Royal Blood

Kolina Topel

For my children, Kailey and Austin. Thank you for making every day an adventure.

A very special thank you to Emily Joncas, for editing all of my mistakes (there were many), and standing beside me through months of “It’s not perfect yet” moments.

Alicia Dixon and Felicia Topel for being my guiding light, inspiration, and, at times, my motivation.

One

I have always been considered a pretty girl. Beautiful even perhaps, though I never really seemed to fit in with the so-called “beautiful people.” Not just them, though, I never really seemed to fit in anywhere.

I have lived all over the country, never staying in one place for more than a year and often less. I’ve met endless brands of people, studied different religions and hovered in several social circles, but I always wound up back in the one place I never really wanted to be—New Albany, Indiana.

Not that I don’t like the place I most often called home, it just felt empty like most other places do. I suppose it has its perks though. It is small enough to be considered “small town,” yet close enough to Louisville that there is usually somethingto do. There is one big reason that I always come back though—my mother.

My mother had traveled the world for several years before I was born. She is a very spontaneous woman who has a constant yearning for something and someplace new; driving tour buses for cruise lines in Mexico, training race horses in Florida, parasailing in California. She is much more outgoing and carefree than I have ever been. She settled down in New Albany some years before I was born and eventually met a man named Michael who would become my stepfather. He had two daughters of his own—Amber and Elizabeth. I’ve never met my real father. I was told he left when I was a baby.

Shortly after graduating from high school, I moved out of the house where my mother had raised me through all of my teen years, yet after three years of constant moving, my heart again began to yearn for home, for Mom, so I moved back.

This is where my story begins. This is when I became who and what I am—or at least figured it all out. It’s how I lost those close to me and discovered the truth about my past.

* * *

I was working a second-rate job at Wal-Mart and had been there for almost a year, making not much better than minimum wage. That didn’t bother me as much as my boss, Linda, who always seemed intent on making my already long shifts hell. Unfortunately, I usually got stuck with second shift.

It was mid-January, which meant it was freezing cold outside. New Albany amazingly has absolutely freezing winters, even though there isn’t always a ton of snow. I stepped outside of work after a grueling eleven-hour shift and looked at my watch, 8 p.m. already—too late to call Mom for something to do.

I snarled at the cold as I walked to my car, and I finally began to realize I hadn’t eaten since lunch (thanks Linda). I decided to stop at the bank and take out ten of the last thirty or so dollars I had to my name to get some fast food before going home to my food-barren kitchen.

When I pulled up to the ATM to check my balance and reached for the slip of paper out of the machine, my mouth dropped almost as fast as the paper fell out of my hand. The balance—it wasn’t thirty dollars like I had expected. It was $674, 389!

I took out my card and put it back in. “There must be some mistake, there must be some mistake,” I kept thinking. The bank was closed for the day, naturally, so I couldn’t go in and question the teller.

Same thing, $674,389. I couldn’t breathe. I don’t know how long I sat there, seconds, minutes, maybe longer, but finally someone behind me honked, though I didn’t see any headlights approach. The horn scared me, and I took in a breath, feeling dizzy from the lack of oxygen to my brain. I took out my card again, not daring to touch any of my, er, that money, and I put the car in drive.

I didn’t close my mouth all the way home. I pulled into my spot and shut off my car. I just sat there. I don’t know how long. I think I forgot how to move my legs. Not until my teeth started chattering so violently they could have woken the dead did I regain composure. Was I cold? Huh. I couldn’t feel anything.

I sat there for a while longer. I closed my eyes and laid my head back to try to think.

Was this even possible? Where did it come from? What was the mistake? It had to be a mistake, obviously, but who in their right mind would misplace half a million…. I couldn’t even think it.

I would have to straighten this out. I would go to the bank tomorrow and—crap. It was Friday. My bank wasn’t open on the weekends.

“Breathe,” I told myself. And my mind was blank again.

Tap, tap, tap, tap. I jumped so hard my head hit the roof of the car with a thud. “Ow.” I looked out the window and saw Greg, one of my neighboring tenants, staring at me like I was insane. I might have been. I must have fallen asleep. I heard him mumbling through the glass, so I rolled down the window.

“What?” I asked icily.

“Are you drunk?” he asked again.

I looked around not having yet noticed the sky was lighting up just enough to know I’d slept there all night. Greg waited, but I forgot he was there before I even got the next thought in my mind.

I must have been dreaming. There is no way I—

“Hello?” he interrupted again.

“Oh, Sorry. N-no,” I stammered. “I fell asleep I think.”

“Well maybe you should go inside. It’s freezing out here and uh, you don’t look so good.”

“Right,” I murmured.

I got out and walked to my door, not saying another word. I could still feel his eyes boring into my back when I reached it. I walked into my chilly apartment (though it usually felt so warm to me) and shivered involuntarily when I walked in. I took off my jacket and shoes and walked to my bedroom, still too dazed to even think about the uh… mishap from yesterday and fell onto my bed with a loud thud. I stared at the wall until I finally fell into a restless and uneasy sleep.

* * *

It was dark, too dark. I had no idea where I was. I didn’t recognize any of the buildings around me. There didn’t seem to be anyone else in this small clutter of dirt roads and concrete buildings. No lights, no sounds, just nothingness. It was even darker outside the almost perfect oval shape of the city. Trees maybe? I couldn’t tell.

I called out in a weak voice, “Hello, is anyone there?” Silence. I turned around and was startled by a little girl standing about ten yards in front of me. She looked no more than about seven-years old, but it was dark, so I could barely see her face. She had on a black robe that was shadowing her face and drowning her body.

“Oh, hello,” I said again, a bit less intimidated this time.

She did not respond, so I inched my right foot forward and began to hold my hand out to the child. I stopped abruptly when she raised both of her hands to her hood and pulled it back. I gasped and stepped back when the face she revealed was mine. Me, seven-years old.

“I… I,” I couldn’t find words. I didn’t know why, but a creepy feeling came over me, and I tensed to run.

Seeing my subtle movement, the little girl opened her mouth slightly. The voice that came through was not one I recognized. It was not the voice of the sweet innocent face I stared at. It was the voice of a man, and he said three words; “It is time.”

Before I could even close my mouth, the little girl’s eyes turned blood red and she lunged right for me.

* * *

I don’t know if I woke from being rested or from the piercing scream that hurled up my throat. Something cool and wet was on my face. Tears. Tears? I don’t cry. The last time I cried I was eleven-years old and my grandfather had just passed away. Papaw and I were very close. His death had been very hard for me.

“That dream was so real…” I sobbed, though to whom I was talking to I was not absolutely sure. I sat with my arms around myself until the tears seemed drained, and a few moments later I sighed, disgusted with myself.

I was a reasonable person, never one to believe in all the horror stories and fantasies so many people get lost in. I was above that nonsense. Yet, here I was, crying like a baby over some dream. I had to snap out of it. I wouldn’t think of the dream again. I was sure.

I got up and went to the bathroom to wash my face of the traitor tears that still lingered there. Looking at my face in the mirror brought the dream back, brought her back, brought me back. I shuddered. What time was it? 10 a.m. already? I was supposed to have lunch with Mom at 11:30. I glanced in the mirror one more time, afraid of what I might see.

I told the girl in the mirror, “Get a hold of yourself,” and with that one simple statement, I put the dream, and the girl (I refused to think of that red-eyed monster as myself again) behind me and started my day.

“Shower first, and then I’ll call Mom,” I stated.

Out of the shower, I looked at the girl in the mirror and sighed. I still didn’t understand why at twenty two years of age I had yet to find my place in the world. I had done my fair share of “soul searching,” as they call it and had a strong sense of who I was, but I never knew many people that understood me. Of course, that was until I met Alex.

Alex and I had been friends since I was about thirteen. We were friends instantly, which pleased me immensely. Some bully at school felt it was a good idea to make fun of my ears, and Alex decided to make fun of his nose…. after he punched him in it. We were pretty much inseparable after that.

Even as a child, he was the most beautiful person I’d ever met, inside and out. He still is. It wasn’t until I came back about a year ago though that he had revealed his feelings for me. Just the thought of it brought a smile to my face.

* * *

The day he told me his feelings started out just like any other day. He came over on my day off of work as he always did. I opened the door to the same short, light brown, spiky, wild hair. The same big green eyes with a yellow, golden sparkle that danced around the inner circle, and a smile on the face that was always there for me. Perfect full lips hugged immaculate straight white teeth all surrounded by light, smooth and beautiful skin. Small dimples pierced his symmetrical oval face supported by a perfectly chiseled jaw.

He was wearing a button-up shirt under a tan sweater (that accented his skin so magnificently) and a faded pair of blue jeans. Leaning against my doorframe, he looked more like a model posing for a high-profile photo shoot than just one friend smiling at another. As it always did, my heart thudded at the mere sight of his angelic face.

“Hey, Chris.”

“Hey, Alexander,” I smiled.

I was the only one allowed to use his full name. Everyone else called him Alex. He rolled past me, whirling his scent throughout my mind. He always smelled of the same cologne I bought for him a few years earlier, and the scent made my head spin. He flopped down in his usual spot on my couch and flipped on the TV.

“So, whatcha wanna do today, Alex?”

“I don’t know. I thought we would just hang out here today.” His eyes darted once to my face, but stayed on the TV the rest of the time. I sighed. Another afternoon in my house with the perfect man.

I ran over and hopped on the couch next to him and snuggled up to his chest. It wasn’t exactly a romantic gesture though. We had always been that way. Anyone who saw us together always thought we were a couple.

We laid on the couch watching a lot of nothing on the television and chit-chatting. Besides Mom, Alex was the one person I could talk to and truly never shut up. I was always interested in what he had to say. He was the one person who knew as much about me as I did, maybe even more.

He jumped up mid-sentence and said he had to go to the bathroom. He picked up a small black bag I didn’t see him carry in and darted around the corner.

“Okay,” I stated about ten seconds too late. “Weird.”

He came back a moment later with a small, wooden box in his hands.

“Happy Valentine’s Day!” he exclaimed.

I smiled hugely, but it quickly turned into a frown. “But, I didn’t get you anything,” I pouted.

He sat next to me and shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. Will you be my valentine?” His eyes sparkled that devilishly handsome bright green and his face lit up.

This was a tradition all of our child years. He always asked me. Every year we traded valentines and he was mine and I was his—except of course the last three years that I was gone. I hesitated and he looked nervous.

“Come on, Chris. Don’t leave me hanging here….”

I giggled and took the box.

“Of course I will,” I smiled.

I noticed the box for the first time. It was a family heirloom he had once told me about. His father had given it to him the year before he died. Alex was fifteen. We were already best friends, but after I held his hands for the first hard three weeks after his father’s death, we were inseparable.

I took off the lid and my jaw dropped. Inside were a number of valentines, the kiddie kind. They were the very ones I had given him from the first Valentine’s Day we started our tradition to the very last.

“Christina Marie,” he looked deeply into my eyes, “I lost my valentine three years ago, and I decided this year I wasn’t going to let her go.” And then we had our first kiss.

* * *

He wasn’t the reason I came back to Indiana, well, not all of it, but he was the reason I stayed. Still to this day, I know in my heart there will never be another that I will love with the same intensity that I feel for him.

Of course I hadn’t seen him in over a week since he was in Texas visiting his mother. She remarried some years after his father passed away and followed her new husband there. He wouldn’t be back for two more weeks. I wanted so badly to tell him about my dream and about the money. Maybe he could help me make sense of it all. I couldn’t tell anyone else, nooooo way.

Although Alex phoned me regularly, I wouldn’t tell him until he came home. There was no reason to worry him. He would have just come home early, and I didn’t want him to miss out on his time with his mother. He had always been a bit protective of me, and he would be worried.

I was blow-drying my long, light brown hair (Mother had always loved my hair and never let me cut it) when my phone rang. I knew who it would be before I reached for it.

“Hey, Mom.”

“Hi, honey.”

“I was just getting ready. Are we still meeting at 11:30 at La Madeline for lunch?” La Madeline was our favorite restaurant. It’s a charming little Italian Bistro in town, and it was somewhat of a tradition to eat there often just the two of us.

“You haven’t been outside yet, have you?”

“No. Why, Mom? What’s up?”

