It was a spa, a full-fledged luxury spa hidden away in an old stone building here at Court. Who would have guessed? A long granite receptionist's desk guarded the entrance, so we only had a partial view, but what I could see was pretty sweet. Women sat along a wall getting pedicures and manicures. Moroi men and women were getting haircuts and color. What looked like a maze of halls could just be seen in the back of the salon, with a directory of arrows pointing to other sections: massage, sauna, facials, etc.
Lissa grinned at me. "What do you think?"
"I think Adrian was right about the Court having all sorts of secrets." I gave a mock sigh. "And I hate having to admit that he's right."
"You've been so down about the field experience and…other stuff." She didn't have to mention Mason's death and the Strigoi fight. I read it from her mind. "I figured you could use a treat. I checked their openings here while you were with the queen, and they were able to squeeze us in."
Lissa walked up to the receptionist and told her who we were. The woman immediately recognized our names but seemed surprised to be letting a dhampir in. I didn't care, though. I was too bedazzled by the sights and sounds around me. Compared to the harsh, practical lifestyle I usually led, this sort of luxury almost defied belief.
After checking in, Lissa turned to me, face eager and radiant. "I got us set up to get massages with these—"
"Nails," I interrupted.
"What?"
"I want my nails done. Can I get a manicure?"
It was the most exotic, completely useless thing I could imagine. Well, it wasn't useless for ordinary women. But for me? With the way I used my hands and subjected them to blisters, bruises, dirt, and wind? Yes. Useless. I hadn't painted my nails in ages. There was no reason. Half the nail polish would probably chip off after one practice session. A novice like me couldn't afford that kind of luxury. And that was why I so, so desperately wanted one. Seeing Lissa wear makeup had awakened that longing in me for some beautification of my own. I accepted that it could never be a regular part of my life, but if I was in a place like this today, then by God, I wanted my nails done.
Lissa faltered a little. She'd apparently had big plans for this massage thing. But, she had a hard time refusing me and spoke to the receptionist again. It sounded like the receptionist had to do a bit of juggling with her schedule, but she said she could make it work.
"Of course, Princess." She smiled happily, entranced by Lissa's natural charisma. Half the time, Lissa didn't even need spirit to get people to help her.
"I don't want to be an inconvenience," Lissa said.
"No, no. Definitely not!"
We soon found ourselves sitting at adjacent tables while Moroi women soaked our hands in hot water and started scrubbing them with weird combinations of sugar and seaweed.
"Why the manicure?" Lissa wanted to know. I explained my reasoning to her, about how I hardly had time for makeup anymore and how the abuse my hands went through made any sort of pampering impractical. Her face turned thoughtful. "I never thought about that before. I just figured you weren't into it lately. Or, well, that you didn't need it. Not with your looks."
"Whatever," I said. "You're the one guys worship."
"Because of my name. You're the one that guys—like a certain one we know—actually want for other reasons."
Gee, I wondered who she could be referring to. "Yeah, but those other reasons aren't very noble."
She shrugged. "The point's the same. You don't need makeup for them to drool all over you."
Then I felt the weirdest thing through the bond. I saw myself through her eyes. It was like looking in a mirror, except she only had a profile view of me. But when she looked at me, she really did think I was beautiful. With my tan and dark brown hair, I seemed exotic to her. She felt pale and washed out compared to me, skinny next to my curves. It was surreal, considering how often I felt scruffy next to her luminous beauty. Her envy wasn't malicious; that wasn't in her nature. It was more wistful, an admiration of a look she could never have.
I wanted to reassure her but had a feeling she didn't want me knowing about her insecurities. Besides, my thoughts were interrupted when the woman doing my nails asked what color I wanted. I picked a color that looked like gold glitter. Gaudy, perhaps, but I actually thought it looked kind of cool, and it wasn't like it was going to last long anyway. Lissa picked pale pink, a color as refined and elegant as she was. Hers got painted a lot faster than mine, though, because my manicurist had to spend so long softening my hands and filing the nails. Lissa finished long before I did.
