06 Love Bites - My Sister the Vampire

by Sienna Mercer

  There was only one thought swirling around Ivy’s head: I am so in over my coffin.

  Olivia had to pry Ivy’s fingers off her arm.

  ‘Don’t leave me!’ her sister hissed.

  ‘I have to,’ Olivia whispered back. ‘It’s boy, girl, boy, girl.’ Olivia felt awful, but occasions like this required seating arrangements. ‘Insisting on sitting together is worse than confusing the forks, Ivy.’

  ‘Fine,’ Ivy whispered but Olivia could tell Ivy was the complete opposite of fine.

  Someone was already standing behind the chair in between the two empty ones that the Countess had pointed to. He seemed a bit older than them with spiky black hair and high cheekbones.

  ‘Ivy,’ he said, ‘and Olivia.’ He bowed.

  As he pulled out her chair, Olivia touched the clip holding her hair up, hoping she hadn’t overdone the curls.

  ‘I’m Alex,’ he said.

  ‘Prince Alex,’ the Count clarified as he sat down on the other side of Ivy. ‘We are delighted you could attend.’

  A prince! Olivia thought as he took her hand and kissed it lightly. She was going to eat with the royal family!

  Prince Alex turned to Ivy and did the same. Olivia hid her smile as Ivy’s jaw dropped.

  ‘Nice to meet you, uh, Your Highness?’ Olivia said.

  ‘Please, just call me Alex,’ he replied as he sat in his own seat. His eyes twinkled with excitement. ‘You are the first American – and the first human – I have sat next to for dinner.’

  Olivia was surprised. ‘You’ve never had dinner with a human before?’

  ‘My mother occasionally meets non-vampire dignitaries but she doesn’t say much about them.’ Alex lowered his voice. ‘On the other hand, you and your father have been the subject of much discussion.’

  Olivia felt as though a cool breeze had just blown through the room. She realised that maybe some of these vampire guests didn’t approve of her. Olivia knew that there were plenty of separationists – vampires that thought humans and vampires should never mingle, and especially never have relationships. That’s why her father marrying their mother had been such a scandal.

  ‘I can assure you that I am not biased in my views,’ Alex said, looking at her intently. He leaned forward slightly. ‘Your eyes are fascinating. I am used to vampire eye colours, but yours are like a sparkling summer lake.’

  Olivia blushed.

  Suddenly, the household staff glided into the room, carrying individual silver domed trays. Olivia smiled at the girl Tessa that they’d met in the hallway earlier, who was serving the opposite side of the table. The staff placed the plates down noiselessly in front of everyone and, with a metallic ring, lifted the domes off to reveal something the size and colour of a pot of lip balm in the centre of each large, white plate. They stood back against the walls, waiting.

  Horatio bowed to the group and said simply, ‘Pâté en croûte.’

  Ew, Olivia thought. She was relieved to see that on her plate was a fresh garden salad.

  ‘It looks like a rainbow,’ Alex said, glancing at the vegetables.

  Olivia was surprised by the description, but he was right. The red and yellow peppers, the green celery and cucumber, the purple-looking red lettuce – the colours were bright.

  ‘You certainly have a way with words,’ Olivia commented.

  ‘Thank you,’ Alex bowed his head a little. ‘I do love poetry. Have you ever read “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird”; by Wallace Stevens?’

  Olivia shook her head.

  ‘You must.’ Prince Alex looked wistful for a moment. ‘There are so many ways to see the same thing.’

  Like the meaning of Valentine’s Day, Olivia thought to herself. Despite being surrounded by all these wonderful new things, a part of her heart was still with Jackson, wondering if he was thinking of her. She wanted to rush upstairs and check her new phone for texts.

  As she ate her croutons, Alex said, ‘I hope we will get to spend more time together while you are here in my country. There is so much I can show you, so many places to visit.’

  Olivia was flattered but she heard a tut coming from across the table. Directly opposite her, the Queen was watching them with her lips pressed together.

  Olivia felt a hot flush creep up her cheeks and she tried to un-blush as she concentrated on her food. Is the Queen unhappy that her son is fraternising with a human? Olivia wondered. Alex had kept glancing over at her while they were talking. Is her Royal Vampness one of the ones doing the ‘discussing’ about vampire–human relations?

