Jessica Rules the Dark Side Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Table of Contents

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  Chapter 70

  Chapter 71

  Chapter 72

  Chapter 73

  Chapter 74

  Chapter 75

  Chapter 76

  Chapter 77

  Chapter 78

  Chapter 79

  Chapter 80

  Chapter 81

  Chapter 82

  Chapter 83

  Chapter 84

  Chapter 85

  Chapter 86

  Chapter 87

  Chapter 88

  Chapter 89

  Chapter 90

  Chapter 91

  Chapter 92

  Chapter 93

  Chapter 94

  Chapter 95

  Chapter 96

  Chapter 97

  Chapter 98

  Chapter 99

  Chapter 100

  Chapter 101

  Chapter 102

  Chapter 103

  Chapter 104

  Chapter 105

  Chapter 106

  Chapter 107

  Chapter 108

  Chapter 109

  Chapter 110

  Chapter 111

  Chapter 112

  Chapter 113

  Chapter 114

  Chapter 115

  Chapter 116

  Chapter 117

  Chapter 118

  Chapter 119

  Epilogue

  Mindy

  Acknowledgments

  Bonus E-book Exclusive: The Wedding Chapters

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Epilogue

  More by Beth Fantaskey:

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Hmh Logo

  Copyright © 2012 by Beth Fantaskey

  All rights reserved. For information about permission to reproduce selections

  from this book, write to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company,

  215 Park Avenue South, New York, New York 10003.

  Harcourt is an imprint of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.

  www.hmhbooks.com

  The text was set in Adobe Garamond.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Fantaskey, Beth.

  Jessica rules the dark side / Beth Fantaskey.

  p. cm.

  Summary: Eighteen-year-old vampire princess Jessica Packwood is in for the fight of

  her life—and her husband's—when Lucius is accused of a horrible crime and Jessica,

  trying to prove herself worthy of the throne, faces betrayal by those closest to her.

  ISBN 978-0-547-39309-4

  [1. Vampires—Fiction. 2. Courts and courtiers—Fiction. 3. Kings, queens,

  rulers, etc.—Fiction. 4. Betrayal—Fiction. 5. Romania—Fiction.] I. Title.

  PZ7.F222285Jeh 2012

  [Fic]—dc22

  2011009593

  E-ISBN 978-0-547-67856-6

  For my three powerful princesses,

  Paige, Julia, and Hope

  "If you are reading this, Antanasia, it means that fate

  has unfolded as your father and I intended, and you have

  found your way home. I hope that your existence up to

  this point has been a happy one—and that you are

  prepared for the challenges and risks to come..."

  Prologue

  "MOTHER?"

  The snow swirls around her, and she stands with her back to me, her body enveloped in a bright red cloak. Crimson ... Mihaela's color. The queen who once ruled the Dragomirs looks like a splash of blood against the expanse of white, and yet she is as strong and substantial as the jagged Carpathian rocks that rise out of the lonely Romanian mountain where we always meet.

  I step toward her, not understanding. Why doesn't she turn to greet me? "Mother?"

  And then Mihaela Dragomir does turn, her face obscured by the cloak. And in her hands she holds an object, something she presses against her chest the way a nun would cradle a cross. But Mihaela is no humble, pious sister, and that thing ... It is no holy relic.

  The stake ... The bloodstained stake...

  Lucius's stake, which he used to destroy his uncle—and which he'd once nearly used to—

  "No! Never!"

  Thrashing, fighting off something that seemed to press against my chest, I struggled to sit up and opened my eyes to see firelight flickering against stone, and for a second I wasn't sure where I was.

  Gradually, though, my surroundings sank in. I was in Lucius's home—our home. In our bed. That pressure on my chest ... it wasn't ... it was just the heavy blankets that we always needed in his —our —huge, chilly bedroom, even though a fire burned in the fireplace.

  Taking a deep breath, I stretched out my arm and rested my hand on his shoulder, reassuring myself that everything was okay. As long as Lucius was with me, I'd be okay.

  Still, images from the nightmare came rushing back.

  The stake, which I hadn't seen since the night Lucius pressed his fangs against my throat and recreated me as a vampire...

  Why had I dreamed about it? And why had my birth mother—who would never harm me—been holding it?

&nb
sp; I'd started dreaming about Mihaela back in Pennsylvania, and those dreams had become more frequent since I married Lucius and moved to Romania. It was like my mother, destroyed shortly after my birth, was trying to protect me as I tried hard to follow in her footsteps and become a ruler, relying on a journal she'd left for me for help. A posthumous wedding gift to guide me as I learned to be a princess.

