Page 36 of My Big Fat Vampire Wedding

“W hy are you looking a gift horse in the mouth?” Lucy asked the following night when Pandora showed up for work to request the next three shifts off so she could go on this getaway that Ambrosia was insisting on.

“There has to be a catch,” Pandora said.

“Why? This is your family. Even if they might not love your choice of a significant other, they love you and want you to be happy, right?”

“I guess,” Pandora said, but she still couldn’t shake the feeling.

“You’re just getting paranoid as the day approaches … Oh, God, did someone lift the lid on your crypt again?” Lucy asked, looking past Pandora toward the door. “Because I’ve got some industrial-strength duct tape, if needed.”

Pandora knew it was Elias before she even turned.

“Sweet as ever, pup,” Elias said with a charming smile.

“What are you even doing here? Your job, as pathetic as it was to begin with, is over.”

“I want to be there for the wedding. Sounds like it will be a hell of a time,” Elias said. “You must be the life of the party. So long as no one brings a vacuum out.”

Despite herself, Pandora let out a little snort.

“Traitor,” Lucy said under her breath, even though her eyes were dancing a bit. “Isn’t there anywhere else you could be? A support group for men who peaked in the Victorian era, perhaps?”

“Alas, I find myself without my private jet at the moment,” Elias said. “I hear it is being borrowed so you and your fiancé can take a trip.”

“Where is the trip?” Pandora asked a little desperately.

“I’m forbidden from telling you.”

“I need to know if it is some sort of trap.”

“Honestly, I don’t know exactly where you are heading. I just know why your family wants you out of the house.”

“See!” she said, pointing at Lucy. “I told you there was some sort of catch.”

“A small one, really. And I probably shouldn’t ruin the surprise, but this is a situation that, unfortunately, I feel like you might want your little furball here to be in on.” Elias shot a little wink in Lucy’s direction.

Lucy growled. “I am not furry.”

Elias’s gaze slid over Lucy in a way that Pandora felt was just shy of suggestive. “Perhaps not at the moment. But the full moon will be here again soon, won’t it?”

“Elias, focus,” Pandora said. “What is my family up to that I can’t be around for?”

“They’re planning stag and hen parties.”

Pandora groaned. “Oh, no.”

There were only about five thousand ways that could go wrong.

“Relax,” Lucy said, holding up her hands. “I will get all over it. And I’m assuming Count Blech-ula can handle the stag part.”

Elias, eyes bright, pressed a hand to his chest and gave her a small bow. “See? We have it covered.”

“Except the two of you are still taking digs at each other.”

“Hey, our tense feelings for each other will motivate us to each try to out-do the other at every turn and make sure that everything that could possibly go wrong has been subverted,” Lucy said.

“So you and Victor can go and enjoy your getaway,” Elias said.

“It’s just three days!” Lucy sensed her friend’s unease. “If anyone deserves a little relaxation, it’s you. You’ve been stressed out for weeks. Go. Enjoy some time with Victor.”

With no actual choice in the matter, Pandora made her way home to attempt to pack a bag without having any idea where she was going or what she might need.

There was a knock at her door, making her suppress a sigh. There was never a moment alone in a house bursting at the seams with family.

She hadn’t decided whether to answer it yet, when she heard Dante’s voice. “It’s me, Pandy.”

“Sorry,” she said, unlocking it to let him in. “I’m … screening my visitors.”

“I just wanted to bring you this,” Dante said, holding out a tube. It was similar to the one he’d had at Hampstead Heath ponds, but easily three times the size. “Now that I got it right, I figured it was wasteful to keep making small ones.”

“This is great!” she said, still so excited for his invention and the possibilities it had for his future.

A life of his own.

Exactly what she was working toward as well.

“It’s going to be so strange here without you,” Dante said.

“Will you keep an eye on Bellatrix for me?” she asked. “I don’t think there’s anything she can find out around here. But you never know.”

“Did you hear she had a screaming match with Kora and Maribelle?” he asked.

“What? When? How’d I miss that?”

“It was when you were at Luna Bean. Bellatrix decided to wake the house with her … let’s call it ‘singing’. Kora and Maribelle ran upstairs, thinking someone was being sacrificed. Bellatrix got all offended. It was brilliant.” Dante smiled.

