by Ana Calin
If the demon doesn’t become matter so that I can fight him yet, then maybe I need to become energy in order to fight it on the same level.
The darkness is just about to close behind me when Lucian shouts.
“Stop!”
I spin around. He drops to his knees, resting Rux on the floor and holding out a hand to the darkness. His face hovers close above Rux’s as he calls out to the demon.
“Our curses don’t affect you, devil, but they can hurt this girl. I will pour the Black Death into her body, if that’s what I have to do to banish you. Go now, or I’ll infect her.”
“No,” I cry, starting back to them, determined to strike Lucian dead.
Lucian purses his lips, blowing dark clouds over Rux’s snow-white face. I have almost reached them, stretching out my hand to stop him when the first cloud touches her face, her skin burning like paper at the contact.
It’s like a dagger has been plunged right between my ribs. I’m an inch away from grabbing Lucian’s throat and snapping it, but suddenly the demon shrieks like a thousand screaming birds. It stabs my eardrums and fills the church, so terrible that the monks cover their ears and drop to the ground, protecting themselves.
I turn swiftly to see the tunnel of darkness coiling and twisting like a slashed snake, its shrieks ear-splitting.
It’s working. Rux’s physical suffering affects the demon’s energy, but it also makes my heart crumble with pain.
“Go back,” Lucian repeats to the demon, his face over Rux’s, ready to pour more of the Black Death into her. “And I will save her, there is still time. But every instant that you linger here is killing her.”
The tunnel retreats, darkness twisting backwards, the shadow of a demon in pain, the snakes of black it had sent through the nave retreating into one coiling spot on the wall, right in the middle of a silver crucifix.
The draft that’s been whipping through our hair and capes dies down, the air settling as the demon’s presence fades. I can sense its evil leaving the church, sliding down the inside of the mountain into the deep.
I fall to my knees by Rux’s side, grabbing Lucian’s throat.
“Take your curse back,” I growl at him. “Or I’ll break you.”
Lucian smiles despite the blood filling his still ugly, pus-filled cheeks. Even his blisters turn reddish, and his voice is raw as it leaves his mouth, straining against my hold.
“First let me go.”
I do.
Lucian bends down to Rux’s face, putting his mouth on her forehead, his face melting back into the pretty and deceivingly young face of the Abbot. The curse that had been burning the white skin of Rux’s face retreats, her jagged breathing returning to normal. She opens her eyes slowly, tired and drained, her lips a sickly white and her eyelids puffy.
Relief coursing through me, I slide my arms under her, scooping her up and hurrying passed Lucian towards the nave.
“Wait,” he says. “Where do you think you’re going?”
“Taking her to a warm room. She’s extremely weak, she could die.”
“No, Lord Dracula,” he calls, walking quickly down the altar stairs after me. “You’re getting this girl out of here right now.”
“What? No, she needs care, she needs to recover.”
“I have no problem with that as long as it happens very far away from my monastery.”
“Lucian, what the hell—”
“You said you came here with her in order to banish the demon, Lord Dracula. But what happened was that the demon almost made it into this world because she is a funnel for his energy. Turns out that reconnecting them to each other puts us all in danger, it puts the entire world at risk.”
“I can stop the demon, and I will.”
“And how are you going to do it? The creature doesn’t have a body for you to attack, no matter how strong and dangerous a vampire prince you are. He doesn’t have flesh that you can hurt, nothing to stick your fangs into or slash with your claws.”
He looks down at the girl hanging in my arms, her hair now loose, the black tips brushing the stone ground.
“When his work is complete and he has caught roots in this world, he will consume the girl completely. And when she dies,” he says in a softer tone, “you won’t find the motivation to fight for anything. You’ll be so hurt you’ll only want to die along with her, and you’ll accept death from the demon with your arms open.” His green foxlike eyes shoot to mine. “You can try and keep up the tough façade all you want, but you’re in love with this girl, Lord Dracula. It’s clear as day for everyone who knows you. Your face has lost its original hardness and cruelty, your golden eyes have become sweet like honey. You revel in the pleasure of love with this girl.”
