Prince of the Damned

by Ana Calin

  She doesn’t respond, but I’m sure she heard me. The wind keeps whirling and raging in the vertigo that transports us, but soon I start to feel my cells coming together again.

  The wind soon settles into what I realize immediately is the surface reality. Vlad is facing his son Michael, with Gruia dead and bleeding halfway between them, green mist rising from him.

  I jolt towards Vlad, but something holds me back. A screech pierces my ears, and my head snaps in the direction of the sound. Sure enough it’s Victoria at my feet, in full human form because she’s still holding to my ankle.

  Vlad makes a sudden move to come over, but Victoria shrieks again.

  “Don’t you dare come closer, Prince of Blood! Or this will be the last time you see your beloved pet.” There’s so much hatred in her voice that I can’t even pity her anymore. She merely glances at Gruia’s dead body.

  “I figured you’d have killed Gruia by now, and that you’d be feeling like you’d won,” she spits. “But no. Because I am taking your slut away from you, you bastard! I’m ripping your very fucking heart from your chest. You will suffer, Vampire King, and so will that asshole brother of yours, Radek, who refused to love me. He loves this one, too, like a daughter, doesn’t he? Well, take one last good look at her, because I’m taking her away forever, to a place where neither you nor Radek will ever find her.”

  “No wonder nobody ever loved you, Victoria,” I say, grimacing to show her all of my contempt. “You are a sleazy, moist, diarrheal piece of shit.” I glance at Gruia. “The only creature who ever gave a damn about you is dead. If you do own a soul, at least one as small as a bean, you’d respect him at least for that, and you’d feel at least a little bit sad.”

  “I’m feeling ambitious, that’s how I’m feeling.” She grins up at me from the ground, like a ghostly snake. “But I will have you join me in a place where he—” She jerks her head in Vlad’s direction. “Will never find you.”

  Part of her begins dissipating again, so I have only moments left. I shake my head.

  “You still don’t get it, do you, Victoria?” I say calmly, marking my words as if I’m explaining this to a child. “I am a more powerful witch than you, and I can squash you.” I talk slower as I drive pain through her, turning and twisting it like knives all over her body. Her grip loosens, and she cries out in terrible pain.

  I stare her in the face as I apply more pressure, and say the last words. “Like. A. Fucking. Bug.”

  Lord Dracula

  AFTER VICTORIA EXHALES her last breath, her ghost-like body explodes into a cloud of ashes that spreads around us, settling on the ground in a shape similar to the Ottoman crescent moon.

  Once the ashes have settled, Rux runs into my arms. I open them widely, wrapping them around her as soon as her chest has slammed into mine.

  I swirl her around, then brush the hair feverishly from her face, kissing her all over, finally pressing my hard lips to her plump little mouth.

  The sound of clapping hands brings both of us back to the moment, to the horror-film worthy scene—Gruia in a pool of red-greenish blood between Michael and us, Victoria’s ashes all around.

  “How touching,” Michael says sarcastically. “The two star-crossed lovers, having found each other again.”

  “Michael, please.” I let go of Rux, shielding her with my body. “This is between you and me, leave Rux out of it.”

  “Oh, do not worry, dear father,” he says grudgingly. “I wouldn’t dream of hurting Lady Rux. If I wanted to, I would have done it by now. But all I did was send her to mirror reality because I sensed she wanted to prevent us from facing each other—I was eager to kill you or have you kill me, but now I have a different idea. She might actually play a part so that I forgive you.”

  I can sense the trick behind his words.

  “What do you mean?”

  He juts out his chin provocatively. “Cede her to me.”

  “Cede her?”

  “Say what?” Rux intervenes at the same time, gripping my arm, and glaring at Michael. “Listen, pretty boy, shouldn’t you be asking me?”

  I put my large hand over hers, squeezing reassuringly.

  Michael’s green eyes glint with even more poison than Gruia’s. “Whether you’ll have me or not is another story.” He looks to me again. “I need you to say it, now, to her face. Tell her she’ll have to go with me.”

