some of these words are in Italian if you want to translate them back to English go to dictionary.com translator
Back cover
My name is Allera Orgoglio. My last name means Pride in Italian. My first name doesn’t really mean anything, but I’m named after the Russian god Allera. My eldest sister, Verona, is named for a city in Italy. My next eldest sister’s name, Marishka, means sea of bitterness in Hungarian, which I think fits her perfectly. Then, there’s me, and then my youngest sister, Neovora. Her name doesn’t mean anything at all, but mom just thought her last girl should have a pretty, elegant name. If we met on the street, you wouldn’t believe I was one of the Orgoglio princesses of the underworld. Then again, I could still barely wrap my head around it after growing up sitting in day long consiglio meetings with my parents and sisters, and private study sessions with the consiglio’s children- the most elite kids in the underworld- after 16 years, so I tend to keep that to myself. Then there’s this thing called il segnato ceremony, that only the seven royal families can be in, where the new ruling couple is chosen by il marchio appearing somewhere on their body, and of course bondage of the couple is mandatory, whether you want to or not. I didn’t sign up for this, I don’t want to even be a queen, but when il marchio appears, it’s impossible to hide it.
And you thought your life bites
Chapter 1
The Meeting
“Oooh I’m SOOO EXCITED!” Neovora screeched happily bouncing up and down. “Calm down Nene,” Marishka sighed staring at her nails. “Oh Mari, you’re so boring.” Nene muttered jumping on Mari’s bed and sitting next to her. Mari pushed her off. “No you’re just too hyper, it’s only a meeting.” She muttered glancing out our huge window at the dark sky of smog. “ONLY A MEETING?” Nene screamed picking up a pillow that had fallen on the floor during her earlier bed hopping. “It’s only the most important meeting of our LIVES!” she said hitting Mari with the pillow. “Nene calm down! Someone might hear you!” Verona hissed from her reading perch above us. “How can I when Mari’s being so STUPID” she said lowering her voice to a hissing whisper. “Stupid? I’M being stupid? You’re the one jumping around, EXCITED about this. I mean who wants to be segnato anyway? It just means that you have to get bonded to dude you don’t even know and rule over the underworld, dealing with everyone’s problems and complaints, ick.” She said scrunching up her nose.
“Mari!” Verona gasped. “I’m just saying, it just doesn’t sound so cool anymore, now that we’ve gotten past the ordering people around, and onto the arranged marriage.” She said sitting up. Verona sat up too and jumped down her wigs expanding and catching the draft before she hit the ground. “How could you say that Mari? Being the empress of the underworld was our dream when we were little. And it is always an honor for our family to have a queen in our bloodline.” Ver said, her feet gently touching the floor. “I just hope your queen Ver, because I think I would run away if I was chosen. No fricken way am I gonna be a queen.” She said crossing her legs.
“You mean run away from your duty like dad did?” I snapped. Everyone looked at me in shock; sadness carved into their faces. “How could you say that Alle?” Nene whispered, her eyes filling. I kept my gaze level, but on the inside I was holding back tears. I never liked to make Nene cry, and I knew that what I had said was out of line, but they had all been thinking it too. “She’s right,” Ver said in a wavering voice. She was always the strong mature one, she had to be, she was the eldest. “But she didn’t need to say it,” Mari snarled getting up and wrapping her arms around Nene’s shoulders, glaring balefully at me. “Why? We were all thinking it; someone had to say it out loud. And we can’t keep pretending it didn’t happen.” I said defensively. Mari stayed silent but continued to glare.
“Mari you know she’s right, get over your pride and accept it.” Ver said. “No, that’s why our last name means pride in Italian, we have too much of it to get over it easily.” Mari muttered. “You just don’t want anyone to know that you’re not perfect!” I yelled my anger kindling. “Alle!” Ver gasped. “That’s not TRUE!” Mari yelled back. “You’re scared mom won’t love you as much if you’re not one of the ‘perfect Orgoglio girls’.” Her wings snapped open and she bared her fangs at me. “EVERYONE has to go through that! I’m not the only one! You with your emo poetry! And Nene with her being happy all the time to cover up her other emotions! And Ver being stiff and not showing any emotions at all!” “And you with your rage!” I screamed back.
