by Ana Calin
His stands back, squaring his shoulders, his expression hardening.
“We talked about that, Rux.”
I push out my chin, deciding to call things by their names.
“Vlad, I don’t know if you realize this, but you’re treating me like a whore.”
“What?”
“Hiding our relationship from the vampires, whatever this relationship is, not standing up for me when they basically demand that you burn me at the stake.” I shake my head. “I’m not playing along anymore. You give me a status by your side, or I’m out, Vlad.”
He clenches his jaw, his features locking. “What do you mean you’re out?”
“It means I’m leaving you.”
A heavy silence falls between us, Vlad’s stare turning so hard it could squash me. The silence buzzes in my ears until he speaks again.
“Leave me,” he repeats, his voice low but dangerous.
He slides an arm around my waist, backing me up against the wall and pushing his body into mine, his stare wild, like an animal’s.
“Why don’t you try that, Rux, try to leave me, see what happens.”
“What will happen that hasn’t happened already because of the demon?” I defy him.
Vlad grins, his shiny fangs elongating, the edges of his brutal face protruding.
“I promise you, what I’ll do to the men who so much as look at you will make the demon seem a fluffy pup. There will be a bloodbath all around you, my sweet Lady Rux.” He bends to the side of my neck, his power clouding my head as he begins to hypnotize me. He licks my neck, his tongue wet and cold on my skin as he bends his knees and grinds his crotch against my mound.
“You. Are. Mine.” He lifts my gown, rips my panties and slides a finger right between my folds, stroking lovingly as I cream in his hand.
Every attempt to resist him fails miserably. I close my eyes tightly, but can’t help but whimper and squirm as his fingers slide through my arousal, making me so wet it slips down my inner thighs.
“I need you now,” he whispers. I have to reject him if I am to retain any amount of dignity. I open my eyes when I feel his big hand between us, working on freeing his erection. It’s the hand that still wears a mailed glove, and when that armored fist wraps around his naked erection I almost come undone.
I moan as I watch him stroke his cock up and down, which he continues because he sees how I enjoy it.
“You like watching this?” he says gruffly. He takes a step back, leaning against the rocky wall in this narrow corridor, only the intimate low light between us, and very little space.
My hand replaces his between my legs, my eyes feasting on the sight of the mighty Dracula masturbating to me.
“Take off your tunic,” I command, working on myself, pushing my back against the wall and my chest forward, the shape of my breasts round and full through the white gown. When it falls off a shoulder, revealing my skin, the great Lord Dracula moans like he can barely still contain himself.
He lets go of his thick manhood that sticks out of his black pants, leather belt with metal buckle open. The sight alone makes me almost come, so I slow down the handiwork on myself.
He unclasps his cape off his shoulders from their metal fastenings, then the leather straps, and removes his tunic over his head. It’s stiff like armor, but the body underneath is even harder than that. Those bulging muscles with the occasional white scars and the dusting of hair on his wide pectorals are simply mouthwatering. Such a man, a fighter, a warlord, at my disposal.
I’ll make him want me beyond rhyme and reason tonight, if it’s the last thing I do before I leave him.
“On your knees,” I command, lifting my gown, bending my knees and exposing my wet pussy to him like a medieval whore showing her goods to a passing soldier.
It seems to strike a cord, because Vlad’s lips part in a sigh, his eyes hooded as if he’s going drunk with desire. He drops to his knees, looking up at me like a fetishist who wants to be treated like dirt. And I’ll be damned, but that’s how I’ll make him feel.
“Lick this,” I order, parting my folds and presenting him the goods, pushing my hips forward.
He throws off his remaining glove and pushes his hands under my gown, gripping hard to the cheeks of my butt with those rough, dangerous palms. His beautiful blood-red lips latch to my clit, and I’m sure I just shot myself in the foot—I’m just about to come.
