by Grace Martin
Contents
Title Page
The Night Princess
Bonus Sneak Peek: Daughter of a Captive God
About the Author
Coming Soon from Grace Martin
Copyright
THE NIGHT PRINCESS
_____________________
Grace Martin
Juniper Green, who already knew she had an embarrassing name (so none of your cheek), was nearly sixteen. It was bad enough moving around all the time and living in a caravan like a pauper, even when your parents are astrophysicists, without having a stupid name. It was even worse to find out that the family was going to move again the same day — the same day! — the guy she had a crush on finally, and completely out of the blue, asked her out. She hadn’t even known that Harry knew her name. Her friends would have thought it was awesome — if she had any.
Juniper — and remember, name-calling is bullying — rightly resented this.
‘We don’t have a choice.’ Mrs. Green resolutely wrapped plate after plate in newspapers because even when you live in a caravan, there are things to pack unless you want to buy all new crockery when you arrive.
‘We don’t have a choice.’ Mr. Green stacked the wrapped dishes in the box.
‘You know this is unfair?’ Juniper crossed her arms across her chest and leaned back against the metal doorframe.
Mrs. Green spun to face her daughter. She looked sick. ‘We’re trying!’
Juniper stepped back for a moment. She couldn’t remember hearing her mother shout before. It was so shocking it was a bit frightening.
Mrs. Green threw the plate she had been holding into the sink. It shattered, and all three of them flinched. She covered her face with her hands and began to cry. Mr. Green rose and put his arms around her. He rested his face against her hair for a moment. Mrs. Green turned in his arms and reached out to Juniper. Her face was washed with tears. Juniper had no choice but to allow her mother to drag her into the embrace, but she was already making plans.
They moved that night, pulling the caravan behind the car on the two-hour drive from Port Stephens to Sydney. When they arrived, they parked at the site and unlocked the door. Juniper was the first to go inside.
Mrs. Green put a hand on Juniper’s arm the moment she was up the stairs. ‘We’ll be out for a few hours, darling. Will you be all right on your own?’
Juniper stared at her, started to say something, and stopped. ‘Sure,’ she breathed, ‘that, um, that would be fine. I, um, how many hours do you think?’
The father looked at her sharply, but fortunately, her mother had just closed in for a hug and hid Juniper’s face in her cloud of dark, curly hair.
‘We’ll be back well before midnight — or midnight, do you think, Richard?’
‘Yes, definitely midnight. Definitely back by midnight. You’ll still be asleep when we come back, Jenny.’
‘Still be asleep?’ Juniper asked before she could stop herself. ‘Don’t you mean, “already be asleep?”’
‘Yes, of course, that’s what I meant,’ Mr. Green replied. ‘Have you still got your ring, Juniper?’
Juniper held up her hand to show the opal ring they’d given her for her fifteenth birthday. ‘I never take it off,’ she said with a thin smile. ‘Like a big girl, just like I promised.’
They’d made such a big deal of it, like she was a baby, saying that she had to be careful never to lose it, never to even take it off. They asked her about ten times a day if she was still wearing it.
To tell the truth, though, she sometimes took it off at school. In fact, Harry noticed her for the first time when she took the ring off. She had been stuffing it into her pocket and not looking where she was going. She walked right into him.
He caught her shoulders. He started to move like he was shoving her to the side because she wasn’t worthy of his attention, but then he stopped. He looked back at her like he was drawn to her. Then he just stood there, holding her by her shoulders and staring at her like he’d never seen a girl before. He asked her out on the spot. Juniper’s heart hadn’t stopped pounding yet.
Mr. Green called from the other side of the car, ‘Get back into the car, Isabella. We don’t want to be late.’
‘Just a moment, Richard,’ Mrs. Green squeezed Juniper in one last embrace.
Once they left, Juniper dug her mobile phone out of her pocket. She checked her messages and then did a little happy dance right there in the doorway of the caravan. She spun around and went inside to get changed.
