The murderer’s voice went on and on, almost lulling in its relentlessness. “As the fear and the rumors spread, I decided it would be diverting to see what happened if the villagers came to believe that Vasile was the culprit. I was hoping I would get to see a mob storm the castle and drive a stake of ash through his heart, but this way works just as well.”
“How did you hide what you are from Vasile?” she asked to keep him distracted.
He puffed out his chest. “That was quite clever on my part. You may not know that to our kind, humans and animals alike appear to give off an aura, a sort of haze created by their living heat. I created a similar effect for myself by feeding heartily just before I came here to speak to Dalca. It also put color and warmth into my skin. The effects didn’t last more than an hour, but that was long enough.”
Had her husband’s lips moved against her wrist? She was growing so faint that she hardly trusted her own senses, but she hoped with every ounce of strength remaining to her that he was conscious and able to drink what she was trying to give him.
She was unable to keep the revulsion out of her voice when she asked, “Did you feed on me?”
He chuckled. “I couldn’t resist thumbing my nose at Dalca that way—stealing you right out from under him.”
The thought that this creature’s mouth had been on her, that he had watched her while she was sleeping and robbed her of part of her own body, sent a wave of revulsion through her that made her tremble…although it might also have been weakness from the loss of blood.
“You didn’t steal me,” she whispered. “I don’t belong to you.”
Her words didn’t perturb him. “I’d say killing you gives me right of ownership. At any rate, in another minute or two you’ll be unable to argue the point further.”
She needed more time. But she was so weak, and so very tired. She sank down alongside her husband, her last dregs of vitality directed toward keeping her wrist pressed to his mouth.
She was almost certain that she seen Vasile’s hand move. And it was difficult to tell under all the blood, but it almost looked as though the wound in his throat was closing.
Or perhaps she only thought so because darkness was creeping in at the edges of her vision. Even Rich’s voice was growing distant.
“How satisfying that even though he’s in love with you he has never tasted you, and I have,” he said. “And now he’ll never have the chance.”
She wanted to tell him he had spoken too soon, but she felt herself slipping away. Darkness was as soft and welcoming as a feather bed, and she sank into it.
She was just aware enough to know when Vasile leaped from the floor onto Rich, sending him sprawling out of her line of sight. She heard a grunt of surprise that changed quickly into a scream of pain. Then there was nothing.
Chapter XIII
“Drink, dragă mea.”
Hot, salty liquid flowed into her mouth. She coughed and tried to turn her head away, but it was cradled in a gentle yet firm grasp.
“Michael, you must drink.” The voice was Vasile’s. So he lived still. Her heart lifted, and she fought to open her eyes. Her eyelids were so heavy.
“Please, my love.” Now she heard the urgency in his deep voice. “You’ll die if you do not drink.”
With a mighty effort she opened her eyes.
Her husband was gazing anxiously down into her face. His eyes shut briefly in relief when he saw that she was conscious. It was his wrist that he was holding to her lips. They were still in the bedchamber where they had passed their wedding night.
It still was their wedding night. Now she saw Dumitru’s body, the crimson mess on the floor, the signs of the struggle. A still, twisted form that must be Rich. How much time had passed? An hour, or only seconds?
He saw the direction in which she was looking. “He cannot hurt either of us now, dragă. He will never hurt anyone ever again. But now, I beg of you, drink.” Anxiety sharpened his voice. “Do you remember what you said earlier? About my choice?”
I would have made the same decision that you did, she had said. To be with the one I love…
“Michael. Now.”
She pressed her lips against his wrist and drank.
The next time she opened her eyes, it was not a struggle. She was wrapped in something soft, lying in a dark place. As her eyes adjusted to the darkness she realized that it must be one of the subterranean chambers of the castle, like the one where she had found Bianca and mistaken her for a dead woman.
She smiled at the memory, and heard a soft exclamation. When she turned her head, she found Vasile gazing down at her in relief. He had cleaned the blood from his face and body, so he looked more like himself. She realized that he had wrapped her in her dressing gown and was holding her in his arms.
