used to back home. How was I going to adjust to life here in Italy? I had no idea, but I was looking forward to seeing what was ahead.
The plane landed. I gathered my things and disembarked,
joining Cryder, Cecile, and Drake in the terminal. Cecile was
yawning and leaning on Drake’s shoulder.
“We’d better go get our luggage,” Cryder said. “The car will
be waiting for us.”
Nerves gripped me again. It was strange to think that anyone
was waiting for me in Rome. I knew who the car must have been
sent by—the vampire community. The royal family. They knew I
was coming. They were anticipating my arrival.
I knew that the vampires were my people, that my mother
had been one of them. But I had been raised all-human. I hadn’t
even known vampires were real until I’d met Cryder and Drake. I
hadn’t yet adjusted to the idea that I belonged in that world.
And not all of them were friendly. Alright, so Cryder’s
family wouldn’t be like Bristol. I believed that. But that didn’t mean no vampires would be. If I was to be their ruler, I’d eventually have to meet many of them, wouldn’t I? Wouldn’t I be in danger?
My thoughts were occupied with worries as I collected my
suitcase from the baggage carousel and made my way outside with
Cryder leading the way.
There were plenty of cars parked outside, but Cryder seemed
to know immediately which one was for us. He led the way to a
parked limousine. The driver stood on the sidewalk holding a sign
which read La Oscurità.
“What’s La Oscurità?” I asked as we climbed in, leaving our
bags on the sidewalk for the driver to load into the trunk.
“It’s Italian,” Cryder said. “It means ‘the darkness.’”
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Fight for Blood
Well, that was terrifying. We were driving into the darkness?
Drake must have seen the expression on my face. “It’s the
name of the city where the vampire community lives,” he explained.
“Humans recognize it as a little township on the outskirts of Rome.”
“Humans know about it?” I was stunned. “I thought it was
going to be a hidden place. A secret place.”
“Like an underground cave or something?” Cryder smiled.
I felt silly now. I’d been going about my normal life with
Cryder at my side for months now. I knew he didn’t have the
lifestyle of a bat. But yes, an underground cave was something I’d
imagined.
Cecile looked puzzled too. “I don’t get it,” she said. “You
can’t just have a vampire town that humans know about, can you?”
“Well, they don’t know it’s us living there,” Cryder said.
“But wouldn’t they be passing through all the time?” Cecile
asked. “I thought we were going to a place where vampires lived in
isolation.”
“La Oscurità is like that,” Drake said. “Humans know it
exists, but they don’t come in very often. Tourists are permitted, and sometimes they do come through. The town is a novelty to them.”
“But how do you keep humans from just moving in?” I
asked. “They don’t want to,” Drake said. “The area repels them.”
“Wouldn’t it have the opposite effect? I’d think a huge
concentration of vampires like you’re talking about would attract
humans.”
The two vampires exchanged glances. “The truth is that
humans generally don’t feel any interest in the place,” Cryder said.
“It’s under a spell, and the spell diverts their attention. The loophole is tourism—if a human is thinking about travel, it’s possible for their thoughts to wander to La Oscurità and for them to develop an
interest in spending a weekend there. But if they’re thinking about a place to buy a home or to set up a business, La Oscurità repels them.
Often, humans who come home from a vacation there have to
explain to their friends why in the world they wanted to go to La
Oscurità in the first place.”
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Fight for Blood
“La Oscurità is under a spell?” I repeated. “Vampires can do
magic?” “No, we can’t,” Cryder said. “The spell was put in place by a witch.” “A witch!” I sat back in my seat. Cecile’s jaw dropped.
“Witches are real?”
“This one is,” Drake said with a smile. “Don’t worry, she’s
nothing you need to worry about. She’s a decent person.”
“But if there are good ones, there are also bad ones, right?” I
was thinking of Bristol and how he compared to the vampires sitting
next to me.
“There are good and bad members of every group,” Cryder
agreed. He seemed to have followed my thoughts. “There are good
and bad humans. There are good and bad vampires. There are good
and bad witches. All you can do is take care to surround yourself
with the good ones.”
“And you’ll be completely safe in the castle, with the royal
family,” Drake said. “It’s one of the safest places a person could be, as long as they’re under our protection. That’s part of the reason we were so anxious to bring you here, Rena. Your life was in danger at
home. Here, we can protect you.”
The limousine pulled away from the curb. I clung to the door
handle as the driver merged into traffic. The road was full of little motorbikes, cutting in between cars, speeding their way to their
destinations. “Is there some kind of biker event going on?” I asked.
Cryder laughed. “That’s just Rome,” he said. “It’s always
like this. The roads in the United States are actually very organized by comparison.”
