The Half-Blood Princess by Mihaela Bogdan (best books to read for self improvement TXT) 📖

we normal people have. I mean, you are normal, I am half of each world.
  Grandpa Daniel and I began eating the delicious chocolate cake in silence. My mind was still thinking about father and his unnatural powers. ”I wonder, can I do what he does?!” VI/6

Grandpa went to his bedroom and I did the same. Tomorrow, me and father will meet in the library again to study about vampires and half vampires.
  Until morning I had a bad sleep, being excited and scared at the same time. Grandpa Daniel served me breakfast in the morning, but father wasn’t in the kitchen, he must be having a glass of blood in the library from my guessing.
  I helped grandpa Daniel with the dishes and went to the library. Father was sitting in the same armchair as last night. He had three books on his lap. The minute I sat in front of him, he put them on the coffee table and asked me to read the titles from left to right:
  -”The history of vampires” ; ”The first half vampire” ; ”Vampires and half vampires: enemies or allies?”.
  -Start reading the first book on your left Valentina! It is the important one. After he said this he left me alone in the library.
  The book had almost one thousand pages but in ten days I managed to read it all. The writing was easy to understand and very explicit about the past and life of vampires. It is said that The Devil itself created the first vampire, in order to punish the sinners on the earth. Soon more people were transformed into vampires by the first one with just a small bite of his sharp fangs on their necks. Of course, the vampire wanted only their blood and didn’t expect this result. In order to consume human blood without making them vampires, the humans must be killed first.
  I have also learned how to make the difference between humans and vampires. It is easy because vampires are immortals, if they drink human blood their youth extends, they have red eyes and sharp fangs, for an amount of time they can levitate, the mirrors don’t show their reflections, they have telekinetic abilities and can control the forces of nature, such as fire or lightning, as father said to me the previous night. And they have only two weaknesses: the sun light and garlic. The sun light makes their skin to burn and turn into ashes, if they don’t go into shady places. And the smell of garlic makes them suffocate. Despite people’s believes, vampires can also breathe.
  For an unknown reason, the mortals think vampires don’t have pulses. This idea is wrong because being immortal, a vampire’s heart continues to beat.
  This information will be useful some day, if I ever meet other vampires besides father. After telling father what I have learned, he told me to begin the next one. The second book fascinated me more because I was a half vampire myself.
  Soon my excitement disappeared. The half vampires were considered inferiors from the normal vampires because one of their parents was a mortal human being; reason why the vampires tried killing the half ones to keep their kind pure. One hundred years ago, a half vampire called Dragomir became a normal vampire after drinking the blood of his dead wife, whom was mysteriously killed. Half vampires have some things in common with pure vampires: the immortality, levitation abilities and are weak to the smell of garlic.
  There are many differences between the two kinds: half vampires don’t have red eyes, nor fangs, their reflection is transparent instead of invisible, they can live under the sun’s light, they don’t drink any kind of blood. If they do consume just a little drop of blood they became pure vampires. Some of them prefer to live as normal human beings, but most of them became vampires because of the persecutions and the mean names they get from other humans or vampires such as ”hybrids”. This word is an insult meaning that your parents came from different worlds and you are a mixture between them; not being pure because you are not neither one nor the other. And that means you have been born impure. When I found out about this I began to cry because the hybrids weren’t accepted in neither of the parents worlds nor families.
  Father didn’t bothered to ask me what I have read this time, knowing how I felt after finding out how cruel the half vampires are treated by everybody. He just said that Dragomir, once a half vampire himself, was his best friend since they were children.
  -What?! How could that be? He must have at least one hundred and a few years old! I said with amazement.
  -Immortality tricks death; father said calmly. Remember what you learned these days, it will come in handy for the rest of your life.
  -Yes father! I was ashamed that I forgot to think before opening my big fat mouth. ”Keep in mind Valentina: first you think, then you can speak!” I said to myself.
  -If you would like, I can write to Dragomir to come here in our castle for a few days. Besides what you know from books, I want you to socialize with another vampire, maybe he will tell you what was it like being a half vampire and how he managed to change.
  -Of course. Hearing it from a former half vampire, I will know how to deal with those who will persecute me for not being pure. If you ask me, it is a stupid motivation to persecute someone for this reason. And the humans seemed pretty ignorant, especially those living in villages.
  Being glad of my point of view, father asked grandpa Daniel to bring him paper, a pen and a black inkwell. He wrote a few lines and after finishing the letter, he told grandpa to go to the post office and deliver it. The nearest post office was in the small town outside The Black Forest that surrounds the castle.
  -Father, can I please go with grandpa? I’m curious to see the town.
  -Fine, you may go. Just keep in mind that those people are not to be trusted, especially if they know that there are vampires nearby. I have never seen this much selfishness, vanity, envy and other sins on this earth than the ones living in those people’s hearts. Even the priest is a sinner. You must not trust what they say or do or anything you see!
  -Yes, father. I understand.
  -Have no worry, Master Dracula. I will teach Miss Valentina how to deal with those people; grandpa said as if I was a little girl who doesn’t know how to behave.
  It is true that my behavior is a little rebellious and childish most of the time, but I am doing my best to behave like a princess. When I was a child, in my former village, I have known a rich girl who was always bragging about how better she was from the rest because of her father’s wealth. The only good thing about her attitude is that I managed to learn how to act all elegantly and girly, without even trying too hard. My mother was proud, but she also said that if I wanted to be respected I must be myself all the time.

VII/7

Before going into town, I put on a light red dress with petal shaped sleeves and with a small rift in front. The dress had white laces and it was reaching my knees. The shoes were also red with white flower buckles on them. I tied my hair into a ponytail, leaving my bangs fall freely on my forehead and two wavy hair strands covering my ears. Around the neck I put on a white pearl necklace. Grandpa Daniel was dressed in a beige suit with white shoes and shirt. Around his neck he had a yellow bow and a straw hat on his head.
  We both dressed this way in order not to attract attention upon us. Nobody must know where we come from or what we are. Grandpa is a normal human so he has no worries, I am the one who should be careful how to act or talk without getting into trouble.
  After we left the castle, grandpa Daniel showed me a secret path connecting the castle’s huge gate with the entering course into town through the whole forest. It took us about ten minutes to cross the forest into town.
  -Master Dracula made this path for me the day he hired me as his butler. This way no animal or other creature that hides in The Black Forest can’t harm me. But this path must remain a secret, it must be known only by the inhabitants of the castle.
  -Don’t worry grandpa, I’m not naive. You must get up real early in the morning to fool this girl! I said with a cocky grin.
  -Very good then, Miss Valentina! Grandpa laughed.
  The small town was pretty compared to my old village, where me and mother used to live. It was composed of farms, an old looking school building and a scary church that had an old priest with a rude face. And besides these buildings, many houses were painted in all the colors you can think of, making you feel like in a fairy tale. In order to reach the post office we needed to go through a shopping area, which contained endless shops with clothes, food, books, jewelry and other good looking merchandise. As we were walking I heard a female voice behind us talking:
  -That young woman looks much like that eccentric rich old man, living in the castle.
  Another woman replied:
  -I didn’t know he had any heirs. Maybe she’s his new wife, trying to get his wealth. His first wife was young too, but didn’t saw her for quite a long time.
  Just then I got angry because those two women had no right to talk untrue things about me and father. So I approached them and said loud and clear:
  -Excuse, me. I am the only child of that ‘eccentric rich old man’ as you called him.