by Ana Calin
“I’m not sure, I don’t think so. That kind of risk was something I expected. My father taught me to live with that early on. But I did miss the love my mother gave and took. I wasn’t very good at expressing it, mostly I’d just sit there, in the same room with her, and it would be enough. When she died, love died with her.”
“That sounds heartbreaking.”
“Heartbreaking? Isolde, I was trained to control and even kill my emotions early on in my life, especially to avoid heartbreak. As an assassin, I needed to stay focused. I think people with rich emotional lives are far more exposed to heartbreak than me. No offense, but look at you.”
I laugh.
“I guess you’re right. So, you have centuries of experience in controlling and killing your emotions. Which is why the love potion doesn’t have an effect on you.”
He nods as if it’s nothing, and sips from his whiskey.
I stroke my own glass absentmindedly, staring at him. Such a heartbreaking sight indeed—a vampire assassin prince, beautiful as ice, an emotional amputee. Such a waste.
“You’re missing out,” I say. “Emotion may hurt, but it also gives you unparalleled highs. I for one enjoy it, even if it’s painful. I saw a documentary once that said that, for the divine highs emotion gives us, we accept its abysmal lows. That pretty much sums up how I feel.”
“Wait a minute.” He leans in, the whiskey between his hands, his shirt sleeves rolled up to reveal white and muscular forearms. “You want to fall in love?”
“Let’s say I wouldn’t mind terribly.”
As I stare at his puzzled face, a pleasant thought comes to me. Sitting at this small table by the terrace overlooking the old forgotten harbor, I’m living a romantic evening for the first time in many years. A romantic evening with a beautiful vampire, his white shirt open, his legs apart as he relaxes in his chair opposite from me, resting his glass loosely on one knee.
“I don’t think I’d like to reciprocate those feelings,” he says.
My cheek twitches, but I manage to repress other signs of disappointment.
“Still, Isolde, I do like you, I even feel for you. I assure you that I’ll do even the impossible to see you free of the serpent, and make sure he doesn’t touch you again until I do. But in order to do that—”
He sips, and I do the same.
“I need to know how it even came to a marriage between the two of you.”
Tristan
THREE YEARS AGO ISOLDE Jochs travelled from Berlin to Romania to attend the wedding of her sister Juliet to Radek, Prince of Midnight. Three days later, she attended Lord Dracula’s wedding to her adoptive niece, Lady Ruxandra.
Radek and Juliet had been together for a long time by then, and had been married in secret, because a big wedding would have exposed their location to Dracula. But, years later, Dracula fell in love with their adoptive daughter, and the two brothers went from enemies to friends for good. And they had a sort of double wedding.
That was also the moment when Isolde’s life turned around. At the time she ran her own nursing home for the elderly in Berlin, which she considered her life’s work. She’d been a nurse for the elderly for over fifteen years, she had the experience, the knowledge and the heart.
But when she came to Dracula’s country, two things happened to her. One, she fell in love with the wild, unspoiled nature. Two, the miserable conditions in which the elderly lived, in decaying houses and ailing, hurting bodies, came as a hard blow to her sensitive nature. It also came as an opportunity to take her work to new levels, and feel like she was making a real contribution to the greater good.
After the weddings, when the happy couples went on their respective honeymoons, Isolde took a tour of the country. For some reason, this dismal coastal town by the Black Sea had a special pull on her. There was something magical about the sea, and the town itself had a vibe of mystery that Isolde just had to explore. She decided to move here for good.
She set up her nursing home here, using grants from the European Union. She gathered people from the streets, and gave them shelter, food and medical assistance.
Her heart warmed up to one of these people in particular—an elderly man by the name of Ruben Parvan. He was a former priest, and still did God’s work among the old people in Isolde’s nursing home. But Father Ruben also had a secret, something he had discovered while serving as a priest in a village, high in the Western Mountains. It had been a time of almost complete isolation for him, because the small village stood atop a mountain, and there were no roads that led there. One had to walk through the woods, up the slope. In winter, the village was completely cut off from the world.
It was Ruben Parvan that Mark Serpaint wanted, and the secret that he’d discovered in the solitude of his church that had been set up in a small cave.
“I learned a lot from Father Ruben in all the time we spent together,” Isolde says, her melancholy eyes on the third glass of whiskey she cradles in her lap. “He introduced me to a life of inner peace. I never loved myself more than I did during the time he was here. Everything I did, I did it from a place of happy feminine energy. Everything was right and well. Soon Father Ruben became a great advisor to me, the angel on my right shoulder, and people were happy in my home, even though it could get overcrowded and less than comfortable.”
She keeps her head down all through the story. I can only see her white forehead that expresses pain despite being so smooth, her hair falling in waves of chocolate to her waist. Watching her sit there, thin and delicate behind her satin bathrobe, it strikes me—this girl is a vision of feminine kindness. I can smell the sweetness of her soul.
It was the expression ‘feminine energy’ that opened a new door for me, making me see her in a new way. The more I look at her and listen to her, the more I like her, I genuinely do. I don’t think I’ve met anyone so inherently good before.