He’d been just as horrified as she’d been to learn that Bellatrix had tried to glamour information out of Victor. So neither of them felt guilty for enjoying Bellatrix getting at least a little bit of a comeuppance.

“I’m sorry I missed that,” Pandora said. Kora and Maribelle were visiting without their parents, so they had no qualms about getting in their cousin’s face when she was being especially intolerable.

They’d already gone at her over some mean-spirited teasing of Pandora and her terrible gown-shopping fiasco. And some comments she had to make about how weird it was to date your food source.

“And you’ll help Elias with the stag party?

” Pandora asked. She’d already asked Kora and Maribelle to team up with Lucy against anyone else and their crazy plans.

They’d been charmingly open and excited to be working closely with a werewolf.

Pandora was relieved to realize she and Dante weren’t the only vampires who didn’t buy into that bullshit about vampires and werewolves hating each other.

“Yeah. Don’t worry about it. We’ve got this all handled. Go and enjoy your time with Victor.”

“We’re not really together, remember?” she asked in a whisper.

Sure, she’d had some hope after the events of the cupboard. That things had changed for them. That he was possibly as interested in her as she was in him.

But there’d been no other incidents since then.

No accidental touches, let alone deliberate ones. No innuendos or lingering glances.

She was starting to think she’d imagined it all.

One thing was for sure, though. It had clearly just been a spur-of-the-moment thing. A moment of charged feelings, of mutual built-up desire. Not necessarily personal. Definitely not a sign that Victor wanted to make their relationship real. No matter how much that might have hurt her.

“Sure, yeah,” he said, but there was a false note in his words. “What time is your flight?”

Pandora glanced at her mobile. “Oh, no. Only two hours. And I don’t know where we’re going or what I need to pack.”

“Layers,” he said, shrugging. “Books. That should cover it for you.”

He wasn’t wrong about that.

So Pandora took two pairs of shoes out of her suitcase and added in a few more paperbacks instead.

To save time, she was meeting Victor at the airport, so she grabbed her bags and made her way out into the hall.

Where she almost collided with Bellatrix.

“She’s not fooled, you know,” Bellatrix said.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Ambrosia. She’s not fooled. That’s why she’s sending you away.”

“Sure, Bellatrix. Whatever you need to tell yourself to feel better,” Pandora said, even if her stomach was twisting itself into knots at the idea of her cousin being correct.

She pushed past Bellatrix before they could get any further into an argument.

“What’s wrong?” Pandora asked, coming to a stop when she found Vlad sitting on a perch in a dark corner.

To that, the raven let out a long-suffering sigh.

“Elizabeth.”

“What happened? Last I checked, you were feeding her almond slivers and dancing for her.”

“That’s private,” Vlad said, puffing up. “She was watching the crow from the window today. Saying things like, ‘Love you, pretty bird.’”

“Vlad, that’s all she can say,” Pandora said. “She’s not like you. She has a very limited vocabulary.” And because she was such a sweet, snuggly bird to her owner, Dudley, all he said to her were sweet words. “That’s literally all she can say.”

“Well, it hurt,” Vlad said, flicking his inky head and refusing to talk about it any further.

Pandora figured that, before the end of the night, he would be treating the whole family to a recital of the saddest, most heartbreaking poetry ever written.

“If you two haven’t worked it out by the time I get back, we will talk about it, OK?” Pandora stroked his soft feathers for a second before making her way downstairs and out, doing so quickly, before anyone could drag her into conversation.

She made it to the little private airstrip just moments before Victor’s car pulled up.

“Wow,” he said as he moved up beside her, shifting a beat-up tan weekender bag further up on his shoulder. “That’s what we’re taking?” He stared at the sleek jet.

“Seems like it,” Pandora said, still unable to shake her anxiety, even if Victor’s excitement was becoming clearer by the moment.

“Alone?” he asked, still unable to wrap his head around that.

“Yes. This is Elias’s private jet,” she said, figuring the windows featured the same tint as those she had in her bedroom, so they could travel at all hours without him having to worry about getting scorched or bursting into flame.

“Never really understood the appeal of aspiring to certain levels of wealth …”

“But you’re starting to reconsider that stance?”

