Prince 0f Midnight (Dracula's Bloodline Book 1)

by Ana Calin

  In the end, my most powerful weapon has always been my face.

  Juliet

  RADEK WAS RIGHT. THERE is no way to explain what happens to those who look into the Prince of Midnight’s true face. I peek at the scene from behind him, not even sure what I’m seeing at first.

  Victoria screams, her frame scrambled like static on old TV sets, as if her body is looking for the right frequency in which to take shape. Knowing what I know, I understand she must be trapped between dimensions, and when she takes shape again in this reality she is simply... Not quite whole. As if she’s two-dimensional instead of three-dimensional, indeed like an image on an old TV screen. At the same time, she seems to be in a lot of pain.

  Her right hand, Gruia the guard, is at her side, looking puzzled, probably thinking how to help, but he doesn’t dare to try and touch her. Blisters appear on her skin as the Black Death starts eating at her, and her teeth, visible as she screams, go rotten.

  Radek doesn’t take his eyes off of her, watching it all happen, I know by the posture of his body. But then something else draws his attention, and makes his entire body stiffen. He seems focused on something happening inside his mind, and not out here.

  “What is it?” I grab his hand tightly, and pressing my entire body to his side, not looking at his face. I’d like to become a part of him right now, like Eve was once a rib of Adam’s.

  “There’s a breach in the ward.”

  “What?”

  “There’s an opening, a spot with no wards, a place we can teleport to through the dimensions.”

  Before I even get to open my mouth and say something, Radek has wrapped his arms around me. He flashes with me over to where Lazarus lies, surrounded by the beheaded bodies of vampires. He technically throws us both over Lazarus and, the next thing I know, the tunnel that brought us to these dungeons races by us again, its chill and speed touching our skin, but not affecting our bodies.

  Though when the tunnel spits us out again, I’m dizzy as if I’ve just come out of a centrifuge. I barely balance on my feet, and I look around, wondering why I’m not in Radek’s arms. Behind me, Radek is dropping Lazarus to the floor.

  If, for a split second, I wondered where I was, I don’t anymore. All I can think about is Lazarus’ inert body, his milky blue eyes now very pale, fixed on the ceiling, his face white, his lips bloodless, his skin splattered with his own blood. I’m sure he’s dead, but then....

  “He’s alive,” Radek says.

  A woman rushes to Lazarus, dropping to her knees by his side, and starting to check his vital signs. Being as confused as I am, it takes a few moments until I recognize Magda’s silver-white hair over Lazarus’ face. Her bright hazel eyes shoot up at me.

  “Don’t just stand there, you’re a healer! Come and help me.”

  I react automatically, and fall to my knees by Lazarus’ side, marginally registering we’re inside the bookseller’s house.

  “He doesn’t have much time.” Magda’s voice is low, but urgent. “I don’t mean to pressure you, you’re still a young healer, but he desperately needs your help now.”

  I try not to panic, moving my hands over Lazarus’ body, scanning him. Some new instinct is telling me what to do, but I’m insecure.

  “Stay with me,” I ask Magda, keeping my eyes on Lazarus. “I need you to guide me. I’ve never done this before.”

  Lazarus’s shirt is torn all over. Tears sting my eyes as I remember how those monsters ravished him.

  “Bring some water,” I ask, opening his shirt to reveal his upper body, tears spilling to my face when I see him so battered. “We have to wash him, I need to see the wounds.” That’s my new instinct speaking again.

  While Magda hurries to bring a bowl of water and a clean cloth to wipe the blood off Lazarus’ wounds, I whisper to Radek, who’s now kneeling by my side, “I have no idea what I’m doing.”

  “Just listen to your instinct,” he says. “You’re doing great so far, absolutely great.”

  Magda helps me wipe the blood off Lazarus’ body. He’s a disturbing sight with his pale eyes unblinking, fixed up on the ceiling, his breath jagged, as if he’s cold, his lips white and cracked. There are bruises around the wounds, where the blood is coagulating already. I feel it clearly under my palms, his blood turning black and pastier than human blood. I lean back on my heels, staring at Lazarus in shock.

