The Stuart Vampire

by Andrea Zuvich

  He traced her cheekbone and jaw with the back of his hand. “I could never love her, and I have said this to her. She’s not you. I love you, Susanna. Since I first met you, you stirred in me feelings I thought I would never have.”

  She looked into his eyes. “Why did she want you to be her mate? Where did she find you?”

  He gazed down at Susanna’s hand, her fingers outstretched and grabbing the blue velvet of her skirt. “I was… am… of noble blood.”

  The realisation suddenly dawned upon her.

  “Stuart. You’re not one of those Stuarts, are you?” she asked.

  Henry nodded. “Aye, my father was the first King Charles and my brother now sits upon the throne.”

  She covered her mouth in shock. She knew he had to have been a nobleman of some sort, but never a member of the royal family.

  “But, that’s impossible!” she exclaimed. “Everyone knows that the Duke of Gloucester died from small-.” She stopped, remembering he had said he was Begotten as he lay dying from smallpox.

  “Yes, it was smallpox that probably would have killed me if I weren’t attacked by Griselda one night. She fed me her blood and from that point on, this life, if one can call it a life, began. My body is frozen in time, and I shall always be a man of only twenty.”

  “You cannot grow old?” She furrowed her brow then.

  “No, I will never age, never die, unless I starve and become a ghost. But what sustains me is the most horrid aspect of it all. As I told you, I live off…”

  “…the blood of others,” she finished quietly. “And you cannot have children,” she stated, with a voice he thought contained some sadness.

  Did she wish to have his children? “Nay, for the dead cannot create life.”

  Henry was surprised by her calm demeanour, the fact she hadn’t bolted from his presence, but stayed. So many different thoughts rushed through Susanna’s mind, for she had vowed to be true to Henry no matter what he had hidden from her. She felt, however, the strong instinct to flee the Castle, from the whole of Sanguinem Valley. She turned her hazel eyes towards Henry again, and all her doubts ended. She could not leave him. She loved him too much for that.

  She swallowed loudly, then spoke: “I always knew there was something different about you. No one else ever courted me. Any other man would have left once they knew of my past. But you stayed my friend, you became my love, and took me away from the misery I had known, and into your home.”

  “The Countess has been gone for several years, but she may return at any time. Perhaps I have brought you into more danger, but I think your being here is the safest place for you to be.”

  Susanna nodded in agreement.

  “I will leave this castle at once if that is your desire.” Henry had to do whatever she was most comfortable with, and he had to stand firm in the decision. “You can stay here as long as you wish, but I will stay in my wing of the castle and shan’t disturb you.”

  “No, stay.”

  “Susanna — I…”

  She stopped him with a kiss, assuring him of her continued love, in spite of what he had revealed. When their lips parted, he looked at her. Blood from his face had stained her lips and white flesh.

  “I wanted to marry you, Susanna. I still want to marry you. I want you to be my wife, but how could you still love me, knowing that I am this vile monster?”

  “I can, and I will. Make me your wife now.” Her voice was strong and unwavering. She knew she wanted him, come what may. “And if this Countess of Cuorenero decides to return, you will already be my husband, and she will not be able to tear us apart.”

  “But if you marry me, you will be a bride of darkness…” he said, trying to dissuade her from the nightmare she seemed so willing to enter.

  “Nay, I will be your wife,” she replied, staring into his eyes. “Our love will be the light, and the darkness shall perish beneath the weight of it.”

  ***

  Henry quickly decided that they would marry in London. Susanna had been wishing to go thither for as long as he had known her, and there, his friend Sebastian would marry them in St. Olave’s Church. Alice would accompany them as Susanna’s maid, and they would stay in the house in St. James’s.

  There, Henry sent for Sebastian, who came to their home one evening soon after their arrival. Henry asked him if he would marry him to Susanna, and Sebastian agreed, though he seemed concerned that she was a human. Such concerns aside, Sebastian invited the Other vampires to the wedding just as Henry had requested. Ethelred, Lucy, Stephen, and Prudence all came, and were kind and welcoming to Susanna. Stephen, in fact, was so taken with Susanna, that he offered to escort her down the aisle. As Susanna had no kin, save for Samuel back in Coffin’s Bishop, she gratefully accepted.

