Chapter 2
“I’m thinking a classic updo,” Mindy said, head bent low as she leafed through the pages of a special bridal edition of Celebrity Hairstyle magazine. “Depending, of course, on your headpiece.”

I was torn between checking out the options and watching the passing scenery from the back seat of the Lexus SUV that Lucius had provided for our ride from the airport. Apparently he’d anticipated how much Mindy would pack, because the SUV had more storage than the other vehicles in the Vladescu’s well-stocked garage… the contents of which would soon be at my beck and call, too, hard as that still was to believe.

Outside the window, the dramatic vistas of the rising Carpathians unfolded, and now and then when we rounded a curve on the steep mountain road, I would find myself staring at nothing but sky and gasp a little, not just because it felt like we were flying off the road, but because I was also amazed to think that this rugged, wild landscape was my new home.

“Jess?” Mindy tapped my sleeve. “I asked about your headpiece. It’s going to be a tiara, right? I mean, it has to be a tiara!”

I turned to see Min’s eyes gleaming at the prospect of being part of an honest-to-goodness royal wedding – the kind we’d never really thought would happen for either one of us, in spite of what all our favorite Disney movies had taught us to expect. “Yes, it’s a tiara,” I confirmed, wondering if Mindy was actually more excited than me about the wedding, itself. I couldn’t wait to be married to Lucius, but I was nervous, too, about the ceremony.

Would I follow all the proper protocol?

Would the guests have a good time?

And most importantly, would any of my relatives – Dragomir or Vladescu – cause any trouble? Because that was definitely possible.

“I can’t wait to see the dress!” Mindy said, returning her attention to the magazine on her lap. “I bet it’s beautiful!”

“You’ll see it tomorrow,” I promised, hoping she’d like it. And hoping Lucius would like the gown I’d chosen. I’d designed it myself with the help of Lucius’s Romanian tailor, and it was a little unconventional. But I’d wanted something different and special. A dress that would remind me of my past and my future. I started to smile, thinking that my gown also paid tribute to one the most important moments that Lucius and I had shared.

I could still hear his voice as he’d stood behind me in a small Pennsylvania dress shop, his fingers twisted up into my curly hair. “Don’t ever again say that you are not ‘valuable,’ Antanasia. Or not beautiful…”

I desperately wanted to make him think I was beyond beautiful when I walked toward him to be married.

I had to take his breath away.

Nothing less would do.

Getting nervous again, I resumed staring out the window and saw the rooftops of Sighisoara in the distance. It crossed my mind to suggest a slight detour, so I could show Mindy the charming, medieval town, just like my Uncle Dorin had done for me the first time I’d traveled to Romania. But at the last moment I kept my mouth shut, because there was something else that I was suddenly eager to show Mindy first, even more than the narrow, quaint streets that Lucius had roamed as a child.

Leaning forward, I tapped the driver’s shoulder, signaling to him in my limited Romanian, “Se opreste cind ai lui Vladescu casa, te rog.”

Although Mindy looked up from her magazine to give me an impressed look, I was pretty sure my grammar – and definitely my pronunciation – were way off. But the driver – one of the stern young guards who’d once pinned my arms in a dark forest – must have understood, because he nodded without taking his eyes off the twisting road and agreed, “Da, bineinteles.”

“What’s that all about?” Mindy asked, seeming remarkably comfortable for a girl taking her first ride in rural Romania with a vampiric chauffeur at the wheel of a luxury SUV. “What’s up?”

“We’re going to pull over in a second,” I said. “There’s something I want you to see.”

“What…?”

Before Mindy could even finish her question, though, the SUV slowed and eased to the side of the road, and I pointed past my friend’s shoulder, signaling for her to look out her own window.

She shifted in her seat and when confronted with the view had the reaction I’d expected, because I’d had it myself the first time Dorin had pulled over at almost that exact spot on the road. I still had the same reaction every time I saw the place that was to be my home. The mixture of awe and disbelief and maybe a touch of fear that made your jaw actually drop and which left me, and now Mindy, unable to think, or say, anything more than…

“Is that place for real?”

Continue to Chapter 3.....