“There is about a foot of snow outside, and I was calling to see if you wanted to try to go tomorrow instead.” My mother hated driving in the snow. She would never leave the house when there was snow on the ground if she didn’t have to.

“Oh. Umm, sure,” I said as cheerily as possible, but I knew my voice sounded off.

“You okay, honey?”

“Yeah, I’m fine, Mom, just had a long night. And I miss Alex,” I lied.

“You wanna talk about it?” Mom had always been, aside from Alex, the one person I could talk to about any of my problems, no matter what it was. She was my best friend. I couldn’t tell her about the dreams though, and definitely not about the money. She would flip out as badly as Alex would. Who was I kidding, who wouldn’t?

“No, Mom, it’s fine. I’ll just clean up the house a bit and finish reading my book.”

“Okay, Christina. I love you.”

“Love you too, Mom.”

“Same time tomorrow?”

“Yeah sure.”

“Okay, bye.”

“See ya.”

I fumbled my way through the next few hours trying to keep myself busy—laundry, dishes, dusting, vacuuming twice, and I finally gave up. I decided to finish reading A Farewell to Arms. I had a goal set for myself to read all of the books on the top 100 list of best books of our time, and with Alex gone, I was actually making pretty good progress. I read only a few pages when suddenly the images in my mind shifted.

* * *

I was back in that city, the oval city of dirt roads and concrete buildings. Again, it seemed totally abandoned. Fear consumed my body as I forced myself to slowly turn to see what I knew would be in front of me. And there she was, there I was, in the same robe as the last time, but with the hood pulled back. We stood staring at each other, but this time she didn’t speak.

“Who are you?” I whispered.

“It is time,” is all the booming male voice said.

“Time for what?” I yelled frantically.

Then, in a barely audible voice that sounded more like ringing bells than that of a child, she shrieked, “You must save us! You must come back!” and then bright red blood flowed from her eyes and she collapsed.

* * *

A loud ringing in my ears awoke me, and at first I didn’t realize it was me screaming. Again tears were flowed from my face. I was terrified.

Two

My head was pounding when my breath caught.

“Ugh, another headache,” I complained. I’d had them as long as I could remember.

I rolled over and closed my eyes, not daring to sleep again and stayed there the rest of the day. I didn’t know what else to do. My headaches were an unstoppable force of nature—the kind where you get the blurred vision and see spots and everything. An aura, I think they call it. I have been on every medication known to man and nothing helps. Just sleep and darkness.

I was startled when I woke to a dim light shining through my window. It was morning again. I sighed, relieved to have survived a night free of my nightmare.

* * *

Meeting Mom was uneventful, aside from the way her eyes studied my ever-bland appearance and my lack of a jacket, but the cold never really seemed to bother me as much as it did her.

See, while I was perfectly content with my average and typical blue-jean and a tank-top kind of appearance, accented by my boring but beautiful long hair, my mother was the exact opposite.

She has wild, but beautiful curly dark brown hair and stunning chocolate eyes, while mine are a light, almost fluorescent, blue. She has very tan skin and curves in all the right places, while I am much skinnier. She is also always dressed for a runway, a trait I obviously got passed by on the DNA train. All in all, I look nothing like her. She always tells me I look like my father, whom of course I have never met. I had never even seen a picture of him.

We talked about Alex and Michael, my stepfather, and she held me a little too long when we parted. I guess she sensed I wasn’t quite myself a little bit better than I wanted her to.

I went home in fear of what the night would bring, but I awoke again Monday morning from a restful night. I was hopeful I had put the girl behind me for good.

I was anxious to get back to the bank that morning. I rushed through my morning shower, didn’t even blow-dry my hair, had a quick bowl of cereal, and darted out the door as fast as possible. The whole way, I silently prayed I had dreamt the bank error. I pulled up to the ATM and my hands were shaking. I put my card in. Please, please, please….

“NO!” I shouted. Not possible, not possible. The amount wasn’t the same. Not even close. It was now $1,674,389! It was more. A lot more…

I pulled around to the front of the bank and idled for a while. How could it be more? Who was doing this to me? When I finally calmed, I opened the door and walked slowly into the bank. As I walked, I don’t know why, but I got angry. It wasn’t a normal emotion for me. I’m not a happy-go-lucky type of person, but I don’t let my emotions rule me either.

With each step, I was more infuriated than the last. I walked to the rear of the line and waited. And waited. I was growing impatient. Finally, I was at the front of the line and Emily, in her always bubbly and happy personality, greeted me in the same manner she always had.

“Good morning, Christina. What can I do for you today, honey?”

“Um, well, I have some questions about recent deposits to my account,” I stated.

“Okay. No problem.”

While she fumbled with the keys, she made small talk about the weather. I hardly noticed. I was concentrating on not letting the vein that was pulsing in time with my heartbeat pop out of my forehead. The look on her face brought sweat to my forehead and neck, and I dug my fingernails into my hands and bit my lip.

“Oh,” she exclaimed, “I see!” She glanced at me and back to the screen and back to me again. “What was your question, Christina?”

What was my question?! Was she kidding me?!

“Why are there one and a half million dollars in deposits in my account?” I asked bluntly.

“I don’t know.” She looked as confused as I felt.

“Well, where in the hell did it come from?” I almost shouted.

I saw the fear in her eyes, and I put my head down in retreat and took a breath. Why was I so angry? It was too much, all too much.

“It’s three separate deposits from a numbered account. This type of account is untraceable. It’s a foreign account.”

“Of course,” I snorted.

“Wait a minute. There is an address here in the note section of your account and instructions to give it to you before you access the deposits.” She looked at me bewildered. “I have never seen anything like this before…” she trailed off.

“Well…”

She started jotting down the address and then handed me the paper. Then I turned to walk.

“Is there anything else I can do for you, Christina?” she asked.

“Actually, yes,” I turned back. “I’d like to make a withdrawal.”

Whoever made this mistake wouldn’t notice if I took out one hundred dollars, would they? And I would go to this address and return the money right back to whomever it belonged.

I winced as she counted out the bills, “Twenty, forty, sixty, eighty, one hundred. Will there be anything else?”

“No,” and I turned to leave. I started the car, looked at the paper, and wondered about what would be waiting for me in Ohio.

I put the address into the GPS Alex gave me last Christmas and stopped to fill up with gas. Alex always liked to buy me expensive toys I couldn’t afford myself. Even though I hated to, I always accepted with as much grace as I could muster. Iwould thank him until he would have to hush me with a kiss and I would succumb. The thought made me smile, and though I missed him terribly, I was glad he wasn’t here to stop me from my new, probably crazy, journey.

The drive was long and slow. I had nothing to do of course but think about the weekend’s disturbing events. I tried turning on the radio and blaring some music. It helped for a while, but eventually my thoughts drifted anyway. Who had put the money in my account? Would they be waiting for me when I got there? What could they possibly want with me? I didn’t know, but I had to find out.

The drive took me the rest of the morning, and when I got there, I was sure I had the wrong address. I drove around the block looking for the right building. As I drove, it became obvious this place took up the whole block. When I got back to the front, I parked and stepped out to face whatever was there waiting for me, but I couldn’t figure out why this address had led me to a church. I stopped cold in my tracks when I read the name on the sign. St. Christina Marie Church.

Three

The outside of the church was stunning. It was made up of an orange-colored brick and had at least a dozen of the long stained glass windows within view, maybe two dozen. It looked like it was ancient. There were also several other buildings surrounding this one that were quite a bit smaller.
It was even more beautiful inside. There were over half a dozen pillars holding the enormously high ceilings. To the right was the tabernacle. Two angel sculptures holding censor were standing on either side of it. The cross above it sparkled like gold.

As I walked past the rows and rows of pews, I stared amazed at the some of the sculptures I recognized—The Sacred Heart of Jesus, St. John the Baptist, St. Joseph, and St. Peter. There were a number of them, and they were more beautiful than I had ever seen before. It was almost as if they weren’t pieces of art, but the real people sitting in my very presence.
The stained glass held pictures of Mary and Jesus, The Holy Spirit, The Anchor, The Eye of the Eternal God, The Immaculate Heart of Mary, and many others, all so beautifully displayed. I was quite stunned that such a beautiful church could be unattended.
When I approached The High Alter, it took my breath away. Literally. It was so intricately detailed. It was painted the purest white even after all these years. In the center were Madonna and Child, and surrounding them on either side were the Holy Angels.
It was so very confusing. How could this church possibly have anything to do with me?

“Princess Christina!” I heard a male’s voice exclaim.

I whirled and saw a man running toward me. He was wearing a black robe, one just like the girl from my dream. I froze. I screamed at my legs to move, but they wouldn’t comply.

“Princess, how did you find us?”

He stopped a few feet in front of me and gasped, “You look just like your father….”

“My what?” My father had left my mother when I was a baby. I never even saw a picture of him while I was growing up. My mother had always told me I looked like him, though. I had to. I looked nothing like her.

“Why are you here?” the man asked in a suddenly deep and cross voice.

“I… I don’t really know,” I stammered.

What could I say to that? Did he know who I was? He called me Princess Christina.

“Get out. You must go now. Do not come back. You are unwelcome here.”

“But I—”

“Now!”

I turned and ran as fast as my legs would carry me. I didn’t dare to even look back as I drove away, afraid of seeing the same man who clearly didn’t want me anywhere near what I assumed was his church.

I stopped the car when my tears spilled over and blinded me. It was dark outside now. I lay my head back and closed my eyes, trying to make some sense of what the day had brought besides another headache.

Before long, I was back in the church, in the same spot where the man had approached me. I looked around, but the man was nowhere to be seen. I stayed still, waiting for him to reappear and kick me out again, but he never came. Hesitantly, I drifted down the western hall and was baffled by the beauty and majesty of the paintings and sculptures that lined the wide and very tall corridors.

Suddenly, I stopped abruptly. There was a very short hall to the right and at the end was a picture of a man. This man had the very same piercing blue eyes as I did. The same shape even. The corners of his mouth turned up in just the same way as mine. He even had the same color of hair. Was this man my… my….

“Christina,” an all too familiar voice crooned.

I whirled around from the mysterious man in the painting and there she was again. We locked eyes and she held me there in her gaze for a moment before her face turned morbid. She looked like death.

“You must save us. You must!” There was panic in her voice.

“Who? Save who?” I cried.

Her eyes leaked the bright red blood again and her tiny body crumpled to the floor.

* * *

“No!” I jerked up in my seat. The sun was creeping over the distant horizon, causing a mild burning sensation in my eyes. It had done that as long as I could remember. Morning? I’d slept till morning. This was becoming an annoying habit. I could not see again. Tears. I cleared my eyes. It was 7:30 a.m.

“Crap,” I moaned. I was supposed to be at work at 8 o’clock. No biggie. I decided to just call and tell them I wouldn’t be in. I had never taken a sick day, so they shouldn’t mind. I dug in my pockets for my phone. Not there.

“Where is my damn phone?” I asked no one. “Ugh, it’s at home. Where I left it. Of course,” I answered myself. Those dreams were making me crazy.

Would Alex have called me? Mom? I had to clear my head. I didn’t get any of the answers I needed yesterday. Just more questions.

He called me Princess Christina. He talked about my father. The man in the picture… he had to be. What had my mother kept from me? What did she know? She would have told me, wouldn’t she?

I would just go back. I’d make them tell me. If my father was there, he would want to see me…wouldn’t he? I turned the key and headed back to the church.

* * *

When I arrived, I studied the outside to make certain there was no one there waiting to kick me out again. I walked inside again and called out, “Hello? Is anyone here? Hello?” No answer.

I walked down countless hallways calling out for a reply, but there was nothing. One turn brought me down a hall I was sure I recognized, and I slowed, fearing to see with my own eyes what my dream had shown me.

I turned the corner, and there he was again—an almost mirror image of myself in front of my eyes. The face seemed to be laughing at me. Taunting me. I turned and walked straight out of the church. It was empty. Whoever was there before clearly didn’t want me to know the answers to my questions. The question was, did I?

When I finally pulled into my spot at home, the sun had settled behind the shadows of trees and hills to the west. I racked my brain all the way home, but I knew I couldn’t find my own answers. I would call Mom and make her tell me what she knew about my father. It was a subject I usually tried to avoid. For some reason, mentioning my father always upset her.

