Chapter
10
Elena awoke feeling groggy and
disoriented and then, as the events of the previous night sprang to
the front of her mind, she bolted out of bed. Only then did she
realize she was no longer at the hotel but back in her room at the
castle. How had she gotten here? And where was Drake?
It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered but
getting out of there just as fast as her feet would take her. The
man she had married, the man she was falling in love with, was a .
. . a . . . She couldn’t make herself say the word. It was
impossible. Good grief, what if she had let him make love to
her?
She pressed a hand to her heart; then,
as a new thought rose to the fore, she lifted an exploratory hand
to her throat. Had he bitten her? Was she going to become what he
was? Fear sat like a lump of ice in her belly. Was that why he had
married her? So he could turn her into the same kind of monster he
was?
She had lived in the land of Dracula
for almost half of her life. Most of the tourists who came to
Transylvania wanted to see Dracula’s castle, which was, in reality,
Bran Castle, located on the border between Transylvania and
Wallachia. The castle had been used by Vlad the Impaler, said to be
the inspiration for Stoker’s fictional vampire.
Suddenly chilled, she wrapped her arms
around her middle. She had grown up on the myths and legends that
surrounded vampires, but it had never occurred to her that Drake
might be one of the Undead. Of course, no one believed such
creatures actually existed. Sure, vampire books and movies were
popular, and had been for years, but they were works of fiction,
not reality.
But Drake was real, a man of flesh and
blood. Vampire. She
shuddered. It explained so much—why she never saw him during the
day, the casket in the hidden chamber, the fact that he didn’t eat
or drink. Odd, that the memory of his kisses didn’t repel
her.
“Elena, get a grip!”
She had to get out of there before it
was too late. Before he rose from the coffin hidden in the wall
behind the tapestry in the main hall.
Her mouth went dry as she pictured him
lying on the smooth white satin, his arms folded across his chest,
his body cold and unmoving.
She pulled on a pair of jeans and a
sweater, clumsy in her haste, then sat on the edge of the bed to
put on her socks and shoes, only then noticing that the valise she
had taken to Brasov the night before was on the floor beside the
bed, and that the mirror Drake had bought her stood in the corner.
She stared at it a moment, remembering how happy she had been only
a few hours ago, but there was no time to dwell on that
now.
Grabbing her handbag, another gift from
Drake, she hurried down the stairs, her only thought to get out of
the castle before nightfall. She was safe until then. If only he
had a phone so she could call for a cab. Not that she had any money
to pay for one. He had given her many gifts but never any cash.
Maybe she could find the keys to the Porsche. She spent a few
minutes searching for them downstairs, and then upstairs, but to no
avail.
Conscious of time passing, she ran down
the stairs again.
When she reached the front door, Smoke
was sitting in front of it. The cat stared up at her, its head
cocked to one side.
Murmuring, “Good-bye, kitty,” Elena put
her hand on the latch and pulled, but nothing happened. She tugged
on the latch with both hands, but the door refused to budge. She
frowned. The crossbar wasn’t in place. The door wasn’t locked. Why
wouldn’t it open?
Heart pounding, Elena spun around and
ran downstairs to the kitchen, only to find that the back door
wouldn’t open, either. What was going on? It wasn’t locked. Why
wouldn’t the darn thing open? And what if it had? She willed
herself to stop and think. Even if she could get into the garden,
what good would it do her? There was no exit, no way over the high
wall.
She had to get away, but how? The
windows in the main hall were too high, too narrow. The doors
wouldn’t open. She was trapped inside the castle. With a
vampire.
Feeling as though her feet were made of
lead, she returned to the main hall and sank down on one of the
sofas, hugging her handbag to her chest. What was he going to do to
her? Images of Drake bending over the neck of one of the muggers
flashed through her mind. Was that to be her fate, as well? Was
that why he had let her stay here? Why he had agreed to marry
her?
Smoke hopped up beside her, a low purr
rumbling in his throat as he nudged her hand.
“Stupid beast,” she muttered, and then,
with a sigh, she dropped her handbag on the floor and stroked the
cat’s head. Smoke purred loudly, the noise soothing somehow. As she
continued to pet the cat, her panic was swallowed up by a sense of
well-being. She was safe here. There was nothing to be afraid of.
If Drake had intended to kill her, he would likely have done so by
now.
Suddenly weary, Elena stretched out on
the sofa and Smoke curled up beside her. The cat’s purring, softer
now, lulled her to sleep.
The sun was setting when Elena awoke.
She bolted upright. He would be here soon. What should she do? What
would he do? She was alone in the castle with a monster. Even the
cat had abandoned her.
Springing to her feet, Elena ran to the
front door. Maybe it would open this time. It had to open now, before it was too
late.
Eternally too late.
But time had already run
out.
She didn’t have to turn around to know
that Drake was there. Though he made no sound, she could feel his
presence looming behind her like a dark cloud. She swallowed hard,
her hands clenching and unclenching at her sides. There was a
moment out of time, as if someone had suddenly removed blinders
from her eyes and her heart, and she knew him for what he was,
almost as if she could see into his very soul. How had she not
sensed his preternatural power before? She felt it now. It crawled
over her skin, making the fine hairs on her arms stand at
attention.
