Into The Shadows, page 25
"You are repulsive," she informed him.
He smiled and patted her cheek after releasing her from his grip.
"I know. Now then, would you like to know where your room is, or do you prefer to sleep in the hall?"
"You mean you aren't going to force me to stay in the dungeons?"
He laughed at her question as he bade her to follow him with his hand.
"No, Miss Garret, I'm not going to force you to do anything during your stay here. Treat my home as if it were your own. All I ask…" and he opened one door in particular and motioned for her to enter, "…is that you behave with civility and that we continue our evening sessions, at least twice a week as usual."
"Why?"
"Suffice it to say, and take this however you will, it has been a good many centuries since I've been intellectually stimulated by anyone."
"That sounds really dirty when you say it like that."
"But it's true. Conversing with you forces me to stay alert and on my toes. That, and some of your revelations regarding the advancements of the future fascinate me immensely."
"Wait, so you're saying your brides don't sate all of your needs?"
But Dracula refused to answer. He had said enough and instead cleared his throat and motioned toward the open door he was still standing in front of.
"Your bedchambers, Miss Garret."
Hera's eyes fell over the revealed chamber and an expression of utter disbelief smoothed the previously agitated look on her face. Her response to the room made the Count's spine tingle as he watched her slowly enter the extravagantly decorated room.
The color scheme reminded Hera of the night sky— regal purples, blues, and black, with flints of gold—the wood of the furniture a darkly polished oak. The four-posted bed was enormous, lined with a gauze sheet which when pulled back led to the decadent silks, satins, and furs of the linens, the mattress, pillows, and comforter all stuffed to the brim with feathers.
Hera ran her fingertips thoughtfully over the lavish bed, instantly falling in love with how soft and inviting it was. It was situated on the far side of the room toward the right, a large archway leading to an equally enormous and personal bathroom, oils, incense, soaps, and lotions, all ready for her use. On the left, the farthest side of the bedroom, were three large windows, the center opening out onto a terrace on the backside of the fortress, the view overlooking the Carpathian Mountains in all their wintery glory.
After taking a good turn about the room, Hera returned her attention back to the hall, noticing that the Count was still there, waiting for her approval. Practically speechless, all she could manage to utter:
"It's gorgeous. I've seen pictures of rooms like this, but have never lived in one."
"Apparently you have never truly experienced what it is like to live in the lap of luxury, Miss Garret," he teased. She touched one of the posts of the bed, noticing the intricate designs that were lovingly hand-carved into the wood.
"My own home I always thought was spectacular. I live – or rather lived – with my father in an estate on the banks of a river in the English countryside…" and she looked up at him. "But your home surpasses anything I have ever seen."
He nodded cordially in appreciation.
"I'm pleased to receive your good opinion, since it is hard to come by, and, therefore, more worth the earning," he replied with affability.
"Is the rest of the house like this?" she asked curiously, her hand hovering over the beautiful vanity, in awe at each intricate detail.
Hera glanced into the mirror and could see the door behind her, but the Count was no longer there. She had briefly forgotten he didn't have a reflection, but was reminded of the fact when she felt a pair of large, strong hands rest on her shoulders and she tensed a bit as the Count whispered in her ear, his voice holding that uncanny sensuality to it.
"This entire castle is filled with magic," he breathed mysteriously.
"What kind of magic?" she asked him, struggling to resist the temptation to lean into him, to feel the hard muscle against her.
He could feel her wanting him.
Yearning for him.
Their subtly intimate proximity was only making the craving worse, and not just for her. It felt like it had been an age since the two of them had indulged in that unspoken sexual tension that – despite everything – still teemed between them. The vampire, aware of his own desires and impulses – succumbed momentarily to temptation and with a light inhale, he breathed her in.
She smelled of honeysuckle, vanilla, and the forest, a scent that elicited thoughts of summer and sunshine – warm and golden. How appropriate, he mused silently, his glacial stare falling over the cool pale color of her throat.
Dracula could feel himself salivating at the thought of tasting her skin. It was quite the task to suppress his ever-growing lust for this woman, to keep his true feelings hidden, to remain focused. But God help him, it didn't help that her body, that beautiful, virtually untouched and barely claimed body was calling for him. Consciously or not, she was always calling out to him.
His spitfire wanted him still… even after the things he had done, even with her disapproval and her suspicions.
He had to school himself to patience though. She would resent him if he tried anything just yet, so at long last, after a deep, calming breath, he answered her previous question.
"That… my dear… you will have to discover for yourself," he whispered, the tip of his nose barely brushing against the shell of her ear and Hera closed her eyes in a private delight. Before she could fall in too deeply, however, she became aware of his sudden absence and turned around quickly to discover that he was no in her doorway once more.
"Goodnight, Miss Garret. Pleasant dreams."
The Count then shut the door behind him, leaving Hera to explore her new bed chamber in peace. Although the young woman still missed Velkan and Anna, all thoughts of the Valerious siblings seemed to be pushed to the back of her mind as she began to unveil all of the secrets her new room had to offer.