As I walked to my door, I heard a low murmur in my apartment. Panic shot through me as I put my key in the lock. Someone was here waiting for me, but who?

Before I could even turn the key, the door flew open and a pair of strong arms pulled me inside of the house. I tried to scream, but somewhere between my lungs and throat it got lodged. I snapped my eyes shut, terrified to see the fate that awaited me there. An instinct I guess.

“Chris,” a familiar voice exhaled, “you’re okay.”

I knew immediately the arms that embraced me belonged to Alex. His familiar scent washed through my body, cleansing me of all of my fears.

“Alex, what are you doing here?”

He pulled back and stared into my face.

“Your mother called me yesterday and told me she couldn’t get a hold of you. Then when you didn’t show up for work today, they called her, so I flew home on the first flight out. Where have you been? Your mother and I have been worried sick.”

“I’m so sorry. I went for a drive and left my phone at home. I was going to call.”

“A drive? Where did you go that took two days?”

I freed myself from his arms and sat down on the couch. I didn’t want to explain, not yet. I needed to talk to my mother first.

“I need to call Mom. She is probably freaking out.”

He nodded and sat beside me, wrapping his arms around my waist. He kissed my hair and murmured, “Don’t you ever do that to me again. You have no idea what I thought. I couldn’t bear losing you.”

Mom answered on the first ring, “Alex! Is she back?” her voice sounded even more frantic than I had anticipated.

“It’s me, Mom.”

“Chris! Oh thank goodness you’re home. Mike, she is back. Call and tell everyone.”

“Everyone?”

“Yes, we have had all of our friends out looking for you.”

“Awww, Mom…” I whined.

“Don’t start with me young lady. Where have you been? We have been going crazy! How could you just disappear and not tell me? This isn’t like you. Are you in trouble?”

“Calm down, Mom. I’m fine. But you have some questions to answer for me.”

“What?” she asked. “Questions? What questions?”

I took a deep breath. I didn’t ask about my father anymore. I hadn’t for years. I could see the pain in her face when I brought it up. He didn’t just leave me, he left her, too.

“Who is my father?”

Alex leaned back to stare at me. He knew the subject was hard for me. His face went blank and he looked away to the TV. He tried to straighten out his face, but he looked upset.

“Your…. father?”

“Yes, Mom. My father.”

“I don’t really wanna get into that right now—”

“Of course not, Mom! You never want to get into that! You don’t care about what I want! It’s always about you! It doesn’t matter that I am twenty-two years old and don’t even know my father’s name!” I was yelling and sobbing at the same time.

Alex was staring at me dumbfounded. It was even stranger for him to see me so angry than it was for me to feel it.

“Your father is…. dead, Christina.”

A single chill ran down my spine. Alex looked at me with tormented eyes and lowered his head. For some reason, he looked….sad. Like he knew already, too.

“Dead,” I repeated.

A single tear rolled down my cheek, and Alex put his arms around me.

“How long have you known, Mom?”

“Ten days.”

“What?! Are you kidding me? Have you known about him this whole time?”

“Yes.”

“How could you keep something like this from me?” I was angry now. All the sadness I felt was overpowered by the sudden immense and uncomfortable hatred I felt for her, for not telling me what I was now certain she had always known about my father. What she said next I was most definitely not prepared for.

“Because it was the dying wish of your mother.”

Four

“My…my….my….” I was hyperventilating now.

“Christina, calm down,” Alex was holding my arms, shaking me now. He didn’t seem as disturbed as I was thatthe world I had never fit into, the mother I was nothing like, and everything I believed came crashing down on me at the words my mother had just said. I was dizzy at the thought.

“Are you saying that I…that I….” I trailed off.

“Yes, Christina. You are adopted.”

“But how could you not tell me? Lies!” I shouted. “It’s all been lies.”

“Chris I had to. It’s what your mother wanted—”

“Stop! I don’t want to know anymore,” I closed my eyes.

I had never felt anything like this in my life. I felt so betrayed. Adopted. Lied to. Adopted. It was too much. Adopted. And both of my parents—dead. I would never know them.

“I just want to know one thing. What are their names?”

I could hear the tears in her throat.

“Lynn Marie Mason and Azariah Delano. But Chris—”

“Don’t. Goodbye, Mother.”

I put down the phone and tears flew from my face like never before. Alex just lay there patiently rubbing my hair while I stained his shirt with salt water. Aside from an occasional “Sshhh,” or “It’s okay,” he never said a word.

I didn’t know I had fallen asleep, but when I woke, the room was dark and I was still in the same position, curled up into Alex. He hadn’t moved either.

The tears once again began flowing. It woke up Alex, but he stayed in place and occasionally kissed my hair or forehead. Once the tears drained again, I fell back asleep.

When I woke up again, I felt hardly rested, but I couldn’t get back to sleep. I decided to get up and walked to my desk and turned on my laptop.

While I waited for it to load, I stared at Alex. He was the only person I could trust. The one person I knew I could count on. I was so grateful to have him. I knew I wouldn’t be able to get through this without him.

Tears welled up in my eyes, but I wiped them away and turned to the screen. I pulled up my favorite search engine and typed my mother’s name first. No results. Then my father’s. Same thing.

I drummed my fingers on the keys not knowing what to look for next. I typed St. Christina Marie Church, Ohio. That brought up only one link that looked valuable. I clicked on it. There was a picture of the outside of the church on the homepage. Even on a computer screen, it made me shudder.

I scanned through the information provided, which wasn’t much, and gathered it was a Catholic church built in the early 1800s, but the foundation dated back to the early 1600s.

It stated that it was no longer an attended church, but it had no listings for contacts. The rest of the information proved useless, so I went to another search engine to start again. Still no more information. I put my head down on the desk annoyed.

* * *

It was much darker this time. I could barely see the once bright paintings and figures on the walls. I was again in the hallway with the photo of my father.

I turned to see that face that was so familiar, yet so strange to me, and stopped short. The photo was gone. The man from the picture was standing there, right in front of me. His eyes sparkled and he reached his hand toward me.

“My Christina,” the same voice from my dreams boomed.

“Father,” I breathed and took a step forward. He didn’t come any closer, so I took another step. Still nothing. I started running toward him, still not closing the distance. Suddenly, he looked like he was choking. His hands scratched at his throat and he made a gurgling sound. He, too, leaked bright red blood from his eyes and crumpled to the floor.

“Father!”

“No!” I screamed. My head snapped up off of the desk. Alex was by my side in a second.

“What happened?”

“It was just a dream. Oh. Just an awful dream,” I sobbed.

He held me until the tears stopped. It wasn’t long. I was slowly learning to control my tears. He picked me up and carried me to the couch.

“Why don’t you tell me about this dream?”

“I don’t want to.”

“Maybe it will help.”

“Which dream?”

“This wasn’t the first?”

I shook my head, wiping away the last of the tears on my face. He waited patiently as I told him about the city and the girl, the church and the man I met there, and what he called me, and about the picture of my father. He showed no expression on his face through all of it. Great, he thinks I’m crazy.

When I finished, he sat with his eyes down for a minute.

“So how did you find this church?”

I hesitated. I didn’t understand how he was so calm. It kinda pissed me off. Not that that wasn’t happening a lot lately anyway.

“Well, I had some recent deposits in my account that I noticed. Large amounts….”

“He left you his assets.” It was a statement, not a question. I nodded. “How much?”

I winced. “Well, the last time I checked it was three different deposits totaling… a little over one and a half million.” His mouth fell open. “Finally a reasonable reaction,” I snapped.

He clamped his mouth shut and looked offended. “I’m sorry, Alex. It’s just, I have been so emotional lately, I don’t know why I just, I just….” I started to cry again.

“It’s okay, Christina,” he soothed.

“Alexander, will you stay with me today? Please?” My eyes begged him, and if he said no I was sure I would lose it.

“Of course, silly girl. I’ll stay as long as you want.”

“And, um, all night?” I asked shyly.

Even after almost a year of dating, he had never slept at my house, and I never stayed at his. We had never really done much more, physically, besides kiss. He and I were both old-fashioned in that way. We both wanted to wait until marriage.

“If you want, sure. I can sleep out here on the couch,” he smiled reassuringly.

“Okay,” I smiled. “And I don’t wanna talk about any of the—”

“Say no more.” He held his hands up. “A full day of movies, maid service, and gourmet cooking at your service, my lady,” he bowed. It made me giggle.

“Oh so you cook now, do you?”

“Are you kidding me? I make the best darn grilled cheese sandwiches in the northern hemisphere,” he stated smugly.

“Well in that case, I’ll take two.”

“For breakfast?” he wrinkled his nose at me.

“Hey, you offered.”

“At your request.” He dazzled me with his smile and darted off to the kitchen.

The rest of the day passed, and he did well to distract me from the battles in my mind. After dinner we snuggled up to a movie.

“You know, Alex, even when nothing else in my life makes sense, you are the one thing I am always sure about. Thank you for today. I love you.”

Understanding gleamed from his eyes. He leaned in and gently pressed his lips to mine. My lips, mouth, and whole body were on fire. My heart thudded in my ears, and I swear I could even hear his, too. His lips suddenly turned fierce, hungry, and he moved them faster, more intensely, parting my lips with his tongue. His breath on my face made me dizzy. He smelled so sweet. He pulled back and parted our lips then leaned into my ear.

“Christina Marie, I love you as well.” He pulled back and looked into my eyes. “My heart is yours.”

After the movie, Alex grabbed a pillow and a blanket out of the closet to make himself a spot to sleep on the couch. Not knowing how far our boundaries extended on the “not being intimate yet” thing, I decided to test it.

“Will you um, sleep with me?” I mumbled. His face looked a bit panicked, but he quickly straightened it out.

“You think that’s the best idea?”

“Um, well, yeah, I guess you’re right, you don’t have to—”

“Urgh, of course I will, Chris. You know it’s not that I don’t want to. It’s just that I don’t want to, ya know….”

“I know, no temptation. I just want you to hold me. Maybe then I won’t have any nightmares,” I said as I looked out the window.

“Well when you say it like that,” he put his arms around my waist and pulled me close, “then I wouldn’t dare refuse.”

He gently kissed me on the lips and led me to my room. I fell asleep quickly to the sound of him humming. For even just a moment, everything was perfect.

Five

You know how sometimes when you dream, it can seem so real at the time that you almost don’t really know if you are awake or asleep? Well, I have dreams like that. Quite often, actually. More often than not I have them in a place that I am at on a regular basis— home, work, Mom’s house…something like that. But these dreams were an exception, especially one particular night….

* * *

The scene was the same as the last time. I was back in the church sanctuary. The little girl was in front of me again.

“Who are you?” I asked her.

“I think the question is, who are you?” the girl asked in her own voice. This was the first time I’d ever actually heard her, heard me, speak.

“I don’t know, that’s what I’m trying to—”

“Run!” she shouted. She pointed behind me, and I turned and saw a figure in a black cape running toward us, and it was coming fast.

“Follow me!” she shrieked and grabbed my hand. She ran down a hall I recognized and turned toward the wall with my father’s picture.

“It’s a dead end!”

“Trust me.”

I closed my eyes, and the next thing I knew, the air smelled and tasted differently. Sounds that seemed out of place presented themselves. I waited to slam into the wall, but it never happened. I slowly opened my eyes and gasped. We were no longer in the church. We were in a forest somewhere.

“But how did we—”

“No time! Run!” she shrieked.

I glanced behind me and the robed man was still running after us. I pushed my legs as fast as they would go. Suddenly, the forest was whizzing past us. Impossibly fast. Yet, I could see everything, smell everything, and hear everything, even the footsteps following us.

It was almost like a dreamor like a slow-motion movie or something. The loudest sound was my rapid heartbeat in my ears. For a minute it was the only thing that I registered. Run, run, run, run. I was running perfectly in time with it. Even if I had no idea why I was running….

The strange part about it was that it wasn’t strange. It wasn’t unfamiliar. It felt like waking up, kind of disorienting but familiar. Like it had always been there, I’d just never realized it before.

“Christina, you have to get us out of here!”

“What? What do you mean? How?”

In a flash, the girl jumped back and over my head and tackled the advancing robe. I stopped to turn back to help her.

“No, you must run! You must save us! GO!”

