Page 62 of Our Sins in Blood (Coven of Sin 1)

She was cute, with curly red hair pulled onto the top of her head in a loose bun and a smattering of freckles covering her fair cheeks and nose.

“Princess Ruby?” Her voice came out timid and unsure.

“Um, yeah?”

Her eyes widened. “So it’s true. The king did have a human daughter.”

I leaned against the door frame and folded my arms over my chest. “Half-human turns out. What’s your name?”

“Mckenzie, but you can call me Kenzie if you want.” She held up her hands, which were full of paper shopping bags. “Prince Sterling asked me to run to Boston and get you some things.”

I opened the door and invited her inside but she stood where she was, her gaze flickering between me and the room. “Is it…safe? I’m not allowed to be alone with youngbloods.”

My brows scrunched together in thought. “I’m not sure if I am a youngblood. I’ve been half-vampire all my life. But you don’t have to worry about me, I just fed.”

A look of relief washed over her face and she stepped inside, setting the bags down on my bed. My jaw fell open when I took in the massive haul of clothes. The only thing I knew about designer brands was what I saw from TV commercials. But even I recognized some of the labels. Dior, Chanel, Dolce & Gabbana.

For a girl who lived in sweats and sports bras, it might as well have been Christmas.

I started sifting through a couple of the bags, pulling out gorgeous tops, leggings, jeans, jewelry, lingerie. The crazy thing was, everything was exactly my style, or at least it was the style I’d always fantasized I’d have when I dreamed about life beyond my bedroom. Lots of short skirts, ripped denim, leather jackets. It was all black or red. My super religious mom never bought me stuff like this. For her, goth and punk fashion styles were for heathens and minions of the devil. Guess she was right.

“This is all for me?”

Kenzie nodded as she set to hanging up my new wardrobe in the armoire. “All yours! But not nearly enough for a princess. I’ll make a second run soon. You can walk in the day, right? We’ll go together! After all, we’ll need to get you shoes since I had no idea what size you were. I thought I was gonna be able to tell how well I did guessing your style once I saw you but…” She took in my blood-crusted outfit-or what remained of it-but without any of the judgment that had been in Lexi’s gaze.

I pulled out a leather jacket from one of the bags and had to stop myself from drooling. It was an Alexander McQueen biker jacket. It had a ruffled hem that fanned out at the waist, high in front and low in the back. It was perfectly feminine, and kick-ass at the same time.

Her face lit up when she saw how I looked at it. “You like that?” She held up my Ramones hoodie that I had left behind. “I saw this and I thought it would look cute paired with the jacket. I love this band too!”

Excluding Lexi, my mother, the cashier at the pharmacy, and a few randos at the roller-rink, this was the first girl I’d come face to face with that I actually wanted to be friends with. Having a girlfriend was yet another thing I’d never gotten to experience. Watching TV as I was growing up was hard. As I watched female friendships blossom over seasons, I was left with a painfully hollow loneliness. I’d been led to believe that the only connections I’d ever have were with the characters in my books and shows, and the pathetic relationship with my mother through my bedroom door. Nothing more.

It wasn’t until Kenzie’s hand was on my back, consoling me that I realized I was crying. “Hey, it’s okay to cry. You probably haven’t gotten a chance to do that yet. Not in front of…” Her voice was tight with anger. “Not in front of them. But you can cry in front of me if you want.”

She guided me to sit on the bed, taking a seat next to me. I let her wrap her arms around me, consoling me with quiet shushes.

“I’m sorry for crying, I’m just…”

“Overwhelmed,” she finished for me with an understanding bob of her head. “I can’t even imagine what you’ve been through the last couple of nights. I don’t know a lot about you but I do know you were kept in Quincy, and you weren’t told anything about this life or who you were. It can’t be easy, having your whole human life ripped away from you like that.”

“My human life sucked, Kenzie. I’m glad I’m here… I think? Glad, but scared. I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing.”

Kenzie’s hand dropped from my back and moved to her lap where she wrung her fingers nervously. “Can I tell you something?”

I nodded.

“When me and the other blood donors- the humans that work for the coven- heard about the Elders deciding you’d be crowned queen in four months, we were so happy.”

“You were?”

“Heck yes. Having a queen on the throne who knows what it’s like to be human is going to change the way vampires treat our kind.”

My belly tightened with unease. The problem was, I didn’t know what it was like to be human, not really. I wondered if her and the others who worked for the house would be so hopeful if they knew about my plan with Sterling.

I laid back on my bed, staring up at the swaths of the velvet canopy draped over the posts, and wrinkled my nose. “It’s funny how every little girl dreams of being a princess and having a knight rescue them from their tower or whatever. But Vincent Feral ruined that fantasy for me.” And ignited a few other, darker fantasies. But Kenzie didn’t need to know about those.

At the mention of the prince, Kenzie’s expression darkened. “You don’t like him either?”

I snorted. “He’s a total tool and a bully.”

---