Page 21 of My Big Fat Vampire Wedding

“R ise and shine, my dear!” Aunt Ravenna’s voice rang out. Too peppy. Too loud. And, most importantly, too close.

Pandora shot up in her bed as Ravenna threw on the lights and came bustling into the room, a flurry of deep-purple velvet, bouncing silver curls – and bouncing other … assets – and thick, cloying perfume.

“Oh, a bed!” Ravenna said, stopping short, surprised, but recovering quickly.

“When I had a bed last, they were stuffed with hay, wool, and hair.” She scrunched up her face.

“Lumpy, those beds were. This looks right comfortable.” She hauled herself up with a bounce that nearly had her coming out of her bodice as she let out a laugh.

“How very modern of you, dear. Oh, you have a pet,” she said, reaching for Pandora’s stuffed capybara. “Is this a pillow?”

“Sort of,” Pandora said, brushing her hair out of her face.

“Aunt Ravenna, what are you doing in here?” She didn’t want to sound surly.

But, well, she’d had a good, long sleep-in planned, since she had the night off.

Partly to avoid her family. But also, admittedly, to do some moping over the fact that she hadn’t heard from Victor since the night of the kiss, save for a single text for him to approve the invitations.

She’d wanted to reach out, but each time, she was reminded of how he’d rushed away from her as quickly as possible and hadn’t reached out since.

So, while she’d been obsessing over him and longing for him, she didn’t want to come off as desperate by bugging him all the time.

“There’s much to do, my dear!” Ravenna hopped back off the bed.

“Weddings are quite the ordeal. Especially for us ladies,” she added.

“Your uncle Reginald, all he had to do was show up! I had to fuss for weeks with my mother and sisters. Invitations, menus, fittings, the work is never done. By the time it comes, you will have well-earned your honeymoon.”

“Invitations are … mostly sorted,” Pandora said, hearing a hint of sadness in her voice and trying to shake it off before someone started asking why a recently engaged woman was having the blues.

She couldn’t exactly tell them that she hadn’t seen her fiancé in days. That she’d picked out the invitations all on her own, trying to figure out which designs Victor would object to the least. And what wording he would prefer.

“And that is important, but what’s most important of all, my dear, is the dress.

” Ravenna went to Pandora’s wardrobe, clicking her tongue at the options before selecting a black velvet dress her mother had bought her years before.

For a dress from Ophelia, it was relatively casual, with a square neck, empire waist, and a hem that only fell just below the knee.

But it felt far too dressy for going shopping.

“I think a nice jumper and some jeans would be more appropriate,” Pandora said firmly as she climbed out of bed.

“Appropriate, maybe.” Ravenna pushed the dress out toward Pandora. “But when you are getting in and out of clothes all night, trust me, you want to make easy work of it.”

Not able to argue with that logic, Pandora went into the bathroom to quickly change and pull her hair into a simple braid.

“Much better. You should wear dresses more, my dear. They do flatter the female figure so much better.” Ravenna ran her hands down her ample sides, doing a little shimmy of her shoulders in the process to set her chest jiggling. “The men seem to appreciate them as well.”

“I’m sure,” Pandora said. “So, where are we shopping at night?”

“Oh, we have our places,” Ravenna said with a little nod. “We just have to wait for your little friend to get here.”

“My friend?” Pandora asked.

“Lucille? Lucinda?”

“Lucy,” Pandora said. “Wait, how is Lucy coming?”

“Well, I called her, of course, my dear. Your chief bridesmaid has to be part of the dress-shopping. And you can have her try on some bridesmaid dresses too while we’re there. Along with Bellatrix, of course.”

Pandora just barely held back a grumble at that. She hadn’t exactly been thrilled when her mother had claimed it would be rude not to ask Bellatrix to be part of the wedding party, when she would be staying at the house until after the wedding.

She just didn’t have the fight in her to argue about it. So, yeah, Bellatrix would be standing up there next to Lucy on Pandora’s big day.

She told herself it didn’t matter, since the whole marriage was a farce anyway, but it still bothered her more than it should have. Almost as much as when her aunt Anastacia had insisted that Bellatrix ‘gift’ them a song at their wedding reception.

There were voices moving down the hallway, making Pandora walk toward the door, hoping one of her crazier relations hadn’t met Lucy.

Luckily, it was Dante who was walking Lucy down the hall. He looked worse than ever, the bags under his eyes growing by the day.

She really needed to figure out what was going on with him and where he was going each day, only to come back and make strange noises in his room all night.

