Daughter Dearest...Why Is There A Werewolf In Your Bed...?

“Rayne? Rayne!” I huffed out some air and stood up from the flowers in the garden.

“Here, Mom!” I shouted back as I brushed the dirt off of my jeans. I reached down and picked up the sketch book I had brought outside. The sun had been out a few minutes before and drawing the fountain seemed like a good idea at the time. But now the sky was becoming overcast.

“Come on, get your butt inside!” I smiled a little. It was scary how much my mother and I were alike. We even sounded the same. Guess it was some kind of mother/daughter thing. The only difference was that I had my father’s eyes and a mix between their hair colors, so it was a deep, dark brown. Only in the sun, could you tell that it was brown.

Now that I was in my rebellious phase I had put some highlights in my hair. Bright pink highlights that popped out against my dark hair; made me look paler than I already was.

I was almost to the house...well castle, when it began to drizzle. I clutched my sketchbook to my chest and ran inside. I looked at my mother whose appearance was only a couple of years older than mine. It was weird to have parents who never aged. I knew that I would stop too, sooner or later. That would mean almost having the same appearance as my mom for all eternity.

That would suck.

“How many times have I told you that you need to tell me when you go to the garden?” She had her hands on her hips. Very mother-like. Her brown hair was half pulled up to keep the strands out of her bright blue eyes.

I blew a few hairs out of my green eyes and looked back at her, indifferent. I hated that she wanted to keep me indoors all the time. I mean, I wasn’t that fragile... Mother looked over me and sighed, letting a smile grace her lips. I couldn’t help, but smile either. She couldn’t be serious for very long. She was a great mom and she could be a friend and parent. It was nice...sometimes.

“Okay go wash up,” I started to walk out of the parlor, “And take off your shoes!”

I slipped off my beaten Chuck Taylor’s before I even touched the carpet. I knew how my mom was. Even though we had a few hundred servants, she wanted to keep their work at a minimum.

That’s why the people loved her.

“Oh God, who let the dog inside– oh wait, it’s Rayne...” I narrowed my eyes at my brother and dodged a playful punch. I stuck my tongue out at him...before I walked into one of the columns in the main hall.

I also inherited my mother’s clumsiness.

My brother laughed as I rubbed my nose, eyes watering in pain. “Oh, blow it out your as–”

“Rayne!” I quickly looked to the stairs. The front entrance had high vaulted cathedral ceilings with amazing stone carved designs. The stairs of the front entrance wrapped around the walls and one staircase descended from the third floor in the middle of the two. Many of the people who come to visit go to the third floor. It was my father’s working floor. Meetings and my father’s office were kept up there.

It was a regular party floor...for old people.

My father looked only a little older than my mother. She had the body of a nineteen year-old, while he had the body of a twenty year-old. No older. He gets pissed if you guess older. He descended the stairs and walked over to me.

I let go of my nose and put on my best, innocent smile. It usually worked.

“I don’t want to hear you use that language in front of company...” Except for now. I held in a groan and gazed past my father to a man on the stairs. I recognized the face. It was a man named Ethan. Once the old alpha from the lycan pack disappeared mysteriously, he took over. It had been a horrible, drawn-out political, and physical, battle for power. His brother, James, had been the worst of the protesters, and the craziest. He had, supposedly, given a group of ravenous lycans silver weapons to terrorize my father’s people.

It was still a touchy subject. Anything could tip the scales and start another Two Thousand Year war. My father refused to talk about it and the reason for the war had been stricken from the records. I didn’t really like history or politics, but it was hard to avoid.

“I am so sorry for the inconvenience, really I am,” Ethan shook my father’s hand as they walked to the front door, or doors. We had one of those huge solid oak double doors deal. It was cool, unless you were freezing, shivering from the cold, making you weak and unable to push the doors open. Their voices faded as I went up one of the staircases attached to the wall.

I threw open my door and sighed.

Room, sweet, room... I picked up the remote to my stereo system and pushed the play button. “Singin’ In The Rain” played quietly in the background as I flopped into my four poster bed, complete with curtains. The soft lavender comforter allowed me to sink in to its warm, silkiness. I stared at the dark grey ceiling that matched the walls around me. A desk was on the far side of the room near the balcony doors. The soft lavender, plush rug covered the honey toned hardwood floor. The walk-in closet was to my right and the bathroom was on the other far side of the room closer to the entrance.

I rolled over onto my side and closed my eyes, listening to the rain hit the glass doors to the balcony and imagining Gene Kelly kicking up the puddles with a smile.

I knew how my parents felt about each other. I mean, their emotions were like this song. They could never be brought down. After all my father was Nathaniel, king of the vampires, and my mother was Winifred, actually, Winry, the woman he had loved for two millennia and now-again-the Queen of the vampires, even though she wasn’t one herself. My brother was Blaise, the Prince. And me?

I was Rayne Lacie Bennett, a hybrid and Princess of the vampires.