  “Michael, you don’t understand,” I say calmly. “She’s not mine to give, I—”

  “Yes, I’m well aware of the modern concepts with which women like Lady Ruxandra grew up, they’re masters of their own lives, but—”

  “That’s not what I mean,” I interrupt him. “Lady Rux is my mistress. I mean, as in....” Rux and I look into each other’s eyes. She nods—there’s no better way to put it than plainly. “As you know, Lady Rux is a half-demon, like yourself. And I pledged my soul to her. She’s not my property, I am hers.”

  Michael stares at us, his green gaze darkening with rage.

  “That you should fall in love with this woman despite having had children with someone else,” he says through his teeth. “That was bad enough. But that you’d pledge your soul to her, when her womb has never even held your seed, that is an unforgivable sin. You owed your soul to my mother, not to this whore.”

  “I am not a whore.” Rux steps forward, her eyes blackening and her face going white. Michael grips tighter to his dagger, and my body tenses. Fuck, I don’t want to stand between my wife and my son.

  Michael looks Rux up and down. “You think you’re special, don’t you, Lady Rux, because of your great demonic power. But you’re—”

  “I am special, Michael, but not because I’m half demon. Your father and I were destined to be together even before I was born! Even the way we met, when we met, it was so glaringly obvious that destiny weaved our paths with each other. Whether you like it or not, I am Vlad Dracula’s soul mate.” She looks down as if she is half sorry for that. “I know it must be painful to you, even after all this time. In the end, you are your mother’s son, and it’s only natural to be loyal to her, to suffer for her pain.

  “But even though she died, you have been richer than me. I never felt the caring of a mother even as a baby. I was born a demon’s funnel into this world, like my mother before me. She never held me, never sang to me.” I can hear the tears in her voice, and it’s tearing my guts. It makes me want to give her all the love that I’m capable of, put my heart out on a golden platter for her. But it doesn’t soften Michael.

  “You want to talk destiny?” He rumbles. He comes closer to us, his face red as he remembers centuries of heartache.

  “Fine, let’s talk destiny, over this poor bastard’s body, bleeding between the two of us—the symbol of his own fate.” He looks down to Gruia for a moment, before his eyes shoot daggers at Rux again. “Why I am a half-vampire is a no-brainer, but do you know why I am a half-demon, Lady Rux? Taking Vlad Dracula’s first wife as a role model, my mother pledged me to a demon to ensure that I was strong enough to survive in case Dracula had children with other women. She expected that he would cheat, because he never loved her. Those other children would have been half-vampires, too, and I would have had no advantage over them. Competition for the throne was fierce back in the day, and she feared for my life. She struggled with guilt over that decision until the day she died. Do you think that was destiny, too?”

  “Yes,” Rux replies simply.

  “Then destiny must be one big fucking asshole,” he spits with hatred, throwing his arms in the air. He heaves, his chest moving up and down, his jaw clenched as his eyes fly from me to Rux.

  “I think you now finally understand why I wanted to kiss her and seduce her, don’t you, father?” he tells me. “What could have hurt you more than the love of your life leaving you for none other than your own son. Because I could seduce her, twist her brains. It’s one of my demonic powers.”

  “It would have never worked,” Rux says, shaking her head but
keeping her gaze down, as if she can’t bear to look at Michael. “I am bound to your father in many ways, all of them unbreakable. Our souls have... merged.”

  My arm closes protectively around Rux’s round, small shoulders. She’s mine, completely mine, for eternity. I need to help my son understand that.

  “Dead or alive, I will always love this woman,” I say softly, like an apology, surrender in my voice. “Even if my body died, I would keep on loving her. I would keep on loving her even if she left me for you.” Any other man, and I would gut him alive right in front of her, but Michael doesn’t need to know that.

  “You even did the impossible to get your hands on her.” He glares at me with searing eyes. “But never once in six hundred years have you tried to find me.”