The monks murmur all around us. Looking over my shoulder, I become aware of them, their faces now the normal faces of men, studying us with a mixture of interest and fear. Only Lucian and I stand in the middle of the nave, Rux awake in my arms but too drained to even hold up her head.
“Please,” Lucian says, his voice little more than a whisper. “Leave. And do not come back. It was a mistake to bring Lady Ruxandra’s descendant here, to ground zero where it all began.”
I look down at Rux. Her long white neck is exposed to me as her head hangs slightly off my forearm, her jugular pulsing slowly. The scent of her blood fills my nostrils, making me desire it crazily, the flesh all over my body craving it.
Lord Dracula
I FLY DOWN THE MOUNTAIN slopes in the form of fog, Rux wrapped in my veils. But she’s losing consciousness again as the cold seeps into her bones. I intend to travel faster until we reach the inn, but then I feel the searing pain on my body. The sun rises, and the microscopic cells of condensed water begin to evaporate, releasing steam into the air. I’m losing immunity against sunlight and silver, which means that I won’t live long enough to take Rux to safety.
The only place that I can reach before that happens is a shed the monks have built for stray hikers. No one has ever reached the peak, but the monks don’t like to let them die either. They give them the chance to survive another night until they realize they won’t defeat this mountain. The monks help them make their decision of abandoning the challenge by terrorizing them during the nights they spend here, too.
I swirl us to the shed, moving in the shadow of the snow-heavy firs. The moment it comes in sight I pick up more speed, now rolling like an avalanche of fog. I throw the door open, stumbling inside the shed and setting Rux on a pile of hay before I solidify into a man and drop naked by her side.
I black out too, but only for a few moments before fear for Rux’s state makes me jolt up in a surge of anxiety. She lies on the pile next to me, dry hay sticking out here and there among strands of black hair, her face dead white. She shivers hard under the flimsy cape, her lips dry, her eyes moving erratically under the lids.
I pull her into my arms, opening her cape and undressing her. The nipples of her full breasts harden, her small waist tightening.
I wrap my arms around her under the cape, plastering her naked body to mine, warming her. I lean my head back, a sigh escaping my lips as I feel her skin on mine, cold but smooth and delicate, her soft breasts pushing into my hard chest. I feel the blood flowing faster in her veins by the minute, as her flesh regains the temperature it needs in order to stay alive.
I know she’s come back to herself when she pulls in air, shrieking. That’s also when I realize I’ve been drifting off into unconsciousness as well.
“What the hell happened?”
She shoots up from my arms, instantly inspecting my naked body all over. There’s blood on the side of her that has been plastered to me, but I know it can’t be hers because the scent would have driven me insane with thirst.
Looking down reveals a puzzling picture—it’s my blood smeared on Rux’s body, on her breast and her hip. My skin is open at the level of my ribs and on my shoulder.
“It was probably the sunlight,” I manage, but my voice
isn’t as strong as usual.
“You need my blood to heal, don’t you?” There’s despair in her voice. “Here.” She gathers her hair to one side, offering me her jugular. “Quickly, bite me.”
Her jugular pulses right before my eyes, the smell of her blood mixed with adrenaline clouding my head. I want to do it, so bad.
“No.” I jump up from the pile of hay, taking a few steps away from her. “I won’t be able to stop, I’ll kill you.”
She pauses, and I hope she gave up on that idea, when she speaks again, her voice small and hurt.
“It would probably be for the best that I die.”
I turn around, the sight of her causing a piercing pain through my heart. Her beautiful heart-shaped face is distorted, her eyes full of tears. She sits in the hay naked, her breasts fully exposed to me, the cape hanging off her shoulders. Her black hair flows down her back, her eyes locked on mine.
“I felt the demon’s intentions, Vlad,” she whispers. “He won’t stop now. The connection has been reestablished and....”