I lean my head against the rock wall behind me as he licks my folds with hunger, moaning into my pussy, his breath adding to the maddening pleasure. He grabs me tighter, pushing his face deeper between my legs as if he truly wants to eat me, and I realize the scent of my blood must be driving him crazy.
He pushes me up the wall, making me bounce up as if he’s fucking me with his tongue, that’s how much power he uses on me. I come on his face, biting my lip to keep from screaming his name—he still wants to keep us secret. The thought makes my eyes snap open, the blackness spreading all around them. The bastard.
“Get up,” I demand. “Fuck me.”
He staggers up to his feet, his face red from craving, his lips wet with my juice. He looks deeply into my eyes, seeing my power.
“Rux,” he whispers, worry in his face.
“Now, stick your cock in me.”
He can’t resist me even though he wants to, I can see it. He grabs my thighs, lifts me over his own and enters me, making my skin pebble with pleasure as he pushes in inch by inch.
“Kiss me.” I slide my arms over his shoulders, pushing my hands into his long wild hair.
“Please, Rux,” he whispers, full of desire. “Your lip is bleeding.”
“Then suck my blood.”
“I don’t know if I’ll be able to stop this time.”
“You sure as fuck will, if you want to stand a chance of finding and defeating the demon.”
He frowns, not understanding my aggression, but I fist my hands in his hair and pull, clenching my pussy around his cock as hard as I can, my now bare feet pushing into his calves for support as I push my hips to meet him.
He closes his eyes, driven crazy with the pleasure, and moans hard and long as he releases his seed inside of me.
“Jesus Christ, Rux, what are you doing to me,” he cries as his body relaxes. He buries his face in my hair, letting me come slowly down to my feet, but still supporting me in his arms.
“How does it feel, Vlad? Being a sex slave to a demon girl?” I whisper in his ear. He looks me in the face, his scent of leather, man and sex going to my head.
“Heavenly.”
I could stay in this embrace forever, his naked muscles pressed on mine, but....
“I have to go, someone will come looking, I was too loud.” He kisses me sweetly, moaning as he tastes my blood. He slaps the wall behind me, forcing himself to disconnect from my mouth. Judging by his face I’d say it hurts. “Wait for me in your chamber. I’ll be with you in a few hours, and I’ll make you come so hard that you’ll faint, I swear.”
Lord Dracula
“MILORD.” TRISTAN HURRIES into the cave, interrupting my discussion with the squad of vampires that I’m sending into town.
“Tristan.” Placing my hands on the throne arms, I cock an eyebrow at him. “I’m in the middle of—”
“Milord, it’s Lady Ruxandra.”
“What happened?”
I come to my feet, starting down the black stairs towards him. I’m moving too fast and too eager to fool anyone—I know some of the vampires sniffed the scent of our lovemaking in the secret tunnel, and now my reaction speaks volumes, but I could care less.
Tristan hesitates.
“Talk, man!”
He looks around at the others who have become petrified in place, their eyes moving from him to me.
“I think the demon found her, milord.” He moves to the side, motioning towards the exit. “See for yourself.”
I stomp to the cave exit, the black cape flowing behind me, the vampires following. I march thro
ugh the forest, dry twigs crunching under my steps. The bark has turned darker, and the bald tree branches have begun to look like crooked monster arms. The demon’s power increases by the minute.
We reach the edge of the forest, from where we have a view over the dimly lit Bran in the night, the castle rising like a monument of the underworld on a rock above it.
Black smoke seems to be floating upwards from the town, a ring of blackness rising slowly around it.
“The demon is gaining power extremely fast, milord,” Tristan says from my side, his eyes on the town, and his usually cold tone now infected with worry. “That can only mean he has her, he has Lady Ruxandra.”
He looks at me, and I can read it in his face before he says it. “I took the liberty of checking at the castle, and sure enough, she’s not there. Gruia and the talisman with the witch Victoria aren’t anywhere either. The demon must have been lurking in the mirror dimension all along, and Gruia and Victoria must have kidnapped her, taking her to him. Only Victoria could have teleported her.”
