by Darren Cage
Maybe Van Helsing himself had magic because he somehow had out a stake that he drove into Catina’s back before her panther’s teeth could sink into him, before I could bite her. Catina immediately turned back into her vampire.
“Leave,” I ordered her.
She ignored me and yanked out the stake. It was made of wood, the sharp end coated in her blood, the entire shaft glowing a faint black.
My hands gripped Van Helsing’s shoulders, and I lifted him up high into the air.
“This ends now,” I told him triumphantly.
And I sank my fangs into his neck.
Normally, blood tasted sweet despite the tang of metal.
Van Helsing’s blood should have been the most delicious nectar in all the world.
Only, that wasn’t the case, not at all.
His blood tasted, well, like poison.
My vision blurred and turned black. I couldn’t change into my bats or my fog, and I wasn’t entirely certain I was conscious.
“What did you do to him?” Catina demanded.
“The same I did to you,” Van Helsing said.
They both sounded as if from far away, and my vision remained dark. I could only rely on my other senses. I smelled blood that stank of putrid decay. I heard running footsteps, a door slamming shut or possibly open, and then a thud near me.
My muscles spasmed, and it felt as if I was having a seizure. I couldn’t control my body. My resolve was so great, though, that I was able to drag myself over to where the thud had been.
Catina lay there.
“Are you… all right?” I asked, but even my voice sounded weak.
“Dracula?” she murmured.
“Can you… move?”
“No. Can’t… see.”
Damn. He had poisoned her and me and run off to find the others who were weak.
He might well finish us off after all.
No. No, he would rue the day that he let me here. This poison would not kill me. I would not allow it!
It wasn’t easy, and every drag of my body over toward the window sent a fresh wave of pain throughout my body. At least I hoped I was heading in that direction.
This shouldn’t be possible. Vampires shouldn’t be able to experience pain! Yet, I couldn’t even bring myself to stand. I was weaker than a newborn kitten.
A fresh stab of pain sliced through my forearm. Glass? The window hadn’t been broken. Van Helsing had opened it when he arrived. Maybe this was a sharp piece of wall from when Stela had slammed into it.
Which meant I was heading in the wrong direction.
In agony, I continued forward instead of twisting around. My head bumped into the wall, and I used it to prop myself up and then stand. I staggered forward, arms out for balance and then forward to feel for the wall or the window.
As soon as I found the open air from the window, I fell forward.
Night had descended, and the darkness around me helped to center me. I slid down the hill and listened for the soft sounds of sleeping horses from the nearby stable. The owners in the house next door were not home, so I mounted one of the horses and hurried off, allowing the horse to pick the route.
Abruptly, I heard wheels churning from a carriage. “Whoa there!” someone called. “Do you need help?”
“Please,” I muttered, slumping down on the horse. It wasn’t an act.
The driver rushed over, and I drank from him until he died, my eyesight and vigor returning with each suck and swallow. Swiftly, I took his spot as the carriage driver and raced back to the castle. My brides could drink from the couple inside, and then, we could end Van Helsing.
Only once I got inside, a bitter Stela was helping Catina sit up.
“Where is Van Helsing?” I demanded, shoving the compelled couple toward my two brides. “Where is Andreea?”
“She’s…” Stela glanced up at me.
My heart squeezed.
“She’s disappeared. I think Van Helsing has her.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
My bride. The one that Van Helsing had a personal grudge against since he knew her before. He knew I would be furious if he stole away any of them, but that he had taken Andreea made me livid.
“Drink as much as you need,” I instructed them. “Once you can, flee. Don’t worry about telling me where. I’ll find you.”
“You can’t go after…” Catina brought her hand to her head, looking positively drowsy and sick to her stomach.
“I won’t,” I lied.
I shoved the compelled humans toward them and changed to my fog, fleeing out the window. Time was of the essence.
Even while a fog, I still retained my consciousness, and my thoughts would not stop. Why would Van Helsing kidnap her? Why not just kill her?
This had to be a trap. It had to be.
Yes, as my fog, I could travel a great distance quickly, and I entered a crack in a window in the hotel where Van Helsing was staying. He wasn't there.
Of course not.
Frustrated, I returned to the castle and encircled it, desperate to find a clue as to which direction Vane Helsing had headed. Fog, of course, had no nose, so I couldn't smell. I was restricted in this form, and I landed lightly on my feet on the rocks near the northernmost corner of the castle.
Immediately, the scent of blood came to me, and I rushed forward, following my nose until I spied the faint drops of red liquid on the stones.
My finger dipped into it, and I licked the blood. Andreea’s.
I glanced all around. Had she been taken as Stela supposed? Or had she fled the castle and tried to find her own source of sustenance?
My gaze shifted frantically, and I spied more drops of blood. Soon, a trail emerged, heading toward the stable I had journeyed to. One of the horses had been bitten into.
Yes, Andreea had come this way. If only our paths had crossed!
Andreea must have been desperate indeed to have drunk from a horse. As far as I could tell, one of the horses was missing, and it did not take me long to discover soft hoofprints in the gravel path.