She casts her eyes down, and stops when they reach the level of my hips. I realize again I’m fully naked in front of her, smeared with my own blood, and—God. I have an erection. Even in this situation, my body craves her beyond control.
“I’m sorry.” I turn away from her, a strange feeling clenching around my heart and throat. I’ve never felt this way before in order to recognize the feeling, but I think I’m embarrassed. I just wish I could become invisible, right now.
But Rux gets off the hay and walks to me, her cold hands touching the maimed flesh on my back.
“When I was deep inside that darkness,” she whispers, “I saw you hanging between two silver poles, whipped to the bone, unconscious from the pain.” There’s grief in her voice. “The pain I felt was... I would have preferred it happening to me. I loved you as a lover, even in that darkness.”
“Lover,” I whisper, lowering my head and pressing my eyes shut. “I really like the sound of that word from your mouth.”
Her fingers keep tracing the scars on my back. Her cold fingertips give me pleasure as she touches the flesh between the scars, the small patches of it, where the flesh still lives. Then she places her soft wet lips on the ugliness of my back, almost as if she finds my scars to be beautiful.
“Lover,” she whispers again, peeling her lips off my back and then pressing them lower down my spine.
My cock hardens so much it hurts. I want this woman so bad, but I can’t bring myself to turn around and face her. She gains more fervor with every kiss she plants on my back, her small hands moving under my arms from behind, up my chest, her fingers splaying over my pectorals.
I lean my head back, sighing in both pleasure and desire, and she lifts her face into my hair, inhaling my scent.
“Lover,” she whispers again, and I can tell she revels in using the word.
Unable to resist anymore I turn around, looking down at her face that seems to be entranced with me. She gazes up with hooded eyes, as if she’s drugged with my scent. I lower my head, my lips opening over hers. I give in to the desire, reason shutting down completely.
“Your touch feels so good, woman,” I whisper against her mouth, then slide my tongue between her lips.
I hold her tightly against me and lead her back to the pile of hay, ignoring the pain of the open flesh on my ribs and shoulder.
I kiss her neck and her breasts, trying hard to ignore the scent of her blood running wildly through her veins. Laying in the hay, she opens her legs to take me in, and I plunge inside of her, my body sliding on hers and smearing her with my blood.
This would probably be a sick sight to anyone else, but it doesn’t seem to bother Rux. Her walls are tight around my cock, hot and slick but narrow, peeling me back with each thrust and causing so much pleasure that it makes me growl. Even the pain in my body is nothing compared to what I feel when I’m inside of her, and the sick satisfaction that spreading my blood over her skin gives me. It’s like I’m marking her as mine forever.
“I was your first and I will be your last man,” I say, thrusting harder and harder into her, relishing the sight of her completely at the mercy of my thrusts in the hay. Her eyes are closed but she’s smiling widely, like she’s high.
“You’re mine, completely mine,” I growl as I come inside of her, losing my mind and my blood for her.
“Take me,” she whispers, pushing her head into the hay, exposing her neck, and scratching the skin off it with her fingernails.
“What are you doing?” I cry, my torso shooting off of her, even though down there we’re still connected. The scent of her blood begins to cloud my reason, causing my fangs and claws to grow, the bones of my face protruding as I transform into the vampire prince.
Rux looks up at me, the sight of the vampire not fazing her at all. She sees the question in my eyes.
“After the demon’s darkness,” she says, almost like she’s chanting, “nothing scares me. After I saw the horrors down my bloodline, to the point where you hung whipped to the bone from those poles, nothing can cause me more pain.”
The sight of her already causes my eyes to lose focus, that’s how crazed I am with her scent.
“Rux, this could kill you,” I manage. “And then I’d want nothing more than to die, too.”
“No.” She clings to me when I start to move away, moving her hips forward, her legs open, keeping us connected. “No, Vlad, you’d be saving my life.”
I shake my head, taken with both bloodlust and carnal desire, but I try to focus.
“You could make me like you, I’d be yours forever.”