  “I thought you dead, Michael. There was no hope for you or your mother to have survived after the Ottoman raid. I reached the castle in Poienari three days after they’d allegedly killed you.” I swallow the painful knot in my throat at the memory, sinking my head. “They told me you and your mother had been skinned alive. But a few months later an old priest from a nearby village said that the executioner actually took pity on you and killed you before the torture. You have no idea how I clung to that possibility.” I’m afraid my voice will break, so I stop talking.

  Michael keeps staring at Rux and me, Gruia’s dead body between us, Victoria’s body turned into ash surrounding us in the shape of the crescent moon.

  “Please,” I say, my voice thick. “Stay with us, Michael. Let us find each other again, let us—”

  He laughs, first low, then loudly, an angry laugh.

  “And then what, Vlad? Live together as a family, become father and son, and Ruxandra would be my step mother?” He points at me angrily. “You contented yourself with hearsay from your boyars and villagers, while another man came and found me. In my eyes, he is my father. Here’s the truth, if you care to know it—yes, they did skin me, and I was very much alive through it.”

  That sears my heart like a red iron, making me cringe. Rux wraps her arms around me, looking up into my face that must be distorted with agony from what I’m hearing.

  “Someone did kill mother out of pity, and that was me. To save her the torture. You have many crimes weighing on your shoulders, Vlad, but do you know what it feels like to know you ended the life of your own mother, even though you did it for her own good?” Tears break his voice, making it shake, but he continues with rage. “She begged me to do it, Vlad. I was only a boy, but between the two of us, I was the physically stronger one, because I was half vampire and half demon. I had to do it, put my own mother out of her misery before they could do even worse things to her than they already had. And all because you weren’t there to protect us when they came. Everything was more important than her and I.” He breaks, but then his voice returns.

  “Then they skinned me. They strapped me to a table and they went about the work without blinking. But they didn’t know I was a supernatural, and when my skin began to regenerate, fast, they backed off in fear. I managed to break the straps, too. I killed them all, drank them dry, the first time I had my fill of human, healthy blood. It made me ten times stronger.

  “I escaped and hid in the sewers of Istanbul, naked and dirty and scared to death because I didn’t know how to deal with my vampirism. I discovered my sensitivity to sunlight and silver soon enough, and kept myself away from the two sources of pain, clinging to hope that you would eventually find me. Then the Serpent Lord did. He’d heard of my disappearance and, unlike you, my own father, he never gave up. He searched for me for years until he finally discovered me in those sewers. So, Vlad Dracula, again, to make sure you understand perfectly—to me, he is my real father.”

  “Octavius looked for you because he wanted to use you,” I say, my throat tight. “He didn’t really care, emotionally, if he found you dead or alive. He didn’t care if he found you mutilated or dismembered, with a silver blade parting your ribcage. To me, the mere thought of you and your suffering felt like acid onto my heart. I had to turn the pain into rage, brutality, cruelty, so that my soul could survive.” Flashes of the vampires I impaled from the stalactites go through my mind. Every time I impaled one, for treason or intended treason, I’d been impaling those who killed Michael. Those who turned me into this monster. Those who trained me and sharpened my talents and skills until I fully became the evil Vampire King.

  I turn my back to Michael, arms still around Rux, holding her tightly at my chest. If Michael attacks me in his rage, I don’t want his blade reaching Rux.

  “Slash my jugular now, or leave, if you want,” I tell him, my voice broken and my heart shattered. “But, if you ever change your mind, or change your heart, you’ll always have a place by my side. My arms will wait open for you.”

  “Our arms,” Rux says. She takes her black eyes off me and bends to the side to look at Michael. “We will always welcome you, Michael. You know you and I have a bond, whether we like it or not, because we are both half demons, and we have each other’s names,” she says softly. “There may come a time in your life when you’ll feel the need to turn to someone, and deep in your heart you’ll know there’s only one person who can understand. A half-demon you connected to. Come to me. Don’t let pride, anger or even hatred stand in your way. Beyond all that, we are—” She pauses, marking the word. “Family.”

  Silence settles in, wind blowing through the trees. Michael is pondering, but his rage still dents my back. When the breeze intensifies, leaving a cold void behind, I know he’s made his choice—he’s gone.