  The ceremony was simple but lovely and neither bride nor groom had ever been as happy as they were at that moment. Their honeymoon was spent in showing Susanna the most beautiful parts of London. He was sorry that he could neither show her the palaces that he had known, nor the old St. Paul’s Cathedral, which had been destroyed in the Great Fire. But he did take her to several plays, and they both attended, wearing black vizard masks and elegantly attired.

  On one of these evenings, the King, his brother, was in attendance, and Henry was glad that Susanna was able to see at least one of his family members. She noticed the strong resemblance between them — the same dark hair, the same length of limb, and the same mischievous look.

  Susanna was mesmerised by the sights and sounds of London, and the opulence and squalor that lived simultaneously in the great city. He took her to the Covent Garden market, where people sold all sorts of things — from flowers to great slabs of beef. Susanna was mesmerised by it all. Of all the wonders she had seen, her great passion was for the theatre. She secretly envied the women who sang and acted on the stage. She admired them so that she even asked Henry to take her to see the same productions again and again.

  They were happier than they had ever been, and the days passed with the most wondrous mirth. Henry would wait until Susanna was occupied with a book, which she did every night, and then he would roam the dark streets of London in search of prey.

  ***

  After a month in London, they decided it was time to return home to Sanguinem Castle. Henry still had not consummated their marriage, for he was plagued with the fear that he could kill her, as he had in his dream. Susanna waited patiently for him, but he was too frightened by the prospect that he could hurt her. He, however, held her close whilst they slept, for she had taken to sleeping during the day just to be able to stay awake with him at night. But the close proximity to her supple warm body, and the way she nestled against him was almost too much for him to ignore. One night, however, Susanna decided to take matters into her own hands.

  She kissed him tenderly and passionately and moved her warm hands around his cold, hard skin. With Henry she felt safe and loved, and this made her forget her previous traumas and yearn to be one with him.

  “Susanna,” Henry groaned, his fangs thirsting to pierce her soft flesh and taste her blood. As he registered this desire, and felt the change come across his face, he turned away from her. Ashamed of the terrible ugliness of his vampire form, which manifested itself every time he became aroused, he hid his head in the velvet hangings by the bed.

  “What’s wrong, Henry?” she said in exasperation. “Do you not want me?”

  She tried to turn his face towards her, but he stubbornly kept looking away, believing his monstrous visage would frighten her. His hands clutched fistfuls of the bed linens as he tried to change back to his human form. “I want you more than you could ever understand.”

  “But, I’m ready, I want to give myself to you. I’ve been ready for weeks!”

  “Nay, I beg of you, please tempt me no further. My form has changed into the creature again. Every time you arouse me, I turn into this, and it is this form that I cannot control. It is this monstrous form that has killed people before.”


  “Henry,” Susanna murmured, kissing his back. “We love each other, do we not?”

  “I love you more than anything in the world,” he replied.

  “Then come to me, be with me,” she pleaded, as she wrapped her soft arms around his torso.

  “I do not know if I can,” he said, in a voice both hoarse and pained, and deeper than she had ever heard him before. “I might hurt you, or worse, what if I accidentally kill you? I’ve not done this since I became a vampire. I do not know how my body will react.”

  Susanna placed her hand under his pointed demonic chin and turned his face towards her own. She looked at him with such love that he was immediately reassured. She was swimming in happiness, so great was her love for him that it overcame the fear his monstrous visage had upon her.

  “You won’t hurt me, I promise.” She began to unlace her top, and she shrugged out of her shift, and — to Henry’s great delight and even greater consternation — lay back naked upon the bed. His eyes lustily traced the sensuous curves of her form.

  “I love thee, Henry, and I am your wife,” said she. “I care not what you are; just let me show you I love you. Let the man inside you love me now.”

