by Meg Cabot
Meena sipped her champagne. She felt as if her mind was going a thousand miles a minute. What were the chances of Lucien-her Lucien, the one she’d met outside St. George’s Cathedral-and the countess’s prince being one and the same person? This was going to be so perfect! She needed to find out everything she could about him so she could write up the perfect character description with which to hit Sy.
Not, of course, that her prince was going to be an exact replica of Prince Lucien. For one thing he was too young for Victoria Worthington Stone. They’d need to find someone a little older to play a suitable romantic match.
Not that Cheryl wouldn’t have gone for Lucien in real life, of course. She would have, in a New York second. Any woman would. Look at him! He was perfect…that profile, those impressive shoulders.
But whoever played him would definitely need to be more gray around the temples and have…glasses. Yes! That was it! A vampire slayer, or whatever it was they were called, should definitely be wearing glasses.
“I beg your pardon?” the prince said, looking down at her rather intently with those gorgeous dark brown eyes of his. “Did you say something?”
“No,” Meena said. The directness of his stare unnerved her. It was almost as if he could read her thoughts. Or see through her dress.
Still, he was the sexiest man she’d met in a long time…whom she hadn’t had to urge to give up his motorcycle.
“I mean, I was just wondering what you do,” she said. “I know that’s a rude, New Yorky thing to ask. We’re all obsessed with what other people do for a living. But I’m really curious. I mean, what does a prince do all day? Do you make a habit out of rescuing damsels in distress, or was I just in the right place at the right time? Do you have a castle? Do you joust?”
He continued to look bemused. He seemed to find her very bewildering. Meena wondered what women usually talked to him about. It seemed natural to her to ask a prince about jousting.
“I do have a castle, actually,” he said. “A family estate, really. Emil and Mary Lou come to visit in the summers. I’m certain she’s told you about it-”
Meena held up a hand. She realized belatedly she’d heard way too much about the castle already.
“Never mind. I already know. In Romania.”
“Outside Sighi oara,” he said with a smile. “And in answer to your other question, no, I’ve never jousted. I teach.”
“You teach?” If he’d told her he Twittered, she could not have been more surprised. “You teach what? Bat-attack evasion?”
“Eastern European history,” he said, still looking amused. “At the University of Bucharest. Evening classes, mostly.”
Meena raised an eyebrow. “Really?” She got the feeling, not just from the fact that he owned a castle but from the look of the expensive watch he was wearing and the way he carried himself in general, that Prince Lucien didn’t exactly need the teaching job to support himself.
His next statement confirmed her suspicions.
“It’s important to me,” he said, “that my country’s rich heritage not be forgotten by the next generation. You know how caught up the youth of today is in video games and text messaging. I try to make history compelling for my students, to awaken in them the kind of love I’ve always had for it. Whether I succeed…” He shrugged modestly.
Meena wanted to applaud. If he turned out to have a pair of bifocals in his jacket pocket, she thought she might actually jump up and kiss him on the mouth. “And you’re here on spring break?” she asked.
“No, I’m not, actually,” Prince Lucien said, removing a pair of silver-rimmed reading glasses from the inside pocket of his cashmere blazer and putting them on. “I’m here for a lecture series a colleague is giving at the Metropolitan on Vlad Tepes.”
At the sight of the reading glasses, Meena swayed on her spindly high heels and almost fell down.
“Are you all right?” he asked with genuine concern in his deep voice. “Here, let me help you.”
She felt his strong arm, so familiar from that night in front of the cathedral, go around her bare shoulders. A second later, he was steering her gently and expertly toward one of the countess’s white, cast-iron garden chairs.
She sank gratefully onto the green-and-white-striped cushion, capable of thinking only, The glasses! The glasses!
He took the glasses off and tucked them hastily back into his pocket, bending over her with concern. “Shall I get you some water?”
“No,” Meena said, draining the contents of her champagne glass and setting it down on the wrought iron table beside her. She hurried to say something to change the subject. “W-what’s Vlad Tepes?”
