by Ana Calin
“What the hell is this?” Victoria whispers as Ruxandra approaches.
“Dracula’s Grail,” Gruia says in fascination, contemplating the bony girl with the long white robe and the black hair. Of course, he’s a vampire, her scent tells him she’s the Grail. He couldn’t sense her before because she was locked in Magda’s basement, but now....
“What the hell?” Victoria shrieks as another tree cracks loudly, sending another spear towards an already running and piping Bloody Mary. It strikes the woman down, a meaty sound filling the woods.
“Stop right there,” Victoria warns, pointing a claw at the advancing Rux.
The girl, her black eyes unblinking, inhuman, tilts her head to the side.
“Or what?” she says in a small, crystalline voice that feels more menacing than a gun. All trees around begin cracking, thunder-like sounds tearing and ripping them apart, making them look like multiplying bones in a horror forest.
“Give up, Victoria,” Magda calls breathlessly as she hurries towards us with all the speed her aging body allows. She must have woken Rux and let her out.
“Never,” Victoria yells back over the cracking of the trees. “She can’t touch me physically, she can’t kill me!”
“All the vampires and the Bloody Maries have run, but she can bend the woods, they aren’t safe anywhere from her. If she kills all your allies, what then?”
Rux fixes Victoria with her demonic black eyes, the hologram-like witch staring back in both awe and fear. Two big spikes shoot out from trees, and two Bloody Maries cry in the distance.
“Five are already down, Victoria,” Magda urges, having slowed her pace now that she’s right behind Rux, and looking right into the other witch’s face. The white witch and the dark witch, facing each other, a tormented demon child between them.
“This girl is no normal girl. She’s a demon child, and she’s tormented entire bloodlines. She will kill all your wing girls, and she’ll find a way to kill you, too.” Magda glances at me. “For her.”
Victoria looks at me with big eyes, then narrows them in hatred. “Well, let us see what Lord Dracula has to say about that.”
She wraps her arms around Gruia, momentarily gaining full body presence around him, then they shimmer together and dissolve like mist.
I breathe out, relief coursing through me as if poison just left my body. I turn mellow in Radek’s arms, my hands fisting in his jacket, struggling for strength to stand up and run over to Rux. I look at the girl, our eyes meeting.
Her black irises are no longer demonic, but scared, her bony face distorted.
“Mama,” she says in a heartbreaking voice, and collapses to the ground.
“No!” I cry, and try to run to her. I fall to the ground, crawling my way to Rux, turning her around in my arms and stroking her face.
“What’s happening to her?” I ask Magda, full of despair.
“She’s used her dark energy to do what she did. It was a piece of cake in matters of her demonic powers, but it is draining her life force. I need to cut her off from the dark supply, now.”
“But we can’t stay at your place any longer,” Radek says, wrapping his arms around Rux and me, trying to warm us both. “If Victoria is taking the news to Dracula, he’ll be at your door in no time.”
Magda glances back towards her hut. “But I need the books inside the house. And the bunker. I can’t help the girl otherwise.”
Radek looks in the same direction, pondering. “Can you do it fast?”
“I can try.”
Radek nods. “Let’s do it.”
CHAPTER XII
Radek
Juliet and Magda are bent over Ruxandra down in the bunker, whispering incantations over the unconscious girl’s body. Their power fills the entire house, the wood creaking, responding like a living thing to their magic. The echo of their whispers would send chills down any human’s spine, and the girl’s dark, ink-like energy doesn’t leave me cold either. She has the kind of demonic presence that can make even a supernatural shudder.
I keep focused on the door, ready by the mirror, prepared to slip through it into the underground and take them all away as soon as they’re done blocking Ruxandra’s power and her past from her memory. I can only hope that it happens before by brother walks up to the front door. The way I know him, he’s going to make his entrance grand, theater-worthy.
I can feel his presence even before his familiar face appears through the small hut window by the front door. He walks slowly up to the porch, his boots clamoring with every step. Then he sees me.