Ten minutes, her best skinny jeans, and a full face of makeup later, Juniper exited the caravan. She didn’t dare leave the ring behind. If her parents returned early, she stood a better chance of survival if she at least carried the ring on her person. She stuffed it into the tiny pocket at the front of her jeans.
She hurried to the front gate of the caravan park. He was already there, sitting in a dark car. He was so thoughtful, not calling any attention to himself while he waited for her. He got out of the car when he saw her approach.
Juniper rushed to meet him. She wished that she could throw herself into his arms, but felt that might be going a bit far for the first moment of a first date. She stopped a few paces away from him. ‘I’m so glad you could come!’
He shrugged, but his charming grin made her heart skip a beat, the way it always did, even when it was directed at someone else. Having it turned her way for once was devastating. ‘I was in Sydney anyway. My parents have got some conference or something. Hop in.’
Juniper got into the car, feeling very grown-up to be sitting next to a boy old enough to drive his own car. At almost sixteen, she didn’t even have her license yet. ‘Are your parents astrophysicists, too?’
He laughed, and she shrunk a little smaller into her seat. ‘Hardly. They’re nurses. They’re only at home and awake for a few hours a day.’
‘My parents do a lot of work at night, too. They go out at night all the time, but they freak out if I go out after dark.’
He shook his head. ‘That’s lame. My parents don’t care what I do.’
He didn’t say any more for a while, giving Juniper a chance to consider that, while it was annoying having her parents treat her like she was still a little girl, maybe if they didn’t care at all, it would be worse. ‘Where are we going tonight?’
He turned to her for a moment and flashed her that grin again. ‘We’ve got something fun planned tonight. You’ll love it. Trust me.’
‘I trust you,’ Juniper whispered, giving him a shy smile in return that he probably didn’t even see since he’d turned his attention back to the road.
‘Omigod,’ Juniper muttered and slipped down in her seat as far as she could go. ‘There—my parents! Don’t let them see me. They’ll kill me.’
Harry laughed again, and Juniper reflected that maybe she didn’t like his laugh as much as she thought she did. ‘Which ones are they?’
Juniper peered over the lower edge of the window, trying to hide. She gasped and ducked back down again. ‘So many people! Harry, where are we?’
He didn’t look at her this time. From the side, his grin wasn’t charming at all. ‘We’re going to have some fun tonight, Juni.’
‘Juniper,’ she snapped. ‘Or Jenny. I hate being called Juni.’
He chuckled. ‘So long as we don’t call you late for dinner, hey?’
Call me by my bloody name, arsehole. She pinched her lips together to stop the words escaping. If her parents knew she cursed like that, even in her mind, they’d be furious. ‘That kind of language draws attention,’ her mother always said, usually patting Juniper’s face or arm. ‘A good girl doesn’t call attention to herself, Jenny.’
There wasn’t much that Juniper hated mor
e than being told not to call attention to herself. She was already invisible at school. She didn’t have to do anything, in particular, to be inconspicuous. It came naturally. Still, when her mother patted her arm like that, it always felt calming, so Juniper let it go.
Harry’s attitude was unnerving, and the bold words weren’t as far from the surface as they usually were. He laughed again, and Juniper had the eeriest feeling that he knew what she was thinking.
‘Here we are,’ Harry announced, slowing the car. ‘You’ll have to get up from there sometime.’
Juniper slid upright until she was sitting normally in her seat. She felt a bit stupid when she looked around and saw they were parking already. There were no more adults around the car. Instead, there was a small but continuous trickle of teenagers walking through the car park towards a large building that looked like a warehouse. They were dressed to go out, so it must be a club of some kind. ‘Where is ‘here’ anyway?’
‘It’s a party,’ Harry answered. ‘A sort of sixteenth birthday party for very special people. You’ll be sixteen soon, won’t you, Juniper?’
‘In July.’