  He hesitated, as he had done so many times before, and so she pushed up his long white nightclothes and tenderly curled her hands around his stiffened member. That was all the impetus he required.

  “Susanna!” he cried out as he again as he threw himself upon her and finally began to sample the delights of the woman he adored. He explored her body with his lips and hands and was finally able to taste her sweet blood. Susanna moaned with pain and pleasure as he sank his teeth into her veins all over her body. As they rolled about between the sheets, they found comfort in each other’s loving embrace.

  In the midst of their throes of pleasure, a pair of jealous green-yellow eyes looked on as Henry began to thrust vigorously into his human lover. Their discourse had infuriated Griselda, who had just returned to Sanguinem Castle after her punishment had ended. She endured the madness of Purgatory for seven years, only to return to this! Having to witness this revolting scene made her want to lash out at them both. Henry was hers; she had Begotten him. This Susanna was nothing in comparison with her. What could he possibly see in the red-haired wench?

  It reminded Griselda once again of her tragic Adolphe, who had preferred a simpering servant to her ninety-six years before. Her fury increased tenfold as she remembered the pain, the humiliation that she had suffered, that she still suffered all these years later…

  Chapter 16:

  Adolphe’s Betrayal

  Griselda stood up and, with the back of her hand, wiped away the blood from her perfectly formed lips. There were at least eighty corpses lying around her and she smiled. Massacres were tantamount to feasts in her eyes, and the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre was no exception.

  It was an uncomfortably hot day in 1572, but was Griselda was nevertheless content. She had gorged upon the free-flowing blood of many a Huguenot that day, and was feeling particularly contented after the gory spectacle she had seen and contributed to. Humans were so delightfully violent over religious differences that she only had to drain those who had already been stabbed repeatedly.

  As the screams and vain pleadings of those being massacred continued throughout the streets of Paris, Griselda calmly stepped over more bodies as she made her way to her rooms in the Louvre. She and Adolphe had been staying at that great palace as special guests of Queen Catherine de Medici, the only human woman for whom Griselda had any respect. Indeed, Griselda had even thought of Begetting her, but she was not bothered enough to do so. The calculating Catherine had organised the bloody massacre, by luring the Huguenots in from all over France and Navarre to celebrate the wedding of her daughter, Marguerite de Valois, and Henri, King of Navarre. Soon, tensions between Catholics and Huguenots were too passionate to be contained during the intense heat wave, and the assassination of Admiral Coligny soon turned Paris into the scene of murderous frenzy.

  Griselda laughed and spun around merrily in the blood-soaked streets. Her yellow dress was splattered with red, and her golden hair lay unbound with its Renaissance waves. Even though it was sunny, she kept to the shadows, and was too full of fresh blood to notice any weakness as a consequence of her exposure to the daylight. She walked by the river, which teemed with the floating bodies of more victims of the massacre, and she went along, skipping and humming. She was in her element. Death was everywhere to be seen, and the fragrance of so much blood intoxicated her like opium.

  She walked down the stone corridors, licking and savouring the blood from her slim fingers. She jogged up the spiral stone staircase and opened the door to their bedchamber. She gasped at what she found. There upon the bed was Adolphe, naked and in the arms of one of their servants, a brown-haired young maid by the name of Elissa. Such fury did it cause in her breast, to be forced to witness him making passionate love to the vile wench, that she acted purely out of malicious impulse. Enraged, she lunged forward and wrenched him off the woman. Next, she wrapped her hand around Elissa’s slender brown throat, and lifted her up in the air.

  Elissa struggled mightily, but was powerless against Griselda’s awesome strength. Adolphe threw himself at her feet in supplication, begging her not to hurt the young woman.

  “No! I beg of you, Griselda, as your husband, have mercy on this woman. She is not to blame!” He looked almost pained as the woman squirmed as Griselda slowly choked her. “It is I who have wronged you, not Elissa!”

