by Lola Gabriel
First the dragon twins spitting fire at her, then the mix-up, and now this.
Ellen was glad that she’d already talked to her parents. She didn’t think she’d have the energy for it after the day she’d had, and it wasn’t even over yet. She just hoped it wouldn’t get any worse.
2
Maddox wanted to rip his hair out. He wanted to slam his head against the nearest wall and break through it with his skull. Why was he such an idiot?
“Stupid, stupid, stupid, STUPID!” he cursed under his breath. “‘Never mind. Thank you. Bye’?! Way to make a complete ass out of yourself!”
He couldn’t believe he had just frozen up in Ms. Summers’ office. Nothing like that had ever happened to him, not even when he was an awkward and nervous child trying to talk to the other royal children at elegant balls and political dinners. He was used to having a few seconds of silence when meeting someone new, just while he thought of something to say or while he got used to the idea of having to introduce himself to a new person and answer whatever questions they might have, but nothing as incredibly mortifying as what had just occurred.
But there had been something about Ellen Williams that had rendered him completely speechless. As soon as she had turned in her chair to look at him, Maddox had felt captivated by her. She was unbelievably beautiful, yes, perhaps the most beautiful girl he had ever seen in his entire life—bright hazel eyes, a light brown mop of curls on the top of her head, gorgeous dark skin—but it wasn’t just her stunning physical appearance. When Maddox had stared into her eyes, the room seemed to have paused around them, like the moment between them was meant to last an eternity instead of only a few seconds.
He’d felt like he had been supposed to meet her there, in Ms. Summers’ office, and he shouldn’t squander the opportunity.
Obviously, time hadn’t actually stopped, so the longer Maddox stared at her, the more uncomfortable the moment between them became until he realized he had been quiet for way too long. Then, as if to place the cherry on top, Maddox had spouted some stupid words before his rude departure, completely embarrassing himself and successfully squandering his opportunity.
“Way to go, Maddox!” he groaned, throwing the door to his dorm room open. Such had been his embarrassment and hurry to leave that he’d completely forgotten what he’d wanted to ask Ms. Summers in the first place. Not that it mattered much now, anyway. He probably wouldn’t be able to show his face around her office again for at least a year; maybe the rest of his stay at EMU.
He fell face-first on his bed and groaned into his pillow. The image humans had of vampires turning into bats was one that Maddox often found ridiculous and cliché because actual vampires couldn’t do that, but now he wished the humans were right about them. He wished he could turn into a bat and fly away to a cave where no one would ever find him.
He didn’t hear his door open over his muffled groaning, but he heard a familiar voice start speaking.
“Hey, dude—” The familiar voice stopped and then sighed in exasperation. “What happened this time?” asked his best friend, Oliver. He and Maddox had known each other since they were little kids, after Oliver had snuck into one of the balls thrown by the Royal Vampire Family and immediately befriended the young prince.
On their first year at EMU, they hadn’t been roommates, because royal heirs had a room of their own, but before their second year started, Maddox had talked the people from the administration department into letting him and Oliver share a dorm.
It was ridiculous, now that he thought about it, that he had the capability to come to an arrangement with a school authority, yet he froze when trying to talk in front of a pretty girl.
“I made an idiot of myself,” Maddox replied.
“You do realize you’re talking into your pillow, right?” Oliver pointed out. “I can’t hear anything you’re saying.”
Maddox pushed himself off the bed and into a sitting position. “I made an idiot of myself.”
“You often do,” Oliver said with a teasing smirk.
“Well, yes,” Maddox admitted. “But never like this! She probably thinks I’m the rudest vampire ever!”
His friend held up a hand to stop him. “Whoa, whoa, rewind. ‘She’?”
Maddox let out a sigh mixed with another groan. Just remembering the incident filled him with shame.
“I went to Ms. Summers’ office to talk to her about…something, but she was busy with another student—”
“And she’s the one you made an idiot of yourself in front of?”
“Yes,” Maddox confirmed. “I just…I just stood there! Staring at her. It must have been a full thirty seconds, and I just couldn’t say a word! All that was going through my head was, ‘oh, wow, she’s so pretty, she’s got a beautiful name, I should really shake her hand and introduce myself, shouldn’t I?’”
“But you didn’t?” Oliver guessed.
“BUT I DIDN’T!” Maddox yelled. “Such a long time had passed that I thought it’d be awkward if I said something, so I just turned around and left.” He fell backwards onto his bed with a dramatic flair. “And now she must hate my guts.” He grabbed the pillow he’d been groaning into and placed it over his face, screaming into it in frustration.
“Maddox,” Oliver said with the voice of a parent tired of their son’s temper tantrum. “You’re being overdramatic.”
“Maybe,” Maddox agreed. He pushed the pillow off him and let out an angry exhale. “Is there any chance that I can make amends with her?”
“Dude, if you don’t even know her, what does it matter if you made a bad first impression?” Oliver questioned, which was a fair point, to be honest. “You’re probably never gonna see her again. And even if you do, why do you care so much?”