“Fuck.” I turn around, my eyes sweeping over my vampires, my heart pounding like it hasn’t done in an eternity. I’d thought it a dead organ inside my chest, but now it turns out it’s out of my body, walking on two legs, and calling itself Ruxandra Len, but I can’t tell these creatures that, can I?
Only one man can help me now—the Prince of Midnight, my estranged brother. He’s the only one who can transport me to the mirror dimension.
I turn to Tristan.
“Come.”
CHAPTER XI
Lord Dracula
I’M STANDING IN THE castle underground, in the cellar where Radek once collected all the mirrors in the castle. They’re all still here. With my eyes closed, I finish the incantation that lifts the blockage on Bran, which ensured that Radek didn’t sense his adoptive daughter’s presence here, and that he didn’t come looking for her. I had Dalton make sure Rux kept this trip a secret until the moment their plane took off.
Now it’ll take half an hour max before Radek walks right through this mirror and punches me in the face. Sure enough, the mirror surface soon turns liquid, its waves rippling until Radek the Handsome’s face emerges from it. His glare is wild, his lips forming one hard line, his jaw ticking in anger. He puts one foot out, then another.
I square my shoulders, clenching my jaw and my fists. Okay, here we go.
Radek’s white-knuckled fist lands on my cheek, making my head snap to the side. I turn to him again, and he punches me again and again until he’s satisfied.
He stops hitting me, but the rage is still wild in his pretty face when I look at him. By God, now that his daughter has defrosted my heart I realize just how much I missed the bastard.
“Help me, Radek.”
He snorts as if he can’t believe my audacity, his knuckles crashing into my face again. This time it seriously hurts. My jaw ripples in anger. I smack my lips and run my tongue over my teeth, forcing myself to look at Radek without punching him back.
“I deserved every one of those blows, but now I need you to listen if we want to save Rux.”
He narrows his eyes, poison in them. “Rux? Since when are you on such intimate terms with my daughter to call her that?”
I glance behind me at Tristan, whom I made promise he wouldn’t intervene no matter what. He’s glaring at Radek, ready to attack on my command. I’m sure he knows about Rux and me already, even though I never actually told him.
“I’m on intimate terms with her since we became lovers.”
Radek’s face seems to fall off, that’s how much his jaw slackens, his eyes widening.
“No,” he breathes, shaking his head, horrified.
He comes at me again with blow after blow, forcing me backwards. I throw off a mailed glove, clench my fist and send it full-force into his jaw. He staggers backwards just enough for me speak again. I’m sure he won’t give me enough time for the whole story, so I keep it to the essentials.
“Listen! I’m in love with her.”
Radek freezes with his hand on his jaw. My punch didn’t hurt him much, but what I just said clearly shocked him. I take advantage and walk to him with my arms open, showing him I don’t intend to attack.
“It’s true, my vampires have been hunting your family down for years, intent on bringing her to me so that I could suck her dry before we exchanged a word. But you can’t begin to imagine how sorry I am, I don’t even want to think about that scenario anymore, the idea that I could have killed her before I fell in love with her is killing me.”
“But milord,” Tristan intervenes shyly. He’s as taken aback as Radek, obviously. “She is Dracula’s Grail. If you don’t take her blood, then you’ll never become invincible.”
“I don’t want to become invincible anymore.” I look into Radek’s eyes, hoping to convey the truth of my words. “I just want to be with her. I know you might not like that version either, but let us discuss that when we get her back.”
Radek looks around the cellar, apparently realizing his surroundings just now. “If she isn’t with you, then where is she?”
I take in a deep breath. “Victoria and Gruia may have kidnapped her, or persuaded her to leave me in some way.”
“Victoria?” Radek stomps over, his face white with anguish. He grabs the chains of my tunic, shaking me. “How the fuck did that happen on your watch?”