  My heart started beating faster again. Was I learning? I was trying...

  Wriggling back down under the blankets, I moved toward Lucius in the massive bed—in which, as he'd once confessed, he'd probably been expected by the Vladescu Elders to take my life, conveniently removing his Dragomir bride from power and allowing the Vladescus to have unchallenged dominion over both our families. I kicked at the covers, sort of swimming through them, suddenly impatient to be right next to him.

  Everything in his home—our home—seemed so big sometimes. Including the burdens.

  Lucius slept on his side, facing away from me, and I pressed myself close to his back, feeling the coolness of his body. I shared that coolness, too, since he'd bitten me, sealing our fate and a decades-old pact that had decreed our marriage in the interest of stopping a war between our rival families. Pressing tighter against my husband—how weird that still sounded—I listened to his steady breathing, which always calmed me down when I got nervous. Lucius wasn't scared. He thrived on ruling the clans. That was what he'd been born and raised to do.

  Or did he worry sometimes?

  "Lucius?" I got up on one elbow and shook him gently, needing to see his dark eyes and hear his deep, reassuring voice. "Lucius?"

  "Yes ... yes?" he mumbled. He rolled onto his back and fumbled for me under the covers, which were expensive and stiff and made me miss the soft, worn-in flannel sheets on my bed in Pennsylvania. But how could a princess ask for flannel? "Yes, Jessica...?"

  Resting my hand on his chest, I felt it rise and fall so slowly that I wondered if he had already fallen back asleep. But I couldn't help asking in a whisper, so the guards outside our door wouldn't hear, "What does it mean if a vampire dreams about a stake?"

  Lucius didn't answer, and I realized he was definitely sleeping—probably exhausted from yet another day of struggling to unite our obstinate families—so I lay back down and nestled against him again. In response to the pressure of my body, he turned and pulled me close, so I could feel the entire length of his powerful warrior's body against mine, like a shield at my back.

  High on top of that Romanian mountain, in the heart of a confusing castle that I supposedly governed but where I still got lost in the twisted corridors, the night got very still. Even the crackling fire seemed to get quieter. After a few minutes of forcing myself to forget about the nightmare, I started to drift off to sleep again, when suddenly Lucius muttered, barely whispering, his breath chilly against my neck, "Betrayal."

  I stiffened in his arms. Was he answering my question or caught up in his own dreams? His own nightmares?

  Even if it was the latter, that wasn't exactly comforting. Did my husband have disloyalty—treachery—on his mind? And Lucius, like all vampires, put great stock in dreams...

  "Betrayal." I said the word out loud, trying to make sure it was even what I'd heard him say. "Betrayal."

  At the sound of my voice, which was soft but audible enough to break the profound mountaintop silence, Lucius, seeming to get restless, wrapped his strong, scarred arm tighter around me, so I was trapped against his chest.

  I took his hand and tugged to give myself some space to breathe. He didn't let go, though, and I tried to move him again. Against my fingertips, I could feel another deep scar—an X on his palm that marked him as mine, cut into his flesh at our marriage ceremony—and his wedding band on his left hand. His dominant hand. The one he'd used to wield the stake when he'd held me in a very different way, in that same castle, not too many months before.

  Chapter 1

  Antanasia

  OF ALL THE grim chambers in the Vladescu castle—not counting the subterranean dungeons, of course—the one that served as a courtroom had to be the worst.

  Like every other room aboveground, this one had a fireplace with a blazing fire, but the flames seemed more hellish than cheerful. They cast scary, shifting shadows on the gray rock walls and definitely didn't do much to warm up the stark décor, which consisted of a semicircle of benches for witnesses, a worn spot on the stone floor where the accused would stand, and a long table, where I sat next to Lucius in a hard, straight-backed chair. The Elders waited in similar seats on either side of us, all of the ten older vampires sitting remarkably still.

  Shifting in my chair, I tried—and failed—to get more comfortable.

  I should sue the people who designed the My Little Pony Crystal Rainbow Castle I played with in kindergarten. They led me to believe that castles were filled with rainbows and cupcakes and pastel-pink furniture. Not stone and fire and ... blood.

  Turning a little bit sideways, I tried to meet Lucius's eyes, but he was staring straight ahead, obviously preoccupied. He was also very still, except for his left hand, which absently rubbed his jaw right where he had a small scar. I knew that meant he was hiding tension, and the butterflies in my stomach got worse.

  If Lucius is tense, how can I even imagine handling this?