The robe fell off of the face of the man in the church, and his eyes turned almost white as he snarled at me. I had no idea where I was going, but I ran even faster now than before. There seemed to be no end when suddenly I stopped short.

Below me was the city, same as in the dreams. Empty. Dead.

I heard someone slowly approaching. I heard the heartbeat, the slow labored breathing. Then the girl stepped out of the woods. She was bleeding from the side of her neck. Blood was dripping down her fingertips.

“You must find the way, Princess,” her voice was strained.

“The way where? Where do I need to go!?”

She looked into my eyes and barely smiled.

She raised her hand up and pointed with one finger over the edge. “Home.” Then she collapsed.

* * *

When I came to, I was in the opposite corner of my room crying and hyperventilating. Alex was in front of me, and I could see his mouth moving, but I couldn’t make out the words. I was crying too loudly.

“What happened, Chris?” he half yelled.

“Another dream. Another horrible dream. How do I save her? How?” I sobbed.

“Save who? What happened?”

“Me.”

He looked at me, confused. I put my head down and dropped his hands. I stood and looked him in the face.

“This is the first nightmare in a few weeks.”

“I have to go back.”

“Back where?” he said, and then knowing flashed in his eyes.

“To the church.”

His mouth twisted, and he folded his arms across his chest.

“Why?”

“Cause it’s the only way to make the nightmares stop. And it’s the only way to find out the truth.”

“The truth about what?”

“About my father. And about Sangre Real.”

“What?” he murmured. “What is that?”

“I…. I don’t know. The name of the city, I think. I’ve never heard the name before, I don’t know how I….”

The look on his face was pure pain.

“I can’t let you go there.”

“What do you mean you can’t letme—,”

He held his hand up to my face. “Not alone,” he said.

“So come with me.”

A mix of emotions washed over his face as he stared into my eyes. Then it settled on defeat.

“I doubt I have another option, but Chris,” he looked into my eyes, serious and sad, “are you one hundred percent sure you want to do this? No matter what you may find out, I mean?”

“Alex,” I closed my eyes and reached around my neck and unclamped the necklace that I had worn for years. “My mother gave me this when I was eleven.” I held up a tiny gold baby ring that once held its place on my infant fingers.

“She said that my father had given it to me before he left her. I’ve worn it around my neck every day since then. It’s kinda been a reminder to me of a part of myself, and my life, that I have never known. I always swore I would find out someday.” I slowly put the ring in his palm and closed his fingers around it.

“I want you to have it. I was born to love you, Alexander, if nothing else, and you have erased all of the emptiness and void in my life from my father leaving. The rest doesn’t matter anymore. But I do still want to know. Why he left me. Why he never came back. I need to know.” I looked up at him and smiled. “So you ask me if I can handle this, if I want it. As long as you stay with me, I can handle anything.”

* * *

It was early afternoon when we arrived at the church. It looked the exact same as the last time. He took my hand when I stepped out of the car, looked at me, and smiled encouragingly.

“Here we go,” he said.

I gnawed on my lip as I contemplated one last time if I was certain I wanted to go. I mean, I knew I wanted to, but I was scared. A million different things could happen.

“You okay, Chris?”

I thought about that for a minute. Was I? I couldn’t show too much fear or he would never let me go in.

“Yeah, let’s go.”

I squeezed his hand and took the first step forward.

Yet again, the church seemed empty. I led him to the hall where my father’s picture hung, though when we reached the hall, the picture wasn’t there. Well, it was….but it wasn’t my father any longer. This man had dark hair, black almost, that matched his black sinister eyes. It didn’t match the pale and perfect smooth texture of his skin. This other man was beautiful though.

“Is this it?” he asked.

I moved closer to the picture. “No.”

“Well, um, where is it?”

“No, this is the hallway, but this isn’t my father. The picture is…different.”

“So what now, Chris? There is no one here. Let’s just go home.”

“It’s through there,” I pointed to the picture.

“Through the wall?” Okay. It sounded stupid.

I reached forward and Alex grabbed my other hand and pulled me back.

“Alex, trust me.”

I reached my hand to the picture. I moved my hands over the wall. I didn’t know what I was searching for, but I knew it was there.

On the rear of the frame, my fingers caught on a notch that seemed out of place. I looked closer. It was a button, not a notch. I pushed it and stepped back. The whole wall shifted to the right and a darkened hallway beckoned us. A musty smell whooshed past us. I looked at Alex.

“I have to go.”

“I know,” he said. He stepped in front of me into the unknown. It wasn’t what I expected to see. Where the dream had shown me a forest, this was a damp and dark tunnel. Only a faint glimmer of light signaled us up ahead. Alex looked back at me and then walked toward the light. On the other side, the forest of my dream broke through. It was different though now, daytime, and I wasn’t so afraid.

Just like the dream, I could see, hear, and smell everything. I could hear a thrumming of beats far off and could hear and smell a small stream of water trickling somewhere close by. I sensed all of the animals around us as we walked.

“Are you afraid?” he asked.

“No,” I smiled.

He nodded and continued walking. We walked for what felt like miles and finally saw a clearing up ahead.

“Race ya,” he teased.

I pursed my lips, pretending to think about it. “Go!” I yelled and took off.

“Cheater,” he whispered in my ear and darted in front of me.

I pushed my legs harder and caught up to him easily. I had never run so fast before. As I reached the opening, I skidded to a stop, Alex a few feet back. He walked to my side and took my hand. I met his eyes and then looked back to the city.

“Sangre Real,” I stated.

“Royal Blood,” Alex said.

“Have you ever had one of those moments when you were absolutely terrified and completely comfortable at the same time?” I asked him.

“What do you mean?”

“Okay, well maybe not terrified,” I sighed. “Confused, I guess. Unknowing. I know I have never been here before, aside from my dreams, of course, but I can’t help but feel a small sense of déjà vu. You have to admit, I should be scared out of my mind. This is freaking weird. But, as weird as it might sound, I feel….safe. Calm. Like I really am home.” I looked at Alex again. “Is that weird?”

“Well I wouldn’t say it’s the weirdest thing you have ever said,” he laughed.

“Well,” I said, “the last time anyone called this place home, I was having nightmares and a little girl was bleeding from her eyes.”

“Yeah, you might be creepy,” he teased.

I laughed out loud.

“And you might be an impossible ass,” I joked, as I wrapped my arms around his waist.

“How do we get down?” I pondered.

The city was a few stories down from the cliff we stood on.

“We could jump,” he smiled.

“Uh huh, you go right ahead. I think I’ll go around.”

I retreated back into the woods in an attempt to find a way around the cliff to the city. After a few minutes, something startled me. Before I heard it, I knew, well not really knew but sensed, I guess, that people were coming. I stopped where I was and crouched to the ground. I could hear the heartbeats and footsteps of two bodies approaching.

“You can hear them?” he asked, a perplexed look on his face.

“Sshhh….”

A voice called out, “Who is there? Come out now,” the voice demanded.

Alex jumped up and pulled me up with him.

“Oh, Princess Christina!” the men exclaimed and fell to the ground. “Forgive us. We did not know it was you.”

They called me Princess again. Who are these people?

“Um, it’s okay. I think you have the wrong person though. Please get up.”

The two men looked at each other, confused. As they stood, Alex pulled me halfway behind him. The men studied Alex’s face for a moment.

“I’m looking for information about my father,” I stated.

“Say no more. Please, follow us.” And without another word, the men turned and led the way toward the city.

Six

Alex never let go of my hand. He shielded me halfway behind his body the whole time we walked. Ahead, I was beginning to make out a small cave that seemed carved into the mountain. As it came into full view, Alex stopped mid-stride and turned to me.

“Christina, I want you to know that no matter what happens here, no matter what you find out, I have always and will always love and be faithful to only you. No matter the cost. Please, right now, promise me you will never forget that.” His eyes looked tormented. Even more than that though, it looked and felt like he was saying goodbye. The two men had stopped up ahead, but did not turn toward us.

“Of course, Alex, but everything is going to—” and his lips were on mine. His arms grabbed me up off of my feet as his fingers intertwined in my hair, and he held me there. When he sat me back down, the two men started walking again.

“Okay my love, here we go,” he stated and took my hand again.

The inside of the cave wasn’t as dark as it had appeared outside. It was a short walk to a massive door almost as wide as the cave itself, which led to a second door a few yards further. When the door was opened, we were signaled to walk through.

“Princess Christina,” one of the men said, and all four bodies jumped up and bowed their heads.

The inside of the room was very large, yet the only thing in it was an enormous round table. There were four people sitting around it.

The first person on the left was a man with dark eyes and long, dark hair pulled back at his neck.

To his right was a smaller female with blue eyes and lighter brown hair that was obviously wavy and tied back in a low bun.

Sitting between her and the man who spoke was a tiny little girl who looked like she couldn’t have been more than my age, maybe even younger. She had long, light blonde hair that was pinned up at the sides and bright green eyes. The man who spoke had short, light brown hair and green eyes. There was something about him that looked familiar, but I couldn’t quite place it.

“Sir,” one of the men behind us said, “we found them walking in the forest, up by the cliff.”

“Very good. Thank you, Marius. You and Alumit may go now.” They bowed and left the room.

The one who spoke to me held out his hand and began walking in my direction. I backed into the wall and he stopped and laughed.

“Princess, it is quite all right. You are safe here, I assure you. We are friends. I am Demitri,” again he bowed his head, “and these are Duncan, Nebula, and Calpurnia.” They all bowed their heads the same.

“Who are you?” I asked.

“We are the Sangreal Guard, Princess—protectors of this city and sworn protectors of the royal bloodline.”

I shook my head, not understanding.

“And for some reason you think that includes me?”

Demitri laughed again.

“Of course, Princess. Please my dear, come, sit, and we will explain everything,” he gestured toward the table.

He wasn’t exactly intimidating, but I looked at Alex for confirmation.

“This is what you want, right?”

I nodded my head and walked to the table. I took my seat, and then everyone else did. All of their eyes studied my face, and again I began to feel intimidated.

“I’m sure you have a few questions,” Demitri smiled.

Did I ever! I decided to start with an easy one.

“Who am I?”

“You are Christina Marie Delano by birth, born to Lynn Marie Mason and our late King Azariah Delano.”

I pondered that for a moment.

“The money?”

“Yes, he ordered that all of his assets be placed in your name if he should ever die.”

Next to me, Alex’s lips pressed into a hard line.

If he should die? Was there another option?

“Why now? Why have I never been told any of this until now?”

“Your mother bid it that way immediately upon your birth. She wanted you to live a normal life on the outside world and never be exposed to this life. But, she did leave you a message and asked me to give it to you if you should ever find your way home. If you’d like?”

“Yeah, yeah of course.”

“Okay. Please do not be disturbed by what you are about to see.”

Before I could ask what he meant, I was looking at her face, at my mother’s face, and I gasped. She was breathtakingly beautiful. She had the same long hair as I did, though a darker, walnut brown eyes, and a sparkling white smile. She wore a small white robe over her petite body.

It was like a whole separate picture in my mind. I could still see everything around me and feel Alex’s hand in mine though. It was strange. She spoke in a beautiful voice.

“My dearest Christina, I don’t know if this message will ever reach you, but if it does, I pray that it finds you in good health. I know you have many questions, and I’m so very sorry I cannot be there to answer them myself, but you are safe there with the Sangreal Guard. They will answer your questions as well as I could have.

“But, there are a few things I want to tell you myself first. I have loved you from the moment I carried you in my womb and have thought about you every moment since you have been gone. I have been blessed enough to see through others’ eyes the woman you have become, and I am very proud of you.

“I should have known that someone with Delano blood would have never been able to stay away from this world. But that was my only fear, and the only reason I let you go. I know you are upset with your mother and you feel lied to, but please understand that she was simply abiding by my wishes.

“I also want you to know that I love your father very much. He is the most amazing man I have ever known and he loves you just as I do.

“You are about to be faced with some difficult decisions, but I have no doubt that you will make the right choices for your family. You are much more powerful and stronger than you know. Demitri and the others will help you with this.

“My daughter, it is my hope that someday you will forgive me for trying to force a life upon you that you obviously weren’t meant to lead. I just wanted you to have the choice, as you still do. But no matter your decision, I love you more than my own life, and I am proud of you.” She put her hands up as if to touch my face and I reached out for her as well. “Goodbye, my love.” And she was gone.

