Blood Isn't Always Thicker Than Water

I stared ahead of the car at the winding road that was leading me to a place I’d have to face on my own. Sandy really didn’t count as support. We were finally almost there. By some miracle, Marietta’s car hadn’t given out.

“Cas do we have beer anywhere?” Sandy asked.

“Fuck to the no,” I answered, kinda pissed since my internet wasn’t connecting way up here. You know, I thought the connection was supposed to get better the higher you went up. But, alas, I am proven wrong.

Lady Ivy just looked attentively at the path she was following, ignoring my language.

“Hmm.” Sandy tilted his head to the other side. “Just wondering. I wanted to know what it was like. It couldn’t be better than blood, could it?”

“It doesn’t even come close,” Lady Ivy suddenly spat, eyes still locked determinedly on the road. “Listen, you two. I’ve experienced college firsthand. Watch out for those you want to get close to—and vice versa. Don’t let anyone control you, okay?” She glanced at me. “Please don’t get high or drunk. It would just be disgraceful.”

“No worries,” Sandy said. “I can get any sort of substance or liquid out of me no problem.”

“I believe it,” she muttered. “Cas? How about you?”

I shrugged. “I don’t really want to do either of those things. I’ve got my rep as Prince to remember. I don’t want anything to come back and haunt me just because of utter stupidity.”

Lady Ivy nodded. “Very good. Now about blood. Both of you drink it sparingly. Keep it up. If you find yourself drinking a lot—and I mean a lot—at least once a week, start to cut down a bit. Keep an eye on each other.”

We nodded to her, actually listening. I guess anyone else would roll their eyes and write this off as a parent lecture, but neither of us had ever gotten one before. I felt very cared for.

“And lastly, sex.”

The atmosphere immediately changed.

“Cas, you’re a good kid, excuse the term. You’ve got an excellent conscience and, as you said before, also your rep to think about. Please don’t do anything rash or downright stupid. Be safe—or just refrain completely.”

I was currently considering becoming a monk so that no one else would ever have to talk to me about this again.

“Sandy, you’ve got no morals, as far as I’m concerned. Do you even have interest?”

He shook his head. “Nope. I don’t really want to get all touchy-touchy and feely-feely like that.”

Nice wording.

Lady Ivy nodded. “Alright. And, Cas, about girls. The best thing you can do is be yourself and be honest. This doesn’t mean you need to go around telling every single last girl that you’re Prince, but honesty is the best policy.”

I was blushing mildly, and wondering if this was what it felt like to have a mom.

“Alright guys. Get out. We’re here.”

I walked carefully through the front door. The room I entered, presumably the lobby, was pretty darn huge. Unlike the outside, though, it had red and gold walls in an almost paisley pattern with white stone beams or something extending from ceiling to floor at certain intervals with a domed ceiling up above everything with a really intricate gold pattern that flowed seamlessly into a colossal chandelier that was also gold, but had all sorts of diamonds hanging from it, sending little rainbows dancing all over. On the white ring around the dome, “GEORGE RYAN ROSS II UNIVERSITY” was engraved in gigantic capital letters. Four sweeping staircases curved gracefully down to the floor. Two of them led up one story, but the two farther back would take you up two stories.

I hadn’t seen a single person so far other than Lady Ivy and Sandy, but I was partway up the Sierra Nevada Mountains. It’d be even weirder if there were tons of vampires strolling every which way.

My suitcase rolled easily over the smooth tiles on the floor. I could see myself and the ridiculous chandelier reflected perfectly off the highly waxed surfaced.

“Rich,” Sandy commented. He had one of his liquefied arms wrapped around my back belt loop and was staring around at the pristine school’s interior, only carrying a backpack. “This ain’t uh college. It’s uh palace.”

“Well,” I said thoughtfully, “my dad was a King, and he made this. I mean began it. And then it was finished in his honor. And now his son’s here. And he’s absolutely scared out of his wits.”

