Читать онлайн «Royal Blood»
Автор Эллен Шрайбер
Annotation
Summer break is over, and Raven is hardly eager to be returning to Dullsville High. Not only does school mean daily interaction with preppy pest Trevor Mitchell, but her sleep-filled days and romantic nights with her immortal boyfriend, Alexander, must come to an end. Plus the shock of morning classes isn't the only change in store. An unexpected letter turns up at Alexander's mansion-announcing his parents will be coming to town. And once they arrive, it seems just about everyone has had a sighting of the macabre couple except Raven. What could be delaying Alexander from introducing Raven to them? His strange distance leads Raven to think he must be hiding something about his parents' homecoming. When Raven is finally invited to the most thrilling and fear- provoking dinner party of her life, the next turn of events could transform her entire future with Alexander.
1
SPECIAL DELIVERY
The letter arrived mysteriously. I imagined the deliverer was an enigmatic figure masked in a centuries-old black hooded cloak, slipping undetected through the darkness past the Mansion's wrought-iron gate. He may have approached the Sterlings ' haunted-looking house in a hearse. Or perhaps he'd flown over the menacing fence in the form of a bat.
By nightfall, the Mansion's mailbox was usually as I hollow as an empty coffin, sitting lonely at the bottom of Benson Hill, at the end of a long and windy driveway. So the letter would go unnoticed for several hours as I was stolen away in Alexander's attic room, pressed against my vampire boyfriend's deathly pale, but full of life, lips.
Several weeks had passed since Alexander and I had returned from our adventure in Hipsterville , and though Alexander hadn't bitten me, he did make this mortal feel a part of the Underworld. During that time, we began to experience the vampire life without distractions. There was no school to interrupt my daytime sleep, no Trevor Mitchell to be a thorn in my side, and no Dullsville High students to ridicule my dark attire.
There were no teen vampires lurking in the cemetery, disrupting Alexander's and my Stardust dates. No threat of a preteen Nosferatu attempting to turn my younger brother and his nerd-mate immortal. Free of the feuding Maxwells , Alexander and I were now able to unite our mortal and immortal worlds as one.I was also beginning to do something I'd never had the opportunity to do before-make the Mansion my home. And why shouldn't I? On a dare, in my youth, I'd snuck into it by squeezing through the abandoned estate's broken basement window. Now, invited, I could confidently walk right up its splintered stone path and through its creaky unlocked front door.
I had never been so happy in my life.
I transformed the Mansion into Alexander's and my private vampire castle. I felt like a medieval queen and Alexander was my handsome king. Instead of spending the rest of summer break in my tiny bedroom, I suddenly had full reign over a palatial estate. I replaced Alexander's torn and aged bedroom curtain with a brand-new black lace one. I added some candelabras I'd found at a rummage sale to the ones his grandmother had brought fromRomania . I placed black roses in pewter vases and lavender-scented votives androse petals on all the empty antique end tables.