Alex grabbed my arms and held me close as the tears flowed from my eyes. After a few minutes, I stopped crying and Alex held my face in his hands.

“Are you okay?” he asked seriously.

I looked at the others and stated, “Yes, it’s just… it’s just a lot to take in. There are just so many things I don’t understand.”

“That is why we are here, Princess,” Demitri said, a look of understanding and sympathy in his eyes.

“You say my father was the king, and that I am a princess.” I looked at Demitri and he nodded. “So if he was a king, what exactly did he rule?”

“Good question, and also the hardest, Princess. I need you to understand now that everything that you think you know about the world is not always so. You have to keep an open mind about what I am about to tell you. Some people would call us The Cold Ones, some immortals, some blood drinkers. There are many names for our kind. Others would simply call us—”

“Vampires?” I laughed. “You’re kidding, right? You expect me to believe that?”

“Do you have the headaches?”

“What? How do you know about those?”

“When a vampire doesn’t feed, it produces the headaches. It would kill a full-blood eventually, starve him to death. We can only assume that it’s bearable for you because you have human blood in your veins at all times. That’s also why the thirst is bearable and why you can survive on human food.”

“This is crazy,” I said as I rose from my seat.

“Haven’t you ever noticed the way you never seem to get cold, the way you hear and see and smell things you know you shouldn’t be able to? The fact that you never seem to get tired from physical activity like most humans? You never fit into the human world because you were born to live in ours and to rule our people. Please, Princess, just hear us out. We have many things to tell you, and once we are finished, if it is still your desire to leave, we won’t stop you.”

I closed my eyes. How could he know these things? There had to be another explanation. Vampires didn’t exist.

“But they do, Princess,” Calpurnia interrupted. “We do, the same as you.”

“How did you—”

“The members of the Guard, as well as all of our protectors, have powers, or gifts as we call them. Calpurnia is a mind reader.”

“Protectors?” I asked.

“Yes, all vampires that are born with a gift are bred from birth to be a protector. We,” he waved his hand to those sitting at the table, “the Guard, are the personal protectors of the royal family, or the royal blood—”

“Sangre Real,” I gasped.

He nodded. “The other protectors exist to keep our secret from the outside world and to keep the peace in the human and vampire worlds.”

“But, I haven’t been burned alive from the sun….”

They all laughed now, even Alex.

“Most of these stories are false. Garlic, crosses, holy water, coffins—all myth. It makes vampires more interesting to the humans I suppose,” he smiled.

“And sunlight?”

“Well, full bloods cannot live in it. It will not kill us, but it is painful. With the exception of the day walker like my son, Alexander,” he pointed to Alex.

I jumped up from my seat and dropped his hands. I backed away from him.

“Chris, wait—”

“You knew?” I whispered. “And you’re one of them? A sadistic, blood thirsty freak!” I yelled at him. He walked toward me with his hands up. “Don’t! Stay away from me.”

“Princess,” Demitri said, “Alex was assigned as your protector of the human world, as he is a day walker. Your father wanted you to be protected just in case anyone ever… found you. We could only watch you from a distance.”

“Enough,” I said. I looked back into Alex’s eyes. They were filled with sadness and humility. “I trusted you,” I was crying now. “I loved you.” He winced, “And you were the biggest liar of all!” I yelled.

“I’m sorry, Princess—”

“No! You don’t get to be sorry. This is all crazy. You are all crazy!”

I leapt out of my seat and ran for the door.

“Alexander, don’t. Let her go,” I heard Demitri say.

I ran through the cave and out and pushed my legs as fast as they would go. It was dark outside now. I left the same way we came in, up the hill and back to the path.

As much as I didn’t want to, I had to think about everything they had said. Maybe some of the things he said were true, but not all of them. I am not a monster. This place was impossible. It couldn’t exist. The only place I felt I ever fit in couldn’t be more wrong. It didn’t make any sense.

My mother though, she was beautiful. It scared me to think of my other mother as a stranger; an adopted mom, a hired mom, and I wished I never knew.

Quicker than I had expected, the tunnel made its appearance in the darkness. As I reentered the church, a realization hit. Alex had driven me here. There was no way I could walk—it was like 200 miles or something. I’d have to find a hotel close by and get home tomorrow.

Before I could solidify my plans, I saw Alex leaning against his car door. I don’t know which overpowered the other, anger or relief. As I walked past him, I stated, “If you think I’m getting in that car with you, you’re even crazier than I thought.”

“And if you think I’m going to leave your side, you’re sadly mistaken.” His voice had changed. It wasn’t the voice I was used to. It was hard and unrepentant. The Alex I knew was gone.

Before he could see my tears, I stomped to his car and slammed the door shut as hard as I could. I knew I was being childish, but I felt so hurt and betrayed. Even more than that though, I was torn. I wanted so badly for his arms to be around me, to rock me and tell me everything was going to be okay and that the last year wasn’t all a lie, that the past fourteen years hadn’t been a lie.

But he was just doing his job. An actor playing a part. I stared out the window with my arms crossed the whole way, and he never said a word.

When we arrived at my apartment, I got out and walked to my door. As I unlocked it, Alex sat on the ground next to the door and looked up at me. I made a face at him.

“I’m not leaving. You may not want to see me ever again, but I still have a job to do.”

Just as I thought, a job. I was a job. Nothing more. The man I loved sat beside me unrepentant as my heart felt like it would stop beating. I was not going to let him watch me die from the inside out, so I walked in without meeting his eyes and slammed the door so hard the frame shook.

I stood there for a moment, too stunned to think, then I opened the door all the way and turned and walked to my room and locked the door. I fell to my knees, then dropped my body to the floor.

This was a good place to die.

Seven

I was only acutely aware of the outside world. I didn’t feel anything. No hunger, no sadness, no fear. I never once cried. I never slept. The only movement that assured me that I was still alive was the shadows in my room revolving as the sun rose and fell and rose and fell half a dozen times. This was okay for me though. I didn’t know what my intentions were, but I lay there, not a thought in my mind or a fight in my body as I awaited the pain. Death surely wouldn’t hurt this badly. I no longer had any family, and the man I loved had lied to me for my entire life. What did I have to live for? Yes, death surely wouldn’t hurt this badly.

A loud crack opened my eyes and a gust of wind swept over my body. I closed my eyes again. This isn’t how I expected death to find me, through my bedroom door, I thought.

I smiled as I pictured Alex’s face in my mind. Not the new Alex that didn’t love me, but the old Alex that used to make my heart skip a beat at his sight. If I was dying, he would be the last thing I saw. Now with his face in my mind, it would stop all together.

“I love you,” I whispered.

Suddenly I was shaking. Violently shaking. Pain in my arms.

My eyes flitted open. Again I stared into Alex’s perfect face. This couldn’t be death. He looked too sad, too afraid.

Maybe it’s hell. I am a vampire, maybe I’m damned. This is my version of hell, seeing Alex’s face every day, tormented, and never being able to have him. No, his hands were warm on my face now. I could feel him, this couldn’t be hell. Was I dreaming?

He was mouthing words I couldn’t hear. Suddenly, I felt a fierce blow on the side of my face and my head bobbed to the right. Ouch. Did he just slap me? My eyes closed and my head fell back, my mouth open.

A moment later, a warm, wet feeling dripped onto my lips. I closed my mouth. Blood. A sudden overpowering thirst pumped into my body. I popped my eyes open and hissed at Alex.

“Christina! Snap out of it,” he demanded. “You have been catatonic for nearly a solid week. You have to get a hold of yourself.”

He looked angry. Why couldn’t he just let me die? I was happy with my memory of him. Now this creature was back and he had taken over the face, body, and mind that I loved.

“Why couldn’t you just let me die? At least in death my false memories of you loving me were believable and would follow me into the blackness.”

His face was expressionless. His eyes were dead, as dead as my heart.

“I have a job to do,” he said flatly. “It doesn’t include me carrying a corpse back to my father. Not yours at least.”

“So quit,” I spat and lay back down on the floor.

“Or I could call your mother and she could come over and get you up.”

“My mother is dead.”

“Oh grow up, Christina. Your mother loves you and hasn’t stopped calling since you came back.” He waited, but I didn’t move. “Okay then.” He flipped open his phone and began dialing. Before he finished, I jumped up and grabbed his phone, flipped it shut, and threw it over my shoulder.

“Not now. Not yet.” I stared at the wall in a daze. “It would kill her to see me like this.”

I walked into the living room and sat on my couch and turned on the TV. I would play along.

I just didn’t understand why he had to be here still. I could handle everything that I was. The fact that I would never know my real parents. The fact that I was a vampire princess that was supposed to take over a world of blood-thirsty creatures, half of which wanted to kill me. Piece of cake.

But losing Alex, that was unbearable. And now he was here, hovering over me. Doing his…. job.

“Princess,” he said softly. “I need you to know something.” He kept his eyes away from my eyes. “I never meant to hurt you, and I truly do hate to see you this way.” For a minute he sounded like the old Alex. “But things are different now. I have a job to do. And so do you.” A job, there it was again. I was a freaking job to him.

I got off the couch and stood glaring at him with my fists clenched.

“And what is your job now, Alex?” I spat the words to him, “Now that living your lie is over? I don’t need your protection anymore, thank you. I know what I am.”

“And you think that is enough?” he spun around. “You think that will protect you?” He shot across the room and back again. “You really think you are safe? There are others out there that want to kill you just for what you are.” He darted across the room and around me and then back again. “You are the strongest and most powerful of our kind, the only one of your kind, and they will stop at nothing to kill you.” He was in front of my face now. “And without training and protection, they will succeed.”

His hand was on my throat and he jumped forward, slamming me into the wall. What terrified me most was watching as he exposed his fangs.

I had never been that into fantasy and the unbelievable worlds that people created, but this was unlike anything I had ever imagined. He was both the most beautiful and frightening thing I had even seen. He truly looked like a monster.

“Alex,” I whimpered and closed my eyes. He was hurting me. My Alex was hurting me. This wasn’t possible.

Get away from me! I shouted internally.

Suddenly his hand was off of my throat and I could breathe again.

“How did you do that?” he asked bewildered. I opened my eyes and I was on the other side of the room. His expression was astonishment. “You’re a jumper!” he gasped.

“I’m a what?”

“Impossible,” he continued, paying no intention to me. “I have heard of vampires that can teleport, but I have never seen or even heard anyone speak of knowing one.”

He started walking toward me, and I hissed at him. He frowned at me.

“I’m not going to hurt you, Christina. I was trying to make a point. I just wasn’t expecting quite that reaction.”

I eyed him suspiciously for a minute. He may have been a lot of things, but he was still Alex, and I knew he wouldn’t really hurt me. I had to get control of my emotions.

“Please don’t do that again,” I asked.

“I won’t. But you needed the motivation. How did you do it?”

“I have no idea. I just,” I shook my head, “I was scared, and I closed my eyes and, I dunno, I just wanted to be away from you.”

“Can you try it again?”

“Can you stay on your side of the room?” I asked sarcastically.

He smiled at me and put his hands up. “I’ll keep my distance,” he chuckled.

Hearing his laugh sped my heart and sent chills over my body.

“Focus, Chris.” His smile flattened.

“Sorry,” I muttered.

I closed my eyes, not knowing what exactly to do. A moment later, I opened my eyes and Alex was staring at me expectantly.

“Alex, I have no idea what I’m doing. I feel stupid. I don’t even know what I did….” I whined.

“Just try, I don’t know, picturing yourself somewhere else in this room and want yourself to be there.”

“Right, easy.”

I took a deep breath and closed my eyes. I imagined myself standing next to Alex. I felt like an idiot. I smiled to myself.

“Hocus pocus!” I giggled, and opened my eyes. Alex was glaring at me.

“Hilarious, Christina.”

“I’m sorry, but I feel silly.”

“Humor me, please. Just try.”

“Okay, all right, fine.”

I stared into Alex’s face. I imagined the face that used to be there—bright, smiling, happy, and me in his arms, his hands locked around my waist and mine around his neck, my head resting on his chest. I sighed to myself, washed the thought from my mind, and closed my eyes to concentrate.