  Lord Dracula

  I STARE OUT THE HOTEL window at the House of Parliament in the night, cradling an almost empty tumbler of sparkling wine. Three days and three nights have passed since the green mist lifted, Gruia’s poison leaving the vampires’ bodies and clearing them of the rabies.

  But I couldn’t celebrate then. I was sick with sadness for the first two days. One way or the other, Gruia and Victoria had won—my soul was shattered. The pain of Michael’s hatred tore me apart. But today I’ve started to mend, to look at things differently—My son is alive, and well, in this world, with me.

  He saved his mother from torture, then he saved himself. I’m grateful to the Serpent Lord, my archenemy, for having found him and raised him as his own—even though his only purpose was to one day use him against me. Gruia and Victoria messed those plans up, so the cold serpent must be hot blooded with rage right now.

  But it’s hard for me to even hold a grudge against Octavius, the Serpent Lord. In the end, he gave my son life and power, when the Ottomans wanted to end him cruelly.

  A small hand touches my shoulder. I close my eyes, giving in to the exquisite sensation. Rux, my wife, here to stay. I’ll never let her go again, not even if it kills me.

  The entire Hidden World now knows we’re together, that she is entirely mine, and I hers. Tristan just told us the information has spread throughout the country, that the King of Vampires married the Mistress of Pain. It won’t be long until the whole world knows it, we won’t be able to keep the information restricted. I didn’t like it for the first few seconds, but now I do—the whole world should know this woman is mine, and God save whoever tries to come between us again.

  But there is something still standing between us, and I can’t blame anyone but myself.

  “Be careful, my love.” My voice is thick with desire. “I’m hungry for you to the point of madness, but I’m also thirsty for your blood.” It’s not as bad as before, because I’m no longer rabid, and she is, in the end, my mistress, but still.

  She reaches around my hip from behind and cups my engorged cock through my jeans.

  “Ah,” I lean my head back. “Does it ever stop, the wanting you?”

  “That never needs to stop,” she whispers. “But the thirst must, because it’s keeping you away from me.”

  I turn around, slowly.

  Oh, I’ll be damned. I ogle her hungrily. How could I ever get eno
ugh of her if she keeps presenting herself like this? The woman’s fantasy has no bounds.

  She takes my hand, and moves like a cat as she leads me to the vanity table, a mirror with an elaborate frame above it. She’s wearing straps of leather that coil all over her body, her breasts and her buttocks and her pussy naked. My cock strains so hard against my jeans, it might rip my fly if I don’t free it.

  I unbutton my jeans quickly, my jaw clenching.

  “God, woman, I want you so badly it’s fucking violent.”

  “I want you to hook your fingers into these straps.” She hooks her thumbs through them and lets go, the leather slapping her shoulders. “And fuck me hard, like a sex slave.”

  God, the lust and love I feel for this woman, I swear I’ll burst with it. Only the thought of subduing her like that, making her mine in the most intimate, dirty way, goes to my head like Vodka on an empty stomach.

  “But next time,” she says, putting a finger on my hot lips when I bend too fast, eager to slide my tongue into her mouth. “I will have you wearing leather straps, and nothing else. And I will use you, as a sex slave, my hands hooked into the leather straps while I’m riding you like a stallion.”

  I grab her waist, pulling her hard to me, but she sends a current through my muscles, just enough to pinch. I hiss, clenching my teeth, but I don’t let her go. I hoist her up on the vanity table. “I’m gonna fuck you now, or my cock is gonna explode with need.”

  I throw off my shirt, but don’t have enough patience left for the rest. I whip out my cock and plunge inside of her, parting her wet walls. Her nipples turn hard, and her pussy creams heavily.

  “Grab my hair,” she commands, panting. I do, tugging.

  “Watch us in the mirror,” she orders. “Watch how you’re fucking me.”

  I lose my mind as I slam into her harder and harder. My eyes burn as I watch myself turning into a beast, bare-chested, and hellish-looking, my fangs shiny and sharp, while my claws show through Rux’s hair. I’ve taken my full vampire form, claiming her shamelessly.