Dalton disappears around a corner, leaving me all alone with Lance.
"I'm sorry about him." He says coolly, his smile always present. He turns, pulling me along with him. "I really wanted to come with Pedro to get you when I found out you were coming, but he thought it would be best if Dalt went since he didn't know the big secret and he thought it would go over better if he just saw your parents instead of being told about it."
I smile up at him as we walk together and he catches me looking, winking at me smoothly. "Yeah, I wish it had been you that came instead of him." I agree, just thinking of Dalton making my heart beat faster in annoyance at his very existence. "I don't know where he gets off being so cold to me. He is seriously such a jerk. I mean like the whole way here we barely spoke and any time we did it was just him insulting me or making me feel like a dunce." I was running low on air, but it didn't stop my motor mouth from pouring on. "I didn't ask for him to be assigned to being my babysitter, so he should just get over it and suck it up like an adult." I sigh, peeking up again at him as we turn the next corner, voices beginning to echo up the hallway. "I'm sorry, I don't mean to talk your ear off, I just haven't really talked in like twenty hours so I guess I've got a bit of a buildup."
Lance laughed, squeezing my shoulder tighter.
"No, I totally get it." He smiles. "I can't stand the guy. He walks around here like he's better than everyone and so much more morally sound than us, yet he uses the blood slaves more than anyone else I know and he doesn't always return them if you know what I mean." He shrugs.
I didn't know what to say to that.
I was more than a little surprised. Of course I thought Dalton was a douche, but I hadn't really thought he was dangerous. Obviously he could be, but if Pedro trusts him enough to be in charge of my safety, I would have thought that meant he had a little more respect for human life.
"Hi, Lance." A pretty brunette girl waves as we get close to two big grey double doors with the words West Wing painted across the top, then in a smaller print Violators of rules will be held accountable.
I gulp nervously, making Lance laugh at me, hardly acknowledging the girl as she passes him. "Don't worry, this is the safest place to be in all of Castrum." I nod, but I don't feel like it can be too safe if they have to be reminded with a warning on the door not to kill us. "Come on, I'll show you where you'll be staying."
He drops his arm off of my shoulder, but then surprises me when he takes my hand in his like it's totally normal and leads me through the doors.
Inside West Wing, the lights are up on the top of the passages instead of illuminating the walkway from the ground like everywhere else we've been. It makes it a little easier for me to see where I'm going, which makes sense since this area is for humans with lame vision like me. There are a few people hanging around, talking outside of the numbered doors that line both sides of the corridor every couple of yards.
I don't miss the looks I get from some girls, and even some different kinds of looks from a few boys.
I try to pay attention to where he's leading me, while also avoiding the other's gazes, but Lance makes it pretty difficult when he keeps greeting ones he knows and then he has to awkwardly introduce me. "This is Rose, she's new." Everyone seems pleasant enough, but with Lance, the leader of the entire vampire army, holding my hand, who is going to dare be rude? I mean, other than Dalton. I curse his name for popping into my head again and force him back out of my brain where he belongs.
"Up there is the meal room." He points around the corner to a big white door. "You'll go there for food obviously." He laughs. "Then around there is a human only rec room. You can watch TV, play air hockey, read, whatever you want."
"Wait, so I have to stay down here?" I ask, my heart sinking in my chest. "I thought..."
Lance shakes his head, his shaggy blonde hair falling in front of his pretty eyes. "Not all the time." He assures me. "Basically...well, there isn't a really nice way to put it, but you and the others down here are pretty much bottom of the barrel." He shrugs. "You get three meals a day, stuff to do down here, a few mandatory classes a day, but you aren't high society." He tells me. "The higher ups live closer to the top. They've got handmaidens, room service, the whole nine yards, but the lower class, and humans especially, get the lesser digs down here." My head is spinning. I knew I wasn't getting the same experience as mom, but I kind of thought it would be a little more fun and glamorous than this. This is practically a lame summer camp. Lance turns me around when we stop in front of a red door, marked number 32.
"Don't worry. I know it doesn't seem like much right now, but you'll get to do your exploring and plenty of fun stuff. Every three rooms down here get a handler and that handler will plan things for you all. Anytime you want to leave West Wing you just need to clear it with your handler and they'll make it happen. Plus, lucky you, you get me as an added handler and obviously you'll get some other special privileges. You are the great niece of the king after all."
