by Ana Calin
I sit down on the floor, listening to him, avid for the story.
“The blackness in your eyes got my attention the moment I saw you on the train,” he says. “I know what you’re thinking—sure, those eyes so black draw everyone’s attention. And that’s true. Only that I knew more than most people—I knew about the Lady of the Dark Veil, and the reason behind the blackness of her eyes. Then there was the discussion between you and that freak you keep in your basement.”
“I’m not keeping him—”
“You get the gist. Then you gave me your name—Ruxandra.” He chooses one particular book from the ones lying around, after having inspected a number of them while talking. “Simple research of the books won’t get you very far simply because there are gaps of information. Some of that information has only been transmitted orally, from generation to generation.” He glances at me with meaning. “But now that you know about the Lady of the Dark Veil.” He turns the book around so I can read the title. The Lady and the Veil—medieval fairy tales, traditional, Romanian. It’s an old book in English, like many here, with a painted cover representing a dark haired woman with her back to us. Reminds me very much of Samara from The Ring.
Sedan sits back and crosses his legs in a Turkish position, opens the book and begins reading to me like he would to a child before bedtime.
He tells me the story of a beautiful young lady married to a prince she loved with a passion. But the prince kept a terrible secret from her. At night, he would often disappear, and she’d find traces of blood on his vambraces and tunics in the morning. Following him, she discovered that, at night, he stalked bandits in the woods, tore out their throats with his fangs, like a wolf, and drank their blood. Scared that her husband turned into a monster, she sought council with the gypsies, who told her about one particular demon that could cure the prince of vampirism.
She went to a monastery in the North, where the gypsies told her to go. At night, she entered the altar—where women were prohibited to go. She offered the blood of her menstrual cycle, dripping it inside a holy chalice. This soiled the Holy Ground, and summoned a terrible demon who took possession of her blood.
“The demon must have manipulated her from the shadow even before she went to the monastery,” I whisper. “Because he wanted the barrier to the world of men lifted.” I’m well aware it’s my connection to Ruxandra that gives me this information once the door to my past is cracked yet more. But it’s starting to take a toll, I already feel dizzy, weaker than usual.
“Which is the case today as well,” Sedan continues. His dark eyes become deep, wisdom welling in them.
“But if I am Lady Ruxandra’s descendant—”
“You are,” Sedan confirms.
“Then I am also Dracula’s heir, right? I mean, I’m blood of his own blood.” Which is a catastrophe, a part of me despairs. But Sedan smiles the kind of smile that tells me I’ll like what he’ll say next.
“Actually, you are not. The night the Lady let the demon into the monastery altar, the first thing the demon had her do was seduce one of the young monks praying in his sanctum. Poor chap thought the lady was a vision, and did his best to resist, but the demon possessed him. A child was produced from that union, and you are the descendant of that child.”
His words run through my head, and a whole range of feelings through my heart. I feel great relief that Vlad and I aren’t related by blood, but then....
“What happened to the child? Because I doubt that Lord Vlad raised it as his own.”
“Lord Dracula and his wife were never intimate again after her eyes blackened. Lady Ruxandra killed herself a few days after she gave birth, and there are stories that say he wanted the child killed, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. I think he always considered himself a villain with a soul. So he gave the child over to a family of childless noblemen.”
I only realize I’ve been holding my breath when I exhale in relief.
Sedan puts the book down and leans his back against what was once the counter of grandma Magda’s bookstore.
“What did you and Lord Dracula talk about last night? If you can tell me.”
I smile, realizing how stricken I still am that I actually met the great Prince of Blood.
“I still can’t believe he actually exists.” I look up, shaking my head. “That I should come face to face with Dracula—” And ogle him every time he turned around, thinking he’s so damn sexy. “I just... Wow.”
I get my act together and look at Sedan’s interested face again. “He offered to help me find and defeat this demon. He told me we would leave for the Northern Monastery tomorrow morning, and gave me today to prepare. I thought I’d use the day to research. He doesn’t know the name of the demon, you see, and he says it’s important that we identify it in order to have a chance at banishing it.” It hits me. “You don’t happen to know the demon’s name, do you?”
Sedan shakes his head no, but he still doesn’t seem to like this story.
“You must be careful, Rux. Don’t think that Dracula is helping you just because. He has his own selfish reasons why he’s doing this.”
I look down at my hands, picking my fingernails.
“I know. He told me that only through me can he force this demon to show itself. He wants me to, sort of, invoke it.”
Sedan lunges forward, taking my hands in his and squeezing, forcing me to look at him. “Do you realize the kind of danger that will put you in?”
“No, relax. It won’t put me in danger. This demon has been with me all my life. If it wanted to hurt me, it would have done it long ago.”
“But you say the connection drained you of energy. When you were a child, it almost killed you. Reconnecting with this darkness could cost you your life, Rux.”
Fear begins to well up inside me as I contemplate the possibility. I stare ahead of me blankly, through Sedan. “Well, let us hope that Vlad defeats it before it gets to drain me. Because if I don’t do this, it will be hovering over me forever.” And I will die a bitter virgin, without ever having loved, and having been loved in return. Love is all I really want.