  “He’s not dying,” I whisper. “He’s turning into one of them. My energy balanced him out, his body is now doing all the work. But there’s nothing I can do to turn him into a man again, his body is just too—” The thought hurts. “Abused. As a human, he’d die.”

  Long moments of silence follow, in which both Magda and Radek don’t even breathe, let alone move. The first one to shift again is Magda, who hurries to the window, parting the curtains with her fingers and peeking outside.

  “Bring him to the basement.” She can’t be talking to me, I don’t have the strength to carry Lazarus. But then, without waiting another instant, Radek picks him up as if Lazarus doesn’t weigh more than a toddler.

  “And where exactly is that?”

  “I’ll show you,” Magda says. “I have to come anyway, prepare a comfortable cot for him there. You won’t be able to take him to a room anytime soon, there are vampires all over the place, and they will sense one of them transforming. The basement is like a bunker. I worked my own magic to clear this place of the vampires’ ward so that you could teleport here, and the basement is the safest room.”

  I stare at her in awe. “That’s why you left our side at the castle? You were preparing for this already? You knew what would happen?”

  “I didn’t know, of course. But I sensed there were many real vampires among the masked people, and I could tell that Dracula was preparing for an attack of proportions. I knew you’d need an ally outside the castle. I couldn’t tell you what I planned, because even walls have ears in that place.” She glances over at Radek, and I remember how my declaration to Lazarus had caused the door to appear by my side. “I’m terribly sorry you had to go through hell, but this kind of magic needs time.”

  “You stay here,” Magda then says to me. “Scream if vampires barge in or anything, but I doubt that will happen. They can’t know which house you teleported to, it could be any place in Bran.”

  “But what if they attack every house, just to be sure?” I say, panic rising again. But Magda shakes her head and makes a dismissive gesture with her hand.

  “The spell Dracula put on them is temporary. It’ll wear off very soon, and then they’ll scatter before the Prince of Midnight can trap them in some nasty dimension. They don’t have the time to search all houses, and they know it.”

  After Magda and Radek leave with Lazarus, I contemplate this whole situation. I fall exhausted on the floor and just lie there, my arms spread, my body in the shape of a cross, my hair spread around my head as I stare at the wooden beams above my face. I’m completely spent, mentally numb as if after a good beating, realizing how sore my mind and soul will be tomorrow after everything that happened today.

  What happened today.... Today, I almost died. The love of my life, prince Radek Basarab, almost died as well. Lazarus, probably the best friend I ever had, is turning into a vampire as we speak, in the basement of this very house. This whole thing feels surreal, but then the attacking vampires flash through my mind, giving me a sudden headache that’s real as a motherffff. By the time Magda and Radek return, I’m balled in a corner, as if I’m having a terrible ache inside my body, but what hurts is my soul. I only realize that I’m whimpering and moaning when Radek takes me in his arms.

  “Juliet, my love,” he says softly, pressing his hot lips to my forehead. He rocks me like a child, his arms in leather strong and reassuring, wrapped tightly around me.

  Slowly, fear and pain subside, the tears dry on my face, and all I feel is pleasant exhaustion coursing all through my body. He’s using his powers on me, but I don’t mind. Every patient who’s in
pain welcomes morphine, even knowing what it is. Closing my eyes, I breathe in Radek’s natural scent of fresh earth and rain, mingling with the scent of pasty, black blood.

  “I think we both need a bath,” I whisper in the curve of his neck, then lift my eyes to look at his face, forgetting all about the monster. Before he can stop me, my eyes are full on his beautiful ivory face with his lips like dark roses and the eyes like thunderstorms. My eyes roam his face, so incredibly beautiful. He’s a true warrior that just fought off not one, not two attackers, but dozens. And not just any attackers, but immortals, vampires. I shudder as I realize just how powerful he actually is. Then it hits me, and I stiffen in his arms.

  “Your face,” I whisper. “How come I can... How come I can look into your face?”

  Radek smiles at me, stroking my cheek with a loving finger.