Swiftly, I mounted a horse and followed the hoofprints. It shouldn’t take me long to catch up to Andreea. I could see to her safety, and then I would find Van Helsing. No more tricks. No more games. No more giving him a fighting chance. I would kill him and then the rest of his family and those relatives of Cecilia Marino in Italy, too. All who would dare to conspire against my brides and me would soon learn that they would face the full brunt of my wrath, and none would be able to withstand that.
Off to the side of the road wandered a saddled, riderless horse. Only a few paces forward did I discover the rider, or rather his grisly remains.
Soon, I found a new trail to follow, that of the dead bodies, all with bite marks, all bloodied. It was beyond clear to me that Andreea had left the castle of her own accord.
But why? Why leave Catina and Stela behind? And Andreea did not strike me as the kind to be so hasty, so reckless, so untidy. Leaving these bodies strewn about was something I would have done in a fit of anger. Andreea was far more levelheaded than I.
Could it be that rage has overtaken her as grief had me? But that would suggest that Van Helsing trying to slay her meant far more to her. It would mean she had feelings for him, something I could not reconcile.
Was I truly that possessive of her? Did I believe myself to be the be-all, end-all for her? How could I be that arrogant?
They said that love wasn’t jealous, but that was not the truth. When you loved someone with every part of your being, you became that person. You gave up yourself to become a new body, two made one, or in my case, four made one. Andreea leaving the castle of her own free will made no sense to me whatsoever.
Had Van Helsing done something to her? A potion or some kind of magic spell?
Did he intend for the villagers to find Andreea and finish the job for him? Perhaps he could not bring himself to kill Andreea after all and had elected to allow others to finish the job for him.
&nbs
p; By now, the moon was sinking in the sky. Dawn was only hours away. I needed to locate Andreea as quickly as possible. Who knew when Van Helsing would mount another attack?
For so long, the night had been quiet, far quieter than it should be. The insects weren’t buzzing or singing, no birds were flying, no nocturnal creatures at all stirring. The fading moonlight illuminating the path of dead bodies with ethereal light, and I could not help wondering if this was nothing but a nightmare, an illusion, a pathway in my mind meant to break me.
A shout pierced the deafening silence, and I spurred the horse on, desperate to reach Andreea. She could feast on this last victim, and then, safety would be her goal.
Only I stumbled upon a most horrific scene.
Andreea was shackled, bound to a wooden pole. Villagers stood all around her, throwing rocks, spears, jabbing her with daggers, swords, firing bullets into her. Several waved torches.
My bride was covered in blood. Her victims’? Her own? Why wasn’t she breaking free? How could those shackles contain her?
Her head hung down, and she seemed limp, as if she would collapse and fall to the ground if not for the pole forcing her to remain upright.
“Vampire!” a woman shrieked. “You must die!”
“You must die! You must die!” the mob chanted.
Just then, the crowd parted, and a man stepped forward. He gripped two full circle chakrams in his hands. He began to pick up speed, one hand lifted higher than the other as if he meant to slice her throat as well as carve into her chest simultaneously.
I spurred my mount into a gallop and then jumped off, racing even faster than the horse. The crowd shrieked and scattered about. The man—hunter perhaps—did not falter, increasing his own pace, but I was far faster. When I reached him, I grabbed his right arm and had him slice his own throat. Gagging on his own blood, he collapsed.
Andreea barely lifted her head as I removed her shackles despite the searing, burning pain that shot through my hands when I touched them. Van Helsing must have provided the townspeople with magic or poisoned shackles.
The crowd was screaming as I held Andreea close to me.
“Listen here,” I said without yelling.
A few stopped, but most ignored me. Had Van Helsing also given them something to combat compulsion?
“Go home and you will live,” I said. “Stay and die.”
Several ran off as I rushed over to reclaim my horse and set Andreea on its back. Those runners were the first ones I killed. Then, I slaughtered the rest of them. Every last one that had been willing to kill my bride soon lay in a massive mountain of bodies. I set them on fire, walked over to the horse where Andreea was slumped over, climbed up behind her, and guided the horse, setting a slow, easy pace.
The sun was beginning to rise by the time we reached the outskirts of the county. Andreea wasn’t my only bride, and I feared for the two I had left behind, but right now, Andreea needed me more.
Luck, for once, was on my side as the first house we came upon was abandoned. I carried Andreea inside, and she lifted her head, staring at me, her eyes glassy.
“What do you need?” I asked her, tenderly brushing her dark hair from shielding her face.
“What do you need?” she whispered.
“For you to be better.”
Her lips twisted into a wavering smiling. “Then I’m better.”
“Do you need human blood?” I asked desperately.
“Do you?”
“No, but if you do—”
“I don’t.”
“What do you need?” I repeated, hating my fear.
“The same thing you do.”
I couldn’t say who kissed who first, but I found Andreea in my arms. With each kiss, she seemed to return more and more to herself, and when I offered her my neck, she drank greedily, accepting all I had to offer. She rode me, making love to me slow and tender, far more sensual and passionate than we ever had before.