"Oh, ok." I shrug, my excitement for this whole trip dwindling by the second.
"Now, here's home for the next two and a half months." Lance grins, producing a key from the pocket of his dark brown slacks and sliding it into the lock.
He gives the door a little push and we both walk in while he hits the lights.
It's not nearly as big as I would have thought, but it's still cute.
There are two queen sized beds, both with nice thick white comforters and blankets. The floor is strange, like it is just glossed over stone instead of the carpet and tiles other places here have got, and the walls are dark grey stone, no fancy draping to cover the cracks and divots in the old stone. I do still get a chandelier though. A pretty one with bright yellow and white jewels hanging down.
In the back of the room there's another door to the bathroom and there are two plane dark wood vanities on the opposite wall, a TV mounted to the stone on the wall facing the beds and a desk.
I walk over to the bed furthest from the door and carefully lay my own pillow from home up on top of it. The bright pink the only pop of color in the whole room. I just stand there for a minute, my back to Lance, while I take everything in. Definitely not what I'd been imagining, but maybe still a little magical nonetheless.
In the back of my mind though a little thought kept bugging me.
"Hey, Lance?" I ask, turning to hop up on the bed and quickly unlacing my shoes and kicking them off. I'm always happiest when barefoot, but I keep my knee high socks on to keep my feet from getting cold on the glossy stone floor. "You mentioned blood slaves a while ago...I didn't realize that was still a thing with the synthetic blood as an option now."
Lance turns to close the door and then comes to sit beside me on the bed, looking straight ahead instead of at me. He furrows his brows with thought, making one thin crease appear between them and he ticks he tongue. "Well, they are much less needed now." He says after a minute. I hardly hear him at first because I was so busy admiring his profile. His thin nose coming down to a sharp point, the faint little tan freckles still dusted across it on his alabaster skin. "Many do use the synthetic blood, or they use the blood bank that has fresh blood from the newer feeder schools-."
"Newer feeder schools?" I interject, my voice raising.
Lance turns to me, his eyes wide. "I'm sorry, I didn't realize you didn't know we still have them." He says gently. "Well, we only have two actually. One for boys and one for girls in a more central location that we use globally, only housing a few thousand at a time, but we do still have them. When Pedro tried to do away with them entirely after the synthetic blood was created, there was a lot of backlash and some countries started trying to make their own feeder schools and the conditions were just...it was bad, so Pedro reinstated the two largest and we still use them for places that are still more dependent on real human blood or that enjoy having blood slaves. I know it sounds bad, but compared the totally unsanctioned route that others were taking in order to still use them, it was just better all around for the humans and for us if we did still allow it."
"I see." I mutter, idly wondering if mom and dad know about this. "How many slaves do we have here?"
"One hundred and fifty currently."
I can't say anything. I just shake my head.
"Where's my stuff?" I ask, looking around the pretty bare room. "I thought Pedro was having it set up?"
Lance bites his lip. "Right, sorry, Pedro had some things come up and he probably got so busy tending to them that he forgot."
I jump when there's a loud banging on my door and then it swings open.
"You should wait to be invited before entering a lady's room." Lance says angrily when he sees Dalton in the doorway. Dalton rolls his eyes after taking in the sight of me and Lance sitting on the bed together. Instinctively I slide down and walk over to help Dalton with my bags he's carrying, although he clearly doesn't need it.
He drops the bags at the foot of my bed and I kneel down to start unzipping the two duffles, pulling off my Cubs sweatshirt and throwing it up on the bed beside Lance.
He starts to laugh and I look up in confusion until I notice he is staring at my Braves t-shirt. "Isn't that a conflict of interest or something?" He chuckles. "Two opposite teams?"
I give him a look and dig in my bag a little more until I find my White Socks baseball cap and I slide it on my head. "Nah," I explain with a grin. "I get all my stuff from the secondhand store." I shrug, throwing the hat back in the bag. "I just love baseball stuff for some reason, even though I have only been to a few games."
"Knock knock." A sweet high voice calls from the open door.