  “I thought you’d never notice,” Magda says as she brings in hot tea from the kitchen. “Apparently your prince can now control all his powers.”

  “It seems I can now activate it and shut it down,” Radek says. “The midnight monster’s curse, I mean. The ugliness is gone, but I’m still a carrier of the magic black plague.” His voice goes dark, low. “I can infect people who look into my face at night with the curse, but only if I choose to. Before, it was like a broken gun that went off of its own accord, without me pulling the trigger, but now it’s.... It’s become deliberate.”

  Radek stops talking, his expression changing as if he’s trying to catch sounds outside. I panic. Images of those deadly creatures run before my eyes, not to mention of Victoria, who might not be dead yet.

  “What is it?” Magda demands.

  “Shhh,” Radek hisses. “Just a moment.”

  Magda stands by the low tea table, having placed the mugs on it, but it’s obvious from her reserved and suspicious attitude that she still doesn’t trust Radek. She’s still wary of him. If I’m completely honest with myself, no matter how much I want her and Lazarus to accept Radek, it’s understandable they have a hard time doing it. Lazarus spent a long time undercover, hiding from him, and Magda spent over a century fearing him, concealing her true powers in her bookstore. I can’t expect this to change over night.

  “The vampires,” Radek says, letting go of me slowly and walking to the window. By the orange-reddish light that kisses his ivory face when he parts the curtains, I realize dawn is spreading along the wavy mountain horizon. “The ward is coming apart, like loose threads. I can now travel through the dimensions again.” His back flexes through the leather like an athlete’s getting ready for training. “It’s like my arms and legs have been untied, I can move freely again.”

  He looks at me, his eyes bluer than usual, as blue as last night in the tunnel, as he fought those creatures.

  “Dracula’s power has worn off. His plan shattered. We take back the castle, and you—” He walks over to help me up. I take his hand without thinking, coming to my feet. He looks into my eyes hungrily. “You can come back with me, this time as my future queen.”

  I’m overwhelmed, my head swimming.

  “Radek...” I manage, then I pause. He looks long at me, but his expression begins to change. He goes from almost enthusiastic to bitter.

  “You don’t wish to,” he whispers.

  “It’s not like that. What I feel for you, it’s love that runs deep, but it’s a dependent, jealous, sick kind of love. And that castle...” I glance towards the window. “I wasn’t well in there, Radek, and you know it. I was high on you, dependent on you, all I could think about was you, I only existed for you, and those feelings consumed me.”

  Radek stares hard at me, his eyebrows knitting in a frown, the blue of his irises turning metal sharp. But before he can say something, Magda intervenes.

  “What you both need right now is to get out of these clothes and wash those creatures’ blood off of you. This discussion can wait.” She takes my arm and leads me upstairs. “I’ll be back for you in a minute, Radek, you get another bathroom.”

  Radek stays back in the living room by the window, though keeping his eyes on me until I’m out of his field of vision. Even now, when I can’t see him anymore, I feel someone is ripping a part of my body away, like an arm or a leg.

  “See?” I turn to Magda nervously as she closes the door to Lazarus’ attic room behind us. “I can’t even be away from him while we’re in the same house, and he’s not even using his mesmerizing powers on me. When I’m back at the castle I’ll be his loyal dog, living, breathing for the glimpses and the attention I get from my master.” I groan, wanting to turn away, but Magda grabs my elbow and makes me face her again. She looks deep into my eyes, her face full of wisdom.

  “Listen to me, Juliet, and listen well. This is not the time to oppose the great dark prince. Destiny has taken a fabulous turn for us. Only hours ago, it was just Lazarus and me against the creatures of the Hidden World. Now, for the first time in centuries, those like us, those fighting for the good, the light, actually have a chance. One chance in centuries, maybe thousands of years, Juliet.” She grabs and squeezes my hands in both of hers.

  “This isn’t the time to break up with the prince. You have to accept to be his wife. Remember all those properties he amassed all around the Europe? He was preparing to expand his dark power over the world like a huge cobweb, like a cancer spreading and eating everything in its wake. Only his love for you can balance out his dark side, Juliet. Please, understand—the fate of the world may lie in your hands.”