“Always beware of Dracula, Rux,” Sedan says darkly. “He’s not a good person, never was, and he always has a hidden agenda.”
CHAPTER V
Lord Dracula
I CAN’T FIND MY PEACE of mind. I keep rubbing my chin with my mailed hand, sitting on my black throne and thinking about her.
I could insist in my hatred of her, but it’s obvious that hatred is unjustified. Ruxandra Len is nothing but a poor child. Even her resemblance to my late wife isn’t as stark as it would seem to others. I think of the malnourished ten-year old version, of her from thirteen years ago, when I was ready to suck her dry. I was determined not to let second thoughts and guilt sway me, like they had six hundred years ago, when I spared Ruxandra’s child. But now I find myself wondering—would I have done it? Would I have killed an obviously suffering ten-year old? Would I have stripped her of her already cruel life?
“Milord,” Tristan addresses me. “I have to speak with you.” He looks around to make a point. “Alone.”
The vampires retreat in their tunnels, scared and ready to obey my wishes before I’ve even voiced them, as usual. But today things are different. Today I don’t have that brutality in my chest. Today I’m.... philosophical.
“No,” I say, and the vampires stop moving in their tunnels. I place my hands on the throne arms, pushing myself up. “Let us take a walk in the woods.”
The vampires whisper and hiss, puzzled, as Tristan and I walk down the cave towards the exit. My brother Radek once said it resembled the open mouth of a shark, and now I think he might be right.
Tristan and I make our way through the dark woods, woods so deep and dangerous humans rarely dare to even set foot in them. There have been daredevils now and then, but the vampires attacked and sucked them dry before they got to explore the forest in any depth.
Tristan opens his mouth to speak, urge
ncy imprinted on his face, but I interrupt him in a philosophical tone.
“I went to the castle last night,” I begin. “It was the first time in a hundred years. The first time I went home. It gave me strange feelings, and made me realize a few things. First, I think it’ll be hard for me to readjust to civilization.” I glance behind us at the cave. “After having lived in the wild for so long. And second.” I look up at the cloudy sky that casts a permanent fog over the woods—perfect climate for vampires. “I think I might have made a fatal mistake.”
Tristan stops to face me, his blond eyebrows knitted together as he tries to understand. I have never admitted to making a mistake before.
“Milord, with all due respect. Are you feeling unwell?”
I pat his shoulder, my mailed hand like a hammer on his suit. The black turtleneck underneath makes his vampire white skin and white hair even more disturbing. Not to mention the light scars on his young face, visible only to powerful eyes, like vampires’. Those scars give even supernaturals the chills. I start walking again.
“Last night I met the Grail face to face. Had the situation been different, I would have pierced her throat and sucked her blood without exchanging words with her, but the fates played with me. I’m forced to wait—because of the demon that she carries. I agreed to help her banish the demon, too. What she doesn’t yet know is that, afterwards, I’ll have her blood. That part is bound to happen, her fate has been sealed before she was even born. The trouble is, until then I’ll have to have some sort of relationship with her, which equals to, well, playing with my food.”
“You always said we’re not supposed to play with our food,” he says like a soldier who’s learned the rules by heart.
“Indeed. But, for me, there’s no way around it right now.”
“For you of all vampires, for the Prince of Blood?”
I snort. “It’s funny, isn’t it? Who would have thought I’d be the first to break my own rules. Which is why I need your help.” I stop walking, my face conveying the gravity of the situation.
“I have a feeling the Old Priest is going to try and use this against me. He was right when he said I needed to defeat the girl’s demon before I can have her blood, which is why I’m doing it. But it doesn’t mean I don’t see beyond his pretense. He has some back-stabbing plan, I’m sure of it, I just don’t know what it is yet.”
His ice-blue eyes catch a murderous light, his cheek clenching. “This is what I had come to talk to you about actually. Gruia, the witch Victoria’s mate, seems to be on the same side. I think he wants to free her from the prison you put her in, and he’s hand in hand with the Old Priest.”
My lip curls over my teeth. “I shouldn’t have spared him thirteen years ago, when I impaled his entire squad of vampires for disobedience. He was one of the strongest, and I hated to lose him. But now I will finish him, given the slightest pretext. They might have formed an alliance, and they could be in contact with other supernaturals who are out to destroy me. Which is why I need you to keep them on a very short leash—without them knowing that you’re doing it. I want to know every step they make before they’re even aware they’ll make it.”
Tristan nods, a grave stare telling me I can rely on him. One of the best things about Tristan is that he’s determined to please me, and I treasure his loyalty.
Lord Dracula
I’M LURKING OUTSIDE the girl’s window. Since last night I’ve been worried that hypnotizing her into reconnecting with her bloodline opened the door for the dark powers of her past to drain her. I’m afraid that might kill her before I have the demon’s name, which means I wouldn’t get to even taste her blood, let alone drink my fill. Until the demon is defeated, I have to protect her.
Letting my body dissipate into a dark mist, I spread my energy like a huge blanket of darkness among the trees outside witch Magda’s old cottage, and leak in under the doors.