“Good evening, wife,” he said
quietly.
She couldn’t speak, couldn’t form the
words to ask the questions that pounded in her mind, demanding
answers.
“Have you nothing to say?” he asked in
that same quiet tone. “No questions to ask me?”
Her silence, combined with her
continued refusal to look at him, aroused his anger. She could feel
the weight of it pressing down on her like a giant
hand.
“Elena, look at me.” It wasn’t a
request but a command.
Afraid to provoke him further, afraid
of what she would see, she slowly turned to face him, her gaze not
quite meeting his. She had expected to find the monster staring
back at her, but it was just Drake.
“You have nothing to fear from me,
wife.”
She licked her lips, but remained
silent. Dozens of questions clamored in her mind: How long had he
been a vampire ? When and how had it happened? Was he the only one?
How many other men—and women—had he killed? How often did he have
to . . .
She shut the door on that train of
thought, and all the others. Asking questions, hearing his answers,
would make it all too real.
“Elena.” He took a step toward her, but
stopped when she recoiled. “Dammit, woman, I am not going to hurt
you.”
“How can I believe you?” She shook her
head, as if to dispel the memory of what had happened the night
before. “I saw what you did. I saw your eyes . . . they were”—she
wrapped her arms around her waist—“they were red, and you looked
like . . .”
“Go on,” he said, his face and voice
devoid of emotion. “How did I look?”
“Like death,” she whispered. “You
looked like death.”
“I never wanted you to see me like
that.”
“Please, I just want to go
home.”
“You are my wife. This is your home
now.”
“No! We never consummated our marriage.
Please, just let me go back home. I won’t tell anyone what you are,
I promise.” Who would believe her?
“Is that what you really want?” Drake
asked, his anger surfacing. “To go back and marry that fat old man?
To have his hands on you?”
She forced the word through clenched
teeth. “Yes.” The lie tasted bitter on her tongue.
“Now who is lying? You want me, Elena.
You have wanted me from the first night, and we both know
it.”
“No!” She shook her head again, more
vigorously this time, as if that would make her denial
true.
Drake took a deep breath, and changed
tack. “Have I mistreated you? Hurt you in any way? Done anything to
make you fear me?”
“You lied to me.” She blinked rapidly
in an effort to hold back her tears. She didn’t want to go back to
her uncle, but how could she stay here? With a
vampire?
“I never lied to you.”
“You let me believe you were human,”
she retorted. “I’d call that a lie, wouldn’t you?”
“A sin of omission, perhaps,” he
allowed grudgingly. “But I had no choice. Telling mortals what we
are is forbidden. I could not have told you the truth even had I
wished it.”
She stared at him in astonishment.
“There are more of you?”
He nodded.
“How many more?” The idea that there
could be other vampires living here . . . She felt a burst of
hysterical laughter bubble up in her throat. Where else would
vampires live but Transylvania? The laughter died in her throat.
There were more of them. How was that possible? How on earth was
any of this possible?
“I am the only one here,” Drake said,
“but there are others. Perhaps half a million of us
worldwide.”
It wasn’t a vast number, given the
world’s population of over six billion people. Still . .
.
“If that’s true, why doesn’t anyone
know? If there are vampires running around drinking blood . . .”
She paced back and forth a moment, trying to clear her head.
“Sooner or later, someone would find out. Wouldn’t they?” When he
hesitated, she said, “The truth, Drake. I want the
truth.”
“The knowledge of our existence is
erased from the mind of anyone who discovers it.”
“Erased?”
“Wiped away. Obliterated.”
“How? How can you do that?” The bitter
taste of bile rose in the back of her throat as her imagination
conjured visions of Drake cutting away a part of her
brain.
When she swayed on her feet, Drake took
her by the hand. “You need to sit down,” he said. Guiding her to
one of the sofas, he eased her down on the cushions, then went to
the carafe on the table and filled a glass with water. “Here, drink
this.”
She accepted the glass with a hand that
shook visibly.
Drake watched her, his arms folded over
his chest, wondering if she was going to faint.
She drained the glass, then looked up
at him. “How?” she asked again.
“Nothing as bizarre as what you are
thinking,” he assured her. “It is done by a form of hypnosis. Quite
painless.”
“Are you going to do that to
me?”
“No.” It was true, for the
moment.
“What are you going to do to
me?”
He lifted one brow. “Do?”
She touched the side of her neck, her
gaze on his face.
“Ah, that.” He sat beside her, an oath
escaping his lips when she flinched.
“Are you going to . . . to . . . drink
from me?”
“I already have.”
She blinked at him. “I don’t believe
you. I would have known . . . wouldn’t I?”
“I took only a taste now and then,
while you slept.”
Her eyes widened. “Am I going to become
a vampire?”
“No.”
She sank back against the sofa
cushions, relief evident in every line of her body. “How did you
become a vampire?”
“I did not ‘become’ a vampire.” He
looked at Elena. She was shivering. He glanced at the hearth. A
thought touched the banked coals, bringing the fire to vibrant
life. “Vampire.” The word rolled easily off his tongue. “It is what
I am. What I have always been.”