When we both had glamorous hands, we proudly held them up side by side. "You look gorgeous, darling," she declared, affecting a sophisticated air.
Laughing, we went off to the massage area. Lissa had originally scheduled us for extensive massages, but the manicure had cut into a chunk of that time. So we modified the full-body massage into a foot massage, which was just as well since we couldn't have put on robes or any other changes of clothes with our nails still wet. All we had to do was remove our shoes and roll up our pants. I sat down in a chair while my feet soaked in warm, bubbling water. Someone put something into the tub that smelled like violets, but I didn't pay much attention. I was too entranced by my hands. They were perfect. The manicurist had buffed and hydrated them to silky softness, and my nails had been transformed into gleaming gold ovals.
"Rose," I heard Lissa say.
"Hmm?" The lady had also put a clear coat of nail polish over the gold. I wondered if that would give the nails a longer lease on life.
"Rose."
Sensing that Lissa wanted my undivided attention, I finally looked up from my awesome hands. She was grinning from ear to ear. I could feel that excited news burning in her again, the secret she'd had while we'd been walking over here.
"What's up?" I asked.
She nodded downward. "Rose, this is Ambrose."
I glanced absentmindedly toward the masseuse at my feet. "Hey, Ambrose, how's it—" I cut myself off before the words holy crap or whoa left my lips.
The guy massaging my feet couldn't have been much older than me. He had curly black hair and muscles everywhere. I knew this for a fact because he was shirtless and offered us both a good view of his sculpted pecs and biceps. His deep golden skin was a color achievable only by excessive time in the sun, indicating he was human. The bite marks on his neck confirmed it. A pretty boy feeder. Very pretty.
His attractiveness was almost unreal, though. Dimitri was gorgeous, but he had little flaws that made him that much more gorgeous. Ambrose was too perfect, like a piece of art. I didn't want to throw myself into his arms or anything, but he was certainly nice to look at.
Lissa, still worried about my love life, had apparently thought this was exactly what I needed. Her masseuse was female.
"It's very nice to meet you, Rose," said Ambrose. He had a musical voice.
"It's nice to meet you too," I said, suddenly self-conscious as he lifted my feet out of the water and toweled them off. I was especially self-conscious of the appearance of my feet. They weren't gross or anything, since they weren't usually exposed to the elements like my hands. I just kind of wished they'd been polished up too if this male model was going to handle them so much.
Lissa, astute enough to sense me being flustered, could barely stop from laughing. I heard her thoughts in my head: Cute, huh? I cut her a look, refusing to voice my thoughts out loud. He's Tatiana's personal masseuse. That practically makes you royalty. I sighed loudly to let her know she wasn't as funny as she thought she was. And when I say personal, I mean personal.
I jerked in surprise, accidentally kicking one of my feet out. Ambrose's deft hands caught it before I hit him in his pretty face, thankfully. I might not have been able to communicate telepathically but I was pretty sure there could be no question to Lissa that the look on my face said, You can't be serious because if you are, you're in big trouble.
Her grin widened. I thought you'd like that. Pampered by the queen's secr
et lover.
Pampered wasn't exactly the word that came to mind. Looking at Ambrose's young, beautiful features, I just couldn't picture him getting it on with that old hag. Of course, that denial might have just been my brain's way of refusing to acknowledge that someone who had touched her was now touching me. Ew.
Ambrose's hands were checking out my calves along with my feet, and he struck up a conversation about what elegant legs I had. His dazzling white smile never left his face, but most of my answers were curt. I still couldn't get over the thought of him and Tatiana together.
Silently, Lissa groaned. He's flirting with you, Rose! she thought to me. What are you doing? You can do better than that. I went to all this trouble to get you the hottest guy here, and this is what I get!
This one-sided-conversation thing was becoming a pain in the ass. I wanted to tell her that I'd never asked for her to rent out this guy for me. In fact, I suddenly had images of the queen calling me in for another meeting to yell at me for having a nonexistent affair with Ambrose too. Wouldn't that be perfect?