In this state I can infiltrate different places at the same time. I seep into Dalton’s room as well, to make sure he stays there. He’s nervous in his sleep, thrashing around, sweating. His price for baiting Ruxandra Len to Transylvania was to be turned into a vampire, and I imagine the Old Priest already bit him. That leaves him three days to fully transform—and then he’ll pay the price for wanting to become a monster.
I find Rux Len in the attic, sleeping in the same room her adoptive mother used many years ago. I approach slowly, floating around the bed, and over the covers like rivers of mist. Part of me infiltrates through her nostrils, ensuring that she stays asleep, but also analyzing her body functions. She appears indeed weaker than yesterday. The pallor of her face is a little sickly, too.
I need more knowledge of her body. I slither under the white covers and the satin robe she’s wearing, doing what I’ve done countless of times with other women, expecting this will be no different. But then it turns out it is different, very much so.
Her skin is smooth, milky, making me crave to lick it. Probably because her blood is bound to send me in a frenzy once I taste it. Also, I’ve been without a woman for years. After Ruxandra betrayed me, the only thing I ever really lusted for was blood, and sex was something that happened occasionally, always meaningless. But this girl stirs my human, male instincts on a very profound level, and it feels like.... Fuck, like my very first erection. The feeling is exquisite, a precious moment felt in the eternity that I’ve wandered this world.
Slithering on her skin in mist form allows me to feel her all over my body at the same time. It’s like we’re sliding skin on skin against each other. Her white satin robe undulates as rivers of mist move under it, up her thighs to her stomach to her round, full breasts.
If I were in human form, my breath would betray my excitement. Her breasts are mouthwatering, white milky flesh with rosy nipples, full mounds that would fill my huge hands. I glide along her inner thighs, and a soft moan escapes her lips. She arches her back, writhing into my touch like all the other women I’ve pleasured before in mist form in order to take their blood. They were usually sick women, lying on their death’s bed, and I gave them one final orgasm before I took their blood and turned them into vampires. But Rux Len, her energy is unique. It’s the energy of a virgin pleasured for the first time in her life.
It’s fascinating, watching her face as I glide from her inner thighs to her well-shaped, feminine hips. I can’t help it, and push harder into her young flesh, grabbing her like I would with my hands. Part of me slips between her legs to her folds, finding them guarded by a dusting of hair. Fuck, she isn’t wearing panties.
My masculine instincts are on fire. I need to feel this woman in my hands, I want to grab her and push my hard cock inside of her.
The mist slowly gathers on the bed next to her, becoming denser until it gives me human form. Within minutes I’m sitting next to her, naked. Turning into mist causes the clothes to fall off of me, I left them on a tree behind the cottage. If she only knew that Dracula hovers stark naked by her side....
Once I assume the full shape of a man, I slither on my hands over her, drinking in the sight of her. Propping myself on an elbow I lie by her side, using my powers to make sure she doesn’t wake up, and slowly pull the cover off of her.
Oh, God, she’s so beautiful. So pure, soiled only by my presence and my influence inside her sleeping head that makes her moan softly like she desires me. Her sweet lips part, and she breathes in deeply, her chest rising, her nipples protruding through the satin. Without thinking, I caress her rich black hair that’s spread over the white pillow, making her resemble a Snow White in her glass coffin. A coffin—that’s where she’s going to end up because of me.
This ivory beauty with her rosy lips and velvety skin, her ebony hair glowing almost blue in the moonlight, she’s unique. She’s unlike any woman I’ve met in six centuries, and I’ve met a lot. Even the memory of my first wife pales compared to the reality of this girl half-naked in bed next to me.
My eyes fall down the hourglass shape of her body
, to her wasp-like waist as I push the cover slowly down. My breathing increases as I caress my way under her gown, spreading my large palm over her thigh. I breathe in sharply as her flesh fills my hand, and I begin to knead greedily.
I deserve to be whipped for this. What makes me think I can just take her virginity while she’s asleep? She’ll never know, the monster part of me says. She won’t live long enough to find out.
That rips through my heart like a silver blade. Enter her body, enjoy the wet heat inside of her, knowing full well I’m going to eventually kill her? I sink my fangs into my lower lip, piercing it and causing myself pain. Maybe I can drain her blood but give her mine at the same time, and turn her into a vampire. But then she would hate me forever. She’d never pledge her loyalty to me, and the awareness of that sends more pain through my chest.
Pain. Another sensation I haven’t felt in centuries. The simple idea of replacing the demon in her life, saving her from his evil but giving her mine in return makes me realize once more that I’m a vile creature. Who would choose to become what I am? Only dying people, or power-mongers that don’t deserve to live anyway.
I bite harder into my lip, causing blood to squirt out, determined to force myself to get up and leave. But Rux Len moans again, and my cock hardens to the point of snapping. I lose my head. I need to feel her, I just need to. If I only could resist the scent of her blood the way I resisted my late wife’s and then her baby’s, but the scent of this girl’s horny body is just irresistible.
I slip under the covers, naked and hard against the girl, only her satin gown between us. A moan escapes my lips, rusty and strange to my ears. The first moan in ages, my voice deep and dark compared to her soft, crystalline moans as my fingers touch her folds over the thin dusting of hair.