There was just no easy way to confront him when there were so many family members lurking in the halls or hiding away in strange corners of the house.

“Did someone leave the front door open?” Elias’s voice called, making Pandora sigh as she closed her eyes. “Seems a stray dog made its way inside.”

“Go away, fang-boy,” Lucy said as she passed him by, a limp snake plant nestled in her arm.

“This is a night for the girls. Hey!” She beamed at Pandora as she got to her door.

“I killed this.” She handed Pandora the plant that was supposedly the hardiest of all.

“I hear we are doing some crazy vampire night-time dress-shopping venture. I’m so in.

I met your brother,” she said, giving Dante a smile as he got to his door.

He gave them both a nod, then disappeared inside his room.

“What are you looking at, bat-breath?” Lucy snarled at Elias, who was leaning against the wall in the hallway.

“Are you sure you should be going out tonight?” Elias asked, making Lucy’s brows pinch. “It’s just that I heard animal control is really cracking down hard lately …”

“Elias!” Pandora said, putting the plant down to nurse back to health later. She was getting tired of jumping between the two of them.

“Oh, great, we’re all here,” Ophelia said, coming down the hallway with Bellatrix and Aunt Anastacia at her heels. “Elias, darling, it was so kind of you to agree to escort us this evening.”

“We don’t need an escort,” Pandora said, frowning. “We’re a bunch of immortal vampires. What could pos-sibly hurt us?”

“There is always the concern that an ambulance might pass by,” Elias said. “Your kind chases those, don’t they?” he asked Lucy, that same light dancing in his eyes that Pandora had noticed the last time.

“Children,” Ophelia said smoothly. “We can all get along for just one night.”

With another couple of barbs thrown between Elias and Lucy, they all headed out onto the streets of London.

Ravenna and Ophelia took the lead. Pandora and Lucy were happy to be at the back, lagging behind the others so they could whisper.

“Why the dark cloud?” Lucy asked.

“I haven’t heard from Victor since … you know …”

“He kissed you silly on the street like some epic romance film?”

The memory, which should have been a fond one, had started to darken around the edges, the joy and pleasure she’d once felt, melting into a melancholy that seemed to settle into her very bones.

“Here’s a wild idea,” Lucy said as they fell further behind the others. “Why don’t you reach out to him?”

“I don’t want to seem desperate.”

“You can’t be desperate. You’re not actually dat … Eavesdrop much?” Lucy asked, making Pandora’s head pop up to see Bellatrix had slowed down and wasn’t even trying to hide that she was listening to them.

Caught, Bellatrix just huffed and rushed to catch up with her mother.

“Do you think she heard anything?” Lucy asked.

Pandora’s stomach tightened, seeing Bellatrix leaning in to speak to Anastacia. Then the two of them looked back at Lucy and Pandora.

“I don’t know,” she said, watching as a cold wind whipped Lucy’s thick hair around. “But we didn’t say much. Except that I was desperate, I guess.”

“I get why you don’t like her,” Lucy said, eyeing Bellatrix. “She’s trouble.”

“Elias thinks she’s bitter because she expected to get all the attention when she came to visit and, with my engagement announcement, I stole all of it.”

“As much as I hate to agree with anything that Nosferadouche has to say, he probably has a point with that.”

“Here we are! Here we are!” Ravenna cheered, making several strangers on the street turn to look at them all, their gazes lingering a long time on Ravenna’s and Ophelia’s outfits.

“Um …” Lucy looked at the abandoned storefront.

“Appearances can be quite deceptive, dear,” Ravenna said, before doing some sort of intricate knock on the door.

There was a short pause before the door yawned open.

“I thought you guys didn’t age,” Lucy whispered to Pandora as they faced who must be the shopkeeper.

Admittedly, the woman looked a bit like a reanimated corpse.

She was tall and spindly thin, her cheeks concave, her wrists fragile. Her silvery hair was pulled back in a severe bun to reveal a strong forehead, mercilessly plucked thin brows, and brown eyes so deep they seemed to reject any light trying to reflect off of them.

Her body was dressed in a classic drop-waisted dress in the deepest shade of black. Pandora worried that the thin material might rip from the sharpness of the bones beneath.

“Is this the bride?” The woman’s voice, dry as dust, croaked as her gaze moved over Bellatrix’s thin frame. “Lovely.”

Bellatrix fawned under the praise as Ravenna reached out to grab Pandora’s arm, yanking her to the front of the crowd.

“No, no. This is the bride,” Ravenna said proudly.