Read Sleeping Beauty for Free Online Page A

ago that she was no beauty, in spite of how her parents insisted she’d grow into her strong features someday. “I came here to learn how to fight! How to slay! How to defend myself.” She couldn’t tell her teacher why it was so important, but she wanted to—desperately.
    â€œ Lucy.” Her teacher’s voice was sharp. “We leave the slaying to the boys. It’s not our job. Not only is it highly undignified and unfeminine, but ladies lack the strength and agility to slay vampires—not to
mention the courage of spirit.” She shook her head as if Lucette were a child learning the most basic lesson. “Vampires can sense emotions. They feed off your fear.”
    â€œBoys don’t get scared?”
    Miss Eleanor sighed. “Boys learn to mask their fear.”
    â€œAnd girls don’t get scared when they’re acting all sexy to lure vampires into traps?” Eventually her teacher would admit to the holes in her logic.
    â€œLust is a powerful force, Lucy. It clouds a vampire’s judgment. They don’t have higher reasoning powers to help them overcome their animal instincts, as we humans do.”
    â€œHow do you know? Have you ever met a vampire?” Lucette sensed it might not be smart to admit that she had met one—not right now, anyway. “And why do we need to flirt to draw the vampires into traps? I mean, if vampires are so thirsty for human blood, isn’t the fact we’ve got it running through our veins enough to lure them?”
    Miss Eleanor’s cheeks reddened and she smoothed her skirt with her hands. “Lucy, if you’re not here to learn, you can leave my class right now. I will not tolerate this insubordination. You girls are training to play vital roles in the slayer army, and if you want to stay, you must learn to follow orders.”
    A member of the slayer army? Ha! Lucette narrowed her eyes. This school wasn’t training the girls to be slayers—it was training them to be bait.
    Her mother was going to hear about this.

    The next Friday night, Lucette glared at her father as she sat opposite him in his office waiting for the scolding she knew was coming. How could he have expected her to be nice to those boys?
    She shifted her glare down to her dress—the lace, the frills, and the way-too-low neckline—and crossed her arms over her chest, disgusted by the hideous pink nightmare with its itchy crinoline. Girls with small breasts and no hips shouldn’t wear dresses cut like this. She felt humiliated. Tonight had been worse than her classes at the academy. And those had gotten harder to bear since she’d learned her mother wouldn’t interfere with the school’s curriculum, claiming it would threaten Lucette’s secret identity.
    â€œLucette,” her father said, “stop fidgeting. When you sit still, you look lovely in that dress.”
    â€œI do not.” She slumped back. “I look freaky enough in my normal clothes, but this dress is frilly—and pink! I hate pink!” She grabbed a handful of the offending fabric and tugged.
    â€œWell, I think it quite becomes you,” he said. “And from what I saw and heard, all the boys you met tonight agreed with me.” He set his face into what looked like a forced smile. “Every last one of them has asked me for permission to court you.”
    She clenched her fists and fought the urge to shout, still barely believing her father had paraded her in front of all those boys as if she were some prize to be won. “Dad, I’m only thirteen.”
    Her father leaned forward from his chair. “Don’t you like boys?”
    â€œNo. No, I don’t. They’re smelly and pimply and boring.” And the ones at her school could train to be real slayers, while she couldn’t. It wasn’t fair and she planned to take out her frustration on every single member of the male gender.

    â€œLucette,