Page 28 of My Big Fat Vampire Wedding

“Y ou look flushed,” Lucy said as the two crept into the kitchen, finding it blissfully abandoned, save for whatever foods were sitting under cloches.

Pandora was afraid to look. “How do you look flushed? You can’t flush, right?

” she asked, eyeing her friend with a quizzical head tilt.

“Or maybe you’re just … not as pale as usual? ”

“I’m just a little overwhelmed. And underfed,” she said, struggling with the too-tight lid on the stainless-steel tumbler hiding her meal.

“I saw Victor’s parents on the way in,” Lucy said, seemingly completely unbothered by the whole thing, as Pandora finally got the top off and took a long swig. “They seem … quite prim and proper, yeah?”

Pandora nodded. “Very. Luckily, Dante and Elias are running interference for me. And my uncle Leopold and his boyfriend are as normal as a couple of vamp—”

“There you are,” Victor said, pulling to a stop as he looked at Pandora standing there, a bit of blood still staining her lips.

“Is something wrong with that wine?” Lucy asked pointedly when Pandora simply froze.

“Yes,” Pandora said, turning to make a show of spluttering into the sink. “I think it’s turned.” She quickly filled her mouth with tap water, swooshing it around to get the red out of her mouth.

“Even smells off,” Lucy said, sniffing the contents of the tumbler and starting to put the lid on it.

“Why not dump it if it’s bad?” Victor asked.

Pandora’s stomach dropped at the idea of wasting perfectly good, and very needed, blood.

But what other choice did they have?

With her back to Victor, Pandora flashed her rinsed teeth at Lucy, who gave her a little nod to let her know they were clean, then proceeded to dump the rest of the blood into the sink drain, the water running over it until all traces were gone.

At least she’d gotten a big sip.

She could feel it moving through her system, calming some of the anxiety she’d felt growing all day. And even as Victor came closer, she could no longer hear the blood moving through his veins.

“Is everything all right?” Pandora asked, hoping her breath didn’t smell metallic.

“Yeah, I was just looking for you. Figure we should, you know, have a united front.”

How did he seem so unaffected? As if nothing at all had just happened? While she felt like a completely different person than she’d been when she’d gone into that closet?

“Oh, right. Of course.” Pandora moved toward him as Elias suddenly came into the kitchen.

“What’s going on in here?” he asked, and Pandora could swear she saw him sniff the air. Could he still smell the blood? Worse yet, could he tell it was pig’s blood? Might he tell her mother?

“Oh, great. You,” Lucy said, capping the tumbler but keeping a death grip on it.

Pandora hoped Lucy would stash it somewhere that she could find later, after anyone who might be suspicious was long gone.

Victor started to pull Pandora into the hall, so she had no choice but to follow. She was trying to focus on not letting her mind wander back to the cupboard, so she missed the reason Victor had come to a sudden stop.

“Victor, what—”

“Is she sharpening her teeth?”

Pandora’s stomach dropped as she whirled around to find, sure enough, Aunt Henrietta filing one of her fangs.

“What? No! Silly,” she said, forcibly pulling him forward as he tried to keep looking. “It’s, uh, a new form of flossing,” she said, proud of her quick thinking. “From … France. It’s all the rage,” she added, really trying to sell it. “My family is all really into dental hygiene.”

Maybe he would have questioned her further.

But Elizabeth chose that moment to crash down onto his shoulder, a flurry of white feathers and heavy breathing.

“Oh, hello,” Victor said as the cockatoo turned to look at him before letting out a shriek that could nearly burst an eardrum.

“Elizabeth!” Pandora scolded the bird.

“Better you than me,” Vlad murmured from his hiding place behind a vase in the dining room.

“What was that?” Victor asked, looking around.

“I didn’t hear anything,” Pandora said, lying through her teeth, reaching up toward the cockatoo. “Step up. Elizabeth, step up,” she said in a firm voice.

Elizabeth didn’t want to, however, and decided to take a nasty bite of Pandora’s hand instead.

“Told you that thing was a nuisance!” Aunt Henrietta said, her dogs yapping in agreement, excited by all the hubbub.

The evening was getting away from Pandora, fast.

She needed to rein it in a little.

“Look, Elizabeth,” she said, pointing toward Vlad’s hiding place. Elizabeth zeroed in, then took flight just a second after Vlad did, trying to get away before she got to him.

Pandora felt bad sacrificing him. But she would give him some scratches later.

And some extra treats. He’d forgive her.

If he’d got over the one time when, as a young little vampire, she’d plucked one of his tail feathers because she simply didn’t know any better and wanted to have one to play with, then he could forgive her for using him as a distraction for the troublesome cockatoo.

“My, your family has quite the pet collection,” Mary said as they moved into the sitting room.

“Some more well-mannered than others,” Ravenna said, glancing down as one of Henrietta’s dogs started using her skirts as a tug toy. “Anyway, no matter. Don’t they make such a lovely couple?” She smiled at Pandora and Victor, standing close, hands clasped.

