by Sofia Daniel
“The vampires who run this place fall under the House of Draculesti. Vlad the Impaler’s brother, Radu, was a powerful sorcerer who lived until he was two hundred and ten. His descendants have the kind of magic that can help vampires walk in the sun. That’s why they want us.”
A wave of dizziness swept over me, and I placed my palms on the stone floor to stop myself from keeling over. Breeding with vampires? Getting turned into mindless automatons? It was more than I could bear.
“You said we had magic. Can’t you use it to break out of here?”
The man laughed, a harsh, bitter sound. Then wracking sobs shook his body until I thought he would pass out from a lack of oxygen. When the crying ebbed into heavy, rasping breaths, he said, “That’s the thing. The vampires tell us we’re capable of magic, but they don’t know how to unlock our powers. Nobody does! The only thing we’re good for is producing offspring that can walk in the sun… Until they discard us.”
“Thank you, Osman,” said a commanding male voice from beyond the door. “That’s enough from you.”
“P-professor Proust!” the man snarled.
The door opened, and I trembled, waiting for Vlad the Impaler to stride through and turn us into knockers. But instead of Dracula, an extraordinarily tall and harmless-looking man strode into the cell. He wore a set of robes the shade of dried blood atop a suit I could only describe as dapper. It was fitted to his thin frame with wide lapels with a silk tie thick enough to be mistaken for a scarf. The type seen on gentlemen who had to wind up their motorcars with a hand crank before taking them for a spin.
He steepled his hands over his chest. “Welcome to the Sanguine Academy, one of four prestigious establishments in the world to train young vampires in the arts of diplomacy, strategic combat, and modern manners. My name is Petr Proust, and I’m the headmaster of this academy.”
My tongue darted out to lick my dry lips. “B-but sir, I didn’t ask to come here. I need to go ho—”
The vampire raised his hand in a quelling gesture. “You have three choices.” He counted them off on his long fingers. “One, take my blood and become one of the servants here at the academy. Two, serve as a blood concubine to a vampire on our waiting list.”
Those weren’t choices, they were threats. My lips parted.
Professor Prout’s eyes flashed, making my heart jump into my throat. “Or three, join the academy where you, Miss Stephens, and you, Miss Peridot, will be trained to become the consort of a prominent vampire.”
A thousand questions whirred through my mind, starting with why the vampires needed to kidnap us and kill Zarah’s aunt, but the thought of becoming a dead-eyed servant or a blood concubine made the words turn to dust in my throat.
My voice croaked, but I managed to rasp out, “I-I’ll join the academy.”
Chapter 3
Professor Proust smiled as though he hadn’t just forced us to join his academy or face becoming blood whores or mindless slaves. “Dawn is in less than an hour, and it’s time to get settled into your dorm. You’ll have the rest of the day to acclimatize yourselves to a nighttime schedule, so do try to get some sleep.”
I shot the man sitting with us on the stone floor a pained look, but he just bowed his head and continued his silent sobs.
“S-sir?” I asked.
“Yes, Miss Stephens?”
“What about my family?”
He blinked. “Your biological father was the frumosi, and I believe he’s deceased?”
I nodded. Mom had told me he’d died in a car-jacking the day she had discovered she was pregnant.
The headmaster turned to Zarah. “Your mother, Soraya Peridot, was the frumosi. She lost custody of you shortly after you turned three, and now you’re in the care of your paternal aunt?”
She gasped out a choked sob.
He strode across the cell to the wooden door as though that was the end of the conversation.
Dread rolled through my belly like a lead weight. It was clear he didn’t want to discuss the non-frumosi members of our families. But the thought of never seeing Mom and Daniel again gave me a bout of reckless courage. I blurted, “Do we get to visit our families on the weekends or vacations?”
Professor Proust gave me a look that turned my blood to ice. It was something in his eyes. They switched from kindly to sinister in less than a heartbeat. It was a warning not to bother him with questions about my family.
He pulled open the wooden door and said, “You’ll soon come to discover that we are the only people you will ever need. Now, get up, unless you have changed your mind about your fate.”
