by Lucy Lyons
They really were almost at the top of the fortress. All that stood above this point were twin towers, presumably where the king and queen lived, and the mountain peak. She couldn’t even begin to judge how high up they were.
Directly in front of them was another opening in the side of the mountain. This one was much larger than the one they had just left. What little light filtered through gave her an impression of wood, although she didn’t understand why.
“Are we going in there?”
“Why else would I have brought you here?” he growled, grabbing her hand again to start dragging her into the darkness.
Out of nowhere, she realized she was hungry. That brought to mind another question. How do vampires feed their slaves?
Immediately after that, she wondered if she would ever need to worry about being hungry again or if this was all going to end soon.
Before they had gone very far, Desmond paused and said, “Stay here for a moment.” He released her hand and moved away, leaving her alone.
“Where are you going?” Viktoria called out, frightened, but he didn’t answer.
A few terrible moments passed without any sign of what was going on, and then she saw light. Not much further down the tunnel, a torch set in a sconce against the wall was blazing brightly, the flame casting a dance of shadows over Desmond as he moved on to the next one. No one had ever told her before that vampires could start fires at will, and to find this out now was disconcerting. It was just another way she could die at his hands.
Heart pounding in her chest, Viktoria started to slowly follow behind him. Very quickly, she discovered why she had an impression of wooden surfaces earlier.
The fortress was not entirely composed of stone, though the main structure was nothing but hard rock. It looked like this room at the end of the tunnel had been built onto the structure underneath with wood taken directly from the nearby forest.
Warm, flickering light illuminated the main cave of his quarters when she arrived at it, standing beside him where he stopped. She looked around. This place was as cold as he was and impressive beyond human measure. The walls might have been wooden but they were nearly forgotten behind sweeping marble surfaces that formed great abstract artworks. Columns stretched the immense gap between floor and ceiling. Handwoven, ancient tapestries were strung everywhere, and a fireplace large enough to stand up in took up a great deal of the floor. Even the bookcases were made of marble, the distinctive swirls of the material only adding to the mysterious nature of the tomes the shelves held.
It was stark and captivating, a shifting and terrible wonderland of cold marble and warm shadow cast by the lit wall sconces. Looking up, she also realized there was a massive, ornate chandelier overhead.
It’s a room fit for a prince, she thought, her eyes wide.
Two arched doorways led away from this main room. Viktoria couldn’t even imagine where they led.
After Desmond felt she had seen enough for the moment, he turned towards her.
“This is where you live?” she asked.
Desmond shrugged. “I don’t use it much. Vampires don’t need to sleep very much, although some do it every night.”
“Then what do you do with all that extra time?”
Desmond laughed. “What does anyone do when they have the rest of eternity to do anything they desire?”
Viktoria frowned a little. This was the longest exchange they’d had so far and she wanted to keep it going. Any information was going to be useful. “I would learn new things, I guess.”
He nodded, emotionless. “Before the vampire uprising, I took on many personas.”
Viktoria glanced back at him. “But you live here in the capital. Why would you have to do that?”
For a moment, she thought he wasn’t going to answer. His gaze slid over her as if he didn’t even see her, slowly taking in their surroundings. “There wasn’t always a capital, you know. Viktoria, you humans often forget that the world is much older than you are.”
She bristled, struggling to hold onto her temper at how dismissive that was. “I know that.”
“Before the capital was constructed here in the mountains, I traveled.”
Viktoria took a tentative step away from Desmond. He tensed, but she didn’t have any intention of running away. He would catch her before she went too far. Her best bet was to get his guard down, so all she did was walk over to a grand couch before the fireplace and touch the fabric. It was like velvet beneath her fingers. Behind her, Desmond continued to speak as though he had forgotten she was there.
“So, that’s what I used to do. I am fully fluent in twelve languages and ten instruments. I have played many concerts. I have stood on every continent. I have more college degrees than I care to count. I have understandings of things that it would take several humans, several lifetimes to learn.”
Viktoria gawked at him, surprise written all over her face. “But...” she sputtered. “But, isn’t all that pointless now?”
Desmond shrugged, and she realized with a start that he didn’t care. This ruthless killer had done and seen fantastic things, and none of it meant anything to him.
Walking away from the fireplace, she stopped at the bookcases but they were all in different languages. Giving up, she came back to him. “You must be very old and powerful, I guess.”
Desmond nodded but said nothing more.
For a bit longer, they stood together in silence but eventually she couldn’t take it anymore. She couldn’t take this silence, and she couldn’t stand not knowing. The words jumped out of her throat before she could stop them, “When are you going to bite me?”
Why hadn’t he bitten her already and claimed her as his? He already had claimed her by killing Marcus, so all that remained was to make it official.
“All in good time,” was the only answer he could provide.
Chapter 5
Viktoria had no idea how to comprehend anything she was hearing. Desmond almost sounded human from the way he talked and reasoned with her! After all she had learned from her father, she never thought these monsters would be so normal. But still, it was unnerving to be looking into the dead yellow eyes of a murderer and to be casually talking with him at the same time. She wanted to punch him in his stupid perfect nose, and blacken the soft skin around his golden eyes. She wanted to do to him what he’d done to that other vampire, and rip out his heart.