She reached up to touch his throat, which showed only a narrow scar. “Your wound,” she said.
“Your blood healed it, Michael mea.” He raised her hand to his lips and kissed it, and she saw that her skin was smooth and unbroken where she had pierced it with the pin. Her thigh no longer hurt her either, she realized. Then he placed her hand against his cheek, and she felt the prickle of his short beard but not the shock of cold she expected where her skin touched his.
“Am I becoming like you?” she asked.
His smile was the saddest thing she had ever seen. “You are, my love. I’m sorry. I took you at your word—I couldn’t bear to watch you die.”
She realized they were half sitting, half lying in one of the packing cases that, in her naïveté, she had thought were for books. But of course—an airtight, light-proof box long enough for a person to lie in would have another use besides shipping fragile books.
“And Ana and Dumitru?”
He shook his head.
She thought of Ana preparing their wedding chamber, of the loyal heart beneath Dumitru’s alarming exterior, and grief squeezed her chest. “I’m sorry,” she said.
“As am I. They deserved better.” The look in Vasile’s eyes reminded her that these were not the first people he had cared about whom he had lost. Then his distant gaze returned to her. “It must be a great shock to you to learn that I am a vampire,” he said, and the concern in his voice made her love him even more, if that could be possible.
“Not as great a shock as you think,” she said. “The healer you spoke of—he wasn’t really a healer, was he?”
“Ah, my clever bride. Yes, he was a vampire. My sire, Wulfgar. He stayed with me through my transformation, as I shall stay with you tonight.”
“Transformation?”
He stroked her hair as if to soothe her. “There’s no need to be afraid; it is far more strange than painful.” Then he shook his head. “I shall never forgive myself for this. If it hadn’t been for me, you would still have a mortal life before you.”
“Don’t say that. If it hadn’t been for you, I’d have died like those poor girls from the village.” She pushed herself up to a sitting position to kiss him. She couldn’t bear to see sadness in his eyes one moment more. “I have no regrets,” she told him.
“You may come to miss a great many things from being human,” he said. In his voice there was still sadness for the life she had lost—and probably his as well—but it was tinged with the hope of being proven wrong.
She would do everything in her power to fulfill that hope, she resolved. “We’re together,” she whispered. “Does being human really matter that much now?”
He tightened his arms around her. “From the moment you arrived,” he said, and now there was no sorrow in his voice, “you made me see things differently.”
“That’s better.”
“And I may have hope to offer,” he added, brightening. “There is my research. You’ve seen all the texts on folklore and magic that I have collected. I am certain there must be one that will tell us how to reverse our condition and become mortal again. To this point the search has been fruitless, but now—”
“Now there are two of us t
o search. And my father trained me to assist him in research, so you see you’ve done rather well for yourself in marrying me.”
Her words made him smile. “I have indeed,” he said softly, and she knew he wasn’t thinking only of his quest for a cure.
As strange as this new life might be, however, she felt no urgency to reverse it. Rather, she had dozens of questions. “I will be moving to England with you, won’t I?”
“Of course! Wulfgar did not make it a condition that I be alone. And nothing he or anyone says shall ever part us now.”
She wondered what this Wulfgar would be like. He was practically her father-in-law, after all. “Why England, I wonder?”
“He has always taken the precaution of setting up safe houses for our kind around the world, and I imagine that as England becomes ever more powerful, he wishes to have more of his children in place there. But that is speculation on my part.”
How much there was for her to learn. She felt a rush of gratitude that she had him to help and teach her. “Will I be able to see Rosamond? Or would that compromise our safety—or hers?”
Up until now he had responded to all of her questions freely, but this one made him drop his eyes and look away. “I cannot tell you that, dragă,” he said quietly. “But I hope you can be reunited with your sister in some fashion.”
The melancholy sound of his response gave her pause. “Is it so impossible for mortals and vampires to live in the same world together?” she exclaimed.
He hesitated. “For centuries our kind have found it safer to live apart from humans except when we are compelled to feed. We can sometimes protect ourselves by clouding their minds with a glamour, a sort of spell, but the effect can wear off in time. Most mortals are not like you, Michael mea, and view us with terror and hostility. And often they are right to do so. But perhaps it is possible to change that…if we are careful, and patient.”