“He was the most powerful prince of Wallachia, what is present-day Romania, in the fourteen hundreds,” he explained. “He’s considered a great hero in Eastern Europe. Are you sure you’re all right? You really don’t look well.”
She laid a hand over his where it rested on the arm of the chair beside her. She couldn’t help it. There was something about him that made her want to touch him. She didn’t think it was only the fact that he’d saved her life, either.
“I’m fine,” she said, thinking that his fingers felt a little cold. But then, it wasn’t exactly summer outside. She wished she’d brought a cardigan. But they’d already been so late for the party, she hadn’t had time to look through her closet for one nice enough to go with her dress. “I’ve just been having a really bad week at work.”
“I’m so sorry to hear that,” he said, slipping off his jacket and placing it gently over her shoulders…like this was the most natural gesture in the world.
Meena felt as if she’d been punched in the chest by a fellow shopper at a Marc Jacobs sample sale.
Calm down, she told herself. He’s a prince. This is what princes do. They’re trained from birth to act this way.
I mean, look at him. He’s so cool, his jacket isn’t even warm!
“Is that better?” he asked with what sounded like real concern.
Oh, Meena thought. Shoshona. If you could only see me now. How you would cry into your dressing-free salad.
“Thank you so much,” she said. “It’s a lot better, Lucien. Oh…may I call you Lucien? Or would you prefer Professor Antonescu? Or Dr. Antonescu? Or Your Royal Highness?”
“Lucien is fine,” he said, smiling some more. He looked almost unbearably handsome when he smiled, with all that dark hair and those sad eyes. Meena couldn’t help thinking to herself that Lucien Antonescu was a man who needed a lot of teasing. Maybe a lifetime of it, to make up for whatever had happened to him to put all that hurt into those brown eyes. “And what’s caused you to have such a bad week?”
“Oh,” Meena said. “Well, you’ve heard about the vampire war, haven’t you?”
“I beg your pardon?”
For a split second, she could almost have sworn those sad brown eyes flashed red, like she thought they had that night outside the cathedral. The look he gave her was one of incredulity mixed almost with…well, anger. His hand slipped out from beneath hers as quickly as if her skin had singed his.
“Dinner is served,” called the caterer in the blond ponytail and white shirt and black trousers, smiling at them from the nearby French doors.
Meena had no idea what she’d done to insult the prince. But he definitely seemed offended. He reached for the champagne glass in which he’d shown not the slightest interest before that moment and downed its entire contents.
What have I done? Meena wondered. What had she said? What had happened to make the prince go from tenderly loaning her his jacket to keep her warm to gulping down alcohol like a junkie reaching for his next fix?
“I-I’m sorry,” Meena stammered. “I just-”
But when he swiveled his head to look at her again, she was relieved to see that his eyes had gone back to their normal shade of brown.
Of course. She must have imagined the red thing. She did have a pretty overactive imagination. It’s what had gotten her her job.
“No, I’m sorry,” he said, sounding more like his cordial self. She couldn’t help but feel like he was controlling himself with an effort, however. The hand holding the champagne flute was white knuckled. In a second, she thought he might break the glass in half with his grip alone. “But I don’t think I could have heard you correctly. Did you say vampire war?”
“Ye-e-es,” Meena said slowly. She noticed the countess coming toward them from inside the apartment and felt a little relieved. Maybe Mary Lou could help her explain. “I write for Insatiable. It’s on ABN. We’re getting slaughtered in the ratings by Lust. They have this story line with a vampire… I know, it’s ridiculous, really. But this week my bosses announced they want us to do a vampire story line…”
“Oh,” he said. “That vampire war.”
“Of course,” she said, laughing a little incredulously. This guy was really intense! She hadn’t been wrong about his needing to be teased a little. He needed to be teased a lot. “What other kind is there? Did you think I meant a real vampire war?”
She saw him throw a look in the countess’s direction…a look Meena couldn’t read at all. She wasn’t sure what was going on between the two of them, but Mary Lou, reaching out to pry the champagne flute out of the prince’s fingers, apparently before he could break it, said, “Now, what all are you two still doing out here? Dinner’s on the table and everyone’s waiting. What could you be talking about that you didn’t even hear the announcement?”