  Olivia saw Ivy leaning forward on the other side of Alex, trying to catch her attention.

  Horatio suddenly appeared at Ivy’s side. ‘What may I do for you, Miss Ivy?’

  ‘Uh, no, no, nothing,’ Ivy mumbled. ‘I was just trying to . . . um . . .’

  ‘Ivy and I very much enjoyed our drive from the airport,’ Olivia said to the prince, hoping it would be enough for him to include Ivy in their conversation.

  Horatio bowed and backed away. The staff had been so quiet, Olivia had almost forgotten they were standing there.

  Alex dabbed at his mouth with his napkin. ‘The countryside here is underappreciated by the world’s tourists, in my view. I can never get enough of it.’

  ‘And I can’t get enough of this pâté,’ Ivy said. She had already finished her little portion and was munching on the watercress around the edges that everyone else was leaving untouched. ‘Do you think there will be any more of it?’

  Alex chuckled. ‘Are you asking if you can have mine?’

  Ivy winced. ‘No, no. I just meant . . . I could massacre a burger right now.’

  Olivia glanced around the room, suddenly aware of the silence that surrounded them. Twenty-nine other faces were turned in their direction. Ivy’s exclamation had come at just the wrong time. Burgers at a formal dinner?

  Olivia could see her sister struggling to swallow and Olivia had no idea what to do to save her sister.

  ‘Oh, yes,’ Alex said, loudly enough for the whole table to hear. ‘Those wagyu beef burgers from Japan are such a delicacy.’

  The Countess, sitting opposite them next to Mr Vega, agreed. ‘When I went to visit the Imperial House of Japan, they served the most wonderful kobe beef, which is a kind of wagyu.’

  Olivia let out her breath as the other vampires nodded appreciatively. Ivy shot Alex a grateful look.

  For a prince, Olivia thought, Alex seems really down-to-earth and welcoming. His modesty reminded her of Jackson a little.

  She missed Jackson. Is he even missing me? Will he do anything at all for Valentine’s Day?

  Across the table, the Queen snapped her fingers at the maid, Tessa. Olivia noticed Prince Alex watching intently. ‘My water is too warm. Bring me ice,’ she commanded.

  ‘Yes, ma’am.’ Tessa curtsied and hurried off.

  Gosh, Olivia thought. The Queen sure knows how to act like a royal.

  ‘If you like our Romanian countryside, Olivia and Ivy, I must show you our estate,’ said Prince Alex. For some reason, his face had coloured. ‘Please be my guests at the palace tomorrow.’

  Olivia felt a thrill. The palace!

  She glanced across the table and saw the Queen staring back, her face impassive. Olivia gulped. It seemed that the Queen of Transylvania wasn’t happy that her son was mingling with a human. Not one tiny bit.

  As the rest of the courses arrived one by one, Ivy tried not to say anything. Every time she had attempted conversation, she’d said something stupid. Olivia fits in better than me – and she’s the bunny!

  Ivy was used to being around vampires, but the vampires that she knew weren’t so hoity-toity. She missed Franklin Grove; she missed Brendan, she missed Sophia . . .

  And to top it all off, she thought, I’m hungry! The food was delicious, but the portions were tiny.

  ‘Is everything to your satisfaction, my dear?’ asked the Count, wiping a drop of wine from his moustache. ‘You seem unsettled.’


  Ivy didn’t want him to think she was too selfish to appreciate all the effort they were going to for them.

  ‘I think it might be jet lag,’ she offered.

  ‘Of course,’ he said. ‘Sometimes the only thing that will revive me after a long flight is a sleep in my own coffin.’ Then he whispered, ‘And a formal dinner can put me in a coma!’

  Ivy grinned at her grandfather’s rebellious streak. She couldn’t help but love him as he chuckled to himself.

  He leaned in closer. ‘After dessert, I could distract everyone while you and Olivia slip away?’

  ‘What’s that, Nicholas?’ the Countess said with an arched eyebrow.

  ‘Nothing, dear Caterina.’ He cleared his throat.

  ‘I want the girls to join our important guests for petits fours and coffee in the parlour after dinner,’ the Countess said.

  ‘Mother,’ Mr Vega said, ‘if Ivy is tired, she can be excused.’

  The Countess pressed her lips together. Clearly, that wasn’t an option.