  My husband seemed to sense that I was getting very nervous, and he shifted his eyes just long enough to remind me, "Don't freak out, Jess. We've talked about this. It's part of our duties."

  Well, Lucius had never used the phrase "freak out," but we had discussed how my new responsibilities included handing down justice, and sometimes sentences of—

  "Let the accused come forward."

  I jumped as Lucius's commanding baritone suddenly echoed off the walls, and turned with a sinking heart to see that we had been joined by a vampire who stood at the back of the room, hands shackled and head hanging low.

  He's a killer, I reminded myself as my mouth got dry. A bunch of witnesses saw him destroy my uncle Constantin Dragomir. And what I'm doing is just like serving on a jury. Regular humans do that all the time!

  I glanced to my left, seeking reassurance that I wouldn't be alone in deciding the fate of the prisoner who was shuffling toward that pale spot on the floor. But my uncle Dorin—the only Elder I considered an ally—wasn't there, and I ended up meeting the gaze of Claudiu Vladescu, who smirked. Maybe at the growing panic that must have been apparent on my face—or maybe at the prospect of hearing testimony about a murder.

  My stomach got queasier. Claudius just like his older brother, Vasile—another evil, vicious vampire, whom Lucius destroyed.

  Although I knew I was squirming way too much for a princess, I turned to watch Lucius again, just as he said, in a steady voice that I couldn't imagine summoning if I had to speak, "Tell your story to this panel, Dumitru Vladescu, and we will decide if you deserve mercy—or punishment."

  I should have given my full attention to the vampire who was about to fight for his life, but I kept watching my husband, who had stood on that circle himself just months before and fortunately been found not guilty of Vasile's death. Luckily, the majority of the Elders—not counting Claudiu, of course—had believed that Vasile attacked first, giving Lucius no choice but to defend himself.

  I never let myself think about what could have happened at that trial, and was glad I hadn't even known about it until long after the verdict had been handed down.

  I continued studying Lucius. How can he even bear to be in this room, let alone coolly direct everything? And if today's verdict is guilty, won't he have to...?

  "Speak," Lucius urged his relative. "This is your chance to save your existence."

  I heard both command and compassion in Lucius's order, but my cold blood suddenly felt like ice. An existence might really end today. I'm not just part of a jury. I'm the judge, and Lucius might be...

  Fingers gripping my chair, I finally forced myself to face Dumitru Vladescu, who raised his head, so I could see his
dark, terrified eyes, because if he was found guilty...

  "No!"

  I wasn't even sure I'd cried out loud, but the squeal of my chair as I jumped up probably drowned out my voice anyway. "Excuse me," I mumbled, bowing my head. "I ... I need to leave. I don't feel well..."

  I couldn't look at Lucius as I stumbled from his side. And I certainly didn't look at Claudiu or the other Elders, who would be all too aware of why the American girl raised by vegans was rushing out of the room, nearly tripping over her long formal dress.

  "Excuse me." The Elders pulled in their chairs so I could pass behind them. "Sorry..."

  I knew that I was—again—hurting Lucius's and my chance of winning a crucial vote of confidence later that year, when the most influential Vladescu and Dragomir clan members would convene at a big summer congress of vampires. A vote that could elevate Lucius and me to king and queen. Yet I couldn't stay there, even if leaving doomed us to failure.

  I practically ran past the prisoner, not looking at him, either. But as I hurried toward the door, I did catch the eye of one vampire I hadn't noticed before, even though I should have expected her to attend the trial of her father's killer. My cousin Ylenia Dragomir, eighteen, like me, small and wearing black, sat alone in a corner, blending into the shadows as if she didn't want anyone to see her face while she heard the story of her dad's murder recounted in detail.

  I wasn't sure what the verdict on the prisoner would be, but I had never felt so guilty as when I left that room, letting down not just my husband, but the first friend I'd made in Romania.

  Chapter 2

  Antanasia

  "DON'T BE SO hard on yourself, Antanasia," my uncle Dorin urged. He hovered near my desk, twisting his hands nervously, sympathy in his eyes. "I ... I didn't make a very strong effort to attend the trial, either. Sitting in judgment—it's not for everyone, you know?"

  "Claudiu seemed okay with it," I noted miserably. "And Lucius was fine!"

  At least, he'd acted fine, which was what really counted.

  "Yes, well, Vladescus are legendary for their sang-froid," Dorin reminded me. "They all have ice in their veins. And a few, like Claudiu, salivate to mete out some punishment. We Dragomirs, on the other hand, tend to be a little..." He couldn't find the right word, but I could finish the sentence easily enough.

  Soft. Meek. Cowardly?