A woman stepped into the room, clad in a flowery summer dress that exposed her arms. Wispy strands of strawberry blonde hair obscured her features, but from what I could glean, she didn’t have the preternatural beauty of a vampire.
With a shallow curtsy, she asked, “Are the girls ready for their rooms, sir?”
The professor beamed. “What wonderful timing, Miss Margolyes. Alicia and Zarah need their rooms.”
She inclined her head at the headmaster and gave us a kindly smile. “Come along, girls.”
Nausea crawled up the back of my gullet. Why would a human woman look so happy to be here among the vampires? The man on the ground let out a rasping sob, reminding me of what might happen if I expressed any reluctance to join the academy, so I pushed myself off the ground and scrambled to my feet. My legs shook, and I held onto the stone wall for balance. Maybe if I could separate Miss Margolyes from Professor Proust, I might be able to get some clues about how to escape this creepy castle.
Her face fell. “Zarah?”
Tremors shook Zarah’s shoulders, and she clapped her hands over her eyes. “I-I can’t move.”
“Miss Margolyes, if you please,” said the headmaster.
The human woman walked over to Zarah and placed a comforting arm over her shoulder. After murmuring a few words of reassurance, she helped the smaller girl to her feet and walked her to the door.
I swallowed down the lump in my throat and followed after them, trying not to stumble on legs that couldn’t stop shaking.
We passed the two lifeless servants, who held their lamps aloft to light our way, descended the stairs and through a black-and-white-tiled hallway. Instead of heading toward the stairs, she walked down a corridor of mottled, gray marble. While it was about seven-feet wide, pillars on both sides, leading to high arched ceilings gave it a feeling of claustrophobia.
I walked alongside Miss Margolyes and Zarah, keeping my eyes open for escape routes. To our left, shutters obscured tall, thin windows, but we were so high up, I couldn’t safely jump from this level and expect to survive, and to our right were heavy wooden doors that seeped freezing air. I stayed close to my companions, just in case.
Behind us, a door yawned open, and the click-clack of high-heeled shoes followed. I glanced over my shoulder and groaned.
Three girls about our age walked behind us, each wearing the same black blazer as the boys from before, but with skirts the same red tartan as their ties. The noisy shoes came from the heels of the girl in the middle.
Hair, the color of liquid mercury, tumbled over her shoulders, as she sashayed forward with one hand on her hips. Sadistic amusement glinted in eyes an alarming shade of lapis lazuli that I might have mistaken for navy blue if not for the flecks of black and gold on her irises. Everything about her face was wrong: slanted eyes of cartoonish proportions, a tiny nose dwarfed by huge, round cheekbones, and a large, down-turned mouth. Despite the permanent scowl and full lips fixed in a perpetual pout, she was, without doubt, the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen.
“New blood.” The silver-haired girl licked her lips. “How delicious.”
Fear skittered up my spine, and my heart rate doubled. This wasn’t the first time this evening that we’d been acknowledged as food.
Miss Margolyes gave the female vampires an exasperated huff. “Micalla, you know better than to tease the new girls. These are Alicia Ste
phens and Zarah Peridot, who will be in your year. Please make them feel welcome.”
Micalla smirked. “Of course, Miss Margolyes. We’ll make sure they settle in.”
“Thank you, girls.” The teacher smiled and stepped away.
My stomach dropped. “Y-you’re leaving us?”
“Micalla and her mother are champions of the frumosi program.” She gestured at two conventionally beautiful, black-haired twin girls standing behind Micalla. “You’ll be perfectly safe with her and the Preta twins.”
A whimper sounded from Zarah’s throat, and she wrapped her arms around her body, reflecting exactly how I felt to be left alone with a trio of vampires. I hadn’t had a chance to ask Miss Margolyes any questions, and I doubted that Micalla and her friends would give us pointers on how to escape.
Micalla swept out an arm and smirked. “The Frumosi Tower is this way.”
Miss Margolyes pushed open a door and stepped inside. “Good day, girls.” From the way her voice echoed, it had to be a stairwell. “Sweet dreams.”
