sprung to my eyes because the box's content was blurry. Still, I could make out a ring. An avalanche of happiness swept over me. It wasn't until now that I realized how much I loved Vlad and how fervently I'd hoped that he loved me, too. I blinked to see the ring more clearly . . . and then my elation became tempered with confusion.
Maximus caught Gretchen's arm before she reached me, but she was still close enough to get a look inside the box.
"You cheapskate, that's not a diamond!" she announced with her usual tactlessness. "What kind of engagement ring is that?"
I'd wondered at his choice, too, since I recognized the ring as a replica of the heirloom that had been passed down from Vlad's father to him. No matter, I'd cherish any engagement ring he gave me. Besides, maybe proposing with a replica was a Dracul family tradition -
"It's not an engagement ring," Vlad replied crisply to Gretchen. "It's the symbol of membership in my line. All the vampires I've made carry one."
At those words, my ecstatic jumble of thoughts crystallized into one heartrending realization: He's not proposing. He's only offering to make you a vampire!
Vlad straightened and his hand left my shoulder. He'd heard that. With how it had roared across my mind, he'd have to be telepathically deaf to have missed it.
I knew I should sing something to keep him from hearing anything else, but I couldn't think up a single verse. My pride screamed at me to act as though I hadn't misunderstood, yet all I could do was clutch that box while my previous joy turned to ashes. Nothing had changed except Vlad thought my humanity needed an upgrade, and he'd decided to inform me of that with a roomful of vampires as witnesses.
I glanced up. Our guests' gazes skipped away with pitying quickness while their uncomfortable shifting told me Vlad wasn't alone in figuring out my misinterpretation. If I hadn't felt as though my heart had been ripped out and flambeed in front of me, I would have been mortified.
Gretchen's voice broke the loaded silence. "You want Leila to become a vampire? That is so creepy!"
"Maximus," Vlad bit out.
The brawny vampire had Gretchen hoisted up with his hand over her mouth before I could blink. Normally, such handling of my sister would've incensed me. At the moment, I was trying too hard to pull myself together to respond.
"Leila," Vlad began.
"Don't."
The word snapped out with all the force of my shattered hopes. I got up, almost overturning my chair, but it was either get out of here now or burst into tears, and I still had enough pride not to do that in front of everyone.
"I need some air," I muttered.
And some razors to finish the job you started when you were sixteen, my hated inner voice supplied.
I ignored that, blasting the first song that came to mind to hide my thoughts. It turned out to be "Taps."
Figures.
Then I left as fast as my new high heels could carry me.
Chapter 4
I went straight to the small, rubber-lined room in the basement level that Vlad had set up for me. Once inside, I yanked off my right glove. As soon as I did, electricity spat out of my hand in sizzling strands as the emotions I tried to control manifested in miniature energy bolts. I gathered those currents into a single pulsating rope and then whipped it toward the stone statue in the room.
Its head came off, bouncing onto the base it was welded to. Another snap of currents and the statue lost an arm. Then the other arm. Then everything above the waist, yet my seething hurt, disappointment, and humiliation didn't lessen. Instead, I felt like I could go nuclear at any moment.
I didn't stop lashing the statue until it lay in dozens of ragged pieces. Before Vlad, I'd only worked to suppress my power, much as I'd done with the loneliness that came from my inability to touch anyone without harming them.
Vlad had changed all that. He taught me to turn my abilities into an asset and awakened feelings in me I'd never thought to experience. He was more than my first lover. He was also my first love, yet I'd let myself fall too deeply. Despite all the warnings, I'd dared to hope that one day, he might feel the same way about me. This is where that hope had led me: to a basement, taking out my crushed dreams on an inanimate object.