  Ivy stared at the table, resisting the urge to fiddle with the cutlery. She’d already drawn enough attention to herself, causing tension between their dad and his mom.

  This isn’t quite happy families, Ivy thought. Not yet.

  Chapter Five

  ‘This place is so amazing,’ Olivia said as she fell back on to her four-poster bed.

  The heavy velvet curtains blocked out the bright moonlight and her long-sleeved pink flannel pyjamas made her feel cosy and warm. She didn’t even mind the flock of bats she’d seen flying across the moon when she was closing the curtains.

  ‘Wasn’t Prince Alex a surprise?’ she said, remembering how much laughing they’d done after dinner when Olivia told him about the first time she and Ivy had switched places.

  ‘He was the only person not horrified by my use of cutlery,’ Ivy replied, tying her hair back into a ponytail. ‘How did you know how to do it?’

  ‘I saw it in a movie,’ Olivia replied. ‘You just work from the outside in. And you’re supposed to curtsy, like, all the time around royals.’

  ‘I figured that,’ Ivy said. ‘My ribs ache from all your elbowing.’

  ‘Just trying to help my socially inept sister,’ Olivia said, chuckling. ‘We need to send you to finishing school.’

  ‘Ha ha,’ Ivy said. ‘They’re probably all talking about me and my uncivilised manners as they go home in their horse-and-carriages.’

  Olivia laughed. ‘No one uses horse-and-carriages any more, not even vampires!’

  ‘Well, they don’t even have cell-phone signal out here,’ Ivy complained.

  It was true. Olivia had practically hung out of the window when they’d first come upstairs trying to get even one bar on her new phone, with no luck.

  ‘You can’t deny that some people in the room really didn’t approve of us and our dad,’ Ivy went on.

  Olivia remembered the look that the Queen gave her. ‘You’re right, but we can’t please everyone.’

  Ivy grinned. ‘Especially the Ice Queen.’

  Olivia laughed. She crossed her eyes, looking down at her nose. ‘My country is too warm. Fetch me a slab of ice.’

  ‘Fetch me an iceberg!’ Ivy put on a nasal voice and snapped her fingers impatiently.

  The girls giggled together. They certainly were a long way from home.

  ‘But at least Grandmother and Grandfather are so nice,’ Olivia said.

  Ivy shifted the mattress on her four-poster bed to reveal the shiny black coffin. Olivia knew that it was how vampires normally set up their rooms – a mattress for studying or, in Ivy’s room, throwing clothes on, with a coffin tucked away underneath.

  ‘The Count and Countess are just like I imagined them.’ Ivy climbed into her coffin. ‘I’m so glad we’ve been able to start putting our family back together again.’

  ‘Me, too,’ Olivia said and yawned. She snuggled into her pillow and pulled the blanket over her. ‘Goodnight, Ivy.’

  ‘Goodnight, Olivia.’

  Even though it was the middle of the night, Ivy pushed open her luxurious coffin lid. It was a velvet-lined Interna Three, the best coffin money could buy. But she still couldn’t sleep.

  She was so hungry. ‘Petty fors’ had turned out to be delicious little chocolates. Ivy had only managed to swipe three of them. She could have eaten the whole tray.

  As quietly as she could, she climbed out of the coffin and headed downstairs. Now that everyone was in bed, the house was colder, but the light of the moon and her uber-vamp eyesight meant that she could make out everything clearly.

  The mansion was silent until her bare foot made a step creak. She quickly hopped to the next one, which creaked even louder.

  It’s like I’m walking on a giant, badly tuned piano, she thought. The portraits on the wall seemed to be frowning at her.

  Finally, after four creaky flights she made it downstairs and snuck down the hall into the kitchen.

  She paused, listening at the door. There was no sound inside. I’m sure I can unearth something in this huge kitchen, she thought as she went in.

  Her head filled with images of the wagyu burgers that Alex had described. Mmm, she thought, but then pushed them from her mind. Nothing fancy, just filling.

  She tried the huge walk-in refrigerator. The doors opened to reveal shelves full of delicious-looking things to eat.

  Ivy didn’t want to get in more trouble by messing up a recipe or taking something she shouldn’t but, to her delight, she found a box of four pieces of cold meat-lovers’ pizza tucked away behind a jar of Platelet Paste and a stack of sausages. There was a note scrawled on it that read, ‘For N, C mustn’t see.’

