by Ana Calin
I turn to writing on a normal piece of paper, this time just to clear my own head: Prince Radek wearing the vampire mask at night, his face under it clearly not the same face I saw during the day. I couldn’t tell Isolde on the pink slip of paper that I believe Prince Radek is actually the legendary Prince of Midnight, and that he has paranormal powers, even that he might be immortal.
One look into the prince’s face could infect people with a dreadful curse. DON’T look at me, he snarled last night. Well, one thing is certain—he doesn’t want to finish me through that curse, at least not yet. Could that be what he is doing with women in the end? He fucks them until he gets enough, then he kills them by allowing them one look into his hideous true face?
Could be. There could also be a pattern here. He seems to despise women who appreciate beauty. Is he some deranged serial killer that punishes women for shallow desires? Damn it, I should be scared as fuck of him. And yet, strangely, I’m not....
“But then why were you attracted to me, Radek?” I whisper to myself, still scribbling on the paper to keep my ideas from scattering. “I don’t fit the pattern. I kept my cool and defied you at the press conference despite your beauty.”
If this theory is true then, judging by how he provoked me last night, his purpose was to prove to me—or to himself—that I was as easily seduced by looks as most women.
And yet, I am different.
“You are?” his voice ripples over. I turn swiftly in my chair, finding him leaning against the doorframe, that beautiful ivory face with lips like dark red roses smiling seductively at me.
“You—” My voice cracks. I clear my throat, straightening my back. “You can see into my paper all the way from there?”
“I could see your name on your nametag at the conference, too, remember?”
He walks over, his svelte but powerful form elegant in his black outfit. I’m unable to take my eyes off his face as he stops by my side and picks up the paper.
My tangled handwriting doesn’t seem to pose the challenge to him that it does to others, his turbid blue irises moving flowingly from left to right. His hair like thick, glossy chestnut cream triggers a flash of last night’s corpse-like hair sliding between my fingers, and a shudder runs through me. I clear my throat again, my back stiffening.
“Radek, about last night—”
“You believe I’m a serial killer?” he interrupts, putting the paper down and sitting on the desk, facing me.
“Are you?”
He laughs, a bit of spite in it. “No. I’ve never killed a woman, rest assured.”
“You haven’t killed women? How about men?”
His turbid blue eyes stare hard into mine. “I’m a very old creature, Juliet. Back in my youth, killing other men was a way of living, the way of war. Life wasn’t as precious as it is today.”
Pressing my lips together, I nod. “I suppose.” I lean back in my chair, throwing my hands in the air. “Hell, how come I’m even taking this whole supernatural thing so well? Just a few days ago, I would have dismissed any believer as crazy, but now...” I look him up and down, taking in his beauty and thinking about the masked monster from last night. “I’m in awe, but not in shock. My mind hungers for answers though, there’s so much I’m dying to know.”
“Then start asking your questions.”
“I would, but I’m not even sure what I want to learn first. My logic is so starved for information and making sense of it that it doesn’t know what to grab first.”
Radek leans against the window frame, relaxing into the conversation. “Well, now that we got the serial killer issue out of the way, what would be your next most urgent question? I mean the one that scares you the most.”
Narrowing my eyes, I search his face. “What are you?”
“I am an immortal. Like you suspected.”
I nod slowly, chewing on this confirmation. Outwardly I’m calm, but a deeply buried part of me seems to awaken, screaming, ‘What the fuck!’
“I see,” I mutter. “But... How did you come to be? I mean, if you’re the Prince of Midnight, then the Prince of Blood, Dracula, is your brother, right?”
“Correct.”
‘Dracula? Are you fuckin’ serious??’
“So Dracula is real as well,” I conclude just as calmly. He doesn’t react, just keeps those murky blue eyes on me.
“I, er,” I lick my lips and look down, then back up, around the room, thinking of ways of asking my questions and coping with the answers. “So, if that is true, then how did you guys, I mean how did the two of you, brothers, come to exist? I mean, were you born like this?”
“In a way.”
“What do you mean in a way?”
He takes a deep breath and looks out through the crown glass, offering me his ivory profile with beautiful bone structure. His brow is strong, his eyebrows hooding his eyes like he’s always focused, intense, sharp. Like he’s always dangerous.
“I know that you’re familiar with quite a bit of our history, and even certain details that not everybody knows,” he says. “Vlad is more famous than me, so let us start with him. How much do you know about his childhood?”
I frown, summoning the info from my memory. “I know that your father initiated Vlad in the Order of the Dragon when he was only five years of age.”
“I’m impressed. You jumped right to the point where I wanted to bring you.”
“Yes, I figured. When I read about it I wondered about the effect this would have on the mind of a boy.”
“It affected not only our minds, but also our bodies. I was even younger than Vlad at the time.”
He stops talking and looks down, shaking his head, glossy strands of hair falling over his forehead. “I’m sorry. I thought I could talk about it after so much time, but no.”
My heart flutters and, before I know it, I’m reaching over and touching his white elegant fingers. Current goes through me when I feel the strength of that hand against mine. Appearances are treacherous, I realize once again. This may look like the hand of a piano-playing prince, but it’s actually the fist of a man who used to fight real wars. It’s a hand that fought in close combat, driving blade through flesh.