Maddox huffed out a breath and sat up once more. Why did he care so much? Just because he’d felt some sort of connection with this young woman? She wasn’t a vampire; as the prince, Maddox had the ability to recognize vampires on sight alone, and he hadn’t recognized Ellen in the slightest. She was a complete stranger whose opinion of him didn’t matter. So what if she thought he was rude? What did that matter?
“I don’t know,” he said, shrugging his shoulders. “But I do. I…I really don’t know how to explain it. I don’t even know if I can explain it, if there’s any explanation for it at all. I just—” He exhaled. “I just want to apologize, you know? Of course I’m not going to force her to listen to me or talk to me or anything, but at the very least, I want to apologize for just leaving like that.”
Oliver threw his head back and sighed, going over to his bed and sitting on the edge of it. “God, you’re so freaking weird. I don’t really get it, but if it means that much to you, then I guess there’s only one thing you can do.”
“What?” Maddox stared at his friend.
“If you want to make amends with this girl,” said Oliver, “I think you have to do it as soon as possible. The more time passes, the worse your first impression becomes.”
Maddox nodded his head. Oliver was right. He had to find Ellen Williams and apologize to her before she decided that he was the worst, rudest vampire in the entirety of EMU.
“Thank you, Oliver,” he said.
Ms. Summers had said that she and Ellen were waiting for another student, and it hadn’t been that long since Maddox had left, so there was a high chance that he could bump into her around the administration building. He just hoped she wouldn’t immediately rebuke him.
---
Maddox thought that he couldn’t really make a worse first impression—or, well, second impression, he supposed—than he already had. After all, he was planning to apologize to Ellen for having behaved so rudely, which was definitely better than letting her believe that was what he was like.
He should’ve known things could always get worse.
He turned around a corner to get on the main path to the administration building, and he ended up colliding with someone else, harshly shoving the other person�
�s shoulder with his own without meaning to.
“Oh, crap,” he muttered. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t see you! Are you okay?”
It was only then that he realized the person he’d literally bumped into was none other than Ellen Williams, because why would it be anyone else?
Ellen was rubbing her shoulder with her hand, and she glanced at him with an apologetic smile.
“Yeah, I’m okay, thanks—” Her smile faded in an instant, apparently having recognized him, her apologetic expression shifting into one of anger. “Oh. It’s you.”
“Uh…” Maddox felt himself starting to freeze, just like he had done in Ms. Summers’ office, and he forced himself to think of something to say, quickly, before he completely screwed this up. “I…” He lifted a hand and gave an awkward wave in greeting. “Hi?”
He immediately held back the urge to slap himself. ‘Hi’? Nothing else? What is wrong with you?!
Ellen glared at him. “Hello. If you’ll excuse me, I’ve had a really long day, so goodbye.”
She pushed past him and began to walk away, and Maddox knew that if he didn’t stop her, if he didn’t apologize right now, he would lose his chance forever. He was not going to let that happen.
“Wait, wait, please!” He started reaching out to her, as if to grab her arm to stop her from leaving, but he pulled his arm back before he did. As things were now, he realized that might not be the wisest choice.
Ellen stopped and looked at him over her shoulder. She raised an eyebrow questioningly. God, even with that neutral expression on her face, she was absolutely beautiful.
“Listen, I…” Maddox closed his hand into a fist, trying to keep his fingers from shaking nervously. “I’m sorry about the way I acted back at Ms. Summers’ office.”
“You don’t have to apologize, Your Highness,” she replied, hissing his title, and Maddox gulped. Either she had known who he was before, or Ms. Summers had told her. Whatever the case, him being a prince probably wasn’t helping his image at the moment.
“No, I do,” he insisted. “Being a prince doesn’t give me the right to do what I did. It was incredibly inconsiderate of me, especially when you behaved so politely.”
“Well, the first thought of most of us commoners when we meet someone new is to introduce ourselves,” Ellen said, a hint of snark in her tone. “Not to ignore them and then leave.”
“I know, I know!” Maddox said. “And that’s what I meant to do. I didn’t want to be rude, but then I looked at you and…” He bit his lip, unsure of how Ellen would respond to his next words. “And I felt at a loss for words, okay?”
“Why?” Ellen questioned. “Because you’d never talked to an angel before?”
An angel. Of course she was an angel. Maddox had met few of them in his life and talked to even fewer, and he had always thought they carried themselves with a sort of otherworldly aura that was different from the one with which other immortals carried themselves. Still, that didn’t explain what Maddox had felt when he’d looked at Ellen for the first time. No angel had ever had that impact on him before.
“No,” he answered truthfully. “Because I…well…” He took a deep breath and let it out in a rush. “Because you’re the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen, and I completely froze.”
For the next couple of seconds, Ellen said absolutely nothing. Then she huffed out a disbelieving snort and gaped at him.
“Seriously?” she asked. “Do you honestly expect me to believe that?”
“No,” Maddox admitted. “But it’s the truth.”
“Okay,” Ellen said, crossing her arms. “Let’s say I believe you. Why did you just leave like that, then?”