The girl standing at the door was nothing short of beautiful. Her tawny brown skin was so soft and even looking like silk, big almond brown eyes set wide over her huge smile. "I'm Fallon." She introduces herself.
"Ah, yes." Lance hops off of the bed, giving Dalton a look as he passes him to take Fallon's bags from her and put them on her bed. "Rose, this is you new roommate." He informs me and I rush over to shake her hand.
"Nice to meet you." I smile back at her.
"You too." She replies quietly, a small nod of her head making her wild mane of dark brown curls bounce. She seemed so quiet and reserved but her eyes seemed to dance with excitement even though she wasn't showing it outwardly.
I feel Dalton's eyes on me and I turn to look at him just as he looks away.
"Lance, we have things to see to." He says grumpily.
Lance looks annoyed but he doesn't say anything to him. Instead he comes over to me, shocking me again when he leans down to plant a kiss on my cheek and then heads for the door.
"Hey Lance?" I call before they can go. He turns back with a smile, but Dalton looks less than enthused to have been held up again. "Does the thing you said held up Pedro have anything to do with those people who were outside?" I ask curiously.
Dalton crosses his arms and looks over at Lance smugly. "Yeah, good job on managing to screw things up when we were only gone a couple of days. Last time I leave you in charge."
Lance spins quickly, meeting Dalton's glare without fear. "You didn't leave me in charge." He snarls through his teeth. "You do remember you're not actually the king right? You're nothing but the hand of the king, but I'm pretty sure she bumps your position now."
Dalton shoots a glare at me. "We will see how long she lasts." He spits, disappearing out the door in a flash.
Lance shrugs, pasting his smile back on. "Nothing to worry about." He tells me. "They were just angry because they wanted in but we're at capacity right now with the summer celebrations beginning soon." He waves his hand flippantly. "Anyway, I've got to go see to a few things, but you and Fallon settle in for tonight and Pedro will be coming to check in with you tomorrow."
With that he smiles once more and pulls the door shut behind him.
"Oh. My. God." Fallon gushes, her eyes wide as she turns to me and bounces on the balls of her feet, her accent rich. "How amazing is this? We are in Castrum de Petra, and those two guys are seriously hot!" She giggles. "On which one do you call dibs?" She asks, then narrows her eyes playfully. "Or are you calling it for the both of them?"
I was so taken back by her sudden change that I could hardly follow her thought process.
"I, um, well..."
She smacks my shoulder playfully and laughs again, the sound of it slightly reminiscent of Kingsly's neigh, which made me laugh too. "Very sorry, I've been told before that I can be little too much too fast but I just can't help it when I get excited."
"No, it is totally fine." I tell her. "I'm happy to be here too."
She looks all around the room and sighs happily. "I've always wanted to come here." She tells me. "Since I was little girl."
"Where are you from?"
"Russia." She grins. "Born and raised, but my older brother use to tell me stories about this place and how beautiful it is. I've always wanted to come and then when King Pedro reached out to my brother about having me brought here, I just couldn't believe it."
I nod with her as I go back to unpacking my bags, surprised when she kneels by me and starts helping me too. "I know what you mean." I agree. "I've only known about it a little while, but I feel like I've always been meant to come." I shake my head at myself. "I know that sounds crazy."
Fallon reaches out and brushes some of my fallen hair back behind my ear. "No." She insists. "It makes total sense. You are princess, Rose. You belong here and this place belongs to you, more than any other." I turn to her and I see the fire in her eyes behind her words. "I thank lucky stars that I get to experience this with you."
"You know," I tell her. "I think you are about the first thing to go right today." I say honestly. I'd been worried that I'd get some crazy bitchy girl as a roommate, or someone I'd have a hard time connecting with, but it was easy to tell that Fallon and I were going to be easy friends.
Her answering smile was blinding, taking up so much room on her face.
"Hurry, let us get unpacked and then we can go to dinner hall and meet others." She urges as she carries my clothes over to the waiting racks in the back of the room. "Once we get back though, I must hear all about the two very gorgeous boys and which one you have your eye on, because it looked to me they both have theirs on you. Lucky girl."
"Oh boy, I don't even know where to begin with them."
"The beginning of course" She winks and I settle into my first night in Castrum de Petra.