“Oh, not much,” Prince Lucien said, still looking as if he was holding his jaw very tightly. “Just the vampire war.”
The countess glanced at him quickly, then tossed back her golden head and laughed.
“Oh, my stars,” she said. Her southern accent always seemed to get more pronounced when she’d been drinking. “Meena must have been telling you about the vampire war between the television show she works for, Insatiable, and their archrival, Lust. No offense, Meena, you know I’m an Insatiable fan to the end. But I just can’t get enough of that sexy Gregory Bane.”
“Well,” Meena said, scowling as she always did when she heard Gregory Bane’s name, “I understand our vampire is going to be just as sexy.”
Lucien, meanwhile, looked visibly relieved. “Television,” he said. “Of course.”
Meena still didn’t understand anything that was happening. Like why the tightness had finally gone out of the prince’s face…or why the smile he gave Meena when he turned around was so dazzling, it made her knees feel weak again, so that she wasn’t sure she was going to be able to walk all the way to the Antonescus’ dining room on her high heels. At least, not without wobbling.
But that was all right, because Mary Lou said with a laugh, “Of course that’s what she meant, silly. What other vampire war is there? Well, far be it from me to interrupt your conversation. I’ve saved you two places at the end of the dining table. Prince Lucien, be a dear and escort Meena in.”
Prince Lucien was a dear. He rose, gallantly presenting Meena his arm. She looked at it with a little astonishment at first.
And no wonder: no man had ever offered Meena his arm before. David hadn’t exactly been the most gentlemanly of suitors, being more interested in his dental textbooks and Toastmasters meetings than manners.
Meena wasn’t certain if she was supposed to slip her hand through the crook of the prince’s arm or lay her fingers over it, the way she’d seen Jane Austen heroines do in BBC productions.
She actually felt just the slightest bit light-headed…but whether it was from the prince’s proximity or the champagne, Meena wasn’t sure. She wondered what was wrong with her. It wasn’t as if she had never been around a handsome man before. She worked with some of the hottest actors in television, for heaven’s sake.
Maybe it was just that none of them had ever shown any particular interest in her.
Or maybe…just maybe…it was because for the first time since David had left, she’d actually met a man to whom she felt attracted who wasn’t already married, wasn’t gay, and didn’t have certain death looming over him.
She slipped her hand through the crook of his arm-in case she had to lean on him for support if the light-headedness got worse-and smiled up at him.
“So,” she said. “Where were we?”
Chapter Twenty-four
9:00 P.M. EST, Thursday, April 15
Outside of 912 Park Avenue
New York, New York
What are you doing here?” the blue-haired old woman asked as her Pekingese lifted a leg not far from where Alaric Wulf was standing. “And don’t try to lie to me, young man. I’ve been watching you from my window. You’ve been standing out here for an hour.”
“Just waiting for my wife, ma’am,” he said. “She has an appointment with Dr. Rabinowitz.” He nodded toward the brass plate on the building he was leaning against that said Dr. Rubin Rabinowitz, Obstetrics.
The Blue Hair followed his gaze, then turned back toward him. She wasn’t, he saw from her expression, having any of it.
“This late?” the old woman demanded. “And why aren’t you in the waiting room?”
“Claustrophobia,” Alaric said. He glared at the Pekingese. Its little face was scrunched up in a look of disgust that seemed to echo its mistress’s. “And Dr. Rabinowitz is very accommodating of my wife’s busy schedule as a jet-setting supermodel.”
“Hmph,” said the old woman, and she hurried on her way.
Alaric, standing next door to 910 Park Avenue-but out of sight, leaning against the side of the building where he wouldn’t be noticed by anyone but elderly women passing by as they walked their impossibly small dogs and cast disapproving looks at him-felt that he approved.
Not of Blue Hair, although he’d liked her. He liked women with spirit. They reminded him of Betty and Veronica.