“I’m honored that you opened the subject with me.”
He keeps looking down, his beautiful skin shadowed by streaks of rain trickling down the windowpane. “I never tried talking about it before, I just always assumed I’d be able to do it if I tried.” He scoffs. “Now it’s like the events rested in the past for so long that they got buried too deep, and it’ll take hard work to dig them out.”
“Whenever you’re ready.” I give him a few moments and then, licking my lips, I wrap my hand softly around his and go on. “Radek, there’s one thing historical accounts hint at about you....”
“That I was sleeping with the sultan.”
“Wow. Can you read minds?”
“No. But I know what the historical accounts say. It’s pretty much the only spicy thing they have on me.” His eyes flash into mine, this time with defiant wickedness. “But my business was not with the sultan. It was with his harem.”
CHAPTER VIII
Juliet
“With his harem?”
“Yes. His harem is what kept me alive since I became a young man. Before that, as a child, I only fed by letting one human a month look me in the face. On full moon nights. One human was enough to keep me going for a whole month. But then I didn’t feel okay with what my powers did to people anymore.”
I keep looking at him, a thousand questions in my eyes.
“By the time our father sent us to the sultan’s court we’d already been initiated, Vlad and I. We were already—” He bites down on his lip. God, he’s so sexy he seems cursed with it. “Monsters. Vlad feeds off blood. I feed off something else. And the sultan’s harem, to which I gained access by disguising myself as a woman, was my only, let’s say, environment-friendly way of staying alive. Though not as efficient as having someone look me in the fa
ce, sex with those women fed my flesh. And I wasn’t killing anyone in the process.” He holds my gaze steadily. “The curse that infects humans who look me in the face eventually kills.”
Yeah, I figured that much. But right now I’m focused on another problem. Jealousy has awakened in the pit of my stomach, crackling through my veins like fire.
“So you’ve been feeding off sex for centuries. From the 1400s, to be exact. How many women have there been?”
“Wait, I need you to understand this, Juliet.” He takes my hand, our faces close to each other. “I feed off the thickness of humans’ blood, the vigor of their organs, the perfection of their genes. In a word, I feed off vital energy and youth. Both transfer from you to me through sex.”
My cheeks are burning—I can never be unique to him. He’s had so many women...
“So, you were barely out of your boyhood years, and you were already fucking a whole harem. Wouldn’t it have been easier to choose one and feed from her alone? Wouldn’t that have worked?”
He presses his lips together. “No. It would have eventually killed her.” It sounds like he’s almost sorry, but I’m not buying it. I snatch my hand from his clasp.
“What happens to those women after you’re done with them, prince?”
“You wish to hold me accountable?”
“I wish to know what will happen to me in the end. Because I’m pretty sure you have the same fate in store for me. I had an interesting chat at breakfast with your housekeeper, Miss Victoria. She mentioned other women, and she took special pleasure in letting me know that, when you’re done with me, I’ll be a hot mess.”
A glint of metal runs through the blue in his eyes like a blade through water. “Victoria told you that?”
“That and more.” Jealousy stings at me. I push myself off the chair and head to the other window, across from the bed, watching the dark clouds floating in the sky, rain hitting the pane. I can imagine pasty mud trapping cartwheels and horseshoes down in the market at the foot of the hill.
“I think she’s in love with you, Radek. And I think you know it.” I keep my eyes out the window as I say the words. “From my experience, in order for a woman to stay in love with a man, she has to harbor some kind of hope. Are you feeding that hope?”
The old medieval wood creaks as Radek gets off the desk, the floorboards whining under his feet as he walks over. He stops only inches behind me, his breath touching my hair, the warmth of his body reaching my skin even through my dress, his scent of wet leaves wafting to my nostrils. My eyelids feel heavy, and I’m blinking like a dreamy Marilyn Monroe. I keep staring out the window, determined not to fall under his spell this time.
“Let’s make a deal, okay?” his velvety voice ripples in my ear. “I will come visit you tonight. If anything you’ve learned about me so far—anything at all—disturbs you, you won’t have to put up with my touch. Like I said last night, nothing happens against your will. But if you decide that you can live with who I am and with my past, and that you’re willing to be mine again, wear the silk camisole in your wardrobe. That’s how I’ll know.” His lips touch my ear, and goose bumps rise all along my spine. “And if you decide you want me, expect things to get dirty.”
The way class and darkness mix in his voice is so incredibly seductive. The prince wears the cravings of a beast elegantly as only a true prince ever could. He’s surely drugging me with his mesmerizing power again and, though I struggle to keep my back straight and my wits about me, my brain becomes fuzzier with every one of his words.
“Also, expect there will be rules. You only touch me when and where I allow you to. And, whatever happens, you can never remove the mask. That would be deadly.”
“What is the curse, Radek? What happens to people who look into the Prince of Midnight’s true face?” I manage.
Through the sense of connection we share each time I’m under his spell, I know he’s breathing me in, his eyes closed.