“Sweet dreams, Miss Margolyes,” the trio chorused back.
The door clicked shut, and Micalla’s grin turned feral. “Welcome to your gilded cage. Don’t get too comfortable. Vampires have been of the night for centuries, and that’s how things will stay.”
The twin with the pigtails placed her hands on her hips. “We don’t need human broodmares, and no vampire female wants to mate with some lame human guy who can’t even last four minutes.”
I glanced at the ponytail twin, whose face twisted with disgust. She probably didn’t like frumosi, either.
Zarah staggered back to the wall and clutched her chest. “I-I didn’t ask to come here. P-please, if there’s a way out…”
Micalla’s eyes softened. “What’s your name?”
“Z-Zarah. Zarah Peridot.”
She placed a comforting arm around the girl. “I’ll take you to your tower. Learn the rules, follow the examples of your roommates, and if you’re good, you might be able to earn a way out.”
The pair walked ahead, while Pigtails raked her gaze up and down my body, taking in my skinny jeans, low-cut tank top and push-up bra. “Nice outfit. Where did the commander find you? Street corner?”
“Yeah, your boyfriend wanted a little frumosi action,” I snapped. “Said he wasn’t getting it at the academy and asked for a sympathy discount.” My insides cringed at my own stupidity. These were vampires, for fuck’s sake, and I was insulting them as if they were the lame mean girls from my school, and I had Erica with her karate skills watching my back.
Pigtail’s face twisted into a smirk. “You’ll regret saying that.”
I already did.
Ponytail, whose face remained unamused at the bitchy banter, gave me a gentle nudge. “Move. Let’s get to the dorms before dawn.”
A relieved breath whooshed out of my nostrils, and I followed after Micalla, who still had her arm wrapped around Zarah.
“Do you know what frumosi means?” Micalla asked in a loud voice.
Zarah shook her head.
“Beautiful ones,” Micalla snarled. “Because Radu Dracula was handsome, everyone assumes his descendants are the same. All I’ve seen are worthless humans who don’t have an ounce of his beauty or magical talent.”
My blood boiled, and I pounded the marble floors with my feet. One of the twins, Pigtails, most probably, snickered. My hands curled into fists. It was bad enough that vampires had killed Zarah’s aunt, gassed an entire nightclub, broken into a prison, and abducted us to become their consorts, but now they were insulting us?
Micalla tossed her silver hair. “Of course, you all smell like rodents.”
The anger simmering in my blood bubbled over, and I spat, “If we’re so worthless, why were we pulled from our normal lives and brought here?”
With a swoosh of air, my back slammed against the wall. Micalla lifted me off my feet with a hand wrapped around my throat. Adrenaline raced through my veins, and palpitations seized my heart. I stared down at the other girl, eyes bulging. Her fangs had already retracted, and her dark blue pupils narrowed into reptilian slits.
“Let go,” I mouthed as she cut off my air.
“Listen,” she lisped through her fangs. “Bitches who act like prize commodities disappear. Since you’re slow-witted, consider this your first warning of three. Sniff around anywhere near what’s mine, and you’ll end up like all the others.”
I would have asked about these other girls or what she considered to be hers, but my lungs screamed for oxygen. My fingernails dug into the hands around my throat, but she didn’t even flinch. Black filled the edges of my vision, and I thrashed and gasped for air.
It was only when drool spilled from my lips that Micalla reared back and snatched her hand away. I fell onto my hands and knees, gasping for air.
“Filthy whore!” She wiped her hands on the back of my head.
My mind blanked. Any more of that strangling, and I would have died! Micalla had as much as admitted to killing other girls.
Ponytail wrapped a hand around my arm and yanked me to my feet. “Cough later. Some of us have sunrises to avoid.”
Clutching at my aching throat, I allowed the quiet vampire to shove me through the hallway. I couldn’t see through the tears streaming from my eyes. Neither of the twins had done a thing to stop Micalla. I swallowed hard and winced at the raw membranes of my throat. What was the point of the headmaster threatening us to join his academy when the students were capable of making frumosi disappear?