She squeezes my cock with her pussy, triggering a moan.
“Take my blood, Vlad, and give me yours.” She keeps moving her hips, enticing me, milking me. I buck, clenching my fists, my claws piercing the flesh on my palms. “It will make me yours instead of his. I want you to be the demon that possesses me.”
She leans back on her elbows, the tips of her black hair pooling on the bed of hay under her. Those black eyes stare into mine with need and lust, her full breasts swaying as she moves her hips harder, faster, pumping up and down my cock and driving me insane.
“Take my blood and give me yours,” she repeats, her voice full of lust.
I follow her down to the hay bed, moving my hips to meet her grinding, aware that I still look like a monster. But Rux keeps her eyes on my face like she loves what she’s seeing, soon lowering them to the wound on my shoulder.
She tilts her head, offering me the burning scratches on her skin. Leaning my face into the curve of her neck, I lap with my tongue at them, feeling her sweet blood on the tip of it. I lick harder, pressing half my tongue to her skin, eager for more of her blood but trying to keep the intake to a minimum.
That’s when I feel her tongue pressing the wound on my shoulder. I hiss at the pain, but at the same time a craze takes over me. Before I know it my fangs pierce the skin on her throat, sinking into her muscles like the thin blades of a surgeon.
The venom anesthetizes her and works like a drug on her mind, making her moan and suck harder on my wound. At first she licked me gently, probably not so sure about tasting another person, but now she’s sinking into some sort of cannibalism.
Her legs tighten around my hips as she grinds herself into my cock with a passion, her teeth grazing my open flesh, and her lips and tongue sucking greedily. Wave after wave of her warm blood slides down my tongue, making me lose it as I undulate into her lustfully, my blood all over her body, hers running into my system, and mine into hers.
Her pussy clenches on my cock, soaking wet but squeezing tightly, the juice of her deepest pleasure coating the tip of my manhood. I groan hard into the curve of her neck, sucking powerfully as she moans, her mouth disconnecting from my shoulder. She throws her head back, her thighs clenching, her toes curling as she comes, making me come with her.
Our sounds of pleasure, man and woman, merge with each other just as our bodie
s do. We fall together on the bed of hay, breathing hard, sweaty and covered in blood.
“I swear I could die making love to you,” I breathe into her hair, keeping the weight of my huge body on my elbows, but still touching hers, pressing my chest into her big breasts. The remains of pleasure still course through my body, making me twitch, while her hands wander lovingly on the sides of my torso.
She moves carefully, but then she opens her eyes fully and looks to the side, where the wound to my ribs should be.
“My God,” she whispers, her fingers stroking the still sensitive skin and making me flex. “You’re healed.”
She looks to my shoulder, brushing my hair to the side with her other hand, discovering the second would had fully healed, too.
“That’s your doing, Rux. Your blood healed me of the wounds caused by sunlight,” I whisper, caressing her face with reverence, while she looks at me like she adores me.
CHAPTER IX
Rux
WE MARCH UP THE COBBLED pathway towards the famous castle of Dracula, a whole retinue of vampires behind us. I draw closer to Vlad, glancing behind. They’re all so beautiful, every man and woman. Only the red-headed Gruia, the one with the golden talisman around his neck, seems to repel everyone, but that must be because of his demeanor that shows he hates all of them.
It’s obvious Vlad is the king of them all, tall, broad-shouldered and impressive as he leads the group towards a castle entrance that’s carved into the rocky base, hidden behind trees and bushes. It’s on the opposite side of the castle, away from the official entrance that the tourists use, even though the sun has already set, and the venue is closed to visitors.
“Close down the east wing of the castle tomorrow,” Vlad tells the white-haired vampire, Tristan, who was the first to join us in the forest. “We’ll have a gathering, there are things we need to discuss. Lady Rux is in the process of becoming a vampire—I had to change her in order to save her life after the monastery. But the demon is still out there, so we’ll have to keep her well protected. Also, we need to discuss a strategy to send the creature back to where it came from.”