Once she had enough to drink, she leaned her head back, twin rivers of my blood leaking from the corners of her mouth. She never looked sexier as she continued to slowly rise and sink on my cock.
Andreea pulled me closer, nuzzling me before tilting her head to the side, granting me access to her neck.
“I can’t,” I told her. A groan slipped out as her walls tightened around my cock. She was close, and so was I.
“I want to give you everything you need,” she murmured. “Everything. Always. You gave me life. My life is yours.”
“All I want from you is love.” I swallowed hard. “Love and for you to live.”
“Then I’ll never die.”
She screamed my name as she came, and the force of my orgasm made me feel as if I had shot out of my body. This was perfect, so very perfect.
Except Van Helsing was out there.
Except we weren’t safe.
Except we were separated from the others.
Andreea cupped my face, drawing me away from my depressing, despairing thoughts. She pressed her forehead to mine.
“Do not worry,” she whispered, cupping my face.
“Why shouldn’t I?” I growled. I gripped her hands.
“Because if you worry, I will worry,” she said simply.
I kissed her knuckles and sighed. The last thing Andreea needed right now was to worry, yet I had to ask her what had happened, and that would not help her to worry any less.
“Why did you leave the castle?” I asked her.
“You never said I couldn’t,” she said, blinking.
“I know, but it was dangerous. We need to stay together.”
“I will not leave your side,” she said seriously.
I rubbed my thumb along her jawline and then her lips. She kissed me, and my cock stirred.
Wordlessly, I laid her down, and again, we made sweet, tender love. Sometimes, rough and hot and heavy was the way to go, but right now, it was about love in its purest form. Not only did she need more blood to heal her body completely and recover her strength, but also, I needed love, not lust, not fucking. I needed to be one with her, to cement our bond, to ensure that we would always have other.
In the end, I left to fetch us some people to drink from. Andreea had wanted to come with me, but I asked her to wait. We drank and made love and drank and made love, and I couldn’t tell you how many times I buried my seed in her pussy, her mouth, her ass, on her breasts…
When she fell asleep in her arms, I compelled the couple to return to their house and forget what had transpired. Then, I carried Andreea back to the castle. We needed to reunite with our entire family. Together, we were strongest.
Together, we would fight.
And together, we would survive and win.
Van Helsing had been lucky to live this long. We had underestimated him, but that would not happen again.
Chapter Twenty-Three
My every sense was on high alert as I entered the castle. Andreea stirred from my arms, and I allowed her to stand beside me.
“Do you feel that?” I whispered, hardly vocalizing the sound.
She nodded.
The feeling would be difficult to explain, but the air felt heavy, not stale.
Someone was here.
Stela and Catina shouldn’t be here, but maybe they had stayed.
And maybe they weren’t the only ones here.
“Stay with me and be on high alert,” I told Andreea.
“Of course,” she said.
True to her word, Andreea stayed right behind me as I went room to room, checking for any signs of danger or persons.
Or hunters.
And there were signs. Someone had been here. Furniture was upended, some broken, others coated in blood. There was no body, though, not of the hunter or my brides.
Still, the blood clearly meant that this had not merely been a break-in or robbery attempt. There had been a fight.
Had Van Helsing waited until I left to return? Had I been a fool to not see to Stela’s and Catina’
s safety before seeking out Andreea?
I shuddered. If I had been a few seconds later to Andreea, I would not have found her alive. The armed man, the would-be hunter, had been so very close to reaching Andreea before I had. Now that I replayed the scene in my mind, I realized just how close the blade had been. Yes, I had him slice his own throat, but the blade had been within inches of my bride’s throat too.
Tell me I hadn’t saved one bride and lost two instead.
Tell me that I haven’t lost them.
Tell me that the fight isn’t over.
The fight would never be over. Not the fight for life, for love.
For revenge.
I knew well that the same fight burned with Van Helsing. Neither of us would be able to truly live while the other still breathed.
I did not know what had set Van Helsing on the path to becoming a vampire hunter, a monster hunter, but he had finally met his match in me. He had magic, but so did I. Yes, I had given him added motivation in providing him a personal vendetta against me, but I had so much more to live for.
Van Helsing was a man, a hunter, but he had lost his love and therefore his reason for living. Revenge alone would not grant him the necessary drive and power to survive.
The stench of death hit me the moment I opened the door to the tallest tower. Without thinking, I turned into my fog and zoomed up to the tower room, bypassing the thousands of steps in the circular stairwell.
In that room, I found answers.
Stela and Catina were there.
So was a man I had never seen before.
They were feasting on him, taking turns drinking and then shifting away, tilting their heads back as they swallowed the lifeforce, ecstasy shining in their delicate, lovely features.
I shifted back to my true form just as Andreea reached the doorway.
Catina noticed me first. She stood, and although she appeared to be healthy, I had to be sure. I rushed over to her side, spinning her around, touching her everywhere, not sexually, only to ensure she was fine.
She was.
Before I could do the same to Stela, she removed her clothes and twirled around. “We’re both fine,” she said.