“But soon we were out of money,” she continues, unaware of how I’m studying her. “The European Union gave and gave, but at a certain point we had to develop some kind of profitable system that would help us support ourselves. The system that we’d presented as we got the grant just wasn’t working—don’t ask me the details of that, I’m not the one who worked out that system. Anyway, the whole idea behind the funding programs is that the businesses and institutions become self-reliant eventually. And, of course, they’re perfectly right. I was already grateful that they’d helped so far.
“So I started looking for sponsors, benefactors, not only to give us money, but also to help us develop a system to sustain ourselves financially. Then, one day, Mark answered my social media posts, and asked that we met in Bucharest. He told me the hotel he’d be at, but he also asked that I brought Ruben Parvan with me. I forgot to mention that Father Ruben was well known among the church-going Christians in this country, many sought him for advice. Some even considered him to be a saint. He had this terrific aura that sent people away feeling light, and happy. When his visitors left, they somehow appeared to be twenty or thirty years younger, even if you couldn’t quite put your finger on what it was that had changed.
“Father Ruben agreed to come to Bucharest. He was innocent about it, like a child, even looking forward to it. He waited in the hotel room while I met with Mark at the hotel restaurant first. I could tell that I made an impression on Mark from the start, the way he looked at me made me uncomfortable. I fidgeted with my legs under the table as he ogled me. Then he asked me to bring Father Ruben to his room.”
She shudders, her hands clamping harder on the glass of whiskey. Her whole body seems to shrink from the tension.
“We were shocked to find him wearing only an open floral silk bathrobe, boxer shorts underneath. It looked like he was a expecting a sex date or something. The Father wanted to leave immediately, but then snakes started crawling in from under the door, the bed, from the bathroom, even from behind the mirror. The Father was cornered, his eyes darting left and right, seeking a way out. I can’t begin to describe
the sense of guilt that washed over me. We had been drawn into a trap, and it was all my fault that we’d fallen into it, because I’d been greedy. That’s what I had been, in a way. While the serpents closed in on the sweet old man, Mark urged him to give up his secret. He said it would save his life, and mine.”
“What was the secret that Mark wanted, Isolde,” I put in softly. “I need to know, in order to help you. You need to tell me everything, don’t hold back.”
Maybe that love potion is having an effect on me after all, but it’s not the usual lovey-dovey effect. I feel affection, and a powerful need protect her.
She tries to talk, but she fails, lowering her face, hiding it from me. But I know she’s crying.
An impulse sends me leaning forward over the table, touching her under her chin. It feels so small and fragile against my finger.... And when she looks up at me out of those melancholy blue eyes, swimming with tears, my heart sinks.
“What is it that Mark so desperately wants, Isolde? Tell me, so that I can use it against him, and then kill him, be done with his reign of terror over you once and for all.”
“The secret of human immortality, Tristan. Father Ruben held the key to human immortality.”
CHAPTER IV – The Secret
Tristan
“FATHER RUBEN HELD THE key to human Immortality,” Isolde says, “and Mark wanted it.”
“But why would Mark Serpaint even be interested in that? As a serpent shifter he is already immortal.”
“Yes, but the secret of immortality being out there for humans to one day discover and use is dangerous to him. Serpents don’t want humans to discover their true potential, because that would mean a lot of lost advantages for supernaturals. Plus that a lot of industries they run would die, and humans would become self-sufficient, no longer serving them, acting as their slaves, encaged in false, fabricated limits.”
“What happened next?”
She swallows hard, fighting her way through the memory. “The snakes avoided me, going only for the Father, so I attacked Mark. He threw me on the bed, and he—” She bites her lip and shakes her head, as if she can’t bear to say the words. “I let him take me,” she manages, “distracting him until the Father escaped. Busy with me, Mark forgot to steer his snakes, and Father Ruben had something to work with.”
Her face distorts as if she’s sick to her stomach. She puts a hand to her head, her chin trembling.
“I’m so ashamed,” she says among tears.
I get off my chair and hunker down by her side, caressing her hair. It’s rich, full and silky, but that’s natural because of the serpent blood.
“It was his fault,” I whisper in her ear. “You’re innocent, Isolde, pure as a fairy, he is the villain, he should be ashamed.”
She slaps her hands over her face, her shoulders shaking as she cries. The impossible happens—my mind shuts down, and my instincts take over. I wrap my arms around her, pulling her up from the chair, and holding her tightly at my chest, wanting badly to heal her.
Her arms go around my waist, under the sides of my shirt, her tears touching the naked skin on my chest. I’ll be damned... Her silky chocolate hair brushing my forearms, her scent of flower and youth, that sweet scent that I’m sure comes from her soul, it’s like a cocktail of sensations pouring down my throat. I crave something right now, but I don’t even know what. I hold Isolde tighter, my hand sliding through her hair in slow caresses.
I look out at the harbor, starlight reflecting against the sea waves, the salty breeze infusing the air as I hold this exquisite creature against my body. Then her perky breasts push against my chest, and I jolt out of the drugged reverie. I grip her shoulders and take a bit of distance. It was unintended, I can see it in her face. She’s distracted, sunken in the memory of that bastard’s abuse, oblivious to what her closeness is doing to me.