We look at each other through the windowpane. Even from this distance he seems as big as a bear under his cape and hood. His big, almond-shaped eyes meet mine, his sharply cut, angular features growing even crueler.
I sense Juliet and Magda aren’t yet done downstairs. I need to think of plan B, now. My fists tighten, my arms flexing, my eyes turning luminous, putting me in fight mode. Vlad walks leisurely to the front door and turns the knob.
I’m forced to make three hard decisions in one second—I’m gonna fight him, there’s no way around it; if it looks like he’s winning, I’ll slip through the mirror and teleport Juliet, Ruxandra and Magda out of here even if they’re not done; the girl might die from her connection to her darkness, but at least she has a chance; there sure will be no escape from Dracula’s fangs.
Vlad puts one booted foot inside the Book Master’s house, then another, then the door falls shut behind his huge presence. The cape hangs like the wings of a dark angel on his broad shoulders, his now bright honey irises fixed on me—the bastard is angry.
“Victoria tells me you were trying to escape with your lover and the Grail.” His voice is deep and calm, but I know better. “I thought you were searching for it in my favor. I would have granted you a carefree life by the side of your beloved, if you simply held to that arrangement, you know.”
“Granted me,” I repeat, my upper lip curling over my teeth.
“Why hide the Grail from me? Why not hand her over and see your troubles with me forever solved?”
“The Grail... Turns out it’s not a thing. It’s a person.”
Vlad shrugs as if nothing. Of course, what is human life to him? “So what?” Then, with a wicked grin, “Since when do we make a difference between whats and whos?”
“Ever since I’ve known love with Juliet Jochs.” I narrow my eyes at him like an animal ready to bite. “You knew love before me, Vlad. You loved Ruxandra, your first wife, more than life. She was human, frail, and she was nothing to the Ottomans. But she was the world to you. You killed thousands to avenge her death. How can you simply take loved ones from people now, using them, sucking them dry of their vital energy, of their last drop of blood as if nothing?”
He smiles like the patient, ever wiser older brother that he believes himself to be, and starts pacing. “Love is fresh in your mind and heart now, Radek. Mine happened so long ago that I only remember how I felt. It made me feel good, just like any drug, until it gave me pain.” He faces me in full, his expression that of a ruthless warrior with a sick soul. “It made me a lesser man. It made me a wretch,” he snarls, the wooden walls shuddering. “It made me a fucking buffoon.”
He reaches the mirror that I intend to use to teleport to the basement if I sense Juliet and Magda are ready with the incantations. They’re not done yet, and I fucking know that grin on Vlad’s face, I know the cleverness in those eyes. He puts one big hand on top of the mirror, his claws scratching it in a way that makes my skin crawl.
“Love made Victoria an idiot. She lost the Grail tonight because punishing you and your lover for the pain you caused her was more important than the mission—the Grail. I had to teach her a lesson.”
I glance from him to the mirror, beginning to worry. “You punished her?”
Vlad bursts into skin-crawling laughter. “Even now, when you realize that I see you’re trying to delay me, you keep to that paper-thin plan of yours. You can forget plan
A and plan B, little brother. You’re not teleporting to the bunker.”
His big hand curls on top of the mirror and pushes it to the ground, the pane splintering into pieces.
“Fuck,” I grunt through my teeth, and launch myself at my brother for the first time since the day we struck our truce.
He grins and opens his arms, like a pain addict looking forward to my first punch.
I crash a fist into his jaw. Crunching my teeth and ignoring the sharp pain that goes through my hand bones, I bend like a boxer and go jab-jab on his ribs. Vlad is big and strong, his jaw harder than my fists, but his intercostal muscles are sensitive; he’s all muscle underneath the cape, no fat padding. My jabs cause him to bend and cuss, slapping the back of my head.