At the memory of his stupid, flimsy escape, Maddox blushed in embarrassment. “Because too long had passed without me saying anything, and I thought it’d be awkward if I did—”
“So, you just decided to walk out instead?” she guessed. Maddox nodded his head, his face hot with shame. “Huh.” Ellen stared at him with an undecipherable look on her face, and he looked down at the ground, afraid of what it might mean. “I never thought a prince could be such a scaredy-cat.”
He quickly raised his head to look back at her, startled by her words, and to his surprise, the corner of Ellen’s mouth was curled up in what seemed like the beginning of a smile.
Maddox chuckled nervously. “I…thought it was more cowardly than scaredy-cat-ish, to be honest.”
“Well,” she said, shrugging her shoulders. “I didn’t want to be rude.”
The way she playfully echoed his earlier words, completely uncaring of what Maddox would think or say in response, pulled a laugh out of him. She was the first person, besides his own family and Oliver, that had ever talked to him like that, and shockingly, he felt relieved, more than anything—relieved that she was still giving him her time, despite having made an ass of himself in front of her twice now.
“I really am sorry,” he told her earnestly. “Do you think we could start over? You know, reset button and all that stuff?”
Ellen pressed a finger to her mouth and stared up at the already darkening sky, as if she were thinking it over and was having trouble coming to a decision. Then she let out an exaggerated, dramatic sigh and looked back at him, smiling so widely, it was almost a grin.
Maddox immediately noticed she had two dimples, one on each side of her mouth. They were, perhaps, the most adorable thing he had ever seen.
“I suppose,” Ellen said, “as a polite commoner, I should give you the benefit of the doubt.” She held out her hand, exactly like she had done in Ms. Summers’ office. “Hi. My name is Ellen Williams.”
“Hello, Ellen,” Maddox replied, reaching out to shake her hand, hoping the coldness of his skin wouldn’t bother her too much. “My name is Maddox Rodriguez.”
3
Ellen’s first month at school had been eventful, to say the least.
First of all, she had met the Vampire Prince, Maddox Rodriguez, and she had exchanged phone numbers with him, and they were what might be considered friends. They didn’t share any classes, as Maddox was a year older than her, but whenever they bumped into each other on the stone paths scattered throughout the EMU campus, they waved hello at each other and talked and joked until they had to leave in order to get to their next class on time.
Maddox was kind, which came as a bit of a surprise to Ellen. She hadn’t expected the royal heirs to be self-centered and egotistical, because those were ridiculous stereotypes that she refused to buy into, but she hadn’t imagined one of them would be so…well, so normal. Perhaps that was the effect college had on people, or maybe this specific college in particular: every student was just as important as the other one, regardless of their status, so princes and princesses could study like any other college student without feeling like they were more important than anyone else.
“Are the other royal heirs like you?” Ellen had asked Maddox once while they had lunch together.
Oh, yeah, that was another thing—they’d had lunch together at least three times a week, and no one had said anything or subtly muttered something to their friends under their breath, like Ellen had childishly imagined they would. Not that she would have cared if they had, but it was nice to know it wasn’t something she had to constantly deal with.
“You don’t have to call us ‘royal heirs’, you know,” Maddox replied with a soft smile. His lips were still slightly cracked, and Ellen was still tempted to get him some lip balm. He had a gorgeous smile, reminding her of how cute she’d thought he was upon looking at him for the first time, and it was a shame he wasn’t taking care of it. Maybe it was a vampire thing and he didn’t even notice it anymore.
“I have to call you guys something,” she said. “It’s way easier than referring to you individually as ‘Vampire Prince’, or ‘Fae Princess’, or—”
“You can just call us by our names.”
“I would if I knew your names. Unlike you, I didn’t grow up in diplomatic parties.”<
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Maddox rolled his eyes, but there was a blush coloring his cheeks. Although Ellen wouldn’t admit it out loud, she loved how easy it was to fluster him. The pink worked amazingly well with his light brown skin, and it made him look even hotter.
“I can’t really tell you if they’re all like me,” Maddox told her. “I met them a few times when we were all kids, but it’s not like I regularly talk to them or anything.”
“Really?” Ellen leaned back against her chair and took a sip from her bottle of juice. “I would’ve thought you royal kids all hung out together.”
“Oh, so now we’re ‘royal kids’?” Maddox asked.
Ellen paused. “I mean…aren’t you?”
She and Maddox stared at each other for a moment before Maddox snorted and let out a loud laugh, and Ellen smiled at the sound of it, at the fact that she could see Maddox’s fangs at the corner of his mouth when he laughed, equal to his other teeth except for being slightly larger and sharper at the ends. His laugh was, perhaps, the best thing she had ever heard.
“I guess you’re right,” Maddox said, chuckling. “One thing’s for sure, though.”
“What?”
“They don’t have to go to a blood bank once a week.”
Now it was Ellen’s turn to snort and laugh out loud. She’d heard that vampires got the blood they needed from blood banks designed especially for them, as they wanted to step away from their pasts of killing every creature they encountered, but this was the first time she heard it from an actual vampire.
The second reason school had been so eventful was that she had learned that she didn’t have a roommate. The school tried to assign people of the same species together, and the few angels enrolled at EMU all had roommates of their own, since most of them had already been there a year or two, so the administration had just left her with a room to herself.