Ambrose continued smiling as he rubbed the soles of one foot with his thumbs. It hurt—but in a good way. I hadn't realized how sore that spot was. "They go to such trouble to make sure you wear the right black and white clothes, but no one ever thinks about your feet," he mused. "How are you supposed to stand around all day and still manage roundhouse kicks and cat stances in bad shoes?"
I was about to tell them that he really didn't need to keep worrying about my feet, but something odd suddenly struck me. "Roundhouse kicks" and "cat stances" weren't top-secret guardian terms. Anyone could Google "martial arts" and find out about those kinds of things. Still, it wasn't the kind of topic I'd expect a Moroi to casually throw around, let alone a feeder. I studied Ambrose closer, noting the way his dark eyes so carefully darted around and observed everything. I recalled his fast reflexes in stopping my kick.
I felt my jaw start to drop, and I shut it before I looked like an idiot.
"You're a dhampir," I breathed.
CHAPTER 16
"So are you," he teased.
"Yeah, but I just thought—"
"That I was human? Because of the bite marks?"
"Yeah," I admitted. No point in lying.
"We all have to survive," he said. "And dhampirs are good at figuring out ways to."
"Yeah, but most of us become guardians," I pointed out. "Especially men." I still couldn't believe he was a dhampir— or that I hadn't spotted it right away.
Long ago, dhampirs had been born from humans and Moroi getting together. We were half-vampire, half-human. Over time, Moroi started keeping themselves separate from humans. Humans grew too plentiful and no longer needed Moroi for magic. Moroi now feared they'd become human experiments if ever discovered. So no more dhampirs were being made that way, and in a bizarre genetic twist, dhampirs getting together with dhampirs couldn't make more dhampirs.
The only way my race kept reproducing was through Moroi mixing with dhampirs. Normal logic would make you think that a dhampir and a Moroi would make children who were ¾ Moroi. Nope. We came out with perfect dhampir genes, half and half, mixing some of the best traits of both races. Most dhampirs came from dhampir women and Moroi men. For centuries, these women had sent their kids off to be raised somewhere else, so that the mothers could go back to being guardians. That's what mine had done.
Over time, though, some dhampir women had decided they wanted to raise their children themselves. They refused to be guardians and instead banded together in communities. That's what Dimitri's mother had done. Lots of ugly rumors surrounded these women because Moroi men often visited in the hopes of getting cheap sex. Dimitri had told me that a lot of these stories were exaggerated and that most dhampir women weren't that easy. The rumors came from the fact that these women were almost always single mothers who had no contact with their kids' fathers—and because some dhampirs would let Moroi drink blood during sex. It was a kinky, dirty thing in our culture and was where the nickname for these non-guardian dhampirs had come from: blood whores.
But I'd never even thought about a male blood whore.
My mind was reeling. "Most guys who don't want to be guardians just run off," I said. It was rare, but it happened. Guys bailed on guardian school and disappeared to hide out among humans. It was another disgraceful thing.
"I didn't want to run off," said Ambrose, seeming very cheerful about all this. "But I didn't want to fight Strigoi either. So I did this."
Beside me, Lissa was stunned. Blood whores stayed on the fringes of our world. Having one right in front of her—a guy, no less—was incredible.
"This is better than being a guardian?" I asked in disbelief.
"Well, let's see. Guardians spend all their time watching out for others, risking their lives, and wearing bad shoes. Me? I have great shoes, am currently massaging a pretty girl, and sleep in an awesome bed."
I made a face. "Let's not talk about where you sleep, okay?"
"And giving blood isn't as bad as you think. I don't give as much as a feeder, but the high's pretty neat."
"Let's not talk about that either," I said. No way would I admit that I knew Moroi bites were indeed "pretty neat."
"Fine. But say what you want, my life's good." He gave me a lopsided smile.
"But aren't people, like…well, aren't they mean to you? They must say things…"
"Oh yes," he agreed. "Horrible things. I get called a lot of ugly names. But you know where I get the most grief from? Other dhampirs. Moroi tend to leave me alone."
"That's because they don't understand what it's like to be a guardian, how important it is." It occurred to me, with some unease, that I sounded exactly like my mother. "It's what dhampirs are meant to do."