“Aw, don’t be,” Sandy said in his slippery voice, failing to sound consoling. “I’m sure you’ll do just fi—”

“Don’t jinx it!” I exclaimed, leaping over to him and clamping my hands over his mouth. I don’t get how I managed that, since he was, what, fifteen feet away from me?

“Nice legs,” a voice said. I let go of Sandy and turned around to see a girl leaning against one of the banisters. “I don’t know why you just did that, but your strength is pretty…off the charts. You Caspian Royce?” The girl had blue-green eyes, red-brown hair that was cut short, and a tank top-like shirt on. It was white, a button down, and had a collar like any old dress shirt.

“Um, yeah,” I said as an answer to her question, remembering what Lady Ivy had told me during her departure: my new name was Caspian Royce so no one would be like, “Ross?! He must be the heir to the throne!” I stood my suitcase up so it would balance by itself. “Who are you?”

“I’m a special admittance student. If I followed the age rules here, I would be in my third year. I’m eighteen, but I was allowed in at fourteen since my academic achievement level is off the charts, like your outrageous jumping abilities.” She was making me blush.

“Um, cool,” I said uncertainly.

She smirked. “Name’s Raine. Here’s your stuff.” She shoved a load of papers my way. I grabbed them and almost keeled over under all the weight. “And who’s your…stretchy buddy?”

Sandy was still holding onto my belt loop. Raine was probably going to think we were together if he kept this up. “I’m Sandy,” he said happily, faking emotion nicely. I could see in his eyes, though, that he was very bored.

She nodded to him. “Now, are you a guy or a girl?”

“I’m male,” he said, flipping his long bangs out of his face.

“Cool. Just a heads up: watch what you talk about in this place. There should really be a soap opera show about this school… But anyway, if you’ve got any sort of secret that you want to keep secret, don’t talk, text, e-mail or simply communicate about it until you get five miles away from this place. Well, I’ve gotta go now. See you two later.” She saluted, then strode confidently down a hall.

Sandy and I stood, staring after her for a minute. Then my “stretchy buddy” said, “Where do we go now?”

I shook my head. “I got no idea, man.”

Silence.

“Well…you could see if there’s anything in that stack ’uh papers she gayuh.”

Well no duh.

Okay, we were officially lost. This map was extremely confusing. According to it, I should have been at my room, Room 312. But no. Sandy and I were in what I could swear were the girl’s locker rooms. Well, at least one of us was in our natural habitat…

“It smells like grapefruit an’ razberry,” Sandy said in a monotone.

I nodded. “Not to mention feet.”

“True.”

We stood awkwardly amidst imposing towers of turquoise lockers all stacked up and seeming to shun our presence. But the problem was that our way out seemed to be…locked. The door had shut behind us when we walked in, then it locked. Now Sandy and I were stuck in a locker room for those of the opposite gender with two locked exits. Yes, there was one in back as well. You would think they’d have an emergency exit, but there wasn’t one—in sight, at least.

“If we die in here,” I began, “I blame that Raine girl. She just walked off! We had no clue what we were doing! Is she really that clueless?!”

Sandy just let me ramble on as I paced around the cramped room. He sat on some random piece of broken equipment, totally unbothered by the whole ordeal.

“Who’s in there?”

Both of us froze—well, I stopped walking and Sandy’s head shot up.

“Hello?” I called. “Can you hear me?”

“Are you fucking retarded?” The door we entered through flew open and this dude dressed in all black and navy blue was suddenly staring at us. “Get out. Now!” His wide eyes suggested that we move very quickly. And we did so, grabbing belongings and absolutely sprinting out of the oppressing place.

“Thanks, man.” I said to the guy. “I didn’t mean to go ther—”

“I think,” the guy cut me off, “that you forgot to pack your brain. Believe it or not, you do need it to survive in this place.”

I blinked. “Yes, I know. I just kinda accidentally… You know what? Blame the map!” I shoved it in the guy’s face.

He plucked the packet right out of my grasp. He was tall, slim, extremely pale, brown-eyed, and his black hair had a blonde stripe down the middle. It reminded me of a skunk. “You are utterly brain-dead,” he informed me.

