Sorry,' Schuyler said, grabbing a textbook and moving aside. The courts found in their favor, and Charles had been named the executor of the estate, winning Schuyler as part of the package. In her last will and testament, Schuyler's grandmother had declared her an emancipated minor, but in a wily move, Charles Force's lawyers had contested its tenets in the Red Blood courts. The Code of the Vampires stipulated a strict adherence to human laws, to keep the Blue Bloods safe from unwanted scrutiny. No wonder Duchesne felt so welcoming lately.Įven though Lawrence Van Alen was now Regis, head of the Blue Bloods, he had been powerless to stop the adoption process. Or at least it only happened every few hours. At Duchesne, she didn't have to overhear Mimi grumbling about her every second of the day. No matter how out of place Schuyler felt at school, it was no comparison to the arctic freeze she weathered on a daily basis at the Forces' grand town house across from the Metropolitan Museum. Behind her stood Mimi Force, her new housemate. The bells signaling the start of the day were clanging wildly. She hadn't noticed that she'd been standing in a daze in front of her locker and the one above it. 'Are you going to move or do I have to do something

But those hopes were dashed when Charles Force took her away from the shabby brownstone on Riverside Drive, the only home Schuyler was one of the last.įor a while, Schuyler had hoped her grandfather's return from exile would change that - that Lawrence's presence in her life would mean she was no longer alone. The Van Alens, once a proud and prestigious clan, had shrunk and withered over the centuries, so that they were now practically extinct. Even if her family was one of the oldest and most illustrious names in the city's history, times had changed. All her life, her well-heeled classmates had treated her like a freak, an outcast - unwanted and untouchable. She had dreaded walking up the grand staircase, felt miserable in its inadequately heated classrooms, and even managed to despise the gorgeous terrazzo tiles in the refectory.Īt school Schuyler often felt ugly and invisible, although her deep-set blue eyes and delicate Dresden-doll features belied this. For so long, Duchesne, with its shiny marble floors and sweeping vistas of Central Park, had been nothing less than a torture chamber. It was odd to think of the school as a haven, an escape, a place she looked forward to going. She kept the hood of her fur-trimmed parka over her thick dark hair, preferring anonymity rather than the casual greetings exchanged by other students.

On early and bitterly cold morning in late March, Schuyler Van Alen let herself inside the glass doors of the Duchesne School, feeling relieved as she walked into the soaring barrel-ceiling entryway dominated by an imposing John Singer Sargent portrait of the school's founders.

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