  She keeps staring at me, cementing her words in my head, and I begin to feel the responsibility like a huge weight on my shoulders. I open my mouth to say something, a big part of me screaming at me to refuse, to tell the woman to come to grips, tell her that she can’t put this huge thing in my trembling hands, but the door opens and Radek walks in. He stops in the doorway, his eyes moving from me to Magda. His face speaks volumes—he heard every word that was spoken in this room.

  CHAPTER XVI

  Juliet

  Radek closes the door and walks over, the old wooden floorboards whining under his feet. He’s commanding, irresistible. Tall, handsome, a warrior in leather with an incredible ivory face. I fidget from one foot to another, certain I must be a sick whacko to feel turned on under these circumstances.

  “Madam Magda,” he addresses her without taking his eyes off of me, “I believe Lazarus shouldn’t be alone. Would you mind seeing to him?”

  “Yes, good thinking,” Magda says. She nods at me, and heads to the door.

  Now I’m alone in the attic room with this dark prince, looking up into his face, my eyes hopelessly drawn to those lips like dark red roses.

  Jesus, in what way am I better than Victoria, craving him the way I do after having seen him swing battle axes at creatures in the tunnels, chopping their heads off?

  “That you should tell her what to do in her own house,” I manage after Magda has quietly left the room.

  Radek keeps staring at me indeed like a prince, as if he’s entitled to take from me what he wants. He walks slowly behind me, and starts working on my laces. By God, the feel of his fingertips brushing over my skin as he undoes them gives me pleasure goose bumps, which makes me ashamed of myself.

  “Radek, this isn’t the time or place.” I try to walk away from him, but he holds me back with hands on my shoulders, his velvety skin on mine. He bends to speak in my ear, his breath touching the side of my neck.

  “I’m merely preparing my future wife for a bath. Is that wrong?”

  “What you’re doing to me, playing with my senses, that is wrong.”

  He gives a quiet laugh that sounds like the purr of a feral that can attack any time. I can feel the danger he’s emanating.

  “Tell me if I got this right, Juliet,” he says darkly as he brushes the lace dress off me. “After all this was over, after you healed me of the midnight monster, and my brother’s plan failed, making me more powerful than ever before, your next step was to leave me?”

  I
struggle to keep a clear head, fighting the arousal as his hand wraps around the front side of my throat, caressing it. Such a dangerous and tender gesture at the same time, one that proves once again the nature of our love isn’t entirely healthy.

  “Radek, I’m afraid of what I feel for you,” I whisper the truth. As I speak, he guides me slowly to the small rustic bathroom with its cozy orange light, in front of the mirror.

  “What do you feel for me?” He purrs.

  “You know that.”

  “I want to hear it from you, now.” We stop in front of the mirror above the basin, and my privy parts cream at the sight that hits me.

  I’m naked to my black lace thong, my bare breasts glowing in the cozy light from the small bulb above the mirror. Radek in leather behind me, his hand on my throat like a caressing shackle, like he owns me.

  “You know I’m possessively, jealously in love with you,” I whisper. “When I thought you had my sister, my biggest fear was that you chose to sleep with her, instead of what that might be doing to her. Don’t you see? My love for you turns me into the kind of person I don’t want to be—weak, desperate, addicted to you.”

  His eyes narrow, his beautiful jaw tight. My words arouse him so much that he can barely contain himself, I can feel it. His cock grows, pushing through the leather between my naked buttocks.

  He bends slightly behind us to turn on the hot water, letting it run into the small corner bathtub with wood coating, steam rising from it, heating up the small space. He turns the tap, finding the right temperature for me.

  “Step in,” he commands hoarsely. Looking long at him in the mirror, I understand he won’t take no for an answer. He’s been a prince, a ruler, for too long, giving orders flows naturally through his veins, and people are compelled to obey. Still, I’m considering fighting this, and he senses it.

  “Think of Madam Magda,” he gives me the incentive. “Everything she worked for over a hundred years depends on you. She hopes to make me and all my power her ally, so don’t destroy her hopes.”