Total pages in book: 65
Estimated words: 61523 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 308(@200wpm)___ 246(@250wpm)___ 205(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 61523 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 308(@200wpm)___ 246(@250wpm)___ 205(@300wpm)
Oh yeah. The Choosing Mixer. The big event where all the vampire men get to see what human women are on the menu.
When she turns to hurry down another aisle of high-slit-bearing dresses, I stick out my tongue behind her back.
I know it’s an immature move for a woman in her early twenties—childish, even—but the whole context of the fight we’re having calls for a little ridiculousness, if you ask me.
I mean, come on. In just five hours, I’m being shipped off from my home in Massachusetts to New York and sold to the highest bidder like a cow, all because my generationally passed-down blood is somehow valuable to a bunch of vampires.
And lucky for me, my family, the Spencers, are one of the last lines of blood belonging to the blood of the three—a powerful, biological makeup that somehow enhances the vampirical abilities of a whole secret group of paranormal or supernatural or whatever creatures that live among us.
Not to mention, I have one of only three human bloodlines in the world that vampires can reproduce with—not exactly an exciting scenario when you’re about to be auctioned off to some unknown fangy man to have his fangy babies.
It’s batshit crazy, and voluntary, but only in the sense that everyone is supposed to want to do it. Being that I’m an only child, the options in the family gene pool are limited—aka me, myself, and I.
And instead of shrieking in terror and plotting an escape plan worthy of James fucking Bond—like I would if my daughter had the special bloodline sauce—my mother is shopping for the perfect dress to market me in.
The snarky attitude, comparative remarks to my funeral, and juvenile tongue are the least I’m due.
“What about lavender?” my mother suggests, pulling a sequined, prom-like getup off the rack next to her. “It always goes so well with your blue eyes.”
I sigh, and she returns the favor immediately, adding a frown to jazz it up. “Fine. No purple.”
“It’s not the purple, Mom. Please. This has nothing to do with the color, and you know it.”
“Oh, I know, honey. You’ve made that abundantly clear. How stupid you think our family’s legacy is. How beneath you the very idea of being used for your…” She lowers her voice to a whisper, ever so diligent about keeping the vampires’ secrets like a good girl. “Blood is.”
She shakes her head before turning back to the rack to flick through more dresses. “But this is more than that. This is a distinction and an honor given to a very select group of women that affects the very world as we know it. And you’re not being used, Romy. You’re being selected. You’re being chosen. Those are very different things.”
I suck my lips into my mouth, bracing for the speech she’s given me a hundred different times in fifty different ways. This isn’t like jury duty, Romy. This is like winning the lottery.
“It doesn’t matter that the existence of vampires is a well-kept secret. Without them, the life you and I and everyone in this place knows…” She circles a finger next to her head in reference to the store and the town and the world, I guess. “…would be very different.”
Some people worship God and Christ, but my mother skipped church and went straight to the elite vampires.
If it weren’t all so tragic, I’d probably laugh. Or, at the very least, turn it into a comedy bit worthy of Netflix’s attention.
“But you’re selling me. You get that, right? That you’re selling me?” I glare at her as my heart rate picks up speed inside my chest. “Some random-ass vampire with a lot of cash is going to decide I’m the blood and body and whatever else he’s looking for, push the one-click button on the website, and pack me up to ship me off to his lair or whatever. It doesn’t matter if I like him or his house or his breath smells. I’m freaking sold.”
“Romy.” She sighs again. “For far from the first time, it’s an endowment. A gift, given both to the family and the Elite Council as a pledge of respect to the process and the woman they’ll be bonding with. It’s not eBay or Craigslist. It’s a charitable contribution to the tradition. A symbol of the significance and a penance of gratitude.” She sucks in a breath of frustration before continuing, “Your involvement is voluntary.”
“Clearly not.”
“Romy, please. We’ve been over this. You know this is what you have to do. You can’t tell me you’d be better off with some mechanic from Amherst or something, for Pete’s sake. These men are the best of the very best.”
“Okay,” I relent. It’s not that I’ve changed my mind—it’s that I know I won’t change hers.
I’ve thought about running away and creating my own version of a new life before; I’m an adult, and this is a big world with a lot of possibilities, even when you’re starting over.