  A flurry of angry images and thoughts flashed throughout Griselda’s mind. Elissa was an Italian lady-in-waiting of hers, whom she had treated coldly, though Adolphe was always kind to her. When she had dismissed their other servants, he had stopped her from doing the same with Elissa. She remembered that it was around that time that he had asked for a separate bedchamber in the Palazzo di Cuorenero. She recalled the way he had stopped Griselda’s hand when she wanted to strike Elissa for fetching her the wrong shoes. Many things pieced together to create an astonishingly painful image of Adolphe’s treachery. And no one could wrong the House of Cuorenero and get away with it.

  “Is that so?” replied Griselda, fury and pain sparkling in her eyes. “Then it is you who must pay, my dear Adolphe.”

  With a smile upon her cold and beautiful face, Griselda plunged her hand through Elissa’s chest and ripped the girl’s heart out right in front of Adolphe’s horrified face. That heart continued to beat for several more seconds in her icy hand, the blood dripping down the side of her clenched hand. He sat there, in the most exquisite agony, as she continued to butcher the innocent young woman. He could do nothing to stop her, for a vampire cannot kill, cannot even attack, their Begetter. And so, he was powerless as he sat there, crying his bloody tears, the expression upon his face one of great wretchedness.

  Once Griselda had drained the rest of her blood, and eaten her heart, she turned to her tormented husband.

  “If you truly loved that pathetic creature, I’m surprised you left her in so vulnerable a state. She simply could not defend herself against me. No one betrays me, Adolphe. No one…”

  “I had no choice. I fell in love.”

  “Why? How could you have done this to me?” she asked, with a savage look upon her face, her lips and chin still stained with Elissa’s blood.

  “You are heartless, Griselda! No one will ever love you because you do not possess the ability to love another! Elissa is, was, so different. She had a heart; she cared about me, about others. You spend your days thinking only of your beauty and power. I was tired of it! I was tired of your incessant malice. And, what’s worse than all these things is that you are a murderer. You have murdered hundreds of thousands of innocent children in our time together — you are truly mad!”

  This fuelled her wrath even further and her eyes darted about the room frantically before they fell upon a wooden walking stick. She flew towards it, broke it in half so that it was splintered and sharp,
and this she plunged into Adolphe’s heart. After a great burst of flame, he fell into a pile of ash at her feet.

  And so ended the vampire life of Adolphe de La Fontaine. Griselda was more hurt by his deceit than by having destroyed him. She was not one to be burdened by a guilty conscience, for she simply had no conscience. But in killing her creation, she had unlawfully killed one of her own. The Master was greatly displeased at this and commanded the others of her kind to watch her every movement. For the first time in her long service, he was unhappy with his concubine. She felt humiliated by his decree. It was not to be borne.

  The memories of the extreme anger she had felt as a result of Adolphe’s betrayal made rage anew. Her nails now punctured the iron bars of the castle window, wishing they were squeezing the life out of the flame-haired temptress who now lay panting and moaning in Henry’s arms. It would be too easy to storm into the chamber and tear this human woman’s heart out, just as she had done to Elissa in 1572. Griselda then decided that Susanna’s fate must be worse than what befell Elissa, her pain would be protracted, and so Henry’s torment would then be even greater. She had given him everything: immortality, riches, property, and yet, he still had not waited for her return. He had sought affection elsewhere.

  “Let them enjoy what little time they have left together, for it will be brief. Tomorrow, I will begin her destruction, and she will wish she had never been born,” she said to her herself. “And Henry will be mine, forever!”

  She smiled at this, knowing that soon, very soon, she would be avenged.

  ***

  Whilst Susanna lay rosy-cheeked and smiling with satisfaction in her husband’s arms, Griselda was preparing for her revenge. She had no trouble in using her keen sense of smell to track where Henry’s slut had come from. She darted through Sanguinem Wood, stopping to sniff around the Black Stones and then she made her way to Edmonds Farm. Her eyes caught sight of movement from within the cottage. Belinda was peering out into the night from her casement window. Griselda hid in the shadows of the moonlight and pondered over what to do. And then she smiled, for she had a devilishly good plan.