Chapter Three

As much as I wanted to, I couldn’t spend the entire night at Skyler’s, so I headed home, where a pile of “ruler of the realm” paperwork waited.

Granny was in the living room, curled up in her favorite spot with a book and a cup of tea. “How was your first day of school?” she asked.

“The parasol helped,” I said. “But get this—Rose and Thorn showed up.”

“Hmm. Well, that’s not necessarily a bad thing,” Granny said. “I feel better they’ll be there, just in case.”

Just in case what? I vamp out in the middle of Calculus or something?

I grabbed my tote. I’d put everything vampire queen–related into my I feel the need, the need to read Teen Titan tote, and it was stuffed.

I plunked down the papers I needed to go over. Since I’d become queen of the California realm of vampires, Rose had been helping me, acting as an unofficial secretary, but the coffee table was covered in documents anyway. I stared, uncertain where to begin.

Granny peered over my shoulder. “You have that much homework already?”

“This is vampire queen paperwork,” I told her. “Everything Jure owned now belongs to me. It’s a lot.”

The document I was staring at indicated I was the owner of the ranch where Jure Grando, who had been the previous ruler of my kingdom, had taken his victims. I wanted to burn the place to the ground.

“What are you going to do with it?” Granny asked.

“Have it disinfected and donated to a women’s shelter,” I said.

“Do you know how much that’s worth?” she asked.

“I don’t care,” I said. I shuddered, the memories of that place creeping up on me. “I want to donate it to someplace it can do some good.”

She nodded as I tried to clear my mind of the things I’d seen there.

“That reminds me,” she said. “Something came for you today.”

She went to the side table where we kept our bags and mail and the library books we wanted to return and held up a small package.

“Who’s it from?” I wasn’t expecting anything. The sender’s name wasn’t on the front, only a return address, which seemed familiar. I did a quick internet search. “It’s from the ranch.”

I wanted to drop the box, but instead, I studied it carefully before I opened it.

A black velvet pouch and a piece of paper roughly the size of a business card were the only items in the box. For the new queen was written in ornate cursive.

“Thanks for the explanation,” I grumbled. I picked up the pouch. Whatever was in it was heavy. I untied the strings, and because there was no way I was going to stick my hand into something that must have belonged to Jure Grando, I turned it over and dumped the contents onto the table.

A ruby the size of a golf ball tumbled out. The gem was dark red, the color of blood, and when I placed my hand on it, cold to the touch. Something about it was repellent to me. I wanted it out of my house, but I couldn’t throw it away, not until I knew what it was and why it had been sent to me.

“Do you think it would look good added to your necklace?” Granny said.

I touched my necklace. Protective charms dangled from a long silver chain. Skyler had one that matched mine, and Granny added new charms to them often.

I couldn’t add the ruby. The thought of the gem touching my skin made my stomach lurch.

“My neck couldn’t take the strain,” I joked. I hesitated, then admitted, “I actually don’t want it anywhere near me. I don’t like the way it feels.”

“How does it feel?” Granny watched me closely.

I struggled to identify the source of the sickly, creeping dread emanating from the stone. “Evil.”

She smiled like I’d done something that pleased her. “It’s old, and it definitely has negative energy,” she said.

Who would send me something so valuable and so dangerous?

“What are you going to do with it?” she asked.

I scooped it up and dropped it back into the pouch. “I can’t get rid of it, at least until we know more about what it can do and why someone sent it to me. I don’t want to keep it in my room, but I can’t just leave it lying around, either.”

She thought for a moment and then snapped her fingers. “I have just the thing. Be right back.”

When she returned, she held a book out to me. “It’s hollow,” she said. “A gag gift from Evelyn. Open it.”

I opened the pages. The hollowed-out middle contained a flask. I lifted it up to show it to Granny, and she laughed. “I’ll be taking that.”

I set the ruby into the hollow. “It fits.” I slammed the book shut.

“Just stick it on one of the shelves in the library,” Granny said. “That rock is probably worth more than this house.”

“The library” was our grandiose name for the spare room. The walls were lined with overflowing bookshelves. The stacks would make the fake book harder for anyone to find.

After my task was complete, some of the sick feeling I’d gotten from the ruby dissipated, and I exhaled a ragged breath.

I returned to my paperwork. There were three months of bank statements, so I opened those next. They weren’t in Jure’s name, but in the name of the kingdom, which made it only slightly less hard to take. I didn’t want the money, but maybe I could do some good with it.

Granny whistled when she saw the number on the bank statement. “That’s a lot of zeros. What are you going to do with all that money?”

I hesitated about answering her. Things hadn’t been the same between us since I’d found out she’d lied to me about my dead mother, but Granny was the only family I had. I didn’t count Vanessa, the woman who’d given birth to me and then abandoned me. The one Granny had told me was dead.

Technically, she hadn’t been lying.

My mother was dead—or rather, undead, which I’d found out when I came face-to-face with her this summer.

“I’m not sure exactly,” I finally said. “It doesn’t feel right to keep the money.”

“You are the queen,” Granny said. “Everyone would understand.”

“Jure Grando didn’t come by any of it honestly. I want to give money to the people he abused, but I’m not sure how to decide who gets what.”

“How about asking someone in the PAC for help?” she suggested.

“Possibly,” I said. “I’ll ask Rose and Thorn.”