“Like I said so many times before, Juliet,” he slurs. “Some things can only be understood with the heart. In this case, it can also be understood with the eyes. But there’s no way I can explain in words.”
“How did we even get here, Radek?” I whisper, allowing all the intimacy I feel into my voice. “It seems like yesterday I first laid eyes on you at the press conference. Next thing I know, we’re—” I let the word roll off my tongue like a wave of honey. “Lovers.”
“Lovers,” he repeats. “I don’t know if that describes us exactly.”
“Then what does?”
He ponders, then smiles against my ear as he whispers, “Master and willing servant.”
A thrill runs from my privy parts to my heart. I can’t help picturing myself bent over the desk, my hands immobilized across it, Radek pumping me from behind while I’m watching his reflection in the windowpane. Hell, no, what am I doing?
“I don’t think I like being treated like a slave.”
His hands caress their way up my arms, slowly. I watch those white princely fingers as they move up along my sleeve, and it’s all I can do to stop myself from turning around and pressing my mouth to his. God, the sensations those lips gave me last night....
“Accept, Juliet, and I’ll give you unparalleled pleasure. Plus, it’s important that you know this—you’re the first woman I ever, ever let touch me during the act.”
I’m sure he doesn’t realize it, but so much pain and longing has charged his voice as he said that. I turn around, chin up to look at him. Slowly, I take my hand to his cheek, tracing the exquisite shape of his face.
Radek bends his cheek into the curve of my palm, closing his eyes and seeking its warmth like a pet. A whimper escapes his lips, making the scene delicious and disturbing at the same time. I just stare at him, realizing that, beyond this appearance of royal beauty, success and seductive mystery, Prince Radek Basarab is an affection-starved creature.
“Don’t be fooled by the fairness of my looks during the day, sweet Juliet,” he says in a heart-wrenching tone. “At night, all this fairness decays, it liquefies into something very, very ugly.”
“I’m willing to let you feed on my vital force, on my body, Radek, if that heals you.” And I’m consenting with all my heart. “But I need to know what will happen to me in the end. What happened to those other women?”
He looks down as he places his hand over mine and presses it to his cheek. “It doesn’t matter what happened to those women, Juliet, because you won’t share their fate.”
“Still, I’m concerned.”
He rips himself away from me with a tormented expression on his face. “I told you, I’m not a serial killer. You know, killing people would actually make matters a lot easier for me. I could just find some unlucky human on full moon once a month, and have them take one look into my face.” His eyes burn as he holds up his thumb. “One look, Juliet. That would infect them with the most terrible curse, and kill them painfully in a matter of weeks. There have rarely been exceptions, people who survived, very rarely. So you see?” He spreads his arms like he’s defying the world, walking backwards to the door. “I have no need to kill my lovers, as you like to call them. It’s the other way around. I’m taking lovers in order to subsist, and not sentence people to death.”
I stand there, petrified, staring at the door for a while after he leaves. I’m sad, and crave him back.
But I remind myself that he’s coming for me tonight. God, I’m really becoming his willing slave, happy to share my youth with him. The only woman who ever touched him.... The need to make this cursed prince feel loved has taken over my heart and mind like a cloud of madness, and there’s no going back.
Radek
AT NIGHT I HEAD TO her chambers, oil lamp in hand, the cape floating behind me. I usually feel most comfortable striding down the castle’s secret hallways after dark, the chill soothing my dead flesh. But tonight, for the first time in centuries, things are different. I’m nervous, and something prickles in my stomach. Am I... exci
ted about her?
No, I must be excited about the situation. For the first time in forever, there’s something new and flashy in my life—a woman unlike any other.
Juliet is special, and her touch restores me to my beautiful version the world has always loved. Another new feeling rises in my heart—if I despised women who wanted me for my beauty before, I want to give that beauty to Juliet. I want to dedicate it to her entirely, she deserves it.
It’s not rocket science why her touch works wonders on my body. Things became clear earlier today—she is capable of real compassion and empathy, feelings that she showered over me. She did it last night in the rush of pleasure, that’s why the side of my head that her fingers brushed healed, and stayed so for about half an hour. She takes physical love very seriously, and is unable of the act without involving herself emotionally. That’s how she got intimate with the monster at the level of her soul, and began healing him.
I stop in front of her door. For a moment, worry grips my throat—what if she changed her mind? What if, when I begin to ease myself into her, she starts struggling, screaming, rejecting me.
I push the door slowly, letting its creaking announce my presence. Juliet stands with her back at me, wearing the silk camisole that signals she decided to take me as a lover. My heart swells, and blood rushes to my groin.
She’s lighting up nicely smelling candles on the table. Is she making for a...romantic atmosphere?
As I stop behind her, her shoulders stiffen, the white sinews of her bare graceful back tightening. Urgency grows inside me to sink my hands into that curly halo of white-blond hair that reaches the base of her neck. I see way beyond her physical form, the vibe of her essence reverberates all through my body into my bones, and I love the feel of it. I lean my face into her hair, taking a curly strand between my fingers and breathing in her scent through the vampire mask. She smells of milky, clean flesh, of vital energy and feminine, motherly love that she kept well hidden behind the façade of a career woman.