So many more questions were still clamoring to be asked, but they could wait. At this moment she was more concerned with reassuring her husband, whose amber eyes looked sad and grave. She slipped her arms around his neck.
“Even if there are obstacles, they’ll no longer matter once we find a way to become mortal again,” she promised. “And until then, no matter how long that search takes, we’ll still be happy—for we’ll be together.”
For a moment he regarded her with silent wonder. Then, cupping her face in his hands, he kissed her lips with all the tender solemnity of an acolyte taking a vow.
“So we shall,” he said. “So we shall. The prospect of eternity seems much sweeter now.”
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Preorder Book 2
Book 2 of the Victorian Vampires novella series,
As Strong as Earth, is now available for preorder.
Ned Alter used to fight for the British Empire, but now the men of his family have called on him to join them and seize his destiny as a vampire hunter. Even though he wants to help put a stop to the outbreak of local vampire attacks before they endanger his fiancée, Rosamond Cargrave, Ned can’t help but be dazzled by the lovely and mysterious Lady Bianca—even as he begins to suspect that she may be the very creature he and his kin are stalking.
More Victorian romantic suspense by Amanda DeWees
The haunting gothic romance that “hits all the right notes” (Publishers Weekly) and won the 2015 Daphne du Maurier Award in historical mystery/suspense!
Can a curse strike twice? In 1854, Clara Crofton was dismissed from her chambermaid position at Gravesend Hall for falling in love with the younger son of the house. When he died soon after in the Crimean War, she blamed the Gravesend Curse.
More than eighteen years later, she has the chance to return to the sinister manor in triumph through a marriage of convenience to Atticus Blackwood, the twin brother of her dead sweetheart. But as kind as her new husband appears, Clara knows that he has hidden motives for marrying her. And when another death occurs, she fears that the curse has struck again…and that this time she will not escape.
Available in ebook, paperback, and audiobook
Sensuality level: mild ~ Book club discussion questions
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Acknowledgments
This series would probably not have come into being without the encouragement, nudging, and friendly badgering of author Charles R. Rutledge. Thank you, Charles. I hate to think I would have missed out on knowing these characters and having this much fun.
I’m grateful to my perceptive critique partners and beta readers, Maurice Cobbs, Susan Goggins (Raven Hart), and especially Lisa Blackwell, who went above and beyond on this occasion. My thanks also go to Dacre Stoker for being such a supportive and enthusiastic member of the horror-writing community, and for being just a lovely person all around.
I’m also grateful to Darrell Grizzle for being not only patient but encouraging when I unfolded my plans for this series to him—in relentless detail, I suspect—over a very strong cocktail in New Orleans. Thanks for being such a great listener!
About the Author
In her former life in academia, Atlanta author Amanda DeWees studied 19th-century vampire literature. Now she writes Victorian gothic romance, mystery, ghost stories, and historical vampire romance. Her books include With This Curse, which won the 2015 Daphne du Maurier Award for historical mystery/suspense, and her newest release, As Vital as Blood, the first in her Victorian vampires novella series. Visit her website, amandadewees.com, to learn more about Amanda and her books.
Books by Amanda DeWees
As Vital as Blood (novella)
Cursed Once More: The Sequel to With This Curse
The Heir of Hawksclaw (novella)
Nocturne for a Widow
Sea of Secrets
The Last Serenade
With This Curse
The Ash Grove Chronicles (YA paranormal romance):
The Shadow and the Rose
Casting Shadows
Among the Shadows
Short stories:
“On Shadowed Wings” (Ash Grove prequel)
“Upon a Ghostly Yule”
Copyright Notice
As Vital as Blood:
Book 1 in the Victorian Vampires Series
Copyright © 2017 Amanda DeWees
All rights reserved. Except for brief excerpts in reviews, this book may not be reproduced or distributed in any printed or electronic form without the prior express written permission of the author.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Cover design by James of GoOnWrite.com
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