“Why?” I asked, frowning. This guy just loved to insult me.

“You were reading this map?” He showed me the familiar lines of the map I had been following for the past quarter of an hour.

I nodded.

“Oh my gosh…” He closed his eyes and sighed through his nose. “You total dipshits.” He pointed to the title of the map. “This says ‘Third Floor’. You’re on the second.”

I blinked, then said, “This is one of the stupidest things I’ve done.”

“And that’s sayin’ somethin’,” Sandy added. “We shoulda brought Lancaster along anyway.”

"And I was hoping this year’s new recruits might have a smidge of sense…” the Skunk muttered, shoving the papers back at me.

“Aw, come on Sakar,” a new voice said. “They just got here.” Another dude came into view. He had long gray hair, but appeared to be no more than a year older than me. He also had glasses and a low ponytail, not to mention a very bookish appearance. Meaning he looked kinda nerdy. He had little bits of hair that had escaped the hairtie and fell across either side of his forehead.

“Law, they were locked inside the girl’s locker room,” Sakar the Skunk deadpanned.

Law the Nerd shrugged. “So? I accidentally walked into a girl’s yoga class on my second day. They totally freaked out. At least no one was actually in there today.”

Sakar the Skunk put on an emotionless look. “Let’s just get them where they need to go.” He snapped his fingers in my direction. “You. How old are you?”

I almost said “seventeen” then remembered that my birthday was August twenty-fifth. I only found out about it last year, so don’t blame me for forgetting! Birthdays have never meant anything to me. “Eighteen.”

Sakar nodded. “You’re with Law, his twin Stefan and I. We’re in the eighteen class. And you, blondie?”

“Twenty-three.”

We all stared at him. Sakar the Skunk recovered first, going all emotionless again. “Law, which one do you wanna take?”

Law the Nerd shrugged. “You decide. You’ll just go for whoever I pick.”

Sakar just kept up his emotionless face and said, “Fine. I’ll take this one.” He put a hand on my shoulder. “Considering his navigational abilities, I’ll need to give him a tour of his own bathroom.”

I frowned. “Look Sakar or whatever your name is. What I did was purely an accident. I’m new here and I’m nervous. It’s not like I can just walk in and be perfect.”

He stared down at me and said, “Perfection is everything.”

Well I’m glad I don’t live your life.

Then Sakar the Skunk set off at an outrageously fast pace, leaving me to trail along in his wake. Law seemed a lot nicer than this guy.

“Whoa, hey, wait up,” I called, waving to Sandy in the process. “Obviously you and your perfection have a lot of hot air.”

“Oh gee… Let’s go,” I heard Law mutter to Sandy, then their footsteps echoed through the halls along with mine as I hurried after the randomly still Sakar. He whirled around to face me when I was ten feet behind him.

“Do you have any clue who you’re talking to?”

I could ask you the same thing…

“I’m Sakar Ángel,” he announced as if his name could make up for his suckish behavior.

“Doesn’t that mean angel in Spanish?” I asked, feeling kinda smart.

“Shut up. My family—the Ángel family—is a very prominent vampire family. We’re halfbloods, descendants of two activated, powerful vampires in their prime. We’re as close as you can get to a pureblood around these parts.”

Hello. I don’t believe you’ve met me yet. But, hey, if I wanted an unbiased education, I would need to endure this.

“I’m being trained for something special”—define special…—“and one day I’ll get to present myself to the new Vampire King. I will, by then, be prepared to do whatever he asks of me, whenever he asks it. I will become his unparalleled servant and warrior. I will gain his trust and honor.” He paused his speech to turn and start heading down the hall again. “And to do that, to fulfill what I’ve dreamed of doing for over half of my life, I need perfection. It is the answer to everything.”

I blinked and followed him. This guy had totally devoted his life—his everything—to someone he never met, someone he didn’t know the name of. And he had absolutely no clue that right now, the “brain-dead” young adult following him was his Vampire King—the Prince he dreamed of serving. Good thing my cape was in my suitcase.