“Fuck, Radek,” he grunts. I think he’s actually laughing behind his gritted teeth. He always loved the pain of a good fight, so the bastard might actually be enjoying this.
Ready for his attack, I retreat towards the door to the stairs that lead to the bunker. Vlad straightens up and walks slowly towards me, his steps strong, his boots clamoring. He points one clawed finger at me as he advances, his face going from amused to serious.
“Even if you do manage to run away with the women, Radek, sooner or later I will find you. You’re not protecting them right now, you’re ensuring them a death sentence.”
“And what is the alternative, Vlad? We let you suck that poor child dry after all the shit she’s been through, leaving her a lifeless carcass? Then Juliet and I spend the rest of our days in hiding, because we never know when you might change your mind and decide you do want us dead?”
“If I wanted you dead, little brother, I wouldn’t have punished Victoria for having tried to kill you, would I?”
I freeze in place for a moment, measuring the great Dracula, my brother, from head to toe.
“You punished her for what she did to me?”
“She’s no longer part of my retinue or my army. I told her to bring you in, not to take it upon herself to finish you or the woman you love.” For a moment I think memories of us helping each other out of muddy ditches as children cross his mind. But then his face goes cruel and hard again. “If I ever want you finished, I’ll do it indeed with my own hand. I wouldn’t put my minions on you. In the end, you are my brother. You’ve earned that much.”
A flash of silver-like light catches my attention, I see it only from the corner of my eye. It’s a larger shard of mirror that has reflected the falling daylight. An idea strikes me.
“One day I will show up to fight you,” I tell my brother, looking him in the eye for the last time, making my decision. “But not today, Vlad. Because today, I must choose the one person I love more than you—Juliet.”
With that, I connect my energy to the mirror shard, allowing it to suck the consistency of my body. It all happens slowly in my mind, but in Vlad’s eyes it only takes a second. I get to see them widening, him baring his fangs in frustration as my flesh loses density, all sucked into the funnel of the mirror. When the big one in the bunker reforms behind me, I can hear his frustrated howl up in Magda’s living room.
I hurry over to Ruxandra, scooping her up from the floor, not minding the circle of black water that formed around her.
“Grab on to me,” I tell Juliet and Magda.
“But,” Magda wants to protest, looking around. “I cannot leave my books. They are way too powerful, in Dracula’s hands they could—”
I’m forced to turn authoritarian, dark, dangerous, forcing her to listen. “Magda, you’re in danger from Dracula right now. If you land in his hands, he’ll squeeze and torture information out of you, information on any supernatural creatures you may have had contact with, and then he’ll drop you dead in a ditch in order to provoke me to come back.” I glance around at the books. “But believe me when I tell you there is no better keeper for your books than him. He’ll take care of them religiously. He may be a monster, but he’s also a scholar, he worships knowledge.”
Magda presses her lips together, looking at me pleadingly as Dracula’s steps clamor down the stairs. I hoist Ruxandra on one shoulder, Juliet already wrapping her arms around my waist. I hold out my hand for the white witch.
“Now, Magda,” Juliet calls in despair.
Dracula kicks in the door, the heavy metal coated in wood thudding on the ground right into the pool of black water that Magda and Juliet’s incantations have drained from Ruxandra. Yet by the time the black and the dust settle, all that’s left in our place is the mirror, its pane still rippling.
Juliet
MY BRAIN IS STILL HEAVY from the elaborate spells we cast over Rux. It all worked at the last moment, the circle of the ritual closed just before Radek materialized inside the bunker with a wild look in his eyes.
I’m resting in my favorite armchair as I hear him enter the room, his steps soft into the carpet until he reaches me. He leans with his hands on the sides of the armchair, bringing his beautiful ivory face over mine, his blue eyes clear and sparkling with love. Those carnal red lips that have me crazy inch closer and closer until they press to mine.
I close my eyes slowly, enjoying the feel of his hot mouth.