“Something like that,” he said as they both made their way toward the jet, going through the motions of speaking to the one gentleman who served as the cabin crew, the captain, and the co-captain.

“Can you tell us where we’re going?” Pandora asked, figuring she would have hours on the plane to come to terms with whatever she might be dealing with when they landed.

“I’m afraid I can’t until we are in the air,” Mikhail, the one-man cabin crew, told them as they made their way into the cabin.

“Oh, wow,” Pandora said, turning in a circle.

Sure, she’d been in a private jet once or twice. It was impossible for her family to travel commercially. So when there was necessary travel ahead of them, they used a family jet, or rented one.

That said, this jet was incredibly customized.

Gone were all the typical champagne colours and cherry wooden accents Pandora had come to expect of private jets.

In its place were deep grey walls, velvet-covered seating, and black lace sheers covering the windows.

Despite the fact that they were covered in the film Pandora had been expecting.

“There’s so little seating,” Victor said, looking around.

He wasn’t wrong about that. Replacing the typical club chairs was one oversized lounge.

Then, toward the back, half hidden by some thick drapes, was a single seat for the cabin crew.

“Seems roomy enough,” Pandora said, making her way over and sitting down, excited at the prospect of sitting close to Victor for, she assumed, several hours of travel time. Both of them reading.

They were getting dangerously close to her fantasies coming true as they got comfortable, listened to the spiel from Mikhail, then each reached for their books and settled in.

“What has you so engrossed?” Victor asked, pulling her out of her story to find him watching her. There was a soft look in his eyes that made her heart feel all gooey.

“What? Oh,” she said, slipping her bookmark into place. “This is a highlander romance.”

“Got a thing for kilts, do you?” Victor said teasingly.

“I always like the dichotomy of the fiery-tempered highlander and the very prim Englishwoman falling for each other. It allows for a lot of personal growth for the two of them.”

“Want to read it to me?” he asked.

“What? Really?” she asked, surprised he would be interested.

“Yeah. My book is a bore. Yours sounds better.”

With that, Pandora moved back to the beginning of the book and started reading. All the while reminding herself that they were surely going to be on the ground before she got to the spicy bits that would be too difficult for her to read aloud to anyone, least of all Victor.

At some point, her own voice getting hoarse, Victor took over, his voice moving smoothly over the words, making her feel warm all over as she pulled her legs up onto the seat and maybe leaned a little closer to her fiancé.

Slowly but surely, she felt her eyelids getting heavy, lulled toward sleep by his soothing voice and close, warm body.

She wasn’t asleep long, though, before the plane hit a bit of turbulence, making her eyes shoot open. To find she’d curled into Victor in her sleep. Her head was on his strong shoulder, his heartbeat a steady thud against her ear.

Up that close, she could hear the whoosh of the blood in his veins again, could feel her fangs lengthening with how close she was to his neck.

“This does not bode well for my future career in lecturing if my voice puts you right to sleep,” Victor said, voice soft, his breath rustling her hair.

“I haven’t had someone read to me in a really long time,” Pandora said, not moving. Not yet. “It was very soothing. And mixed with the smooth ride …”

“Speaking of, I think we know our location.” Victor nodded toward the windows directly across from them.

Curiosity piqued, Pandora reluctantly moved away from Victor to look out the window.

And as she did, she felt her belly knot up.

In the distance, she could see rugged peaks standing in contrast to the rolling hills dotted with olive groves and villages.

The coastline sparkled to the north, turquoise waters meeting golden beaches.

There weren’t many places in the world with water like she was seeing.

This was clearly the Mediterranean.

And that village full of blue-washed buildings?

That could only be one place.

Chefchaouen.

The Blue Pearl of Morocco.

Ambrosia had sent them to Morocco.

“Ma’am?” Mikhail interrupted her thoughts, making her turn. “Your gran—”

“Ambrosia,” Pandora cut him off.

“Yes, Ambrosia wanted me to give you this,” he said, passing her a small envelope.

Ignoring the sloshing sensation in her stomach, she tore it open, finding a small card inside. Within the card, just a simple message from her great-great-grandmother.

You need to see how incompatible you are with a human.

Enjoy the next three days with your betrothed.

In the unyielding sun.