‘Yeah, funny that. I would have thought it was your birthday tonight.’ It was a weird remark to make, but Harry was already opening his door and Juniper didn’t have a chance to comment.
When she got out of the car, Juniper heard the music coming from the open door of the club. It certainly sounded like a club, and why would Harry bring her here and lie to her? She didn’t know him all that well since he was two years ahead of her in school, but she’d seen him around and been incredibly flattered when the best-looking guy in school started to pay attention to her.
Harry hooked his arm through hers and steered her towards the door. There was a very serious looking bouncer who returned Harry’s nod as they entered.
Inside, the club was dark. It was lit only by candlelight, giving the massive room a Gothic feel. The ceiling was several stories above them, but there were balconies that stretched all the way around the edges where people were sitting and talking. Music was pumping through massive speakers somewhere, and in the centre, a large group of teens moved to the music. Juniper found herself moving to the beat, too, although she had never heard this type of music before.
She turned to Harry to tell him it looked like fun, but he practically disappeared from view because a bunch of girls came up and threw their arms around him. They squealed in delight, and Juniper wished the music was louder, so she didn’t have to listen to it. She might wish for more friends, but that didn’t mean she wanted friends who squealed like that.
Harry just laughed, yet again. Juniper also wished she didn’t have to listen to that laugh anymore. ‘Girls, girls, control yourselves!’ he cried. ‘Evangeline, I know it’s difficult. Look who I brought with me.’
In one motion, a dozen pairs of eyes slewed sideways to inspect Juniper. She felt like she just been nailed in position like a butterfly.
‘Who are you?’ asked the one who had her arms around Harry’s neck, who he had called Evangeline. She didn’t take her arms away, and barely bothered to raise her face from his skin to ask the question.
Juniper’s first instinct was to cringe, but the girl who’d been asked out by the most good-looking guy in the whole school on a date was not the sort of person who would cringe. Instead, she tossed her head, so her dark curls settled away from her face and gave Evangeline a death stare of her own. ‘I’m his date. That’s the part you’re interested in, isn’t it?’ She put her hand on her hip and stared the girl down until her arms slid away from Harry’s neck.
Harry surprised Juniper by throwing his arm around her shoulders. ‘This is Juniper Green, my girls. You’re going to love her. She’s delicious.’
‘Has she Woken?’ one of the other girls asked. ‘Or did you bring enough to share?’
‘The phrase is ‘woke,’ not woken,’ Juniper corrected. ‘And I have no intention of sharing, so why don’t you lovely ladies just bugger off and let us have a good night without the pleasure of your company?’
All the girls—and Harry—stared at her for a moment, then they burst into peals of laughter. The girl who’d challenged Juniper patted her on the shoulder. ‘I’m sure I’ll see you later,’ she said. Then she turned and, making a gesture over her shoulder for all the other girls to follow her, she stalked away.
‘Not if I see you first,’ Juniper muttered, hoping that the loud music would mask the trite remark.
Harry heard her, though. His arm tightened around her shoulders, and he pulled her close to him. His other hand cupped her face and tilted it up so he could kiss her.
It was Juniper’s first kiss. It was everything she dreamt it would be. In the moment before she closed her eyes, it seemed like every candle flame in the room suddenly leaped, and the space was flooded with light. The music beat on, but it seemed like everyone stopped talking and there was nothing that existed for Juniper except for the music and Harry’s kiss.
Harry’s hands were everywhere—but then, that wasn’t right. He couldn’t possibly have that many hands. One arm was tight around her shoulders, and his other hand was still on her face—so who was that stroking her back? Other hands joined in, stroking her arms, her hair, even stroking around the shape of Harry’s hand on her face.
Juniper pulled away from him with a cry of horror. There were people all around them, all reaching out to touch her. She tried to take a step back, but there were too many hands. She couldn’t move.