What he approved of was 910 Park Avenue itself, and its tenants.
The living ones, anyway.
It was an elegant brick structure, built on a corner and obviously well maintained. The potted plants on either side of the electronic doors looked healthy and lush. There was a spotless red carpet beneath the green awning above the doors, and the doorman standing under it was young and eager to do his job well. Alaric saw him corner and cuff a Chinese food deliveryman before he’d managed to slink by him, determined to slip menus under unsuspecting tenants’ doors.
The doorman also stopped to carefully check the name of each guest arriving to attend the Antonescus’ party off a list they’d given him before allowing them up.
That was how Alaric had discovered that there was no way he could simply crash the party uninvited…unless of course he used force.
And he wasn’t willing to play that card. Yet.
And because the building was twenty stories high, and the Antonescus lived on the eleventh floor with no fire escape, his “feet first through the window from the roof” trick wouldn’t work, either.
Until he figured out a way to sneak inside through the parking garage in the basement-or possibly using the service entrance-he was going to get to know the parked cars outside of 910 Park Avenue pretty well, he suspected.
But that was all right. He had time. All the time in the world to plan his next move.
Alaric had checked into the Peninsula the night before and was very much enjoying the upgrade from his hotel in Chattanooga. There were several premium cable channels for him to enjoy-on a flat-screen TV, no less, while soaking in a big, deep tub with no rubber slide strips in the bathroom-and Frette sheets, not to mention an indoor pool in a glass atrium on the top floor so he could keep up his workouts; a vast and varied room service menu to explore; and several lounges where attractive women of all nationalities could be found after a day of shopping sipping tea and texting their friends. No, Alaric was in no rush to leave Manhattan.
Except for one small, unpleasant fact.
The reason he was there in the first place.
But then, if the e-mail Martin had forwarded him was
genuine, the prince was in town for the very same reason: to make sure no more young girls had their life’s blood sucked out of them.
The file containing all their photos had been waiting for Alaric when he’d checked in.
What that file contained had horrified him.
And it took a lot to horrify Alaric, who was convinced he’d seen everything in his twenty years with the Palatine.
There were no names attached to the victims’ photos. The coroner’s office suspected-due to the girls’ dental work-that they were of Eastern European or even Russian birth and in the country illegally…which would explain why not a single person had come forward to identify them.
Alaric had given them American names to go with the American dreams with which he felt sure each of them had traveled to this country:
First was long-haired Aimee, found early one morning just ten days ago in the Ramble at Central Park.
Then red-haired Jennifer, found a few days later by a park employee in Bryant Park.
The final victim he called Hayley. Her photo was perhaps most disturbing of all to Alaric, because she bore more than a passing resemblance to Martin’s daughter, Simone. Both were dark skinned, with black hair that spiraled around their faces in similar tight corkscrew curls.
She had been found just last weekend in Central Park, like Aimee… Alaric, studying the photos in his hotel room, had seen what the general public-and few members of law enforcement, beyond the coroner’s office-had not. There was no question of cause of death and no question, once the photos had been e-mailed to the Vatican, who-or rather what-was responsible for those deaths.
The only question was, would the Palatine be able to exterminate him-or them, because Alaric, upon seeing the photos, became convinced there’d been more than just one attacker-before the prince could?
It still seemed mind-boggling to Alaric that a vampire could actually be in New York on a mission similar to his own. Not just any vampire, but the prince of darkness.
But, Alaric supposed, the prince didn’t care about the dead girls. To him, the murders of those three girls only meant possible exposure to the public of his kind. Discovery by the rest of humankind that vampires were not some invention of Bram Stoker’s feverish imagination-something that, if Alaric was honest, he had to admit the Vatican was at just as great pains to prevent as the vamps. They didn’t need another panic like the one that spread through Eastern Europe during the 1700s, when ignorant villagers, goaded by charlatan “vampire exterminators,” were led to believe their own family members were actually undead and, after being coerced into buying expensive “vampire weapons,” dug them up from their resting places and decapitated them.
