Prince of the Damned

by Ana Calin

  “Look at them,” he hisses at me, his jaw ticking angrily. “Look what the rabies is doing to them. They ripped those vampires apart, they tore bits of flesh from their bodies, and now they suck at what’s left of their prey like starving dogs nibbling on dry bones. Now are you sure you want to stay in this place, Rux?”

  I look around, horrified, but manage to keep it together. The idea of him forcing me to leave his side terrifies me more than what I see around us.

  “I just want to be with you, Vlad,” I whisper. “If you don’t want me here, I understand, but come with me.”

  “I told you why I can’t do that. I’m the only one who can keep these creatures under anything resembling control.”

  I take in the apocalyptic scenery around me one last time before I decide to turn to Vlad with my chin up.

  “Okay, I see you’re determined to get rid of me no matter what.”

  “Rux, I told you—”

  “And I got it.” I allow my eyes to grow darker, my voice changing. “But don’t forget that I’m not just a fragile human, either. My dark powers are back, in a new form. I haven’t had the time to be happy or alarmed about it, but it’s been enough for me to get a sufficient grasp on them.”

  He searches my eyes with those blood-saturated, predator irises.

  “I can use this dark power to keep these creatures at bay.”

  “No. We still don’t know the toll it can take on you, using this power. You fainted—”

  “That was from the shock.”

  “Ruxandra!”

  “Listen.”

  The vampires stop the nibbling and sucking, turning their heads to us like animals with their snouts full of blood. I look around and step closer to Vlad, lowering my voice.

  “Let’s compromise, okay? You go with me to the closest hotel, have a bath, get your head out of this environment, out of this darkness.” He wants to protest, but I stop him. “As for these people here—” I refuse to call them creatures; they are, in the end people. “We’ll call Tristan and Irina, have them and our vampires surround this place, and keep them in.”

  “Normal vampires are food to these guys. They can’t be anywhere near—”

  “Our people will put on protection suits for themselves, but surround this place with silver. That way these vampires won’t be able to get out, not even at their master’s calling.”

  Vlad presses his beautiful, blood-red lips together, thinking. “That might just work.”

  “It will, Vlad. You are the only one who can stop this thing, but in order to find a solution you need a clear head. Please. Come with me.” I place a hand on his chest, between the sides of his leather jacket. His body feels rock hard through the blood-encrusted top, and I can barely refrain from starting to caress him possessively. Remind him that he’s only mine, and he’s never to ignore my calling while drinking the blood of other women. I want to be the only one fulfilling his needs.

  He looks deeply into my eyes, thinking, but I know I’ve convinced him. In the end, there’s no other way.

  CHAPTER IV

  Rux

  Just across the road from the sewers where the rabid vampires lurk there’s a shabby hotel. This is Sector 5, so the small building is full of pimps and hookers, the windows dirty and broken as if the place were abandoned. Only the flickering light here and there shows that there are guests or, better said, clients. A few girls hang out by the entrance, leaning against the walls and displaying their goods, while the pimps inside smoke and play cards.

  They stare at Vlad and me as we walk in and head to the reception, me walking ahead of him. No matter how much of a dump this place is, I figured a huge guy in leather, with the face of a killer and blood-encrusted top would seriously lower our chances of getting a room.

  He stares back at the pimps while I check us in and give the receptionist the money, plus a bribe to forget about the names. Sure, she’s used to peculiar couples, and checks us in as if nothing, chewing her gum, her drooping eyes unimpressed. But when Vlad approaches the counter she sits up, her eyes widening. He places his huge hand on my lower back.

  “I don’t like how those assholes stare at you,” he says in my ear, his glare on the pimps. “They should probably know you are my wife, and not some hooker.” He says that loud enough for the receptionist to hear. She nods quickly as a sign she’ll let them know.

  The pimps’ eyes follow us as we head up the stairs to the first floor. I put the key into the lock, the old thing refusing to budge until Vlad reaches over me and gives it a twist. There’s a pleasant prickle in my scalp when he pushes the door open and invites me in, making me feel giddy like a girl about to lose her virginity. I can’t help hoping he’ll finally be mine again tonight.