Maybe she could get used to this after all…
XVIII
Reality Sets In
One would have thought that in a bed as large as this, with the finest linens that money could buy and a roaring fire only a good ten feet away—it would have been natural to assume that Hera felt comfortable. Warm. Secure.
But quite the contrary.
She felt completely the opposite when she awoke the following afternoon, having been plagued with strange, disconcerting dreams, uncomfortable thoughts, and distress so deep, she wasn't quite sure she'd be able to bear it. Now more than ever before did she truly wish she'd wake up from this wretched, yet utterly amazing dream. This twisted nightmare.
She wanted to wake up in her father's house, in her bright bedroom surrounded by her books and pictures with the sun shining in through the windows, the scent of the flowers in full bloom just below her window in the garden. She missed the comforting presence of her father, the outrageous antics of her best friend, Hailey, and she even missed the sound of François singing French duets with the cook. She missed her dog, Isis. She missed the English rain, the taste of chai tea, and the scent of her father's library.
But Hera was so very far from home and the young woman felt it more now than she had when she first arrived. Her thoughts were filled with nothing but confusion, worry, doubt, and despair.
Hera had been lying in her new bed for some indiscernible amount of time now, curled up in a ball on her side, struggling to blink back the tears she so longed to properly shed. She had struggled with bouts of home-sickness before, but now that she had been pulled away from the one place that made her feel even remotely safe, she was left to wallow in her misery.
To make matters even more complicated, she had a myriad of other, more present concerns to weigh on her mind.
Were Velkan and Anna alright?
Was Boris still alive in that dungeon in Castle Frankenstein?
Where the hell was Van Helsing right about now?
Why did Dracula want her here so badly?
Why was he so cold, so unfeeling and cruel one moment and then so warm and sexually playful the next?
Did she really have to stay here for seven months?!
Upon her arrival, her shock and disappointment from Velkan's predictable failure had been taken advantage of. Despite her admittedly poor attitude yesterday evening, there had been a small part of her that had honestly thought that her stay here could really be enjoyable – or at least not so bad. But now that her mind had given her hours to think it over, to realize the situation she was in, a terrible anxiety had turned her stomach into nauseating knots.
Hera buried herself farther under the covers, wishing she could sink into the oblivion.
Given her seclusion during the sunlight hours, she was never disrupted by any servants (if there were any) nor by the Count and his concubines. But this sudden abundance of solitude was a bit more than she cared for. In the face of such drastic change, what Hera really needed was comfort, not all this time alone. So in an effort to distract herself from slipping into a state of further unpleasantness, Hera began to take a mental account of what had happened in the last few months.
She had lived with the Valerious family, and had met and had become very well acquainted with Count Dracula and his brides. Her life had been threatened on several occasions. She had had enjoyable yet retrospectively regrettable sex with Prince Velkan, and now here she was, in Castle Dracula, basking in the aftermath of that decision.
So, what now?
Hera had never been so confused.
It was obvious that Dracula was up to something, that there was much more to his plans than his "I want to make things even" speech. There was more to those long gazes of his, the way he studied her, the things he did, the way he shamelessly flirted with her.
Well, one thing was for certain. Hera was determined to discover what the vampire's plans were, and come hell or high water, she was going to thwart them.
After making herself resolute in her game plan – what little of a plan it was – Hera was left in the silence of her unaltered reality once again. She pushed the covers away from her head, still dressed in the clothes she had been wearing yesterday, minus her boots.
What did Dracula plan on having her wear for the next seven months, exactly?
The mortal prayed he didn't have just dresses for her to wear. If that were the case, she'd steal some of his pants if she had to.
Hera rolled over onto her back so she could stare up at the large mirror placed above her bed, the black gauze drapes surrounding its borders before connecting down to the four posts and falling elegantly around the mattress. She studied herself for a good few minutes before speaking softly.
"What makes you so special?" she asked herself aloud. "Why do I have to be in the middle of all of this?"
"We are all chosen for different reasons, Miss Garret. Perhaps you still need to discover yours," a stranger answered from within the room.
Hera, startled by the voice, pulled the chord that opened the drapes to her bed.
"Who are you?" she asked when she noticed a woman at the far end of the chamber, placing an elegant tray onto a small table by the fire.
The stranger appeared to be in her late forties, dark hair lightly dulled by the gray strands that were coming in, the mass pulled into a loose bun. Her attire was simple and old fashioned—a clean work dress and apron, leading Hera to assume that this woman was a servant.
"My name is Janellia, but most call me Jane. I'm the housekeeper of Castle Dracula. I was told of your arrival just before the sun rose this morning."
"Oh."
"I've brought you something to eat, although I wasn't quite sure what it is you liked. You must be starving."
"I'm fine, thank you," Hera answered. Though she hadn't eaten a thing since yesterday, given her present disposition, she had little to no appetite.
