He seemed nervous. Shy. He ruffled his hands through his blond hair, mussing it, and turned to face her.
“Why are you troubled? Do you not want me to see your true form?”
“I want you to love me as I really am. Not this, or any other illusion you would ever want me to wear. Oh, and I will happily wear them for you. But…I…” He sighed, resigning himself. “You’re right. I…wanted to prolong this.”
He sounded so vulnerable as if he were afraid she would say no to him. She watched him and wondered what kind of grotesque and terrible creature he was. Perhaps it would help fight off the burning heat that was pooling in her body, gathering in her core, begging her to give in to her desire.
“Are you ready?”
She nodded.
His body shimmered. It was as though a cloud around him gave away, and the mirage dropped.
She gasped.
He was not hideous. He was not a gargoyle.
He was anything but.
She should be horrified. She should look at a naked demon and find herself repulsed. Instead, she stared in awe. He had grayish-purple skin, grayer perhaps than not. His face had changed and become sharper in the cheekbones and along the jawline. His hair was still blond, but longer, and fell over one of his eyes in a rakish, jagged, and uneven cut. His eyes, still purple, were now far more saturated and unnatural.
He was lean. Long, muscular, and almost elven in his build. Not narrow by any means, but hardly bulky. A tail swished around behind him, the same color as his skin, hairless and tapered. Jewelry ran along it—no, through it—near the end. Piercings. Silver baubles and thick hoops dangled from it like they would from a woman’s ears.
That was not his only jewelry. A metal loop ran through his lush, full lower lip, silver against the darker purplish blue. A pair of black horns twisted out of his hair in elegant, graceful curls back from his head. They were carved with symbols and a strange pattern she had never seen before.
Her gaze betrayed her and wandered down.
And found more silver jewelry. Not to mention, it turned out that his horns and tail were not the only thing about him that was inhuman. She gasped and looked straight up at the ceiling. “Oh. Oh, God. Oh, God on high.”
Mordecai laughed. If he was offended, he didn’t show it. “God’s not here right now. Just you and me. Don’t be afraid.”
It really isn’t fear I’m feeling, is it? She wanted to look again. She stared at the ceiling.
He snickered. “Do you want me, Bella?”
Yes. “No.”
“Do you want to touch me?”
Yes. “No.”
“Are you wondering what it’ll feel like to be with an inhuman man?”
Yes. “No.”
“Do you want me to never touch you again?”
“No—wait!” She looked back down to him and glared angrily. “That was cheap.”
He was howling in laughter, and he flopped down onto the bed on his back and watched her with sultry, heavy-lidded eyes from his vantage point by her knees. “Sorry. You’re too much fun.”
She wanted to know what it would be like to be with him. He looked so foreign—so inhuman. She wanted to experience every inch of him.
And he could clearly tell by the warmth in her cheeks what she was thinking as he smiled at her. “There isn’t anything wrong with desire. There isn’t anything wrong with love. Let me love you, Bella. Let yourself see if you can feel the same for me. When all is said and done, and Dracula’s game is through, if you don’t love me, I’ll let you go. Unharmed. I vow it to you.”
“How can I trust you?”
“I gave you my name. My true name. I did it because despite my teasing, I trust you. My bright-eyed, beautiful, kind-hearted vampire hunter.”
“I…” She looked to him and was unable to look away. His true appearance lit a fire in her that she hadn’t even known existed. I am going to Hell, but I find his real form more beautiful than the illusion. There was something honest about it—about him. She looked into those eyes, a far more vivid purple than before, and couldn’t see a scrap of a lie.
She saw a fiend, a demon, a playful thing…a beautiful thing. And in those bright purple eyes she saw love.
“Do you really love me…?” Bella asked him breathlessly.
“Beautiful creature,” he breathed. He rolled over and got up onto his knees beside her. “I love you more than anything or anyone I have ever known.” His hands, which sported black nails, traced tenderly over her body.
She gasped. He was so warm to the touch—much warmer than a normal person. It sent her eyes drifting shut as he stroked his palms over her, cupping her breasts and gently caressing them. She couldn’t help but let out a small moan.
Following her own desires and instincts for once, she pushed his shoulders, sending him falling onto his back. He let out a startled noise but watched her, wide-eyed and awed, as she shifted to straddle his thighs.
I don’t have to deny myself this.
He was squirming at her ministrations as if he had never known the touch of a woman before. He rolled his head back, his mouth open, revealing that his top and bottom canine teeth were a little too sharp. Also revealing that he had another piece of metal in the form of a bar through his tongue. Now she was imagining what he used it for. Oh. She pointed down at him as if lecturing him. “No illusions. No control.”
“None, sweetheart,” he said through a heady, blissful moan at her touch. He was writhing beneath her, clearly overcome by her touch. “This is real.”
Real.
So much of her life had never been that. The people who took her in from the orphanage, her childhood, all of it—it all seemed to fall away so easily as the façade that it truly was. Society’s expectations. Death and horror paid to her by a monster, only for her to turn around and pay their kind more in return.