“You should be proud of yourself. Father Ruben escaped thanks to your sacrifice.”
“Yes, but that sacrifice will count for nothing, because Mark will eventually find him. With your help, that will happen sooner rather than later.”
“I’ll make sure the Father escapes safe and sound after he surrenders his secret.”
“Which won’t make my life any easier with Mark, if I’m not free of him by then. He keeps doing things to me that, that—” She chokes on her words, bursting into tears. I hold her tightly.
“Oh, sweet child.” The words escape my mouth before I realize it.
She looks at me astonished. Of course, those words coming from my own young mouth sound strange. She forgets I’m two hundred years her senior. But the emotion that this tortured angel brings out in me is irresistible.
Sounds outside draw my attention.
I whip around to face the door, shielding Isolde behind me just before the door bursts open. Fuck, this never happened before. Being so taken with someone that all my senses are focused on that person instead of looking out for danger. Emotion. I was taken with emotion.
“I’m looking for Mrs. Serpaint,” the guard who barged in says.
I spread my arms, shielding Isolde even better.
“Do I look like her, or what?” I can only hope to distract him from the two empty glasses on the table.
He leans to the side, frowning at the open window. He activates his transmission device and takes it to his mouth.
“She might have escaped through the window. Check the garden, and send a few guys to the promenade. Over.”
He hits the button, and looks me up and down one more time. I glare back, and he decides to leave, closing the door behind himself.
Isolde breathes out in relief, and I realize she’s about to faint. I turn around, catching her in my arms, and taking her quickly to the bed. I give her some water, and stroke her forehead.
“My God,” she whispers, grabbing my hand, her eyes wide and bloodshot with fear. “I’ve been gone too long, he noticed! What am I going to do, what am I going to tell him?” She trembles, her eyes darting everywhere around the room, looking for solutions. “He’ll punish me again.”
“No, he won’t.” My eyes become slits as solutions flash through my mind. “Okay, so he’s furious, wondering where you are. He knows you resent him, so you showing him the slightest bit of affection will take him by surprise and soften him.”
“Affection?” Her mouth twists in disgust.
“It will serve to distract him, and not insist on this. Now, you sure can think of all the places he could have been between the time when you left your room, and now. But look at it differently.” I cup her face, looking straight into her eyes, helping her focus. “Can you think of a place or two where he could certainly not have been?”
Her eyebrows quiver. “I don’t understand.”
“If there is a place you’re sure he didn’t go to, I’ll take you there, and you’ll do something to get discovered.”
She ponders. “The home cinema, he never has time for that, and he never goes to that room.”
“All right. Come on then.”
Isolde
TRISTAN’S VAMPIRE SENSES enable him to evade all guards as he takes me to the home cinema, using the terrace. We skulk around the villa hand in hand until we reach the home cinema’s dark windows—heavy dark velvet curtains cover them.
He lifts me up like I’m a feather, his arms like granite under my thighs as he cradles me. A rush spreads all over my body from my lower belly, being in such an intimate position with him.
Once I’m inside he jumps in, too, beginning to whisk my robe so fast his hands move like machines.
“What are you doing?”
“Drying you a little. Otherwise they’ll know you’ve been outside.”
It takes only a few minutes for Tristan to find a movie, slide it into the device, and fast-forward it.
“When they find you, pretend to be asleep on the couch. That will justify why they didn’t see you if they looked in here before—the movie was done, the screen had gone black, you’d fallen
asleep.”
“Tristan, the plan is brilliant, but it’s so unlike anything I’d ever do.”
“Exactly why you need to act sleepy and even a little affectionate with Mark. He’ll think you’ve started to accept your union, that you’re actually integrating it into your life.”
He looks one last time reassuringly into my eyes, taking my hands in his.
“I’ll get you out of this, Isolde, like I promised. But, until then, play along. It’s for your own good.”
We look long into each other’s eyes. I’m already clinging to him, but I haven’t felt so connected to someone, so secure, in a very long time.
“I have to go, in case they come looking in my room again. It’ll look suspicious if I’m not there.”
He turns to leave, but I squeeze his hand.
“Find me again soon. Please.”
Isolde
I PRETEND TO BE ASLEEP when the serpents find me. They go out of the room, then return with Mark. My skin creases when I hear his steps, then his breath close to my face. As a serpent shifter, Mark is very good at picking up pretense, so I let my eyes flutter open when I feel him.
This is it. From the instant our eyes meet, I have to make him feel that I’m actually glad to see him. I can think of only one way to do it—think of Tristan, who I’m clearly crushing on.
That is enough to quirk up one corner of my mouth, my eyelids moving up and down sleepily.
“There you are.” Jeez, even the tone of my voice is sweet as honey.
Mark’s long, livid face with the permanent film of slime on it seems to draw even longer. This is the first time I’ve seen Mark Serpaint express surprise. The bastard is usually prepared for anything.
No, don’t go there, Isolde. You need good thoughts, only good thoughts.
I sit up, looking around, squinting at the light, which helps with the pretense that I’ve just woken up.
“Where am I?” I whisper, then make a face as if I remember. “Oh. Yes.”