Nene stopped crying and looked between us in astonishment. “No, no, don’t fight!” she said in a desperate voice. “SHUT UP!” we screamed together. “You’re such a CRY BABY!” Mari yelled. “And you’re spoiled. Just ‘because you’re the youngest and you can bat your dark eyelashes at mom and get anything you want doesn’t mean it’ll work on us!” I said. Her eyes started filling again. “If I remember correctly, you guys were the ones who taught me to bat my eyelashes.” She whispered closing her eyes and turning her head away from us. Her wings snapped open and she ran away from us and towards the door. Leaping into the air she soared out of the room and out of sight.
We all stared after her in shock. “Great, now look what you did.” I muttered. “What I did?!?” Mari growled looking at me. “You’re the one who started this!” “But you…” “SHUT UP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” Ver yelled at the top of her lungs, her wings still extended. “Mari! Get out.” She snarled. “But,” “NOW!” Ver yelled pointing to the door. “Go find Nene.” She ordered. Mari turned sullenly towards the door, her wings drooping.
“YOU!” Ver said after Mari had lifted off the floor and flown down the hall where Nene had disappeared. I looked at her, my eyes wide. “WHAT IS YOUR PROBLEM?” she snapped. I flinched. It was almost impossible to get Ver angry, and when you did it took a while to calm her down. “First you make Nene cry, then you piss off Mari, then you BOTH make Nene cry…what’s wrong with you?!” she said her big amethyst eyes boring into me. I stayed silent, waiting for her to continue ranting. “ANSWER ME!” she screamed. I jumped. “W….well…um…I’m just stressed, and irritated.” I said quietly, my eyes downcast. “We’re all stressed, we’re all irritated. Mom’s cool is hanging by a breaking thread. I mean have you heard of what they’re saying about dad? We can’t go anywhere without everyone turning to stare at us and whispering. She’s falling apart. Mari’s more irritable than ever. Nene’s miserable. She doesn’t even sing anymore. You’re getting meaner, saying nasty things to people that you have no business saying.” She muttered running a hand through her curly orchid hair nervously. “And I’m….I’m absolutely getting crushed with the responsibility mom’s putting on me. ‘Is Vera here? Well go get her please I need to talk to her about something.’ ‘Verona, my darling, can you please go check on my roast in the kitchen, I’m getting hungry.’ ‘Are the Lussurias’ here yet? Well go greet them please and show them to the sitting room would you?’.” Ver said impersonating mom’s voice. When her voice was her own again she snorted with an annoyed expression on her face. “Why can’t she do her own errands? She has legs. Just because dad left doesn’t mean that she can to completely shut down. I mean he was our dad, but do you see us sulking around in his study, crying over photos of their bonding ceremony?” she fell backwards onto her bed, sinking into her comforter and pillows.
“Why does it have to be me? I’m just a kid. Why can’t she let me be a kid?” she groaned rolling onto her stomach and burying her face into the comforter. “Like I said before, we’re princesses, we’re supposed to be able to deal with extreme stress, it’s in our blood or something.” I murmured sitting next to her and rubbing her back in between her now folded leathery wings just the way she liked it. “But it isn’t FAIR! Why can’t we just be kids, instead of the little perfect adults everyone expects us to be? And you know what’s crazy? They were in the same exact position we’re in right now. They probably said what we’re saying too. That they’d never be like their parents. But then here they are, 20 years later, doing exactly what they said they wouldn’t.” she muttered. I didn’t have anything to say to that, because it was absolutely true.
“Allera?” she asked after a moment of silence, rolling onto her side to look at me. “Yeah?” I asked warily, Ver had tears in her eyes, she almost never cried. “Do you ever think sometimes, that you don’t…that you don’t want to be a princess anymore?” she asked, looking at me with wide desperate eyes, silently begging me to tell her she wasn’t alone in her doubtful thinking. “Yeah, all the time.” I whispered. She visibly relaxed.
“But you know what Ver? I think it all turns out to be worth it…all the pinchy shoes, all the etiquette classes, the council meetings. Cause we’re happy like this. Our family is together, and we learn and do things that regular down worlders don’t. And you know you love being able to eat anything you want at anytime and not having to cook it yourself.” I smiled and she grinned back. “You know it.” She said whipping away her tears with the back of her hand.
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