Page 30 of Prince with a Chance of Darkness

Willa reached past me so fast she nearly knocked me over.

“Hey!”

“Sorry! Look,” she said, handing me a folded piece of fancy paper with my name written on it. She held one with her name on it.

I took it and opened it. The handwriting matched the card. It was small and perfect cursive like it was supposed to be—not the bastardized version most people I knew did. As I read my letter, I snorted. “This has to be a joke.”

Willa finished reading hers and handed it to me.

I gave her mine and began reading hers over. “We need to lock you up once a month around the full moon? What kind of sick joke is this?”

She arched a brow. “Increased aggression and predatory instincts that might kick in? So, you before your period?”

“Bite me,” I snapped.

She let out a half-laugh and handed my letter back to me.

As I took it, flashes from Romania and the cave returned. I saw myself squaring off against Helen—fighting with her, getting stabbed and then being thrust out of the cave, at a beautiful, yet eerie looking woman with dark hair. A woman who didn’t seem to cast a shadow and seemed to float. She caught me and…

I shot up and off the bed, panic welling in me as I clutched my letter tight, refusing to believe what my mind had shown me.

“Mina?”

“A vampire forced their blood down my throat,” I said.

“What? No.” She shook her head. “That’s how they make a vampire.”

My hand went to the scar on my chest. My panic reached epic levels and nervous energy left me rushing toward the door, needing air.

In an instant, everything changed. I was no longer me. I was nothingness. Dark mist. I was aware of what was happening but was powerless to stop it. As quickly as it started, it stopped and I was back to myself. Only I was across the room near the door.

I twisted around fast to be sure Willa saw it happen and I wasn’t nuts.

She was sitting on the end of the bed with her jaw hanging open. After about thirty seconds, she gulped. “Holy shit.”

Holy shit was right!

She gulped, clutching the letter tight. “We should probably lock me up once a month around the full moon like the letter suggests.”

Part II

The College Years

“And you, their best beloved one, are now to me, flesh of my flesh; blood of my blood; kin of my kin; my bountiful wine-press for a while; and shall be later on my companion and my helper.”

—Count Dracula, Dracula by Bram Stoker, 1897

Chapter Ten

Mina

Gallows Lane House,Grimm Cove, South Carolina…

I sat on the edge of my twin bed in the room I shared with Willa, staring down at my bare feet as I rubbed the back of my neck, trying to chase away the hunger that gnawed at my gut. It had ripped me from my sleep, an ever-present reminder of the monster I’d become. A direct result of the cave incident.

Neither of us remembered all of what had happened in Romania, despite our hopes that the memories would return to us. Just fragments, whispers of terror and pain. What we did know was that we’d been taken, dragged into something beyond our comprehension. That Helen had tried to sacrifice us. That she hadn’t survived, and neither had her twisted little accomplice. That someone had pulled us out of that cave, placed us in a hotel in Mill Hollow, and left behind letters of warning to us not to go home.

We didn’t know who had saved us. Didn’t know why someone had left us those warnings, the flowers, and cash, or who had packed up pieces of our past and given us a fresh startin Grimm Cove. But we had listened. We had stayed hidden, built a new life, and adapted to our new reality.

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