However, Desmond had never done her any harm. In fact, he saved her. She didn’t want to hurt him, but she didn’t trust him either. His kind had killed her family.
I’m so confused.
She couldn’t even begin to think about the atrocities committed against her family, either. The pain was just below the surface, churning in her soul. It felt excruciatingly hot, like getting her hand too close to the glowing coils in an oven. Something needed to cool before she could face that pain.
To add even more stress to this whole thing, now she had it hanging over her head just exactly when Desmond was going to try to bite her.
She said none of what she thought out loud, however. Instead, all she said was, “Okay, well, I hope it’s soon.”
Desmond blinked and then scowled. She winced a little and he turned away, growling. “You don’t sound very convincing.”
That one lie took all of her effort so she just stayed silent.
Desmond scowled at her and she tucked her face down to hide, but it seemed like the more he glared at her like that, the less it bothered her. Maybe she was getting used to his behavior already, or maybe it was because he was so handsome that a scowl seemed more like a smolder on that face.
Of all the people to be attracted to, I had to pick a vampire.
She’d had a few boyfriends before but others her own age were too shallow. She didn’t want a boyfriend who was going to make her pretend to be something she wasn’t, or who would dump her the moment he found out how strong she was. She wanted someone who could hand
le all of her secrets and cheer her on, even if they wanted nothing to do with it. As her training to be a hunter grew more intense, she stopped having any extra time at all to even think about a relationship. Of course, all that training was for nothing against Desmond. He was unlike anything she’d ever heard of.
She had to wonder why he was so powerful. She knew that the older vampires were stronger but he was almost too strong to be real.
“Do you feel twenty-one or three hundred and twenty-one?”
He stared at her for a moment, and she wondered if she’d done something wrong. Maybe vampires were sensitive about their age or something, but then he let out a soft growl that might have been a laugh and was probably a sound of derision. “That’s a good question. I don’t know the answer. I only feel like me.”
“I guess that’s okay,” Viktoria replied.
Desmond kept looking at her, and she had to wonder what was different. He had scowled and shouted in front of all the other vampires but now that they were alone, they were carrying on a conversation. Was that fearsome behavior some sort of mask he hid behind?
“Would you like to see the rest of my quarters?” he asked, taking her hand again. “You will be staying in here so you might as well get comfortable. Do you like to read?”
“For fun,” she replied, following tentatively along behind him. “But not to learn. I learn better when I actually do something.”
“Perhaps I can show you many things you will wish to learn,” Desmond said. There was no hint of a threat in his voice but she couldn’t help feeling threatened anyway. He led her down one of the short tunnel hallways, lighting torches as he went. This time she watched to see if he gestured, but the fires simply blazed into life at his passing.
What sort of terrible power can do that?
They came to the next room. She gasped and took a step backwards when she saw it, stunned by the beauty of it all.
It was a massive bedroom with a gigantic bed set up on a raised lip of flooring, with expensive scarlet sheets and pillows that looked as if they were the size of her whole body. The walls were covered in mirrors in all sizes and shapes, from rustic wood-vine wrapped circlets to sheets of glass nearly the size of the huge bed. All of them were beautiful in their own way, reflecting back a thousand compound images. Marble was in abundance here as well, and from the ceiling hung not one but three vast gold chandeliers. There were even more shelves in here, holding what looked to be a mixture of favorite stories both old and new. Thick, plush carpeting covered most of the floor.
Aside from an array of beautiful chairs, gilded torch stands, another marble fireplace, and the obligatory chest of drawers or two, the only other thing worth noting in the room was perhaps the most obvious one. Viktoria let her gaze travel to it last, drinking in the sight. Although she had no musical talents of her own, she couldn’t help but appreciate the grandness of that master piano. A behemoth relic, it was slick black all over, with ornate feet and a back shaped vaguely like a bat. She had no doubt that the keys inside would be pristine ivory, untouched by the yellowing of age, and that it would sound simply marvelous.
Thinking back to the structure of the fortress, Viktoria wouldn’t be surprised if she would be able to hear this piano being played no matter where she was.
“This is your bedroom?” Viktoria whispered, finally recovering enough to look at Desmond.
He nodded. “Yes, it is mine. I see you like my piano. Fitting, isn’t it?”
“Almost too fitting,” she teased. “A vampire-shaped piano?”
Desmond didn’t crack a smile or even scowl at that. “I commissioned it after a concert of mine. A philanthropist was so enthralled during one of my concerts that he said he would do anything for me. So, I asked and was granted.”
“That’s amazing,” she sighed.
“Thank you. Come, let me show you the rest.”
The next part of the tour was much shorter. There was a spare room connected to Desmond’s by another hallway, which made her nervous. It was smaller and much less grand, although the bed was still huge and the furnishings were lavish.