I put my hands on his shoulders, staring him in the face with all the gravity I feel. “Radek, please, I swear to you by all we both ever held dear, by our mother’s grave, your daughter is my heart. I gave her freedom, I didn’t limit her at the castle, which gave those bastards opportunity. I will explain everything, but right now I need you to take me to the mirror dimension, because I’m sure that’s where Victoria took Rux.”
Radek’s eyebrows knit, but there’s also some relief in his face. “I know my way well in the mirror dimension. But why would Victoria take her there?”
“The demon. Rux’s connection to him has been reactivated. The demon has been spreading his power over Bran, and he could only have done it from the flipside.”
His frown deepens, his face full of suspicion. “The connection has been reactivated. By itself? Just like that?”
“Like I said, I will explain. But Radek, please. We don’t have another moment to lose.”
My brother looks around at the circles in the middle of circles in the middle of other circles of mirrors in the cellar.
“All right,” he says. “But you have a world of explaining to do afterwards, you vile bastard.”
The mirrors all around begin rippling like the first one did before he appeared, soon making a liquid sound, growing loud like a waterfall. They whirl inside their frames, pulling at us and making us turn in circles with growing force.
I feel my body lose weight and consistency, all in a matter of seconds, as if we’re inside a centrifuge. Then the world turns upside down.
Rux
A GHOST TOWN. THIS is exactly what Bran looks like on the flipside, which is what Victoria calls this dimension. The mirror of reality, the upside down, the flipside of the world.
“We could travel anywhere from here, to the flipside of London, Paris, Panama, you name it, and we would see the hidden energy lurking beneath those fascinating places,” she explains, still in her hologram form, floating by my side like tendrils of smoke. We move down empty streets, the same houses as on the upside, but deserted, even the furniture inside—visible through windows with rag-like curtains and open doors here and there—seeming old and rotten.
Small shapes scurry around, crossing the streets in the breeze.
“What are those?” I stop and point to the scurrying dark forms. Victoria laughs her disturbing disembodied laugh.
“The ghosts of rats.”
My skin creases. I look around the deserted, windy place, strands of hair flying over my face. Moving shadows around the castle’s towers draw my attention, shadows that seem ghosts, only rag-like and
black.
“I think I understand,” I whisper. I’m growing fainter by the minute.
“You sick?”
“A little.” The travel through dimensions felt like a centrifuge.
“Come on. The demon is up in the castle—or most of him, anyway. It’s where he found the remains of Lady Ruxandra’s energy.”
“And where his portal to this world lies,” I say. Victoria snorts.
“No, no my love. You see, the energy Lady Ruxandra left is much too weak, she died many centuries ago, and all her power has been transmitted to her descendants—to you. She retained none for herself when she died, so she can’t help the demon from where she is. The place where she died simply functions as a kind of anchor to him.” She stares at me with those big eyeballs with the small black irises like she almost admires me. “You are his portal into the world.” She lowers her voice to an even more disturbing hissing.
“He will imbue you with great power, Ruxandra. Remember everything you could do back when you were a child? How you could break through walls using only the power of your mind? How it was enough for you to wish for someone to do something that they would be possessed by your desire and do your bidding? You can have all that and more. Come.” A hand of smoke forms in front of me. “Let me take you to the power that fathered you. Be finally united with him and channel him into the world, where you will become queen.”
Sure, until he drains my life energy, and I drop dead, as skinny as an Auschwitz victim.
“What more could a girl ask for?” A smile trembles on my face. “But there’s something I need to do first.”
Victoria frowns at me. “We need to hurry—”
“Do you know Sedan, the gypsy?” I cut her off. “He had a stall where he sold medieval garments and jewelry, as well as Dracula-related merchandise at the festival fair. He said he stayed with his cousin in Bran.”
“Yes, I know the gypsies. A clan, or what’s left of it, all living together at—”