“They do.” Mary agreed and looked between Pandora and Ophelia. “You can see where you get your looks from.” Then, she looked a little closer at Ophelia, close enough to make Pandora squirm.

Because, well, when two women who were supposed to be the same age were standing so close, it was impossible not to see the differences between them.

Whereas Mary’s cheeks had thinned a bit with age and there were fine lines around her eyes, mouth, and forehead, Ophelia, by contrast, had flawless, ageless skin.

“Your skin is remarkably smooth,” Mary said, leaning in a little closer, like she was trying to find a wrinkle. But there were none to be found.

“Oh, yeah,” Pandora said, panicking. “It’s, you know, a tea. An old family recipe.”

“I would love that recipe,” Mary said.

Well, Pandora had walked right into that one, hadn’t she? She was just going to have to throw something harmless together and pass it off as their family’s old youth elixir.

“Of course,” Ophelia said with an easy smile, recovering more quickly than her daughter.

“Oh, and who is this?” Mary asked, looking past Pandora toward where Lucy and Elias were entering the room.

“Oh, this is my best friend – and chief bridesmaid – Lucy,” Pandora said. That part was easy. Explaining Elias, who was neither family nor a friend, was less so. So she just blurted out the first thing that came to mind. “And her boyfriend, Elias.”

The look of shock and betrayal on Lucy’s face made Pandora immediately remorseful, as Elias effortlessly played into the lie, wrapping an arm around Lucy’s shoulders and hauling her against his body.

“Yeah, can’t get enough of this one. Isn’t that right, pup?” he asked, making Lucy’s eyes flash yellow for the quickest of seconds. Too fast, Pandora was sure, for anyone except the vampires gathered around to notice.

“Yeah,” Lucy said through gritted teeth. “Sometimes, I love him so much that I just want to suffocate him.”

“Been there,” Henrietta said with a knowing nod, making Pandora stifle a groan.

“But what a way to go, my darling,” Elias said with a mischievous glint in his eye at the innuendo Pandora prayed no one else caught on to.

Lucy’s cheeks, however, went brilliantly red, making Elias chuckle as he pulled her closer and planted an affectionate kiss on her head.

“Oh, absolutely,” Reginald said from across the room, making everyone turn to look at him as he reached for a fire poker and started to demonstrate some sort of fight stance, prompting Robert to grab the fire shovel and follow Reginald’s instructions. “Very nice. Yes, that’s how we did it!”

Pandora debated getting involved, but figured it seemed harmless enough. Just two “history buffs” demonstrating their shared knowledge. There was no reason to assume Robert would come to the conclusion that Reginald had firsthand experience of such things.

So she stayed where she was, trying to keep the conversation light between her mother and Victor’s mum.

Until, suddenly, Ravenna appeared, to announce dinner. “If you can all step into the dining room,” she said, waving everyone in the right direction, practically bouncing in excitement.

“I don’t know if I can eat eel again,” Victor whispered to Pandora, making her let out a small laugh.

“It smells … different from last time,” she said, though she was having a hard time placing anything.

“Here, my sweet pup,” Elias said, pulling a chair out for Lucy, who looked daggers at him as she slid onto it.

Pandora made Victor sit next to her, regardless of what her mother might have preferred.

Robert sat next to Reginald, with a less-comfortable--looking Mary at his other side.

“There’s no pig this time,” Victor said.

“No dogs at the table,” Ravenna told Henrietta as she came into the dining room, all of her dogs at her heels.

“They’ll be under the table,” Henrietta said, taking a seat next to Mary.

“Tonight, we have baked feta pasta,” Ravenna said, pulling the lid off one of the dishes. “Spicy vodka pasta,” she went on, pulling off another lid. “Sweet pepper sandwiches stuffed with cream cheese and bagel seasoning …”

“Is it just me or are these dishes all the ones trending on social apps?” Victor asked.

He was right about that.

Ravenna, realizing her mistake with the food from too long ago the last time, had done her research and decided to make every trendy food dish that had recently gone viral.

Pandora was touched, again, at Ravenna’s effort to try to do right, to welcome not only Victor, but his parents too, into their family. No matter how tense some others were about the arrangement.

The meal itself went off with a surprising lack of catastrophes.

Sure, Pandora’s cousin Jasper was caught staring at Victor’s mum’s neck more than a few times.

And, yeah, at some point, Elizabeth, frustrated with not being able to locate the clever Vlad, instead decided to run around under the table, chasing Henrietta’s sixteen dogs.

And, sure, Reginald got into far too many details about some minor war that Pandora was pretty sure wasn’t even in any history texts.

But other than that, everyone seemed to enjoy the food. Dante, Elias, and Lucy managed to keep Mary distracted from any oddness.

It all went well. Better than she ever could have expected.

But then there was another knock at the door.

Looking back, Pandora was pretty sure she could pinpoint that as the moment the night took a sharp turn and then veered completely off the tracks.