“Since you will be staying here for a very long time, I can help you decorate,” the vampire said.
She shuddered, and Desmond looked at her sideways. “Cold? We’re almost done.”
“Thank you,” she whispered uneasily.
From there, he led her to the library. She knew even before she stepped inside that it was a library, because she could smell the musty-sweet scent of old pages. Shelves stretched floor-to-ceiling, and there was a ladder propped up against one wall. Desmond had not lit the torches in here until just now. She watched him move around the room, shadows caught deep in the lines of his beautiful face.
“I don’t like to leave fires unattended in here,” he explained.
That made sense to her, but something else didn’t. “I understand why you don’t use electricity, but what about the smoke? And carbon monoxide poisoning?”
In answer, Desmond pointed up.
So, she looked up as well.
At first, she couldn’t see anything but then she realized there were holes of varying sizes drilled into the wood, and presumably all the way through the tons of stone above them. “Ventilation?”
“Yes,” he replied, and that was all. Viktoria just had to hope the ventilation would be enough to keep a human like her alive. She was doubtful.
“That’s clever,” she commented, and rubbed her eyes. All at once, she wanted to do nothing but go to sleep –real sleep, not bashed-on-the-head unconsciousness.
“If I ever find fire lit in here without you in here as well, there will be consequences.” Desmond snuffed out flames and then he took her hand. She imagined she could feel a little warmth at his fingertips, his skin burning with supernatural energy, but it was probably just her imagination. “Let’s get you to your room for the night. You need to sleep, Viktoria.”
There was no use arguing with him, but she didn’t want to just give in. “Where will you be?”
He looked at her moodily. “No one will hurt you. I will be nearby.”
She didn’t know how she felt about that.
Desmond led her back to her bedroom. “Sleep as long as you need to. When you awaken again, call me for me and I will come to you. I promise I will always come when you call me.”
Viktoria nodded. “Good night.”
“Good night, Viktoria,” Desmond murmured softly, and snuffed out all the lights, plunging her into darkness.
For a long moment, she stood very still and listened to see if he was actually going to leave. She heard nothing, although eventually his scent faded from the room and she was left with nothing.
I really am tired, she thought, and reached out to feel along the length of the bed. Pulling the heavy covers free, she slid her fully-dressed body between them and the mattress. The bed was unbearably cold against her skin, obviously not having been used for ages, and the smell of dust was thick. Still, she was worn-out and afraid.
Now that she was alone, shivering as her body heat gradually thawed the covers, she had to face that pain she’d been fighting back for so long.
I’m sorry, Dad, she thought, and buried her face in the pillow as tears came hot and fast. Shaking, she let bitterness and regret swamp over her. She should have been a better fighter, so that she wasn’t knocked out and captured.
If he bites me, I deserve it.
At some point she must have fallen asleep because then she was waking up again, eyes wide in the darkness, certain that Desmond had come back and was standing right over her. At any moment, he was going to leap down upon her and bite her.
She sat up, heart pounding. “Desmond?” she called softly.
Soft footsteps and a rustling of cloth met her ears in response, but there was no verbal reply. The footsteps approached, coming closer and closer until she felt they were right on top of her. Her breath rasped in her throat, eyes staring ar
ound anxiously. It was too dark. She was down one of her senses and Desmond had dozens of extra vampire senses. She was outmatched.
I have to try to fight anyway. But why isn’t he saying anything?
“What do you want me to say?” a low voice replied, plucking the words directly from her thoughts.
It wasn’t Desmond.
She swallowed hard and pulled her legs out from beneath the covers. “Who are you?” she asked, trying to sound brave. Her voice shook, ruining the illusion.
“Who am I?” the voice replied mockingly. It seemed to be everywhere and nowhere all at once, even inside her. Dimly, in the back of her mind, she remembered that some vampires had mind-reading abilities. She heard another footstep as the mystery vampire edged closer and when it spoke again, the words were different. They slurred slightly, as though the vampire spoke around his jutting fangs. “Who am I? Perhaps a better question is who was my brother, who died because of you?”
“Marcus.”
“Marcus,” the voice snarled. “My brother. We were turned together. He was loyal. But I suppose that means nothing the second a pretty little human comes along.”
From nowhere, a cold, hard hand snatched around her wrist. She gasped with pain and fear, trying to wrench away. Her other hand shot out, her nails clawing, trying to maim an eye, or grab onto hair. That wrist was snatched as well, forcing her onto her back on the bed.
“No!” she cried out. “Desmond!”
He won’t save me. He’s a liar. He won’t save me.
“Desmond won’t save you,” the voice laughed. She struggled, kicking out with her legs, forcing her knee up again and again to ram it into the rock-hard stomach of the vampire as it slowly crawled up over her. Shaking her head, she bit and clawed and kicked, but before long, the vampire had its legs holding hers down and she couldn’t move them anymore. Arching her back, she spat up in its face.
“Delightful,” the voice said. “You can’t fight. You can’t save yourself. You’re nothing. I don’t care what Desmond says. No human is worth the life of a vampire.”