are wrong,” Romeo spat out as he sat up and wiped his bloodied nose with the sleeve of his shirt.
Mercutio helped Romeo up off the floor. “I am afraid he is right, and your father would wholeheartedly agree—not to mention skin you alive if he knew you were consorting with the enemy.”
“So instead I should follow your example and consort with women who smell like a barnyard and taste like cheap whisky?” Romeo said as he dusted himself off.
“Enough of this blathering. We have a good fifty or
more weapons to tend to,” Mercutio said, and pointed to double bows that needed to be restrung.
“So do you plan on visiting a harlot’s bed this evening, Mercutio? Is that why you are in a hurry?” Benvolio asked with a laugh.
Mercutio got out some wooden stakes and stacked them on the floor, readying them for inspection. “I wish. I had plans with Maribel, a servant maid from Capulet Castle, but she cancelled because she has to work at that ridiculous ball for the prince. She’d promised me a foot massage, so I’m quite disappointed.”
“She is better off serving food to those bloodsuckers than touching your calluses,” Benvolio said.
“It depends on who this servant maid is,” Romeo said, relieved that the tension in the air had lifted. “How ugly is she?”
Mercutio sneered at Romeo. “Maribel is not ugly, you imbecile. In fact, she’s quite attractive. Even more so than her mistress, Rosaline.”
Romeo’s mouth hung open. “You are courting Rosaline’s maid servant? Since when?!”
“Only a few days. But we haven’t mentioned you and Rosaline at all, if that is what you are worried about,” Mercutio said.
Romeo was thrilled by his friend’s revelation. It was entirely possible this Maribel was a trusted confidante of Rosaline’s. If he could somehow charm and impress the woman, perhaps she would speak kindly of him to Rosaline and convince her mistress to give him a chance. If he didn’t act on this news now, he would regret it for the rest of his life.
“Tonight I will win Rosaline’s favour,” Romeo said with a renewed spirit. “And both of you are going to help me.”
Mercutio narrowed his eyes at Romeo. “How do you propose we do that?”
“You will convince your pretty maid servant to sneak us into the ball so that I can see Rosaline,” he answered.
“A few moments ago my lady friend was ugly, and now all of a sudden she is pretty,” Mercutio said.
“Like I said, I’m full of surprises,” Romeo said with a smile.
Benvolio did nothing to mask his frustration. “This is ridiculous, Romeo. And dangerous to the point of suicide!” he said. “We’ve never gone to the castle at night. The vampires will outnumber us by the hundreds.”
But Romeo would not be persuaded by Benvolio’s gift for reasoning. “We can go in disguise and blend into the crowd undetected. No one will even know we are there.”
“This is the most preposterous plan ever created,” Mercutio said, throwing his hands up in the air. “I refuse to take any part in it.”
“So do I,” Benvolio echoed.
“Well, if you don’t come along, I will go to Capulet Castle all by myself,” Romeo said with confidence.
Benvolio and Mercutio traded an uncomfortable glance while Romeo waited for their response. Benvolio nodded, and Mercutio took a hefty wooden stake from the top of the pile, offering it to Romeo as though it were a family heirloom.
“We must shave a few of these down so they will fit underneath our coats,” Mercutio said.
“And we will ask Friar Laurence for garlic and enough holy water to fill our ankle flasks,” said Benvolio.
Romeo grinned as he shook their hands one at a time. “I suppose we must prepare for the worst.”
“And for your innocence to be lost,” Mercutio said with a wink.
From behind a tall limestone pillar near the top of a winding staircase, Juliet watched the festive scene unfold in the castle’s Great Hall. Her eyes bounced around the candlelit room with great interest and curiosity, settling upon striking women in glittering, beaded ball gowns and stoic gentlemen dressed in long formal jackets, stitched with shimmering gold thread.
She was amazed by the civility of it all. Humans and Capulets, gallivanting together as if there hadn’t been more than five years of bloodshed between them. It truly boggled the mind, but not enough to dampen the cheery mood of Transylvania’s most elite humans, who obviously were curious about the country’s most notorious vampires.
A choral trio was assembled in between two towering marble columns, singing “Ave Regina” by Guillaume Dufay. The angelic sound of their high-pitched voices competed with the din of chatter in the air. Juliet had no need to wonder about the subject matter of people’s conversations—the peace treaty that was threatening the tight choke hold the Capulets had over the region. Soon Prince Radu would arrive at the castle as the guest of honour and be welcomed by the most prestigious clan of vampires in all of Europe.
Juliet took a deep breath and felt her whalebone corset tightening against her rib cage. She knew she should be relieved by the prince’s presence this evening. Originally, this ball was scheduled to take place three days from now in celebration of Juliet’s sixteenth birthday, but plans had changed once Vladimir was imprisoned. The Capulets altered the theme of the dance and invited Prince Radu, hoping that they could prove they were worthy of the power his half-brother had bestowed upon them, and persuade the prince to lift the treaty so their freedom to feed off humans would no longer be compromised.
Juliet’s extended family was so distracted by the political upheaval that they had seemed to forget all about her and her coming-of-age ritual. Juliet wished to put it out of her mind as well, at least for this evening. But when she felt a familiar warm, strong hand with long, sharp fingernails rest upon her shoulder, there was nowhere safe for her mind to go.
“Where have you been hiding, Juliet?” a deep, raspy voice asked.
She turned her head, and out from the shadows came the distinguished and handsome face of her father, Lord Capulet. She stood there frozen for a moment as she took in his mesmerising features—a sharp square-set jaw, a well-kept beard, and dark red eyes that could burn holes right through her if she ever dared to disobey him. Juliet swallowed hard as she imagined her father as a young man on his sixteenth birthday, snapping the neck of an innocent human, then biting down into his flesh and sucking every ounce of blood from his veins.
“I’m not hiding,” Juliet replied meekly. “I just needed to be alone with my thoughts for a moment.”
Three young women, all around Juliet’s age, passed by, giggling like they did not have a care in the world. Juliet watched as her father’s red eyes tracked the girls. Lord Capulet’s mouth broke into a wide grin, causing Juliet to shudder.