We continued through a set of double doors encased in red light. It might have scanned us, zapped us, or sweetened our blood. It didn’t matter. Staying in the Sanguine Academy of Vampires meant certain death for someone prepared to defend themselves. I had to get out of here before Micalla decided to carry out her threat and make me disappear.
Cold air engulfed us as we stepped into a dark, spiral staircase that stretched up and around the corner. The walls were damp, stone bricks. It was as though whoever had created the castle didn’t care for the welfare of the tower’s occupants.
The other three girls walked ahead up the winding staircase, while Ponytail kept me steady on my feet. She guided me through an arched doorway into an equally cold corridor of four wooden doors.
“Here’s where you’ll stay.” She pushed open a door to a twenty-foot room containing four simple cots. Micalla, Pigtails, and Zarah stood in the middle of the room, while two regular-looking girls sat opposite each other on their beds clad in long, white nightgowns. They glanced up at us, and their expressions shuttered into masks of neutrality.
With a smirk, Micalla flicked her head at the two empty beds as though showing off her handiwork. I wrapped my arms around my middle and stared at the bare side of the room. The two empty beds had probably belonged to the girls who had disappeared.
“Kat, Annette,” snapped Micalla. “Teach these newbies how to behave, or I’ll make you responsible for their transgressions.”
The three vampires stepped out of the room, and the door clicked shut.
For a moment, nobody spoke. Footsteps echoed down the hallway, and one of the vampires burst into raucous laughter. I was guessing it would be Pigtails, as she seemed the more gregarious of the trio.
The shorter of the two human girls let out a long breath and ran her hands through her auburn curls. She glanced up at us with large, hazel eyes and muttered, “Welcome to the slaughterhouse.”
“They called it a gilded cage.” I rubbed the base of my neck.
“Not for us.” The taller of the pair, a black girl who wore her hair in long braids, wiped her eyes with the back of her hands and yawned. “Sorry. I’m Annette, and this is Kat.”
“Hi.” I introduced myself and Zarah, who slid down the wall and wrapped her arms around her legs. “They came to her house earlier today and—”
“Right.” Kat shot to her feet and raised her palms. It was as though she already knew what I would say. She walked acros
s the room and pulled Zarah to her feet. “Nathaniel,” she said in a business-like tone. “He’s a boy in our year who’s great at the mind arts. He can take the edge off the pain but help you retain your memories.”
Zarah dipped her head into a nod, but I rubbed my aching chest with the heel of my hand. Something told me that Nathaniel would be a vampire.
Chapter 4
Kat helped Zarah into her nightgown and wouldn’t answer my questions about the two girls who used to occupy the right side of the room. They also admitted to not having found any escape routes and advised me to get some sleep. Somewhere in the distance, a wolf howled, and I hoped the juvenile delinquent had kept ahead of the werewolves and pursuing vampires.
I took the bed on the far right of the room, where a pine wardrobe stood that presumably contained my nightgown and school uniform. Ignoring it, I lay atop the sheets, fully clothed, and watched the door. As soon as the sun seeped through the narrow, arched windows, I’d be up and out and exploring.
With both arms folded over my chest, I recounted what I’d learned about vampires. They were preternaturally strong, wicked fast, and viewed people like me as inferior, even when they implied we were some kind of distant relation. My encounters with Micalla and the commanders told me that the creatures also had an acute sense of smell as well as slitted eyes. Was that for seeing in the dark?
So far, the only weakness I could discern was sunlight. But based on vampire fiction, this weakness could range to sparkling on a cloudless day, to becoming catatonic, to fully combusting. The faintest amount of light appeared on the horizon, turning the view outside the window from silvery treetops to the beginnings of green forestland. I folded my arms across my chest and waited. Waited for Kat and Annette’s breathing to slow and deepen and waited for the sun to rise.
My mind drifted to the boys who had accompanied us to Professor Prout’s office. That red-haired one, Raphael had been the least trustworthy of the lot. While the other two had disliked us, Raphael had been kind. If I ever encountered him again, I’d have to make sure he didn’t lure me to a dark alcove to suck my blood.