“Everything’s set, my love,” he says, his breath warm against my lips. “Your sister packed the bags with a speed that would put a vampire to shame, and Lazarus just came in. Everyone’s ready.”
He comes back to his feet, allowing me to sit up and look around at the study inside my Green Forest apartment one last time.
“I understand you’ll miss it,” he says. “But I promise that I’ll make every new home look as similar to this place as possible.”
I shake my head with a smile, my gaze sweeping over the rows of décor books, the curtains, the tall double doors.
“No,” I breathe. “I gained my social power here, yes, I became a career woman, an influencer in Europe, but I was so unhappy, Radek.” My eyes rest on his. “So unhappy without you. Believe me, a life with you in a remote village will fulfill me more than my position as CEO at the European Hellhound ever has.”
He smiles whole-heartedly at me, that beautiful face, the face of Radek the Handsome, full of love. As hard as our love story has been, as much as I’ve had to suffer, as often as I almost lost my life, it was all worth it to know this kind of love—the kind of love that feels like a crush forever, that never dies, but that runs as deep as the marrow of your bones at the same time.
I grab the sides of the armchair and push myself up, coming really close to Radek, my face up, inviting him to kiss me.
“I love you, Radek, and I’ll happily marry you, but we still can’t relax into our love. We’ll have to give Ruxandra the most tranquil life possible. She’s been through even more hell than you and me. She’ll have to become our priority.”
Radek’s face hardens. He takes my head between his hands, looking deeply into my eyes.
“Yes, we are her parents. A big word, and a big responsibility. We have to protect her from Vlad with all we have, because he wouldn’t spare her, even though she’d remind him of his dead wife. He thinks love only weakened him, made him a lesser man. He might even kill her faster if she happens to awaken feelings in him.”
I shake my head, refusing to imagine this scenario or to accept the weakness of the creature I’m vertiginously coming to love as my own daughter.
“She is strong. She can—”
“No.” Radek shakes his head decisively. “She can’t. If Dracula ever gets his hands on Ruxandra, she won’t be able to protect herself. Her access to her dark power has been blocked.” He looks deeply into my eyes. “If he ever gets her, Juliet, he will kill her.”
My ears buzz, my mind funneling to one single thought—protect Rux.
Lord Dracula
VAMPIRES WITHDRAW FROM my path as I walk towards my black throne, the clamor of my boots echoing against the wet cave walls. The Old Priest, now a wicked and particularly ugly vampire, rubs his hands, pulling behind my throne.
; At first I think he must be mad. There’s a reason the others withdraw in the adjacent tunnels, hissing, scared. I’m in a bad mood, and it’s not a good idea to be around me now, all of them know that.
“Fancy to become my next impalement, Old Priest?” I grunt, making him aware of Gruia’s squad of vampires that now hang from the stalactites. Their blood drips into the pools under them for having disobeyed my direct orders and having followed Gruia’s.
“By no means, my lord,” the old man replies. “But I think you may want to listen to what I have to say.”
“And what exactly do you have to say?”
He hunches harder, but dares take a few steps closer, taking the opportunity to speak.
“The old witch, she left with them, right?”
“Yes.”
“Leaving her house and her books, yes?”
I don’t reply, invitation enough for him to continue.
“My Lord, I have a plan that will get us the girl.” He brings his ugly face closer, his eyes glimmering with evil. “It will take time. But it will work.” He glances at the recipient in which I have imprisoned Victoria. “She might yet prove useful, too.”
THE END
Of Prince of Obsession
But
TO BE CONTINUED WITH
Prince of Blood
(Coming very soon! February 18th-25th)
Until then you can enjoy the first book of this series, Prince of Midnight:
OTHER BOOKS BY ANA CALIN
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Born in vampire land Romania and living in romantic Germany, Ana Calin writes paranormal romance with vampires, shifters and other mysterious creatures who stalk their love interests from behind mirrors, or using other paranormal powers. Dark, intense, these love stories are not for the faint of heart.
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