Out of This World by Catherine Lundoff

Author:Catherine Lundoff [Lundoff, Catherine]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780998108209
Publisher: Queen of Swords Press
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Beauty

If I said I met my vampire prince at a ball at the King’s palace, would you believe me? Of course, it is easier by far to believe it now. But then it seemed an impossibility. The King was my father and the Queen, my mother, or so I thought. I was merely the fourth son and sixth child of the King and Queen’s eight children, with no hope of the throne. When have you heard a story about the fourth Prince before? I flatter myself that this maybe the first.

But at least my status meant that the courtiers and servants did not trouble themselves to hide their thoughts from me. I learned much of what happened in my father’s kingdom from them, most importantly that none of my father’s subjects had any reason to love him. I also heard the whispers before Prince Raven arrived. “Did you hear? One of Princess Aruna’s suitors, he’s a real vampire! From beyond the mountains of the Western Wall, I heard.” And so it went until I might have pitied the fellow were I not so intent on pitying myself.

Still, something about him intrigued me and I imagined what he might be like before he arrived. I wondered, along with the servants and no few of the courtiers, why one of the vampire princes would aim so low as one of my sisters. Not merely because I loathed each and every one of them, mind, but because the vampire kingdom beyond the mountains was rumored to be full of beautiful beings.

It was also said that the vampires were rich beyond the dreams of mortal men and deathless in the bargain. They seldom intruded on the lands of men since their infatuated victims often gave themselves up by choice. Why bother with a human bride, especially one like Aruna who was neither beautiful nor kind? True, there were other tales that said that the vampires’ powers were fading and that they could no longer hold their lands as they once had. But I had no way to judge the truth of any of these rumors and thus gave them small consideration.

On the night that the vampire prince arrived, I sat sulking in my usual corner of my father’s banquet hall with Kriun the jester. Kriun, like me, was short and blonde, slender and elfin in the court of dark-haired giants that ruled over the peasants who looked like us. That was one reason I liked him better than my kin, the other being that as the butt of all the jokes that weren’t directed at me, he was my companion in suffering.

Not that he saw it as such. “Fine fish, tonight, lad. Eat up! We may not eat so well again tomorrow.” He belched contentedly as the last of the fish he had purloined from the waiter’s trays vanished into his gullet, then scowled at the door. The scowl made the scar on his cheek twist into something fierce and harsh for a moment before his face lapsed into his usual foolish smile.

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