Ambrose rose, unkinking his legs and giving me a face full of muscled chest. "You sure? How would you like to find out what you're really meant to do? I know someone who might be able to tell you."
"Ambrose, don't do it," groaned Lissa's manicurist. "That woman's crazy."
"She's psychic, Eve."
"She's not psychic, and you cannot take the Dragomir princess to go see her."
"The queen herself goes to her for advice," he argued back.
"That's a mistake too," grumbled Eve.
Lissa and I exchanged looks. She'd latched onto the word psychic. Psychics and fortune-tellers were generally regarded with the same disbelief as ghosts—except that Lissa and I had recently learned that psychic abilities we'd previously believed to be fantasy were actually part of spirit. Hope that she might have stumbled onto another spirit user shot through Lissa.
"We'd love to see a psychic. Can we go? Please?" Lissa glanced at a nearby clock. "And soon? We have a flight to catch."
Eve clearly thought it was a waste of our time, but Ambrose could hardly wait to show us. We put our shoes back on and were led out of the massage area. The spa rooms had been in a maze of halls behind the front salon, and we soon found ourselves in another maze that was farther back still.
"There's no directory here," I said as we walked past closed doors. "What are these rooms for?"
"Everything and anything people will pay money for," he said.
"Like what?"
"Ah, Rose. You're such an innocent."
We finally reached a door at the end of the hall. We stepped inside and found a small room that only held a desk. A closed door sat beyond it. A Moroi at the desk looked up, obviously recognizing Ambrose. He walked over to her, and the two got into a quiet argument as he tried to get her to let us in.
Lissa turned to me, keeping her voice soft. "What do you think?"
My eyes were on Ambrose. "That all that muscle's going to waste."
"Forget the blood whore thing already. I mean about this psychic. Do you think we've found another spirit user?" she asked eagerly.
"If a party boy like Adrian can be a spirit user, then a woman who tells the future probably can be too."
Ambrose returned to us, g
rinning. "Suzanne was happy to fit you into the schedule before your flight. It'll be just a minute while Rhonda finishes up with her current client."
Suzanne didn't look very happy about fitting us in, but I didn't have time to ponder that because the inner door opened and an older Moroi man walked out, entranced. He gave Suzanne some cash, nodded at the rest of us, and left. Ambrose stood and made a wide sweeping motion toward the door.
"Your turn."
Lissa and I walked inside the other room. Ambrose followed and closed the door behind us. It was like walking into someone's heart. Everything was red. Plush red carpet, a red velvet couch, velvet brocade wallpaper, and red satin cushions on the floor. Sitting on the cushions was a Moroi in her forties, with curly black hair and equally dark eyes. There was a very faint olive cast to her skin, but her overall look was pale, like all Moroi. Her black clothing stood out in stark contrast to the red room, and jewelry the color of my nails gleamed on her neck and hands. I expected her to speak in a spooky, mysterious voice—one with an exotic accent—but her words sounded blandly American.
"Please, sit down." She pointed to some cushions across from her. Ambrose sat on the couch. "Who've you brought?" she asked him as Lissa and I settled down.
"Princess Vasilisa Dragomir, and her guardian-to-be, Rose. They need a fast fortune."
"Why do you always want to rush these things?" Rhonda asked.
"Hey, it's not me. They have a plane to catch."
"It'd be the same if you didn't. You're always in a rush."
I shook off my awe of the room enough to pay attention to their easy banter and similar hair. "Are you guys related?"
"This is my aunt," said Ambrose fondly. "She adores me." Rhonda rolled her eyes.
That was a surprise. Dhampirs rarely had contact with their extended Moroi family, but then, Ambrose was hardly normal. Lissa was intrigued by all of this too, but her interest was different from mine. She was studying Rhonda intently, trying to find any indication that the woman might be a spirit user.
"Are you a gypsy?" I asked.
Rhonda made a face and began shuffling some cards. "I'm Roma," she said. "A lot of people call us gypsies, though the term isn't exactly accurate. And really, I'm Moroi first." She gave the cards a few more shuffles, then handed them to Lissa. "Cut, please."
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