  The room is everything one would expect from a Sector 5 cheap hookers’ hotel, clumpy bed with greyed sheets and an old-fashioned bed lamp, stained lampshade included. Vlad pulls the string, turning on the low light. The hooker next door cries out her supposed orgasm, the client growling like a prehistoric man enjoying the most forbidden of pleasures. It turns me on in a dark and dirty way as I stare at my own magnificent beast in leather, who’s looking back at me with intense, blood-filled eyes.

  “Why don’t you go take a shower,” I say, my voice hitching. I clear my throat, and walk over to the window, pushing the thick curtain aside with two fingers. “I’ll keep an eye on the sewers.”

  Vlad lingers behind me. I can’t see him in the windowpane, since he’s a vampire and doesn’t reflect against any kind of glass, only against water, but I know what he’d look like. His face would be half visible in the low light, masculine and deadly. I can feel his predator eyes on me, as I can feel his desire rising, making my own soar. I’m going to seduce him tonight, no matter how hard he’ll try to keep me away.

  Still, when I finally hear the water running in the bathroom, I breathe out in relief. Hell, this is what a first night with one’s crush must feel like. I feel the same butterflies in my stomach that I did the first time we made love.

  I try to focus on the shadows hovering by the entrance to the sewers just across the street, knowing it’s Tristan, Irina and the others, creating a border of silver around the place so the rabid vampires wouldn’t get out. They do it stealthily, in a way that normal people would think they’re working on the electricity lines or something.

  When Vlad re-emerges from the bathroom I’m still looking out the window, even though there’s nothing more to see. I just stare at the hooker now bending over to the rolled-down window of a car, pushing her skinny pink latex butt in the air as she negotiates with the prospective client. For God’s sakes, how can I be alone in a room with my own husband and feel like a virgin on her first sex date?

  “Rux,” he says, his deep voice rich, alluring.

  “Yes.”

  “I need to ask you something. But I need you to face me.”

  I turn around slowly, my eyes finding Vlad Dracula’s naked body, water drops still glistening on his warrior muscles. The only thing covering him is the towel wrapped around his waist. His hair is wet, too, clinging to his strong neck and shoulders, and his dark red eyes with the lightning cracks make him resemble a painfully beautiful devil. Just the sight of him causes an ache to build between my legs.

  “Back at the club, when I found you among those men,” he begins, standing on the other side of the bed. “You had activated your darkness, using it to subdue them, but I—” He looks for words, but I catch the shadow of reproach. “I got the impression you were enjoying it, too. Having those men at your feet, subjected to your power. I have to wonder, hadn’t I been in your life, as your husband, as your lover, as anything... would you have liked to take pleasure from them?”

  His question goes a number of times through my head like a carousel before I even understand what he’s asking me. Then anger shoots to my brain. I walk around the bed, approaching him, fighting the need to slap him.

  “How dare you even ask me this, Vlad? After you ig
nored my calling and kept sucking the blood of another woman? How dare you?”

  “That was different.”

  “Different how? I was under the influence of my own darkness, just like you were under yours. Even if I had certain cravings, how were they different from yours? And if I think about it—” I stare at him defiantly. “You hadn’t touched me in weeks, even before this whole thing happened.”

  “You know I would have given you everything, if it weren’t for the thirst.”

  I throw my hands in the air, exasperated.

  “Oh, please, I can’t even hear that argument anymore. You did it in order to protect me, because you craved my blood, but damn it, Vlad! Your desire for me as your woman should have been greater than anything.” I blurt out the truth about what’s really bothering me. It may be absurd, but it feels so freeing I can’t stop myself. “That’s what you promised me years ago.”

  “Please, Rux,” he slurs darkly through his teeth, the red in his eyes intensifying.

  “The thirst again, right? You want me to take distance, and stay away from you, right?”