A moment later, he cleared his throat, interrupting my thoughts. I opened my eyes and my mouth fell open. My arms were around his neck and I was looking into his eyes. A huge grin spread across his face, while mine flushed bright red. He quickly wiped the smile off of his face and grabbed my arms to pry me off of him.

I untangled my legs from around his waist and stumbled backward. I was mortified. I opened my mouth to try to say something, but I couldn’t find the words, so I just spun around to avoid his eyes. I swear I heard him chuckle.

“It’s fine, Chris. It’s progress. I’m surprised you already have the ability to do it at will. Most gifts take weeks or even months to achieve even sporadic success. You must be very gifted. Let’s try again.”

Oh great, as if I wasn’t embarrassed enough at trying to mount him the first time. “Just try to stay focused this time,” he said smugly.

I winced. He just had to rub it in. I walked to the other side of the room and refused to meet his gaze.

I learned quickly that it was literally a matter of picturing myself where I wanted to be and willing it to happen. I could close my eyes and I was there when I opened them. Even though I was terribly self conscious after my first, uh, mishap, I was having fun.

I’d never really thought of myself as “special” before. And okay, I’ll admit, this wasn’t exactly the way every girl dreamt of finding her niche, but hey, I’d take what I could get.

After a few hours, my hunger was becoming unbearable, but after earlier I couldn’t tell if it was my hunger, or my thirst.

I shuddered at the thought.

“Alex, can we take a break? I’m starving.”

“Yes of course. I’m sorry. I hadn’t thought about the fact that you must be starving.” His eyes lit up. “I’ll take you hunting!” he exclaimed and took my hand and pulled me toward the door. I tensed and pulled my hand away from him and backed away. He looked at me questioningly.

“I,” I paused, “I don’t think I’m really ready for that, Alex. I am still human.”

He smiled reassuringly, “You’re right. I’m sorry, a little bit at a time. You have done amazingly well today. I’m proud of you.” I relaxed my shoulders a bit. “Two grilled cheeses?” he smiled exuberantly.

“Make it three.”

He began to reach for my face, but quickly retracted his hand and stepped awkwardly around me and darted into the kitchen.

That night he took me out to “hone my skills” as he called it. We went out past Sellersburg to a very large wooded area where we had plenty of space and no distractions for miles.

Oddly enough, the first thing we started practicing was conditioning. Every night started this way. We ran every night for fifteen miles through all of the hills. We practiced my jumping until he felt it was “adequate.”

My favorite part though was when we worked on hand-to-hand combat. I would never admit to him though that all of the times I got pinned down were not accidental.

It went this way for several weeks. I was amazed by my speed and strength and the intensity of which I could hear, see and smell everything from impossible distances. I was also impressed by how far I could jump. Now that I was aware of it all, it felt so natural, and I wondered how I lived so long without discovering it all before. Alex said it was probably just because I never had a need for it. We spent hours out there every night, and I never got tired even once.

One morning as dawn approached (we had stayed out exceptionally late that night) Alex stopped to take a break.

“This is my favorite part, you know.”

“Favorite part of what?” I asked and sat beside him.

“Twilight.” He stared out at the sky, glittering oranges and blues as the sun began to rise. “It’s the most beautiful thing to see through vampire eyes. It’s also the saddest part of my life though.”

“Why?”

“Until this very moment, I always had to watch it alone,” he smiled.

I turned my head away before he could see the tears welling up in my eyes.

“Will you answer a few questions for me, Alex?”

“Anything.”

There were a million questions I actually wanted to ask him. Did he still love me? Did he ever love me? Why had he changed? I knew those questions were pointless though.

“What were my parents like?”

“Your mother,” he smiled, “was the most pure and kind human I have ever met—to her kind and ours both. See, your father had his hand in all aspects of the human world, politics, police, real estate—everything—through our human contacts. That is how he met her. She was beautiful, as an understatement, and he fell in love with her. He had never been in love before in all of his six hundred years.

“It had never been before, a human and a vampire, but as I said, your mother had a way to make people love her, so no one resisted.

“Your father, I don’t think there will ever be another vampire king who loves his people more. He took such a pride in his work, making our world safe, and advancing us with the times and forging our world with the humans. It had never been done before. There was something about him that people respected and loved. He had been our longest lasting king in history because no one ever tried to overthrow him.”

“How did he die?”

“We don’t really know.” He frowned. “We just found him in his room one morning, drained. We still do not know who killed him. Calpurnia searched everyone but found no answers. She blames herself still. If she had been closer, maybe she could have heard….”

“You loved him.”

“He loved me like a son, and I loved him like a father as well, not just as my king. He chose me to protect you because I’m a day walker, but he once told me that he would never have let anyone else look after his heart.

“He loved you, Christina. And he wanted me to help you when the time came for you to take the throne. It was his only wish upon his death. He told me that many times. He trusted Damascus, but he does not have Delano blood.” He got up and walked a few feet away. “Do you think about it, Chris?” He turned to me.

“Of course I do.” I looked down at my hands, “It’s just, it’s not my life, you know? I’m not a princess, let alone material for a ruler of a world I don’t even really belong to.” I met Alex’s eyes. “I’m not what you guys think I am. I’m sorry.”

“Well you know, just because you don’t want to be our queen doesn’t mean you aren’t a part of our world. I’m sure Father would love to see you again. And they could all help me with your training. And I’m sure you have more questions, right?” He was excited now. I couldn’t rain on his parade, so I smiled back and gave in, and back to Sangre Real we went.

Eight

I was greeted again by Demitri and the guard members when we walked in.

“Princess,” he smiled. “To what do we owe this great pleasure?”

“Father, this is purely a social visit.”

Demitri smiled unsurprised, “Well we are honored, Princess. Please, come sit. Thirsty?”

My mouth fell open, and everyone laughed at my surprised expression. I looked at Alex, embarrassed.

“Water,” he smiled.

“Oh, um, yes. Thank you.”

Alex held out my chair for me. I sat down and again everyone followed.

“Father,” Alex smiled hugely, “so it turns out the princess has quite the unique gift.”

“She is a Delano.”

Alex winked at me and smiled a crooked little smile. “Show them, Chris.”

I smiled and nodded once. I straightened my face and looked into Demitri’s eyes and concentrated. He looked amused. I blinked my eyes and was sitting in front of Demitri on the table with my legs crossed. In another blink of an eye, I was perched on his back with my teeth pressing gently on his neck, and then I was back in my seat before a full second had passed.

Alex laughed out loud. There was an equal look of fascination and awe on everyone’s faces, even Calpurnia’s. I bit my lip and giggled.

“Fascinating,” Demitri breathed, “and so fine tuned already. How long has she been jumping?”

“A few weeks,” Alex stated smugly.

Demitri’s face sparkled with excitement. “Truly an exquisite gift, Princess. It’s fitting for such an unusual birth.”

“Birth?”

“Mmm yes, a birth is what we call a vampire born to our world. One who is changed mid-human life we call a newborn.”

I sat fascinated and listened to the stories about this different world. Surprisingly, there were many more vampires than I ever would have thought living in big cities across the country. Most of them tended to stay in the big cities where their physical differences were less likely to be noticed, but some of them venture to smaller cities where there are just less people to notice them in general.

I was amazed at how comfortable I felt around all of these strangers, these vampires. I told them about my human life, up to the point of finding out that I actually wasn’t of course, and they all seemed interested and asked question after question, though it wasn’t nearly as exciting as about learning about this place.

Full of excitement and animation, Alex told them about my “natural talent,” as he called it, with speed and strength and sensory awareness.

After a few hours, we had broken up into smaller groups. Alex was with his father. Duncan and Nebula were in a corner somewhere holding hands and smiling at each other. I was with Calpurnia. I was utterly fascinated with her gift. She would ask me a question, smile, pick the answer out of my head, and reply before I could ever speak.

I silently asked her what powers the others have.

“Well, Demitri can move things with his mind.”

I giggled. That’s so freaking cool.

Calpurnia smiled, “Duncan inflicts blindness on his prey so they never see him coming, while Nebula… well let’s just say I hope you never have to see her gift.” And a wicked grin spread over her face again.

“And Alex is a day walker?”

“Well yes he is, but he is more. He is faster and stronger than most all of our kind. Even as a child he was—with the exception of you, of course.”

“So, Alex told me that I am the only one of a kind, the only half-breed, so how do you guys know I am stronger than everyone else?”

“Good question. There are stories about half-human vampires from many years ago. They had many of the same gifts and qualities as you do, the speed, strengths, and the headaches, but it has been many years since one walked the earth.”

Calpurnia cocked her head to the side and she seemed distracted. “Excuse me, Princess.” She smiled and flitted to Demitri’s side to whisper something in his ear. Alex then walked over to my side.

A moment later Demitri called out, “You may enter, Alumit.”

The man I had seen before in the forest came into the room.

“His royal Highness, Damascus,” he stated and bowed his head. Everyone else did the same.

The man from the picture came into view. The same sinister black eyes and matching hair stalked into the cave. He moved like a jungle cat. It was graceful and effortless, and intimidating. His black, untrustworthy eyes scanned the room and stopped when they met mine.

“Princess,” he said in a higher voice than I had expected. It didn’t fit his dark features and strong presence. “What a pleasant surprise. I had heard you had graced us with your return a few weeks ago, but I did not know you had returned again. You resemble your father so. It does me good to see you— as if seeing family again.” He bowed. “I am honored.”

“Thank you, Your Highness.”

“Please call me Damascus.”

I smiled weakly and nodded.

“Do you plan on staying long, Princess?” He smiled at me, too innocently I thought, and I smiled back with as much enthusiasm as I could muster.

“I’m still undecided.”

“Well, we are delighted to have you. Please stay as long as you like.” He turned to Demitri. “We have some business, friend.”

“Of course, Your Highness.” He turned to me, “Excuse me, Princess.” He bowed and left with Damascus.

Calpurnia skipped back to my side and frowned at me.

“Something wrong?”

“You mean you don’t already know?” I teased.

She smiled, “Not unless you think it first.”

“Who is Alumit?

“He is Damascus’ personal guardian.”

“I thought you guys were—”

“Well we are, but when he took power, he only wanted Alumit as his constant guardian. They have been together even longer than Damascus had been with your father. We couldn’t refuse of course.”

“What is his power?”

“He is a shape shifter.”

“A shape shifter?” I asked

“Yes, he can turn himself into anything he wants to.”

“Anything? Really?”

“Well anything that’s alive, yeah. Person, animal, whatever. Not much of a gift for a guardian I say, but it isn’t my choice.”

“I don’t trust him.”

“Alumit?”

“No. Damascus.”

“Yeah I heard that,” she smiled at me. “He is a good man, Christina. He stood by your father for years. He is truly pleased you are here. I know, remember?” She put her finger to her temple and smiled.

I shook my head. I wasn’t satisfied. His eyes, they lied. Too eager to see me here—the one whose throne he was taking.

“Will you watch him?” Her eyes studied me confused. “Just listen. I don’t believe him, his eyes….”

“Conflicting emotions, Princess?”

I rolled my eyes. “Please?”

“Of course I will, Princess. Anything.”

“Thank you,” I sighed relieved.

“Don’t worry. Everything is okay.”

“Please just keep this between us, okay?”

“Of course,” she smiled.

Alex came over then. “You wanna head back? It’s already 8:00.”

“Oh wow!” I looked at my watch. “Time passes so easily here. Yeah sure. I’m starving anyways.” I looked at Calpurnia. Please don’t forget, just watch him, listen, I don’t trust him. She nodded once.

Alex didn’t miss that, but turned to the others, “It was a pleasure to see you all again. We will return soon.” They all bowed, and we left.

In the car, Alex kept glancing in my direction and smiling.

“What?” I finally asked.

“You really don’t realize do you?”

“Realize what?”

His smile drew wider, “I have known you for years, Chris, and you have never been a talker.”

I shook my head, not understanding. “You told stories to them that I was there firsthand for a lot of and even still, neither I, nor anyone else in that room, could take our eyes off of you. The way you spoke—it reminded me of your father.” He smiled and closed his eyes. “Everyone noticed, especially my father.”

He didn’t say another word all the way home.