He wasn’t kidding. I couldn’t even figure out what the lanes
of traffic were—or if lanes even existed. Everyone was moving in a
cluster. I’d never be able to drive here, I thought despairingly. I
would be dependent on my new vampire family anytime I wanted to
go somewhere. That was an unpleasant thought.
“Look out there,” Cryder said. “You’ll be able to see the
Colosseum in a minute.”
Cecile and I looked. A moment later the limo rounded a
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Fight for Blood
corner and, sure enough, the familiar round stone structure came into view. I’d seen the Colosseum dozens of times in pictures and
movies, but now it was right here in front of me. That was hard to
believe. “Wow. That’s really it?”
“That’s really it,” Cryder said. “Maybe we’ll be able to
arrange a tour of the city someday and you can see all the sights.
The Pantheon, Trevi Fountain...there’s a lot to see in Rome.”
“Maybe,” Drake said. A look passed between the two of
them, and I got the feeling that Drake was reminding his cousin of
something.
I sat back in my seat, trying to appreciate where I was. Rome.
Whatever lay ahead for us, I’d made the trip to Italy. It was a
journey I probably never would have taken if Cryder hadn’t come
into my life. Now I would have the chance to see things other people could only dream of. I’d already gotten to see the Colosseum, and
my adventure was only just beginning.
The buildings thinned around us and gave way to
countryside. We’d left the city. Now I looked out on fields of crops I didn’t r
ecognize. One patch of land even held young trees. I
wondered what they were growing.
“Okay,” Drake said. “We’re about to enter the walls of La
Oscurità. You two will be able to feel the effects of the spell.”
“What’s it going to feel like?” Cecile sounded nervous.
Drake put an arm around her. “I don’t know exactly,” he
admitted. “I’ve never felt it myself. But it shouldn’t be painful.”
“It shouldn’t be?”
“It won’t be,” Cryder said.
I was nervous, too. I scooted closer to him and assessed
myself, trying to locate any unusual thoughts or sensations. Nothing seemed amiss.
The car slowed slightly.
“Are we stopping?” Cecile asked.
“Not stopping,” Cryder said. “We need to slow down a bit to
enter the town, that’s all.”
“I wish we’d seen more of Rome,” she said.
I was feeling the same way. “We never even got to get out of
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Fight for Blood
the car,” I complained.
“We’ll try to go back another day,” Cryder said.
“But what if we can’t? I can’t come all the way to Italy and
not see anything cool. I’d like to try riding one of those scooters.”
Where had that thought come from? The scooters had scared me
when I’d seen them. I knew that. Why did they suddenly seem so
appealing?
“I thought we’d get to try some Italian food,” Cecile said.
“They have food in La Oscurità,” Drake told her.
“I’m sure it’s not as good as what they have in Rome,” she
countered.
Cryder laughed. “Spell’s still working, I see.”
“What?” Cecile asked him.
“You want to go back to Rome because the spell is pushing
you away from entering La Oscurità. That’s what you’re feeling.
Give it a moment and it will pass.”
Was that true? He was right that I did badly want to go back
to Rome. But wasn’t that to be expected? I’d never been to Rome.
Rome was interesting. This place, this little village of La Oscurità, was boring. There was nothing here to keep our interest. Of course,
we wanted to go back.
And then we were beyond the walls and the feeling
disappeared as if it had never been.
Cecile gasped. I looked around in wonder. I had expected a
small town, a village with cottages and peddlers selling produce
from carts on the sidewalk. I had expected to feel as if I’d been
transported back in time. And I did feel as if I’d jumped to another period in history, but in every other way, La Oscurità confounded
my expectations.
The architecture was beautiful. The buildings seemed to be
spun out of glass. They sat low to the ground, lower than the wall,
but they were arranged beautifully around well-manicured lawns and
flower gardens.
“There’s the castle,” Cryder said, pointing.
The castle appeared to be carved out of ebony. It rose several
stories higher than the surrounding buildings, and it was beautiful. I 20
Fight for Blood
stared out the window as we approached, drinking it in. So, this was to be my new home.
The limousine pulled between two wrought iron gates that
had been thrown open. “Can anyone just walk through those gates?”
I asked nervously. “I thought security would be tighter here.”
“Everyone who lives in La Oscurità is loyal to the royal
family,” Cryder said. “You won’t find any rogues like Bristol here.
We have wards up against them.”
“More witchcraft?” Cecile asked. I thought I heard a note of
eagerness in her voice.
Drake laughed. “You’re interested in witchcraft?”
“Sure, I am,” Cecile said. “Who wouldn’t want to be able to
do magic?”
“You just became a vampire,” he pointed out. “Why not
focus on one thing at a time?”
“Because I’m an overachiever. You were at my graduation. I
received honors!”