"Well, if you find yourself wanting something to eat, it's there. I'm sure the master mentioned where the kitchen and the dining room were, but didn't bother to show you."
"He did mention it," Hera confirmed, still very reserved as she hugged her knees.
Jane noticed the timidity within the mortal and offered a reassuring smile.
"Can I fetch anything for you, Miss?"
"No, thank you."
"Are you sure? I beg your pardon for being so forward, but it looks to me like you could use some cheering up."
"I'd like to be left alone, please."
"Very well," Jane said in defeat and then she quietly excused herself from the room.
When she was gone, Hera shortly thereafter burst into tears, crying softly into her pillow for reasons she couldn't quite understand. Was it because she was scared? Or because she had been "kidnapped?" Perhaps it was because in that moment she had never wanted to go home so much in all her life.
That must have been it.
Hera missed her father. She missed the servants, her friends, her professors, her books and movies, her music, the gardens, the familiar. She cried for them all until she could cry no more and she soon fell into another spell of uneasy sleep.
Hera would awaken a couple hours later to find her room empty and the tray Jane had left was still neatly situated on the small table. Although still a bit out of sorts, upon waking up, she found she felt much better than earlier, as if the shedding of her tears had eased all the burdens she had been bearing. After pulling on her cold boots, Hera made her way over to a chair by the fire, lifting the lid to the tray off to find the food Jane had left her was still steaming hot.
She stared at the meal in a very timid manner, the thought of Dracula poisoning her momentarily crossing her mind. It took just a few whiffs of the hot meal to banish the ridiculous notion and with a resolute nod of her head, she sat down and began to eat, plugging her ear buds in as she listened to some music, unable to bear the deafening silence.
After eating and later becoming better acquainted with her new room, the young woman began to look through the clothing that had been left at her disposal. She felt much improved after dressing and soon, in a desperate attempt to further distract herself from her homesickness, the adventurer in her made an appearance and she slipped out of the room and into the hall.
Unlike the foyer and the natural assumption of what she figured the fortress looked like, the North tower was the polar opposite of the rest of the house. Where she had initially anticipated the castle to be all rock and ice, this part of the house was handsomely decorated and unnervingly tidy. From the furniture and paintings that lined the corridor, to the beautiful, long Persian carpet she walked on, she couldn't find so much as a speck of dirt or even a line of a web.
At last, she reached the stairs, the view allowing her to see almost all the floors, from the tippy top to where the Count had told her his bedchamber was (and she paused to quickly vow she'd never go up there), to the bottom where the main stairs led to the foyer.
The house was quiet.
Almost too quiet.
Hera found that she did not particularly care for staying in one place too long, so she continued on her journey in search of the library Dracula had spoken of. It didn't take long to find it, the enormous doubled doors giving its location away, and what she found behind those doors did not disappoint.
Enormous wouldn't have done Dracula's library justice. Monstrous would have been a more appropriate term. It seemed to go on for ages, row after row of books upon books upon books – thousands of them. Maybe even millions.
The far wall was lined with gigantic windows which crawled up a good three or four stories, and there were numerous staircases leading up to the various floors, the shelves high, covering almost every wall from ground to ceiling, unless there was a tall, high-paned window in its place.
The fireplace to the left was at least six to seven feet tall and four to five feet in depth, a beautiful painting of a mountainous scene with a majestic black dragon hanging over the mantle. Murals covered the gorgeous, high paned ceilings with crown-molding, chandeliers offering the most perfect amount of light, paintings and statues of history littering the room, along with several doors on the upper floors leading either out into the halls or into more secluded parts of the library that were dedicated to specific topics or eras of history.
Hera muttered an oath as she walked into the center of the room, amidst the many sofas and chairs and tables and lamps.
Her hand ran over a beautiful miniature statue of the Goddess Hera—her namesake – which was situated on one of the end tables, the goddess' other counterparts positioned in a variety of locations throughout the room. The stone was an unblemished white, every detail of the statue flawless and lovingly chiseled, from the voluptuous beauty of her figure and robes, to the loving aspects of her face.
"You must have cost a fortune," Hera said softly to the inanimate object.
There were other statues about the room as well, some of them famous, undoubtedly replicas—like the one of Michelangelo's David—and others of individuals she had never seen before.
As Hera explored the library, she remained blissfully unaware of the pair of eyes that watched attentively from one of the upper levels, the individual in question leaning against the banister, observing the woman with noted interest.
Dracula found it fascinating that a member of the female sex could be so engrossed in things of the past, that a young, single woman could know as much and even more than he who had lived well over four centuries, where she was only a quarter of a century old.
The girl was a born genius.
He had learned from the rare opportunities that he was able to rummage through her mind that her brain didn't work like the normal mortal brain. She soaked in nearly all of the information her senses perceived and not only retained that information, but was also able to retrieve it with the greatest of ease. How such an occurrence was even possible in a mere human was beyond him, but he found her a fascinating specimen to be around, and in more respects than one.