Evangeline was in front of her again. She touched Juniper’s face while other hands held Juniper still. ‘Harry, you’re right,’ Evangeline drawled. ‘She is delicious. I’ve never felt like this before. She’s the Magnifier. She’s got to be. Var Valerian will reward us for this.’ She turned and kissed Harry, taking her time about it. ‘You stay here and enjoy the party. I’ll take this one to the King.’
Harry let Evangeline go reluctantly. He watched, smiling that charming grin, as the many hands of strangers slowly but inexorably pulled Juniper away. Within moments, the crowd had swallowed him up and Juniper was alone with the strangers.
Juniper cried out again, but either no one heard her over the music, or no one cared. The hands kept pulling her along, dragging her past the dance floor and through the tables and chairs scattered in the space overhung by the balconies. The hands were still caressing, but insistent, and Juniper wanted to move away from those caressing touches even more than she wanted to move away from a blow.
When a hand grabbed her arm tightly and pulled her sideways, she cried out again. Looking up, she saw a girl’s face, half-hidden by a hood. The girl looked angry.
‘Stop drawing attention to yourself!’ she snapped. ‘I can’t save you unless you stop being so damned conspicuous.’
‘But I didn’t even swear.’ Even before she finished speaking, the girl disappeared, replaced by another person with caressing hands.
They urged her through a door, into a small hallway, then through a whole series of other doors and rooms and hallways until Juniper was hopelessly lost. They ended up in another large room, where it looked like a meeting was taking place.
Several hundred adults, all dressed soberly, were seated on little plastic chairs and paying close attention to the man at the front. He was smiling when the door opened, looking like he was saying something that he thought was mildly amusing, although no one was laughing. He stopped talking and frowned when the teenagers began to flood the room.
‘It’s not your turn yet,’ he said. ‘I’m talking to your parents.’
Evangeline was at the front of the group that held Juniper. She had her arm raised to make a dramatic point. Juniper saw her hesitate. Whoever this man was, Evangeline was afraid of him.
But Evangeline’s ambition drove her harder than fear. She turned to grab Juniper. ‘Your Majesty, I bring you-’
The man’s face grew stern. ‘I told you, it’s not your turn. Be quiet.’
The room fell silent im
mediately. It took Juniper a moment to realise that although the noise had ceased, their mouths continued to work as though they were still speaking. Evangeline was cut off mid-sentence. She turned to Juniper with fury in her eyes. It was probably just as well that the words she was silently screaming at Juniper were not audible because their intent… well, they were the kind of words that get noticed.
As she was looking around the room, Juniper noticed her parents among the crowd. She half-raised her hand to greet them. She knew the moment they saw her. Their faces filled with horror.
Her father leapt to his feet and strode towards the group of teenagers. ‘His Majesty has told you to leave.’ He made little shooing movements with his hands to usher them from the room and gave Evangeline a hard shove, separating her from Juniper.
Some of the teens started to turn and move away. Mr. Green took a few steps to encourage them to leave the room. He ended up standing right beside Juniper. Behind him, the adults were murmuring angrily about the interruption. ‘Don’t draw attention to yourself,’ he whispered, the low rumble of his voice covered by the irritable murmur of the crowd. ‘Remember everything that we taught you.’ Suddenly, he gasped. ‘Juniper, where is your ring?’
‘In my pocket,’ she whispered.
Mr. Green closed his eyes for a long, heartfelt moment. ‘Please, put it on, Juniper. Try to look like the others. You mustn’t let him notice you. Your life depends on it.’
His eyes met hers, and they were intense—she couldn’t hold his gaze. She looked away and subtly dug the ring out of the little pocket slipping it on her finger.
As she turned to leave the room, Juniper noticed the girl in the hood, standing amongst the group of teenagers. She deliberately caught Juniper’s gaze, then looked towards the door to encourage Juniper to leave. Her expression was clear: hurry up about it.
Juniper found herself herded into the centre of the group that was heading towards the door. So far, no one had noticed her except for her parents. The angry murmuring from the adults started to subside into a gentle gossip.