The Vampire Prince graduates High School (Book 3)

What's the Rush?

Once the break was over, there was no time to lose. While Violet was under house rest, the public hadn't been told yet. I was sure Lady Hargrave would 'accidentally' reveal the truth sooner or later. Noah was hard at work trying to find the real culprit. He was still appearing in public with King Lionel, but most of his time was focused on finding the truth.

There were so many things to keep track of.

Cassidy's mom and the other ambassadors were treated with an antidote Dr. Daniels had derived from Alexander's blood. There was little progress, but it was just a matter of time. I heard last that the ambassadors were working from home under heavy guard unless they were attacked again.

I think they were safe for now. Lady Hargrave had sent a powerful message. She wouldn't resort to the same trick twice.

If our trap was going to work, we needed to catch her off guard. We needed to set the ceremony up without notifying her of what we were up to. The only ones I thought of were Brissa, Amber, and Sandra. Despite my hesitation, they were happy to help me plan my 'debut,' as they called it.

The day after I sent Sandra to collect the catalog book from Royal Prints, she showed it to me during lunch.

"We need to make it fancy," I said between sandwich bites. "It needs to garner a lot of attention. Have the fan club make a big deal online."

"Venue," Amber said, reading off the checklist. "Has the be the palace. So, check."

"What about the time and date?" Brissa asked.

I bit my lip. Alexander and I had yet to decide. Plus, not even my parents or Alexander's parents knew.

"Three months," I whispered. "We need to make it happen in three months."

The girls looked at each other.

"Are you sure?" Sandra asked.

"It has to," I said. "We're almost graduating, and three months probably won't give You-Know-Who time to plan anything."

"So, we need to combine the announcement and engagement ceremonies into one, right?" Sandra asked. She stabbed at her baked potato.

"I thought they were the same thing?" Amber asked.

I sighed. "We'll they are but aren't. Like the announcement ceremony, you tell people your plans. The engagement is where you celebrate actually going through with it. So, yes? We're combining it."

"Has anything been printed?" Brissa asked.

"No," I replied. "I checked with Miss Melanie. After everything that happened, we put everything on hold."

"It worked in our favor," Amber said. "So, three months from now. On Saturday at 7 pm. So, let's edit the invitations and start making the guest list."

"It was to be huge," I added. "It needs to be a big audience. Nobles and reporters should attend too. Friends and family."

"I can get that from Alexander," I told them. I bit my lip. "Sorry. We've done this already, and it's like I'm back to square one."

"Don't worry about it," Brissa said. "We wouldn't do this if we didn't want to. Besides, the beginning steps are mostly going through what we already have. It doesn't hurt to double-check. Nothing is changing except the location and the guest list."

"And everything else needs to change too if we need to make it fancy," Sandra added.

I rubbed my eyes. "Don't remind me. I'll choose everything today and send it to you later," I told Sandra.