* * *

Things pretty much continued this way for a few weeks. I quit my job (not like I needed the money anymore) and spent most every moment with Alex learning how to jump better and use my strength and speed to the best of my ability. He was impressed the day I truly beat him in a race. We went to Sangre Real usually about twice a week to visit with everyone. I hadn’t seen Damascus or Alumit again.

Much to my surprise, Calpurnia had nothing to report, but I insisted she keep on listening. She insisted that I was just prejudice of the man who had taken my place and maybe I was—a little. Even if I had no intentions of changing that circumstance.

Nine

“So, I was thinking maybe we should take a break today,” Alex said.

“A break? What do you mean?”

“Well, you have been doing exceptionally well lately with your training so maybe we could take a drive and go to the beach for a few days or something.”

He found my weak spot. I have always loved the beach. And he was right, we had been working nonstop. I practically never slept, partially because I never wanted him to leave, so if that meant training, I would do it.

“I think that is a wonderful idea!”

“Okay, well then, I’m gonna run to my place and pack. I shouldn’t be more than an hour or so. Be ready when I get back, and we‘ll go first thing in the morning.”

“Okay, hurry back.”

He smiled and disappeared out the door. I flopped down on the couch, exhausted from all the work we had done. I learned that I may not need sleep, but man, sometimes I felt like I could still use it.

I was bored with the TV in no time, so I went wandering around the house looking for something to do. Alex never left me anymore. I usually even went to his house with him, so I was completely lost for what to do.

I got to my room and grabbed Pride and Prejudice. I couldn’t remember the last time I had read anything. So I went and laid down on the floor in the living room, my mind engulfing the quarrels of Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy. It was one of my favorite books and movies.

My thoughts were interrupted as a familiar scent washed through my mind. Familiar, but I couldn’t exactly place it. It wasn’t something I caught very often, but I knew it like I knew my own. All I knew was that it wasn’t human. It was a vampire, and it wasn’t Alex.

A vampire had heard or seen Alex leave, and now, it was coming for me! I could hear him now too.

I jumped off of my couch and stood there like an idiot. What should I do? Alex and I had play fought before, but this was different. Maybe it was a coincidence. Maybe it was someone I knew. I tried not to freak out.

Just then I heard a growl escape from the approaching vampire’s throat. It was a muted sound, but there was no mistaking the violence that echoed through it. Even still, I could not move. I was frozen. And he was here.

The knock on the door made me tremble. I closed my eyes. “Alex, I know you can’t hear me, but come home. Please. Now,” I said to myself.

The knock came again, louder and harder. I toyed with the logic in my head. I knew if I didn’t open it whoever was there was going to come in, so I told myself to just open the door. Just be ready. Be ready, Christina.

I refused to let my heart or breathing increase. I didn’t want my intruder to know I was afraid. So I walked to the door. One, two, three…. I swung the door open as fast as I could and was baffled at who I saw there. Standing in front of me with a small smile on his face was Alumit.

“Hello, Princess.”

I took a deep breath and waited a second for my heart to slow down. “Alumit, hi. What are you doing here?”

“I come with bad news, Princess. It’s about Damascus. May I come in?”

Damascus. What could he have to tell me about Damascus that could be bad news? Was he dead? No wait, that would be good news. “Yes of course, please.” I waved my hand into my living room. “What has happened?”

“I…overheard something. He was talking with someone,” he paused, “about you.”

“About me? What do you mean? What did he say?”

“I have been with Damascus for years. I have never thought that he was that kind of person. I never thought he was a murderer.”

I knew it. I knew he was evil. Damascus had killed someone. Maybe someone that I knew. I gasped out loud. Maybe my father.

“Who, Alumit? Who did he kill?”

“Not did he kill,” he looked into my eyes, “going to kill.”

“He is coming here.”

He nodded once. “Tonight. I must get you out of here. Now.” He grabbed my arm and pulled me toward the door.

“Wait, I can’t leave yet! Alex will be here soon!”

“He will find our scent and follow us to Sangre Real.” He yanked my arm again.

“I’m not leaving until Alex gets back,” I said sternly.

“Yes you are!” he yelled at me.

I smacked his hand off of my arm, and he backhanded me across the face. The blow sent me across the room, and I slammed into the wall and against a picture that hung there. Glass shattered and fell all around me. I hissed at Alumit, and instantly he lunged at me.

For some reason everything that I had learned, all of my training with Alex had left me, and I couldn’t even think to jump or strike back. Another blow to the face snapped me out of my coma, and I leapt for Alumit’s still turned back. I bit with all of the strength I had into his exposed neck and sucked as much blood out as I could muster.

The amazing part is that it tasted unlike anything I ever had before. It was delicious. It pumped through my body like adrenaline, and I could already feel my body succumbing to the strength and speed and heightened senses that were spreading through my body. The feeling was euphoric. For the first time in my life, I felt my fangs as they emerged and drowned themselves in his blood. It was a strange feeling.

Alumit let out a howl and spun around and threw me off of him. I saw him run out the door and began to chase after him until visions started flowing through my mind.

Pictures of another world, another time. Alumit. Pictures of Alumit. Not pictures, but memories. His memories were flooding my mind. I screamed out loud when I saw a vision of him and Damascus holding down my father in his bed—draining and killing him. “Alex!” I screamed.

I ran back into my house and slammed the door. I finally heard and smelled Alex as he approached the house. He opened the door and horror washed over his face as he saw me covered in blood and frightened in the corner of the living room.

“What the hell happened, Chris?” He was frantic. He ran over and picked me up by my shoulders and wrapped my face in his hands. “What happened, Christina?”

“Alumit,” I managed, “he tried to kill me.”

At that moment another smell crept its way toward us, and I hissed. It wasn’t a bad smell, and much more familiar, but it was strong. And it wasn’t alone. It was more than half a dozen different smells, and as it got closer, Alex finally caught it.

“It’s just the guard. I’ll meet them. Stay here.”

“No, don’t leave me!” I cried.

He put his hand to my face, “You will never be out of my sight. Never again.” He turned and walked out just a few yards. A few seconds later, they emerged from the tree line, all of them—Demitri, Nebula, Calpurnia, Duncan, and Marius. Lillith and Amasia were with them as well.

“Alex! What happened?” Demitri exclaimed. He ran over to me and put his hands to my face. Calpurnia wrapped her arms around me and buried my face into her chest.

“Alumit,” she snarled.

“How did you know?” I whispered and freed my face from her embrace.

“I overheard,” she frowned. “I’m so sorry, Christina. I should have listened to you.”

“Overheard what?” I asked.

“I overheard that Damascus planned to come here to kill you tonight.”

I looked at everyone’s faces. “I already knew.” I looked at Calpurnia’s and ran through the night’s events in my head, even the memories that I had gained from Alumit.

She gasped when she saw the plans for them to lure me into the woods. That was where Damascus was waiting with over a dozen other vampires to make sure the job was done. A single tear rolled down our faces in synchronization when the memory of my father’s death flowed through our minds.

“You were right, Princess. You were always right. He killed King Azariah.” Gasps came from every mouth that was present. “I’m so, so sorry. Please forgive me.” She fell to the ground at my feet.

I bent down and gripped her face, “It’s not your fault. He tricked us all, Cali. That is his gift.”

“His gift?” three voices said at the same time.

“Yes. I saw it. Through Alumit’s memories. Damascus can cloud everyone’s thoughts, make you see, feel, and think whatever he wants you to. Alumit knew it. That’s why Calpurnia couldn’t hear him. He knew her gift too.” I looked back to her and picked her up. “Please don’t beat yourself up. You got here, didn’t you? I’m still alive.”

“So what do we do?” Alex asked.

“We fight,” I said.

“But who is next in line? Who will take Damascus’ place?” Nebula said.

“I will,” I smiled. The faces around me gazed at me questioningly, but I knew there was no other way.

“Are you sure about that, Princess?” Demitri asked.

“For years I have lived in a world where I didn’t belong, didn’t fit in. I was protected by people that I didn’t even know to keep my life—the one I was born to live in—a secret from me. No matter how I try to fight it, it’s in my blood, and I will not watch anyone else screw it up but me. Okay, that’s not quite what I meant, but you know what I mean.” I looked at Alex’s face and then to Demitri and the others. “It’s what my father wanted. I have never been able to give anything to him...and he has done so much for me. So, if you all will stand beside me and fight as you have fought beside him, I’ll do it.”

Ten

Even though I was surrounded by so many vampires willing to lay down their lives to restore me to my throne, I was scared. I watched as they deliberated and talked strategy, only half listening to what was being said.

My eyes found and studied every single face surrounding me. These people I was just getting to know and love…would they die? Already, I’d started to care for them, and I wasn’t sure if I could survive the guilt. Death was by no means new to me. I’d been to my share of funerals, but that had been in an entirely different life. The circumstances couldn’t be any more different. Battling for reign over a kingdom—for my kingdom? When was the last time that happened?

My eyes finally found and rested on Alex. He didn’t notice my gawking, or, if he did, he ignored it. The thought made my heart clench for a moment, but I took a deep breath and forced it away. I had to let it go.

My mind had already accepted what he had done and why, but my heart wasn’t so hasty to forgive.

I licked my lips and found myself imagining his unbelievably sweet taste. My heart began to hammer at memories, and before I could pull myself back down to earth, I was aware of Alex’s head turning to meet my gaze. Before I could react, there was a brief connection, and I was struck by how cold and flat his eyes were as they examined me.

That splash of cold water had me fleeing from his stare. I quickly looked away and was surprised to see half a dozen pairs of eyes watching me intently. They all had some degree of concern on their faces, all but Calpurnia. I blinked and unconsciously took a step back, overwhelmed with the sudden attention.

“Princess, are you alright?”

I looked toward the source of the voice and found Demitri staring at me, worry etched into his forehead. I was in the middle of shaking my head when I realized why they were anxious. They’d heard my heart spike up abruptly. With the exception of Calpurnia, they probably thought I’d become scared from whatever they had said just said. What was that anyways? Damn it, I need to pay more attention. I walked forward again, resuming my original place.

“I’m fine. Please continue.”

Determined to pay attention this time, I waited for the spotlight to move away from me. It didn’t take but a few seconds for them to shift back to the original topic. I was glad. I still wasn’t used to being such an asset to so many people. After a lifetime of being simple and unimportant, the sudden attention was unnerving.

“Our biggest advantage is that Damascus doesn’t know we are planning a coup. The more silent and subtle we can be, the better. Best case scenario, the shift of power will be virtually undetectable,” Duncan’s quiet but sure voice stretched through the entire room. From across the room, I saw Marius shaking his head.

“Surprised or not, Damascus will not go silently. He’s waited too long for this. He’s drunk with power and dangerous. I do not doubt he will have to be ended. It’s the only way.”

I looked back to Duncan, waiting for a response, but the room shifted to Nebula instead.

“Perhaps not,” she disagreed. “If Damascus finds himself outnumbered so severely, even he would know it’s a lost cause.”

“Have you forgotten what he can do?”

“No, but—”

“He’ll do whatever it takes to target Princess Christina and kill her. We cannot allow that to happen.”

“Well, he also doesn’t know Nebula’s gift,” Marius chimed in.

“How is that possible?” I asked.

“She hasn’t had to use it in about three hundred years.”

“We’d better go before we lose the element of surprise,” Demitri finally stated. “Damascus won’t know yet that we’ve left.”

The drive there was tense. Alex and I were in one car and everyone else was split up in two more. There was so much to say, and yet I didn’t know where to start. What a change the day had made!

This morning we were headed to the beach, and now we were headed to bring a war to the man who killed my vampire father and had tried to kill me. Easy, right?

As hard as it was, the one thing I couldn’t say but thought about the most was how drastically everything had changed between Alex and me and how much I wanted my Alex back. I ached to have him love me again. To taste his kiss again. To just be us again. After today, I didn’t know if there would even be an “us” anymore. What we were going to do, this fight, who knew how it might end up. There was no surrender in this. People were going to die. People I knew and loved. People like Ale…… No.

“No!” I shouted.

“Chris?”

“You can’t die. Do you understand me?” Tears were coming down my face now. “You don’t have to love me anymore and you don’t have to pretend, but you have to stay alive. I can’t lose you, not ever, not like that.” I couldn’t look at his face because I knew what I would see there. Nothing. Exactly what he felt for me now.

