Meg Cabot - Insatiable

Children with cancer. Nice cover, for a bloodsucker.

The husband owned and managed numerous real estate holdings throughout the city and often escorted the wife to benefits, like ones for the cancer camp.

Vampires who attended benefits to raise money for summer camps for children…with cancer! Hilarious. Even more hilarious than Betty and Veronica.

Now, he’d told Martin, he’d seen everything.

Simone had grabbed the phone while Alaric had still been chuckling with her father over the benefit-attending vampires and said, “Uncle Alaric?”

“Yes, sweetheart?”

“Are you going to get the people who ate my daddy’s face?”

“Yes,” he’d said, sobering instantly. “Yes, I am.”

Just like he was going to get whatever had killed Aimee, Jennifer, and Hayley…or whatever the victims’ real names were.

Because that was what it was all about. If these Antonescus really were related to this Lucien Antonescu, and he really was the prince of darkness, Alaric was going to destroy them. All of them. He didn’t care what his superiors at the Vatican wanted or how much money the Antonescus had donated so that children with cancer could go to camp. They were still parasites-like ticks-that had to be exterminated for what they’d done to Martin. To that girl, Sarah, from the Chattanooga Walmart. To those unidentified dead women, lying in the morgue.

And to countless others like them whom Alaric had seen abused and victimized over his years with the Palatine. They had to be destroyed like the vermin that they were. Because they would only create more creatures like themselves, who would in turn victimize more people like Martin and Sarah and those girls.

Vampires were filth. And they spread their filth-and disease-to everything and everyone they touched.

They all had to be eradicated.

There wasn’t much more to it than that.

In the meantime, Alaric would stand there outside of 910 Park Avenue and wait. He didn’t care how many little old ladies walked by him and asked what he thought he was doing. He’d show them the pictures of Aimee, Jennifer, and Hayley if he had to.

And maybe, while he was at it, a photo of where Martin’s face used to be.

That would shut them up.

12:30 A.M. EST, Friday, April 16

910 Park Avenue, Apt. 11A

New York, New York

Mary Lou and her husband did an admirable job of making sure Meena’s wineglass was never lower than half full throughout the evening.

But Meena was careful to drink from it only sparingly. The last thing she wanted was to get plastered in front of people she had to see in the elevator every day…

Not to mention in front of the prince.

It wasn’t until Mary Lou was asking if anyone cared for coffee that she realized it was past midnight. Meena noticed her brother, Jon, looking surreptitiously at his watch. Apparently his dinner companion, Becca, hadn’t been able to take his mind off his celebrity crush, Taylor Mackenzie, which was no surprise. Few could.

“Oh,” Meena said with genuine regret. “I’m so sorry. I have to go. I have work in the morning. And I still have to get home and walk my dog.”

“I’ll do it.” Jon volunteered, hopping up from his place on the couch with a speed that Meena found a little embarrassing.

“I’ll join you, Meena, if you don’t mind some company,” Lucien said, setting down his wineglass. “I’d enjoy stretching my legs a bit after that delicious meal.”

Meena felt her cheeks turning red. She couldn’t believe she was blushing. That was something she hadn’t done in ages.

Until tonight, that is.

“I’d be delighted,” she said. She didn’t point out that Lucien had hardly touched a bit of that “delicious meal.” He’d said he still had a little jet lag.

Jon sank back down into his place. “Oh,” he said, struggling to hide his disappointment. “I guess you guys have it under control, then.”

Becca had taken out her cell phone and was scrolling through her applications, looking everywhere but in Jon’s direction.

“What a great idea,” Mary Lou said enthusiastically. “You two go out for a walk. It’s such a lovely night. Isn’t it a lovely night, Emil?”

“It’s a lovely night,” Emil said.

But Meena couldn’t help noticing he looked a little worried as he sent the maid to collect the prince’s overcoat.

“We’ll just go up the street,” Lucien was saying.

“Let me run and get Jack,” Meena said.

She slipped across the hall, aware that Jon had hastily made his good-byes and followed her, not seeming to care that his escape had been so awkward.

“What are you doing?” he asked when she’d unlocked the door and let them both into her apartment, then closed the door again behind them. “Are you actually into that guy or something?”

“Um, let me see,” Meena said. She plucked her coat off the rack by the door and slipped it on, cinching it tightly around her waist, while Jack Bauer, over the moon at seeing her, danced around her feet excitedly. “What’s not to like, exactly? His old-world manners, his dark good looks, or the fact that he’s way into me and is probably going to be the father of my children someday?”

Jon had slunk over to the couch and collapsed onto it. Now he lifted his head off one of Meena’s Pottery Barn throw pillows and stared at her. “I thought you didn’t want kids,” he said, “’cause you don’t want to be the worst, most smothering mother in the world, always following them around with Bubble Wrap and needles filled with adrenaline.”

“Fine,” Meena said with a sniff. “That was a figure of speech. I don’t really want to have his children. Seriously, though. What do you think of him?”

“He’s all right, I guess,” Jon said, leaning his head back down and picking up the remote. “If you like the brooding, mysterious type.”

“Honestly.” Meena took Jack Bauer’s leash off the hook on the wall and clipped it to his collar as he jumped around. “You have to get off that couch more, Jon. Lucien Antonescu is the perfect guy.”

“I’m just saying,” Jon said, flicking on the TV. “Don’t blame me if he tries to ravish you in a dark doorway.”

“I should be so lucky,” Meena said. “And you could have been a little nicer to Becca. She seemed really sweet.”

Jon looked confused. “I thought her name was Becky.”

Meena rolled her eyes. “If I’m not back in an hour, don’t wait up,” she said.

“Practice safe sex,” Jon called after her.

Meena threw him a disgusted look over her shoulder.

“Remember our conversation approximately five seconds ago regarding my not wanting to ruin the lives of any future progeny with my constant harping on their impending deaths? I never have anything but safe sex.”

“Good,” Jon said, and turned up the volume of Top Gear. “Because I’m too young to be an uncle.”

Meena turned away with another eye roll…although at the last minute she grabbed her other purse-the big one that had the stash of condoms in it left over from her ill-fated date with the high-cholesterol guy, which had of course been wishful thinking on her part-and left the apartment.

It never hurt, she supposed, to be extra careful. And prepared. Even though nothing was going to happen, of course. He was a prince! Princes didn’t do things like that. Not on the first date.

Lucien was waiting alone for her in the hallway, looking exactly as Jon had described him…brooding and mysterious. Meena’s heart skipped a beat at the sight of him.

“Hi,” she said, feeling suddenly shy. Okay. What was she doing?

“Hello,” he said.

His gaze seemed to penetrate straight through her. Those dark eyes didn’t seem so sad anymore. She was convinced now that he knew not only that she’d grabbed her purse that had condoms in it, but that he knew exactly what she looked like without her dress on.