All of it was a lie.
This was real.
“Oh, Bella…” he said through a breathless sound. “I love you.”
As she pressed her body down onto his, as he delved inside her in all his demonic glory, she tilted back her head and cried out his name.
11
Walter was pacing. He did not pace frequently. Only when it was called for. And in this moment, it was required. He had too many problems to solve all at once. The American army had already rallied and was on its way. Humans needed to be corralled and monitored, fed and cared for enough that they could be sustained.
And there were three—correction, two—hunters on the loose in the city, dragging his Master’s new prize behind them on a damnable chain. The Captain of the demons had not come up for air since taking the female huntresses as his spoil of war. Zadok was indisposed dealing with the remaining two. And Vlad was often nowhere to be found.
Walter was once more on his own to strategize and defend the newly taken city.
Mostly on his own.
Honestly, he wished he were on his own.
It was not that Elizabeth was not helpful—she was a malicious, cruel, and calculating creature. She was as intelligent as she was dangerous, and she did not serve in Dracula’s higher ranks because she was weak.
She was a distraction.
And he needed to think.
“Gather Mordecai’s forces to the western border. The Americans are unlikely to request help from the Canadians unless we expand. We should take the scouts that come to garner information on the city. The less information they have on us, the better.” Elizabeth tapped her finger on the map. “Here is the major route I think they will take.”
“You’re likely correct. I doubt they will approach from the water until they get desperate.”
She sighed. “This is not a great city to survive a siege.”
Walter nodded. “I hope we do not have to withstand one for long. I do not think we will.”
“Do you think Uncle means to move us?” Elizabeth blinked at him.
Walter stilled his pacing briefly to face her. He debated
how much information to give the woman but saw no harm in it. She was the only one who had expressed interest ensuring that they did not all die from cannon fire, after all. “I think we will stay here until the business with Miss Parker is concluded, and we will move on with whatever prey we have managed to garner before then.”
“Huh.” Elizabeth looked down at the map then back to him. “Well. Then all these plans are rather much for naught, aren’t they?”
“It is not a certainty. He may destroy her, and then we are back to our original goal.”
“Which do you prefer?” Elizabeth swung around to face him, her legs draping off the edge of the table. Her chestnut waves were loose around her face, curling along features that were carefully made to be perfect and beautiful.
But it was not uncommon for vampires to look as such. Their survival was based on their effectiveness to hunt, and if their prey came to them willingly, drawn in by their allure, all the better. A wolf who did not have to chase its sheep was bound for a longer and happier life.
With Elizabeth, he found the practice irritating. Of course, he found her irritating in general. That might have more to do with her constant requests to become his bed-partner and less with her decision to carefully maintain her personal appearance.
He was quite happy that he did not find himself a lonely individual. He did not find himself lacking when he woke up alone. Otherwise, he might have been tempted to give in to her constant banal flirtation.
That was not to say that he did not understand the desire to have a companion. He did not fault Vlad or Mordecai for their distractions. Even if they did come at an immensely inconvenient time. “I would prefer that our Master and the young girl come to an understanding. I wish to leave here. Taking this city is a dangerous ploy with little to gain from it. I would prefer he find his entertainment with the empath and not where it might put the rest of us in danger.”
“Well said.” Elizabeth leaned back on her hands behind her, watching him with her calculating emerald eyes. They were brighter than would be possible for a human, but if it weren’t for her pale complexion, she might pass as a mortal. Far easier than he ever could. Being the direct descendant of Vlad’s blood came with benefits and pitfalls.
Being his “right hand” came with even more.
“What do you believe the odds are that he might be successful?” she pondered. “He has taken brides before. They last either the length of their mortal years or one of a vampire’s. Either way, long enough for us to leave this place safely once he has her.”
“But this is a very different game he plays.” Walter walked to the window to look down at the city in its perpetual night. The library they had taken over and begun to corrupt into their own fashion of a fort had once been a beautiful structure sitting near the heart of the city. Now it was full of the odd and twisted angles that came with the corruption of Dracula’s power. The hallways and rooms were no longer what they were. Elements remained—such as the walls of books everywhere—but now corridors led to places the building had not formerly contained. Bedrooms, storerooms, a kitchen…a dungeon.
It, like the city, now served its Master.
Like they all served.
Save for one. Miss Parker. “He does not seek from her a bride. He seeks from her an eternal judgement. The girl can see the whole of him in a way that no one else can. Therefore, I do not know what will come to pass. The scales remain balanced. She has not yet condemned him…but she has not yet embraced him either. Who knows what she will think when she ventures deeper into his madness?” Walter shook his head. “I think this will get worse before it will get better.”
“Is it true that she could destroy him once and for all? I have heard Zadok whisper rumors that she can rip souls from bodies and send them to the void.”
“He believes that if anyone can, it would be her.”
Elizabeth swore quietly. “Then we should kill her immediately and end this game.”
“And defy Dracula’s wishes?”
“To protect him? Absolutely. If he dies, chaos will descend on the rest of us. We might all die as well if the source of our curse is removed!”
