Unfortunately, the last time we’d moved we had been in a hurry, and it had been left behind, along with most of my clothes. I sighed, remembering the sight of our house burning to the ground.
It was to cover our tracks, I knew. Clothes and possessions didn’t matter. Only our lives did.
Still, it sucked. I was a girl and I got attached to my stuff. I sighed, shaking it off. At least we had each other. My guardian sat in the car, giving me a look of fond exasperation.
Caleb was strict about my wardrobe. And how I wore my hair. And interacted with other students.
Or rather, how I didn’t.
It was the same at every new school. Dark colors, plain clothes, no direct eye contact. It was far too dangerous. Not just for me, either.
Caleb, like my father, preached the sanctity of human life. Drink, but don’t kill. Glamour, don’t destroy. Take but don’t harm.
My guardian stared at me, still expecting an answer. He was a worrier. The vamp loved to worry.
I pushed my dark sunglasses up the bridge of my nose and smirked.
“Don’t I always?”
He shook his head, remaining in the dark safety of the car. The windows were tinted and he wore gloves and a brimmed hat. It still didn’t completely protect him from daylight.
Caleb wasn’t like me.
The sun would burn him. Not ‘burst into flames and turn to dust’ like in the movies, but it wouldn’t be pleasant. He’d get singed, like a really bad sunburn. His body would grow weaker, taking days and copious amounts of blood to recover. If he was exposed for long enough, it would kill him.
Or, rather, undo the curse that kept him above ground.
You couldn’t technically kill the undead.
Yeah, Caleb was a Vampire. Old school. Like, really old. He’d been one of my father’s most trusted advisors. A warrior and a friend.
He was the one who had gotten me out the night they attacked, threw my father in a dungeon, and supposedly killed the young Princess in the process.
Me.
Yep. Yours truly was toast as far as the supernatural world was concerned.
At least that was the rumor.
The new leaders had slaughtered an innocent girl, just to seize power. I wasn’t supposed to think their names, let alone say them. As if that could conjure them up. Not that that stopped me. I smirked.
I wasn’t afraid of them.
I was going to win. As soon as I mastered my powers. As soon as we had enough rebels on our side.
I turned towards the school, staring up at the red brick and limestone building. It was old, at least a hundred years. It looked like a lot of other schools I’d attended. But this one was somehow prettier than the rest, in that classically institutional way.
I recited the names in my head as I walked towards the big glass doors. It was excellent motivation to keep my eyes on the prize. Maintain my cover. Train as hard as I could.
Survive.
Besides, I was never all that good at following rules. But I liked saying their names while imagining how I would kill them for what they had done. For all the suffering they had caused to so many immortal and human alike.
I’d start with their fingernails. Pull them out one by one. Or their fangs. Or both.
Then I’d move onto the main event, slaughtering them each in turn. Beheading maybe. Or starve them out, then behead them.
I smiled grimly. Yes, slow was definitely better. After all, those bastards were the reason I was in yet another small town registering as a Junior in yet another high school.
Allernon. Jezebel. Dartanian. Bezender.
Yeah, I know. Vampires had really weird names. Especially the old ones. Biblical, Shakespearean names. They sounded silly until you got used to them.
For all I knew, there were vamps somewhere called Danny and Sally, living in the suburbs and buying toilet paper late night at Costco.
But if there were a bunch of true blue American Vampires running around and watching Netflix while drinking the pizza delivery boy, I hadn’t met them.
The crazy thing was, I was their leader. Their sovereign by birth. And they might not even know I ever existed.
The four Vampires who had overthrown my father’s kingdom had made sure of that. It was forbidden to seven speak my name. My real name, which we never used in public.
Sasha Triherine Uzeliac.
Yeah, I know. It’s a mouthful.
I reached for the door just as someone else did. I yanked my hand away, fingers tingling. I didn’t like to be touched. Or at least, I wasn’t used to it.
Caleb might have saved me, but he wasn’t exactly the cuddly type.
Massive blue eyes peered down at me. I blinked, staring up at the cutest boy I’d seen in my life. He smiled and I felt myself melt.
Scratch that. He wasn’t cute. Yeah, ‘cute’ didn’t begin to cut it. The guy was freaking gorgeous. GQ, Abercrombie, grown-up Disney star gorgeous.
He gave me a funny look. Probably because I was staring at him, utterly dumbfounded.
“Hey. Are you alright?”
“Uh… yeah. Just trying to, you know, go inside.”
He laughed and held the door open for me.
“After you.”
For a split second, I was terrified that I had accidentally glamoured him. It happened all the time. I had only to make a wish, or project a thought while maintaining eye contact and any human would pretty much bend over backwards to do what I wanted.
And follow me around like a puppy dog for the rest of their lives.
I’d had to skip town because of it at least a dozen times. It was the most conspicuous thing about me. Other than the whole, unbelievably strong, fast and magically immortal drinking blood once in a while thing.
Other than that, the Vampire rules didn’t apply to me. I could go to church. I could go in the sun. I could probably drink a gallon of holy water, though I hadn’t tried it.
Ew, gross.
I made a face, imagining drinking tap water that a Priest had dipped his fingers in repeatedly while incanting Latin. Nothing against Priests. But really, you never knew if someone was diligent about washing their hands.
I reached up and touched the hard plastic frame of my dark sunglasses. I exhaled in relief as I walked through the door. There was no way he’d been influenced through these.
The kid was just being polite.
I smiled to myself. Maybe he just liked redheads. I tucked my hair behind my ears, trying to flatten it. It was the one thing I couldn’t hide. If the traitors knew anything about me, my hair would be the thing that gave me away.
It was bright pinkish red and couldn’t be dyed. One of those weird vamp things. Once you were vamp, you were stuck with your ‘do. Even though in my case, it was still growing, getting longer each year. I could trim it but it grew super-fast.
Talk about conspicuous. My head was like a beacon. It was impossible to miss me in a crowd unless I kept it covered up. Basically, I wore a lot of hats.
“You new here?”
I nodded, looking around. There were kids milling around and grabbing books from lockers. It was like every other high school I’d set foot in.
And I’d set foot in a lot. It was always the same. Everyone just going about their business, in a hurry to grow up.
Other than Mr. Wonderful here of course. He didn’t seem to be in a hurry to do anything but stare at me.
He grinned. It wasn’t the slavish, dazed smile of someone who was under my spell. It was just a guy, being friendly.
Relax Sash.
I reminded myself how to be a normal teenager. Slouch a little. Be nice, but not too nice. Blend.
Just a few more years of this and I would be free. And it wasn’t that bad. Not really. I actually liked learning, unlike most of the teenage humans I’d come into contact with.
“Yeah, why?”
“I would have noticed you.”
Swoon. Okay, so the guy was definitely a flirt. That was fine. It’s not like I was going to start hanging out with mortals, no matter how dreamy they were.
Just blow it off, Sash.
Stay hidden. Stay alive.
I adjusted my bag and pulled my hair over my face. I was going to have to yank the sunnies to go to the admin office, and that meant using my hair as a shield.
“I need to register. Nice meeting you.”
He fell in step beside me.