Drake laughed. “That’s what I like about you. Always
looking to the next thing.”
“She’ll definitely make things interesting at home,” Cryder
agreed wryly.
“Interesting how?” I asked.
“We’ve got a lot of traditions, let’s just put it that way,”
Cryder said. “We, vampires, are set in our ways. It’s not often we
bring new people into the palace, especially people like you. People who are so young, both in years and in experience.”
“I hope we don’t make fools of ourselves,” I said, feeling
nervous. Cryder wrapped an arm around me. “You won’t,” he said.
“My parents will love you.”
I had to laugh at that.
“What’s funny?” he asked.
“Just, you know, meeting the parents. I know you’re
traditional, but really, it’s such a human thing to do. Everything else about this has been so strange and unexpected but meeting my
boyfriend’s parents is something I always kind of expected to have
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Fight for Blood
to do at some point in my life.”
“And that’s funny?”
“What’s funny is that right now I’m more afraid of that than
I am of anything else!”
“My parents aren’t frightening,” he chuckled. “They’re not
going to hurt you, Rena.”
“I’m not afraid they’re going to hurt me. I’m afraid they
won’t like me. What if they don’t think I’m a good fit for you? What if they don’t think I belong in the royal family?”
“Don’t borrow trouble,” Cecile warned. “You always do this.
But everyone likes you, Rena.”
“Everyone doesn’t like me. What are you talking about?”
“Nobody dis likes you. And Cryder loves you. Right?” She
glanced at him.
He smiled. “Very much.”
“So, his parents will like you too. Ipso facto.”
Drake looked impressed. “I didn’t know you spoke Latin.”
“Non sequitur.”
Drake laughed.
The car pulled to a halt. Through the tinted windows, I could
just make out the palace doors opening and two figures emerging.
I drew in a deep, steadying breath.
Cryder took my hand and gave it a squeeze. “Let’s go.”
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Fight for Blood
Chapter Three
I clung to Cryder’s arm as we crossed the courtyard and approached
the front steps of the palace. Now, that we had left the car, I could see his mother and father much more clearly.
I was amazed. They looked so young! Hardly older than
Cryder himself! Of course, that probably made sense, I thought. I
knew that Cryder’s true age wasn’t exactly reflected in his physical appearance. He was a lot older than he looked. And by that same
token, his parents were probably much older too.
Still, in my head I had prepared myself for something else. I
wasn’t sure exactly what, but something. I supposed I had thought I’d be meeting people who looked more like my idea of parents.
More like Cecile’s mom, with her greying hair and lined face. More
exhausted by the trials of life. More like they were actually ready to step away from the pressures of ruling a vampire kingdom.
They looked nothing like Cecile’s mother.
Cryder’s father looked more like Cryder himself than
anything else. He was tall, with dark eyes and dark hair. He looked
as if he was in outstanding physical shape, and it suddenly occurred to me to wonder whether vampires needed to exercise.
Cryder’s mother had his bright blue eyes, but there the
similarities ended. She was short of stature, with beautiful pale skin, 23
Fight for Blood
and was dressed in a flowing gown with her hair pinned up in an
elaborate style. I felt suddenly stupid in my travel sweats. Why
hadn’t I made a plan to change my clothes before meeting the king
and queen? I was such an idiot.
These people didn’t look like they were about to retire. I
tried not to stare, but I couldn’t help it. Cryder’s mother was
especially intimidating. She was the queen now, but I was going to
take her place. Would she resent me?
She broke into a smile and strode forward to embrace her
son. “Welcome home,” she said. “You’ve been missed in your
absence.”
“Mother.” He hugged her.
She turned to Drake. “Nephew. Your parents wanted to be
here as well, but they were called away.”
He nodded. “They must attend to their duties. I understand.”
Everyone was so formal here! Would I be expected to speak
that way as well? I knew I’d never be able to make it sound natural.
What if I never fit in among the older vampires?
Cryder took my hand and pulled me forward. “Mother,” he
said, “this is Rena. My bride to be.”
She took my hand in both of hers. “Rena. You’re most
welcome. I can’t tell you how delighted we are to meet you at last.”
“It’s really nice to meet you too,” I managed. Then I
remembered my courtesies. “Your Majesty.”
“My name is Giorgia,” she said. “I’m only a Majesty to my
subjects. You’re a member of our family.”
I didn’t respond. Could I really call the queen of the
vampires by her first name? It seemed so personal.
She looked up at Cryder. “Is she frightened?” she asked in a
stage whisper. I felt myself go red with embarrassment.
“Of course, she’s frightened,” Cryder said. “Wouldn’t you
be?” “I’m sorry, Rena,” Giorgia said. “I don’t often interact
with...people like you.”
Did she mean humans? Teenagers? Americans? “That’s all
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