“At least you admit your desire to safeguard him is selfish.” Walter rubbed a hand over his face. He hated dealing with sycophants. Unfortunately for him, they were more common than not.
“We should go into that city now, find them, dispose of the hunter, and tear off the girl’s head. She is only mortal.”
“No.”
“Why? Do you wish him to die?”
“I am loyal to him. That is why. If this is what he wishes, then I will do all that I can to see it come to pass.”
“Which do you prefer to happen, then? That she loves him, or that she tears him apart? You said yourself you believe he cares not which occurs. Something I cannot fathom, but I believe you.”
“You do not know what he has endured. He has desired the kiss of death for thousands of years, Elizabeth. We may embrace our end at any point we wish. He is denied such a thing. It is a terrible burden to bear.”
“You have not answered me. Do you wish him to be ‘worthy of love,’ or do you wish him to cease to be?”
Walter paused and debated his answer. Not because he did not know it, but because he did not know whether he wished to speak it.
A hand snaked around his side, and he moved reflexively. His hand snapped around Elizabeth’s throat and slammed her up against the wall, his lips pulled back in a snarl. Wide-eyed, she raised her hands in a show of submission and went to speak, but he tightened his grasp, cutting off her air. “Do not mistake my tolerance for your presence as more than what it is, Elizabeth.”
And with that, he threw her to the side, sending her sprawling to the ground. He straightened his coat and his vest. Shadows that had unfurled from him in his rage snapped back in place. He did hate losing his temper. It happened rarely, but the infuriating vampiress could pull it out of him with ease. He looked back to the window and down at the city below. “If you do not have anything more of use to say, then leave.”
“I see now why you are his favorite.” He heard her stand, but he did not pay her the dignity of looking. “Uncle’s protégé has such sharp claws. And here I thought you were another marble fixture in the hallway.”
“Go away, Elizabeth. I care not where.”
“As you wish.”
He sensed her leave and let out a long and dreary sigh. This was a miserable game his Master was playing. He prayed this ordeal with Maxine resolved itself quickly. “To answer your question, Elizabeth?” he said to the empty air. “I desire for our Master might find peace…once and for all. Be it in her arms or the grave, it does not matter.” He paused and laughed quietly to himself. “Although I know where I would place my bet.”
Maxine was becoming very sick of walking in circles. If they were making progress, she would feel less like a dog or a cow on a leash being paraded through the streets. But if she was frustrated—then Alfonzo was irate.
Eddie had long since gone quiet, no longer wishing to discuss the decision his leader had made to continue their hopeless trek through the bloody and nightmarish streets. Bella-Zadok was walking along beside her. Each time she glanced at the “woman,” she-he would smile sweetly at Maxine. Sweetly and confidently, knowing he was right in his victory. Only a few more hours to go before their circular and pointless march would conclude, and she would lose her “bet” with the vampire.
She could not quite fathom why he was so eager to touch her and place himself in the very real threat of death, but she did not pretend to fully understand him. He was a strange creature. There was, as she was discovering with all the other vampires she had met, a vacuous pain that lived at his heart, along with a healthy heap of madness. She knew it was likely a product of the number of years he had lived. Immortality must weigh painfully on them.
Walter had turned to coldness to protect himself. Zadok had turned another way. And Vlad…
Maxine looked at
the city around her. Although she could recognize the buildings as ones she had passed before, she could only do so vaguely. Each time they came across the same intersection or area of the city, it had changed. Not much, but enough to be unsettling.
Wrought-iron fences were twisted and warped, jagged and sharp, harsh and uninviting in their angles. Buildings seemed to lean in toward the street like ones she had seen in Prague, hunkering close together as if the stones sought shelter and comfort in each other from the poison that was seeping through them.
She wondered if those who made him could have honestly fathomed who and what it was they made when they laid this terrible curse upon him. Or if they knew the world itself would pay the price for their deed.
She pondered who they were, and what had Dracula done so long ago to deserve what they had done to him. Or perhaps he did nothing to deserve it at all. It was possible he was merely served up to be sacrificed to an ancient god. She knew he did not remember.
But there had been flashes of imagery. Memories of sand, and temples of white limestone and the feeling of the sun burning overhead. She dwelled in her thoughts for the remainder of the day.
More hours, more marching, and they once again wound up right where they began. Back at the house that was becoming familiar to them all. Alfonzo was nearly apoplectic in his rage as he smashed the door in, sending it crashing into the wall. The handle stuck into the plastered surface. The rest of them stood on the sidewalk and listened to the sound of breaking furniture.
Eddie’s shoulders slumped, and he buried his head in his hands. “This started off as stupid, but now I think it’s insane.”
“I think you might be right,” Zadok-Bella muttered. “I do not feel as though he is thinking clearly.”
“What do we do?” Eddie looked at his false companion. Maxine did everything she could to be silent. If she said anything at all, she knew she might give the vampire up. Then the real Bella would be in grave danger. Maxine would have no more lives on her hands if she could help it.
Curse of Dracula Page 10