  “It’s for your own good.”

  “Oh, is that so?” I let my darkness into my eyes, and Vlad’s jaw tightens.

  “Rux, what are you doing?”

  “I don’t need you to keep me safe,” I say, my voice changing. “I have my own powers, Vlad Dracula, and I can protect myself.”

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about.” There’s tension in his face, and his entire body flexes. He makes to walk away from me, which sends rage from my stomach to my brain like fire. I activate the sixth sense I did at the club, and in an instant I feel Vlad’s body like my own, every organ and every muscle. The first sensation that hits me is awe because, unlike those I sensed before, he has absolutely no weakness. His body is in perfect health, and indeed much stronger than I could even imagine. I sense that he has the strength to lift a whole cargo plane in his arms.

  But I have control over those arms right now.

  Time slows down. Vlad has turned his back to me, and he’s now a few feet away, but still in the space between the bed and the drywall that separates this dingy hotel room from its bathroom. The darkness spreads to the whites of my eyes, and the blood drains from my face, leaving it snow-white. Next thing I know, I flex those arms as if they were my own.

  Vlad hits the drywall, his arms apart.

  “What the hell?” He looks at himself, then at me.

  I stand here, at the foot of the bed, staring at him out of demonic black eyes without even blinking.

  “What are you doing, Rux?”

  “Proving that I can protect myself. I just pinned the great Lord Dracula to the wall.”

  He raises an eyebrow. “Intriguing.” He looks me up and down, his eyes intense. “But I can break any magic chains.”

  “You would be able to break any chains, no doubt.” I begin taking off the black dress. Vlad wants to protest, but I continue talking.

  “But what’s holding you to that wall aren’t chains, Lord Dracula, not mine, not a demon’s, not anyone’s. You are being held prisoner by the strength of your own arms—and that’s a whole lot of power.” I slide down my panties, and step out of them, now standing fully naked in his field of vision.

  “If the originator of the rabies can control your impulses,” I slur as I walk right past him to the old phone on the nightstand, “then I, your wife, will control your body.”

  “Nobody ever held control over me for too long, Rux. And I will find a way to break his, I promise you....” He trails off as I pick up the receiver, stick my finger in the round little hole at number one, and slide down in an arc. It’s a really old device.

  I order sparkling wine and two tumblers at the reception, taking a seat on the edge of the bed, crossing my legs. This gives Lord Dracula a nice full view of me, and I relish the growing want with which he looks at me. My eyes slip down his frame, full of lust, stopping at his cock when I see the towel hanging on it like it would on a baton. He’s got a mighty hard-on.

  “My God, you’re an incredible specimen,” I whisper with all the lust I feel. “I get goose bumps just thinking of all the things I could do to you right now, whether you let me or not.” That last part involves the power I have over him, and it makes me horny in a dirty way that should freak me out. Instead, I’m enjoying it big time.

  Vlad balls his fists, his thighs flexing, his huge cock twitching under the towel. I want to reach out and remove the towel, then to come down to my knees and take him into my mouth, but no. I have other plans for him tonight, even if that means ending up mad with lust myself.

  There’s a knock on the door, and the receptionist’s smoker voice calls out, ‘room service’ from the other side. I hold up my index finger at Vlad.

  “Hold that thought.”

  “You’re not opening that door naked.”

  “And who’s gonna stop me.”

  His eyes narrow. “Don’t.”

  “It’s just the receptionist, Vlad, a woman. And besides.” I point to my eyes and my face. “What guy do you think would want to take on something like this? Even a vampire would run away screaming.”

  Sure enough, the receptionist freezes with eyes as big as apples as I crack the door. She can only see half my face, but it’s enough. I take the bottle of sparkling wine and the two tumblers from her hand.

  “Whatever you hear,” I tell her in my spectral demoness voice, “do not enter.” I flip the ‘do not disturb sign’ over the doorknob on the outside, and close the door in her face.

