Page 50 of Kissed the Mark
The Queen exchanged a glance with Mom. “Sheshould be fine if she drinks blood she’s had before,” the Queensaid finally. “And the sun here isn’t quite so sun-like—she can bein a sunbeam from a window, but I wouldn’t let her outside withoutat least a parasol. She’ll get blisters if she’s exposed for toolong.”
A question died on my lips about the sourceof her knowledge. I felt silly for telling Leandra we didn’t haverules in place for vampires when apparently it was common enoughknowledge how they reacted to this kind of environment.
“She won’t be able to eat, then,” my mothersaid. “My daughter isn’t stupid enough to feed a vampire herblood.”
I licked my suddenly dry lips. “Right. We’llfigure something out.”
“Surely my dearest childissmartenough not to give a vampire a taste of her blood? They only evercome back for more,” Mom said.
“I’ll keep that in mind.” But I could tellboth of us knew it was too late.
Chapter Twenty-Four
The Plan in Shambles
LEANDRA AND I CAME UP with our full plan when Ireturned to our shared bedroom: we didn’t need passports or really,any documentation as long as we traveled by bell to Austria andfound Viktor Lehmann’s villa. She was convinced that we would beable to persuade him to stay there; I was skeptical of this, seeingas she had snuck into his villa in the first place rather than finda way to tell him she was coming. But she insisted, and I wasbeginning to put some level of trust in her, however smart thatwas.
If that failed, I made her set up a backupplan—we would stay at a youth hostel.
“Wo ist die Toilette, bitte?” she said,trying to get me to learn enough German to be useful. She hadwritten out the words on a notepad to demonstrate the spelling.
“Vo esst dye toilet-uh, bit-tuhg?” Itried.
“D-i-e is pronounced ‘dee,’ not ‘dye’ likewe say it. It means ‘the.’” She didn’t need to tell me that if Icouldn’t even say basic articles, I had very little hope of pickingup on the language. “I just hope I’m always around when you need touse the bathroom if you’re talking to an immigrant who only pickedup on German. A lot of the locals will know English, but obviouslyif they’re staying at a hostel…”
“Okay, I get the picture. I’ll just startbouncing like I really have to pee until someone tells me what todo.”
Leandra smiled. “Like you’re inTheSims,” she joked.
“I think I can convey a lot by pretending tobe a Sim.”
Without knowing how we’d gotten there, wewere kissing then, Leandra’s firm hands sliding against myback.
I was getting annoyed with myself. It wasthe honeymoon phase, probably. We had both discovered that wedidn’t mind touching each other, and so we would just keep doing ituntil someone got bored. I wasn’t sold on the dating thing yet, orsure of what Leandra’s intentions were—like I’d said before, therewas an inevitable time limit when I would definitely be too old forher, or I’d die and she’d move on. What was the point of gettinginto something that didn’t last? I’d grown tired of that in myearly twenties and wasn’t willing to do it now.
Except I literallywasdoing thatnow, wasn’t I?Do I contradict myself?I wondered, thinkingof Walt Whitman and the penis bulge that Leandra had pointed out toshow me it was definitely there.
I broke away from the kiss and took Leandraby the hand around the castle, showing her the rooms I’d stayed inwhen I’d visited and the ones my mom still lived in as the queen’smaidservant. She giggled like a young girl as I told her a storyabout how my friend had put a farting potion into the desserts at avery elegant banquet and the court had smelled like sulfur for aweek. “This place is delightful,” she told me, and I could tell shemeant it.
I’d conveyed to her what the queen told meabout her limitations here. “I wonder what other vampires have beenhere for her to know that?” she asked as we sat on a table in thekitchen, and I guzzled down a steaming piece of apple pie. “Bothour people have been around for a long time though—I’m notsurprised I’m not the first.”
“The queen had a vampire lover too, once,”the cook said as he stirred a liquid purple mixture in a bowl. “I’mold enough to remember that.”
Ah. Gossip always comes around. “Guess thatexplains why she let you stay. She must have a soft spot,” Isaid.
“That is very interesting. Is she stilllooking for another one?” she asked, batting her eyelashes.
I elbowed her in the side. The cook smiledat the two of us, surprisingly non-judgmental for an Unseelie. Itwas undoubtedly a nice little moment, even though Leandra couldn’tenjoy any pie. “I am always surprised more of us don’t take loversfrom other species,” the cook added. “We tend to berebellious.”
“You do,” Leandra said, catching my eye.
?
I was becoming increasingly aware of thefact that I enjoyed being around Leandra very, very much. Dayspassed in bliss—tangles of limbs and adventures into the citywithout any drama beyond the deepest insult a courtier had givenanother, and even that was fun. “LikeThe Real Housewives,fairy style,” Leandra said. “We should sell it to Bravo.”
But the more time that passed, and the morelovey-dovey we got, the less easy I felt. “Should we go to Austrianow and get it over with?” I asked once. We were hand-in-hand, andLeandra sniffed at a fresh rose from a peddler outside thecastle.
“You don’t want to enjoy another week ofshelter before we go back into the real world?” she’d asked.