  Ivy chuckled to herself. Her grandfather Nicholas was trying to hide pizza from her grandmother Caterina. I’ll never tell, Ivy thought, as long as you don’t mind me taking a piece or two.

  She pulled off two pieces and grabbed a carton of blood orange juice. Back in the relative warm of the kitchen, she sat on a stool in the dark and gobbled down her midnight feast. In the silence, Ivy looked around. The kitchen was immaculate but old. Copper pots hung from the ceiling and there were embers in the big fireplace in the middle.

  As she licked the last bit of sauce off her fingers, she decided to leave a note, in case the Count wondered what had happened to his pizza. There were a few pens in a canister on the countertop, so she grabbed one, slipped back into the walk-in fridge and wrote, ‘Ivy’s stomach says THANK YOU!’ and drew a little smiley face with fangs.

  She hurried out of the kitchen but before she could head towards the stairs to her bedroom, she heard a gasping noise. Ivy froze.

  Someone else is awake! In an instant, she was back in Operation-Night-Stalker mode. Who could it be? She pressed herself against the wall – keeping a careful eye out for vases – and crept towards the noise. There was a door slightly ajar, so Ivy peered in through the crack.

  Tessa, the maid, was sitting on a stool, crying softly. Ivy remembered how short the Queen had been with her.

  ‘Tessa, are you –’ Ivy’s words dried up as a strong hand clamped down on her shoulder. She whirled around. ‘Horatio!’ she gasped. He looked frightening in the night-time gloom.

  ‘You should not skulk in the dark, Miss Ivy,’ he said. ‘You might scare me.’ He chuckled.

  ‘Me? Scare you?’ Ivy said, her heart still racing.

  He began to walk her back towards the staircase and Ivy glanced back over her shoulder at the door Tessa was behind, hoping she would be OK.

  ‘Your father did once,’ he admitted. ‘He and his brothers always try one trick or another. Little Karl . . . Charles . . . was most ingenious. One night, he hid behind armour and played taperecorded sounds of dogs barking. When I fled, he followed, playing other sounds like scratching and growling.’ The giant butler shook his head. ‘I do not like dogs.’

  Ivy smiled.

  ‘Happy times,’ Horatio said.

  Ivy touched him on his gigantic forearm. �
��It will be happy times again.’

  Horatio nodded. ‘Now, it is well past casket-time. You should be sleeping.’

  Ivy gave him a quick hug and began the long climb up to her bedroom.

  As she crept back into her coffin, Ivy wondered why poor Tessa had been crying all by herself. I’ll talk to her tomorrow, she vowed. She knew what it was like to feel lonely and unhappy.

  Olivia watched out of the car window for any sign of the palace. It had snowed overnight and there was a coating of white over everything.

  ‘This is quite an honour,’ the Countess said. She sat in the front seat of the luxurious eight-seater car, wearing a high-collared ebony jacket over her embroidered dress and short black gloves.

  Olivia had chosen her light pink turtleneck and floor-length grey skirt with a wide grey belt and hoped she wasn’t under-dressed. Her blue pea coat was on the seat next to her, in case they were outside at all.

  ‘Yes!’ came an exclamation from Ivy, who was sitting beside her in her black sweater, pinstripe fitted skirt and multi-buckle boots. She was frantically pressing buttons on her phone. ‘Cell-phone signal!’

  Olivia’s new phone buzzed in her bag. There were two texts from her mom, which she sent a quick reply to, explaining that there wasn’t a good signal at the house, and a third text from Jackson. It just said, ‘See ya.’

  She re-read it seven times.

  What does that mean?

  Did he send that before she left? Was it a friendly goodbye? Or was it some horribly casual way of breaking it off? It seemed cryptic. No smiley faces, no ‘Love, Jackson’. Olivia rubbed her forehead, feeling a headache coming on.

  What if she didn’t see him soon? She didn’t even know what town he was going to next. She wanted to ask Ivy about it, but she couldn’t in a car full of adults.

  The first chance she had, she would talk to Ivy about this. Her twin would know what to do. She went back to gazing at the Transylvanian countryside as it sped past the car. Dark, forbidding forests and heavy grey skies. It was so unfamiliar and just made her think how Jackson was thousands of miles away.