Maybe someone from the PAC could enlighten me, because I had questions. A lot of questions. Such as, why was Vanessa a full-on vampire while I was a striga vie? From what I’d heard when I eavesdropped on Granny and the Old Crones Book Club members, Granny had trained Vanessa in the art of witchcraft just as she’d trained me. My mother probably knew more spells than I did, plus she could kill someone with one bite.

I reviewed the list I’d been working on, which was short and sweet. Rose and Thorn had assured me that every vampire within my realm had received a copy.

I showed it to Granny to read. “Do you think this will be enough?”

Queen Tansy’s first rule was NO KILLING, EXCEPT IN SELF-DEFENSE, which I’d written in big block letters with a Sharpie. I knew I’d killed vampires myself, but I wanted to be better than that, to be someone Granny would be proud of.

NO COMPULSION was the second thing on my list, and finally, DRINK ONLY WHEN INVITED. ETHICALLY SOURCED BLOOD A MUST. Donors must consent without compulsion.

In unfamiliar handwriting, it said, IF QUEEN TANSY CATCHES YOU BREAKING HER RULES, YOU WILL BE BANNED. Underneath that was, IF I CATCH YOU, YOU’LL WISH THE QUEEN HAD FOUND YOU FIRST. The addition was signed Thorn Alicante, PAC.

“Uneasy is the head that wears a crown,” Granny quoted.

“You have a literary quote for everything,” I said.

“It’s the librarian in me.” She shrugged. “And you can’t go wrong with Shakespeare.”

I chuckled and leaned against her. I didn’t want to tell her that sometimes the responsibility made it hard for me to breathe.

Granny read silently, then said, “Your rules would make a good cross-stitch pattern.”

I sighed. “I’m not sure how I’m going to enforce them.”

She put a hand on my shoulder. “You’ll figure it out.”

I hoped so. Picking through the details of the enormous wealth that Jure had managed to accumulate, the “ill-gotten gains” as Evelyn called them, made me tired. But I still had so many questions, and it couldn’t hurt to try out a few on Granny.

“Why weren’t you turned into a striga vie when Vanessa bit you?” I asked.

She frowned. “We’re not sure,” she said. “But Evelyn has a theory.”

“What kind of a theory?”

“That you became a striga vie because you are a virgin,” she said. “Or at least you were when you were bitten.” She winked at me.

My face felt hot. That was not what I’d been expecting her to say. “Why does Evelyn think…?”

“The research is solid,” Granny assured me.

“The humiliation is solid, too,” I replied.

“I wasn’t going to mention it, but you asked.”

I really wished I hadn’t. “Now I know,” I replied. I hoped we were done with this topic.

“It’s just a theory,” she added. “Besides, it’s your body, your choice.”

“Have there ever been any striga vies who were cured?” I asked. Granny and the Old Crones Book Club had been searching for a cure, but there weren’t many study cases.

“You might have to kill your maker,” she said.

“I’d have to kill Travis?” I asked. Despite having killed before, and despite knowing it had been in self-defense, I still couldn’t sleep some nights. Sometimes, the urge to hunt down and kill the guy who’d ruined my life was overwhelming, but I just couldn’t bring myself to do it—not in cold blood.

“If you want to be free, yes,” Granny said.

“Why did this happen to me?”

She put her hand on my shoulder. “I don’t know. Sometimes we don’t know why something happens; we just have to accept that it did.”

I sighed.

Granny put a hand on my forehead. “You look tired. I’m going to cook up a new batch of tonic.”

“Sounds good,” I murmured, already back to reviewing paperwork.

“I’ve been experimenting with the flavor,” she added. “I think it’s almost there.”

“Flavor,” I repeated. “That’s one word for it.” Granny’s tonic, although lifesaving in the extreme, both for me and for any potential victims if I vamped out, tasted like licorice. It wasn’t my favorite, but it could have been much worse. The first batch had tasted like nettles and soap.

She gave me a quick look. “Beggars can’t be choosers.”

“I know,” I said. “I’m just frustrated.” It was hard not knowing what would happen to me, to my body.

Money couldn’t make up for what Travis and his father, Jure, had done to those girls, but it would help them get their lives back. I frowned. Maybe I could sell another property and use the money for scholarships or something?

“Anyway, it’s just a theory,” Granny said, “don’t be embarrassed.” She was obviously assuming I was hung up on the virginity thing. But I wasn’t.

I went to bed still thinking about the strangest summer of my life. I’d almost died, but Vaughn had given me his blood to save me. I tried not to remember how much I’d liked my lips against his skin, his warmth filling my mouth. The more I thought about him, the more worried I got about where he was and what could have happened to him.

I wasn’t going to be able to sleep, so I turned on the light and grabbed a novel from my nightstand. A History of Vampyres—a little light reading before bed. I was still searching for information about the hidden world, but this book wasn’t much help. There were two mentions of vampire-witch hybrids, both citing obscure texts that I wasn’t even sure Granny could get a hold of. My eyes grew heavy, and I yawned.

Then I heard a laugh. It was my mother’s laugh, low and vicious.

My mouth was filling up with blood, coating my teeth. Hot and thick, I gulped it eagerly, but blood continued to flood my mouth until I was choking on it, drowning. In Vaughn’s blood. He tried to push me away, but I clung to him, even as his heartbeat slowed and then stopped.

I sat up, my throat still working from the dream, breathing hard. I was covered in a cold, clammy sweat.

It was just a dream, but I couldn’t shake the hunger it had awakened in me.