  Because I can sense human bodies in my proximity thanks to my dark power, I know she still stands outside the door for a few moments, blinking and trying to make sense of what she just saw.

  “Remember that time you did it to me in the secret passage at the castle, Vlad?” I say as I uncork the sparkling wine, checking the label. It’s a good one, because sleazes in Bucharest may be cheap about their fuck crib, but not about their alcohol. That must always be the best.

  “You liked fucking the demoness girl, didn’t you? You liked the dirty feel of the situation, how base we both became,” I continue when all he does is stare at me intensely, not even trying to fight the power pinning him to the wall. But his eyes are intensely red, the fine cracks under his eyes starting to glow.

  “Why are you doing this to me, Rux?” he says low, danger lurking behind his words.

  I place the tumblers on the nightstand, my movements slow and lascivious as I pour sparkling wine into both. It looks crisp and inviting, its pure white foam glowing in the low light.

  “I told you. It hurt like hell that you could resist my calling the other night.” I hold both tumblers up, and clink them in front of him. “I might never be able to forgive you for that. Which is why I’m doing this now.” I lower the tumblers, looking at him with dirty provocation in my demonic black eyes. “I’m saving our marriage.”

  His jaw clenches, and his beautiful red lips turn hard in an expression that could be either anger or pain. “Were you so hurt that our very marriage is in danger?”

  “It was betrayal, Vlad. If I don’t do this, it’ll eat at me over the years, and eventually I think I’ll walk out,” I say truthfully. “I was so convinced that you’d never want anything else in the world more than me, that your betrayal turned my entire universe upside down. I know it’s absurd, and stupid, but it’s the way I feel. I’m so damn angry with you.”

  “You might end up walking out on me, you say,” he says darkly, not taking those red eyes off me. “But when you play that scenario in your mind, how do I react to it, Rux? Do I just stand there and watch you leave?”

  The jealous menace behind his words sends a thrill through me. God, I’m going to love this.

  I come so close to him that my breasts touch his upper abs—since he’s so much taller than me. I lift a tumbler to his sensual mouth that I’m dying to have between my legs, and have him sip. He opens those sensual lips and drinks, sparkli
ng wine trickling from the corner of his mouth down his chin, dripping on his large pectoral. My pussy creams, making me squirm a little.

  “You must never forget that you are mine, oh great Lord Dracula,” I whisper, leaning in and licking the drop of wine off his pectoral with the tip of my tongue. His nipples harden, and he releases a hiss.

  Keeping my eyes on him as not to miss any expression crossing his face, I sit back on the bed with my tumbler in my hand. I lean back on the other, offering him a view of my breasts and my pussy as I open my legs. He bares his fangs, his eyes now glowing like lava, the red veins under them cracking the skin further down his sharp cheekbones. Oh God, how I love this brute and the way he looks at me, and how I relish the sensation of power coursing through my body—which is also what drives him mad with craving for my blood.

  “Rux, I beg you. Don’t torture me.”

  “Oh, yes my love, beg me.” I sit up straight, pushing my large breasts forward, holding the tumbler up and bringing my free hand to my folds. “Lust comes second for you right now, after the desire for my blood, and what I want is for it to come first. I want you to want to fuck me more than you want to suck my blood. Only then will I be satisfied.”

  I push two fingers through the light bush of pubic hair, parting my folds and showing him what I know he’s dying to see. He can’t control himself, his eyes falling down my body when I start working on my clit. He hisses and bares his fangs, a sound that would send chills down any human’s spine, but not mine. The more I stay in this form, of the demoness, the stronger I feel, like nothing can touch me.

  “Do you want to do this yourself, Vlad?” I whisper in the eerie voice of the demoness. His cock is engorged, reddened and veined, straining with want.

  I sip from my tumbler, my eyes hooded. The booze pairs with my dark power and goes to my head. I drain it, stroking myself, and watching him. Placing the now empty tumbler on the nightstand, I lean back on my hand, and sink two fingers of the other inside. My breasts come together as I do it, offering Vlad a luxurious view of them.