Silent tears streamed down my face the rest of the car ride.

* * *

When we arrived at the church, everything turned all business. Demitri and Alex sat and talked for a few minutes, and then we all started in toward the city.

I don’t think anything could have prepared me for what I was about to see—or any of us really.

The city from my dreams was waiting below, but unlike in my dreams that showed me a dead and empty city, the rooftops were covered with vampires. Vampires with one agenda—to kill me. There were dozens of them. Dozens. Terror shrilled within me.

“Princess,” Calpurnia came to my side, “you don’t have to fight with us. I can stay here with you.”

“There’s just so many….” I gasped. “I can’t ask you to stay with me. You have to go with them. They need you.” And I can’t lose Alex. You have to stay with him, I added silently.

She nodded and turned to Demitri. “It’s time.”

“Nebula,” Demitri said.

I turned to Calpurnia and she flashed me a wicked grin. I thought you never wanted me to see this, I thought. She winked, sunk back into her crouch, and bared her teeth to the awaiting surge.

Nebula was behind Calpurnia with her back to us. She glanced over her shoulder and in one effortless and fluid movement, she spun ever so slowly toward us. She floated through us and stopped between Alex and me. At an agonizing pace, she raised her right arm level to her shoulder and flipped her hand, palm up.

It looked like she was cupping something. She puckered her lips and blew out a gust of wind. What appeared to be diamonds flew from her hand down toward the city, like shards of crystals glittering in the moonlight, covering the earth below us.

She pulled her lips back, exposing her teeth, and with a blink of an eye all hell broke loose. Screams broke out in a chorus of pain below. The tiny fragments were dancing their way through the bodies of the vampires that wanted to kill me, slicing their skin, and blood flowed freely on the rooftops.

“Three, two, one,” Calpurnia counted, and in perfect harmony everyone jumped off of the cliff into the sea of serpents waiting below. At the same instant, the crystals disappeared into thin air. A look of shock, surprise, fear, and anger washed over the many faces that waited below.

I stood in awe for a moment as I watched Demitri manipulate boulders and tree limbs and slammed them into, and even through, unsuspecting victims. Marius leapt building to building, setting ablaze groups of vampires. Amasia followed closely behind, finishing them off. I watched in awe as Duncan blinded a victim, and then ripped off his prey’s appendages and tossed them into the fires. Calpurnia danced around all who advanced on her as she read their thoughts, and Alex sped through the crowd, mangling bodies in fractions of a second.

It was the most spectacular sight I had ever seen. Like a perfectly choreographed symphony playing a death waltz. As I watched them, I grew hungry. The terror inside of me evaporated, and I wanted them to die. All of them.

As Demitri was engaged in a fight, I eyed a vampire stalking behind him. My eyes tightened, and I jumped to the vampire and thrust my hand into his back. I grabbed the first thing I felt cold and wet in my hand and yanked it out. In my hand, a heart took its last beat as the host crumpled to the floor.

Demitri’s eyes met mine then darted behind me. I turned and met the gaze of a dozen ravenous vampires. I hissed and crouched to attack. Marius blew past me then, and the twelve faces suddenly turned morbid as the flames engulfed their bodies.

A few buildings away, an image startled me. “Father,” I breathed. I took a step forward. A few hundred feet in front of me stood my father. He was reaching one hand out toward me.

No, my father is dead.

“Alumit!” I screamed.

Laughter broke from his lips as he melted back to his normal self. I jumped to him and kicked him back as hard as my legs would go.

“I’m going to enjoy this almost as much as I enjoyed killing your father.”

I jumped to him again and slid my left hand down his face and whispered in his ear, “Good luck.” With my right hand I ripped his eye from its socket.

“You bitch!” he cried out in pain.

I darted behind him and spun him around and ripped out his other eye as he fell to the ground whining. I picked up a rock and held it up. “I hope you enjoy this,” I said and I broke each and every one of his extremities. Then I raised the rock once more above his face.

A single piercing cry broke through the ocean of screams and shreds of skin that had consumed the once peaceful night. Before I had even turned, I knew the mouth it had escaped from.

As I turned, I saw Damascus looking at me and his lips were pressed against Alex’s limp neck. He dropped Alex’s body to the floor and his black sinister eyes twitched and he smiled at me.

In this very moment, clarity washed over me. This man had killed my father. He had taken my throne. He deceived all of my family. And now he spilled the blood of the man I loved.

“I’m going to kill you,” I hissed.

He wiped his mouth on his sleeve then spat down toward Alex’s lifeless body. I snarled and lunged. In a blink, I impacted his body, throwing him back as he simultaneously struck my chest.

I flipped backward, but when I landed, he was already headed back in my direction. He was fast. But I was faster. I jumped behind him and he spun to me.

“So eager to avenge a man that didn’t even love you.”

I jumped behind him again and thrust my hand into his shoulder and took his arm with me then jumped again before he could turn and strike me. His agony was deafening, yet music to my ears. The shrill scream quickly turned into laughter, “You will never win. My kind will never let a half breed woman,” he spat the word at me, “rule them.”

With invisible speed, I circled around Damascus’ body, my teeth pressed into his neck, then perched onto his back.

“They don’t have a choice.” I jerked my arms up and leapt over his body into a crouch directly in front of him. His body fell to the ground behind me, and I dropped his head still oozing his remains next to his body.

I could feel and smell the blood drying all over my body. My hair was matted to my face. I was only subconsciously aware of the fighting still going on around me. Fires were ablaze, stemming all over the city. Everything seemed in warped speed as I walked slowly toward Alex’s undisturbed body.

“Alex,” I whispered and dropped to my knees beside him. I turned his body face up, but he did not move. I shook him, “Alex! Alex! Don’t you die on me! Not now! No! Stay with me! I love you, stay with me!” I bit into my wrist and let my blood flow freely into his mouth. Nothing happened. “Demitri!” I screamed as loudly as I could. In a second, he was by my side.

“Alex,” he sighed. “Lillith,” he called in not much more than a whisper. She sped toward us and without a word, dropped to his other side and poured something into his mouth. She then put her hands over his wounds on his neck and arm.

I looked up at Demitri. “She is a healer. If he can be saved, she can do it.”

His breathing became shallow and labored and he opened his eyes. “Damascus?” he breathed.

“He is dead,” I stated.

“And the others are being finished off,” his father amended.

He looked into my eyes, “Christina.” I looked into his eyes and tears flowed effortlessly from my face. He put his hand to his chest and ripped open his shirt. Lying across his chest was a thin gold chain, holding a tiny gold baby ring. I cupped my hand over my mouth and sobs broke free from my chest. He took my hand from my face and laid it above his heart.

“This heart, it beats for only you. My heart is yours. Silly girl to have ever believed the lies I said to you! I love you, Christina Marie Delano. Now go. Go be the woman you were born to be. It’s in your blood.” He flashed me his smile that had lit his face all those years and then lay his head back and closed his eyes. Demitri picked Alex up and began to walk away with his body, while his heartbeat faded into the blackness.

Epilogue

A million things seemed to happen at once after the battle. The next week no one had been able to rest between my taking the throne, meeting with different advisors, and strategizing the elimination of the surge that had begun taking place at my crowning. Damascus’ army may have been the biggest threat to me, but it was not the only one.

After spending a solid month in Sangre Real, I decided it was time to go home and reunite with my mother. Even though Cali had been relaying messages to her for me, we had not spoken on the phone for many weeks.

“Demitri and I will go with you, Queen Christina,” Calpurnia said.

I smiled. That was something I still hadn’t gotten used to even after a month of it.

“I’m not allowed to go alone anymore, am I?” I sighed. Cali just smiled back at me. “Hey, I guess everyone needs their own death-dealing, fang-bearing, vampire posse these days right? I mean it is 2010,” I teased.

Even though things had changed so much in my life, I still couldn’t understand why I was so nervous to see the woman who had been my mother for the last twenty two years, even if she wasn’t technically my “mother”.

When I got to her house, I let myself in and sat down on the couch. She wasn’t in the room, so I decided to just sit and wait.

The house was the exact same as I remembered it from my childhood. Not much had changed except for minor things like a newer, bigger TV and a new bookcase. So many good memories I had in this world, such a different life from the one I would be leading for the rest of forever. Lazy Sundays were spent on this very couch, sipping hot chocolate. Wrapping paper was strewn on this floor at 6 a.m. every Christmas. There were so many things about my old life that I would miss once I said goodbye to this place.

“Christina?!” Mom exclaimed.

I stood and she ran over to me and wrapped her arms around my neck and cried.

“I’m so sorry, Mom, for what I said before—”

“No…. no, I’m sorry.” Tears were streaming down her face.

“Sorry for what, Mom?”

“Let me finish. I’m sorry for lying to you. I’m sorry for hurting you. I was supposed to always be there for you, and I thought you wouldn’t find out. I was supposed to protect you. Your mother never wanted you to find out. She wanted you to be normal. Happy. Safe. All I ever wanted was to do right by you and help you to become a beautiful grown woman. And I have always been so proud of you, so proud. I love you so much, Christina, and I will always think of you as my daughter. Please forgive me.”

I was crying now too.

“You have nothing to be sorry for, Mom. You did everything right. You were an amazing mother, are, are an amazing mother. You always will be an amazing mother. I don’t blame you for anything. It was just all so…..complicated. You couldn’t have made it any easier. You were here for me, and that’s all I needed, and will always need.” I wrapped my arms around her neck. “I still need my mother.”

“You won’t be able to come back, will you?” she said. I frowned. “You were always a bad liar, you know.”

“I don’t…. I don’t know, Mom.” I wanted so desperately to say yes. I didn’t want to leave my mother there like that. “I just don’t know if it’s safe. Do they know? Michael and the girls?”

“No, no of course not. They believe you are my daughter.”

“Hmmm. Well, maybe. I’ll figure something out. If we can still keep you safe, then I can come back. I just won’t put you in danger.”

We chatted for a few more hours. Crying here and there, laughing and smiling more often. I don’t think she ever believed I would make it back.

Eventually it was time for me to leave, so I said my goodbyes to my family and headed to the car. Cali and Demitri met me there and Cali wrapped her arms around me.

“Do you need a minute?”

I smiled, “No, I’m okay. I’m ready to go home.”

Driving back towards Sangre Real brought a wave of emotions over me. This was the first time ever that I was driving home. The first time driving there without feeling totally uncertain of what I was driving toward, and not having to be afraid of it. Now, I was driving toward my future. I hoped I would make my mother and father proud.

I took a few extra moments walking around my church. Never before had I thought about the irony of having the entrance to our world being a church, a safe haven from those who are damned. Huh. It definitely was not a place any human would ever have expected that the cross between fantasy and reality meet.

When I rounded the corner to the passage, I stopped dead in my tracks. Where there once was a picture of a man with light brown hair and blindingly bright blue eyes that laughed at me, something else was now present.

Me. Only… she was beautiful. The once boring, straight, light brown hair was flowing so perfectly around her face. Her skin glowed like a picture never could. The eyes were purely my father’s. The smile really struck me though. It was a smile I rarely saw in myself. It was confident. Brave. Proud even.

“It’s how you look to us, Your Highness,” Calpurnia said, startling me.

I wish….. I wish Alex was—

“I know. We all do.”

Without another word, I walked silently toward Sangre Real. I took every single step with my eyes closed. I listed to every sound, breathed in every scent of the forest, and tasted the air in every step.

Once I reached the cliff, I stood there and just laughed out loud. So many things had scared me about this place just a few months ago. So many awful nightmares which were now just bittersweet memories. The secret world of the night, that is now my own.

* * *

This is my story. Not where it ends, but only where it begins. I don’t really know what is going to happen next, but I have the best family a girl could ask for, and I know things will be okay.

Standing here, looking over my city, a few things occur to me. When I take a toll of the things gained and lost, there is much at stake. I lost my blood parents, but gained a new family. I gave up my old, easy life, but found my place in the world. It was a fairly easy price to pay, but I did lose Alex.

I suppose though at the end of the tally, I am a vampire. Nobody ever promised me a happy ending.

Kolina Topel was born in California and now resides in New Albany, Indiana with her family. In her free time, she loves to watch movies and read any book she can get her hands on. She is currently busy working on her second novel.

Read more at www.Kolinatopel.com

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