Now Comes the Mist

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

T he mist leads me to the churchyard like a wanderer returning home. The cool night air cleanses my lungs with the scent of late roses and fresh-turned earth as I pass the silent graves to my family’s mausoleum. Vlad sits on the bench across from it, gazing at the carved granite name of Westenra. When he turns, the rigid line of his mouth softens. The dark ocean of his eyes washes over me. “Lucy,” he says, very low, and I hear in his voice that I have not been the only one longing for this. “I wondered if you would come back to me.”

“I wondered as well.”

He holds out his hand, strong and white and cold, and I let him pull me close. He presses his face into me and breathes me in. “I’m glad you’re here,” he says, lifting his head. His blue-green gaze is tender and mesmerizing, but I know now how cold and empty it can also be, and how easily his gentleness can vanish into the fanged beast lurking underneath. Which is the truth? The man who cares for me, or the monster who sees me as prey? “Why are you so sad? Tell me your troubles, and I will destroy everything that hurts you.”

“Will you?” I whisper, smoothing a lock of soft dark hair from his forehead.

Vlad pulls me down beside him and wraps his arms around me. I shiver as the cold stone bench meets my thighs through my nightdress. But for the view of the mausoleum in place of the North Sea, we might have been on the Whitby cliffs again, late on a windswept August evening.

I look at the great death-house where generations of my family sleep. So many nights have I come here, seeking comfort. But there is no comfort for me tonight—only a road diverging, and a choice I must make. “Everything seems to be slipping away from me,” I say. “My mother. Mina. To live is to lose. That is what I could not make you understand, Vlad.”

“What do I not understand?” he asks gently.

“Why I wished to make the choice I did. I thought you had killed me. I thought I would die from your bite, and I despised myself for bringing such pain to my family. In my haste to avoid death, I had almost welcomed it early instead. But here I sit.”

“Here you sit.”

“To me, what you are is protection from death. If I became like you, I would be with my family forever and also free . It is an escape.” I look at him. “But I don’t think you will ever understand. You only see it as some vulgar, disgusting perversion of womanhood.”

“But I do understand. I should not have berated you,” he admits. “You see my existence as a way out of what you fear. I have been doing a great deal of thinking during our time apart, and my reaction to your request—for I see now that it was a request—was regrettable.”

“But you haven’t changed your opinion of me,” I say quietly. “I heard you talking to Mina today. I know you still value her high above me … and you are right to do so.”

“I am impressed with Miss Murray, and I can see why you love her. But much of her appeal, I confess, is that she reminds me of my friend Lucy. She certainly interrogated me boldly enough to have learned it from that friend Lucy.” He chuckles. “She has surmised that her Jonathan helped me to purchase Carfax. He heard of its availability from a man who lives and works near it. A man he knows socially, who had at one time hoped to marry his Mina’s dearest friend.”

“Jack Seward,” I say, and Vlad’s eyes twinkle at me. Something eases in my chest like a ribbon untangling. “I will not thank you for releasing Jonathan from captivity, as it was only the right thing to do. But I am glad you did for Mina’s sake.”

“I didn’t do it for her. I did it for you, because you asked me to.” His eyes find the marks on my throat. “You did not deserve such pain, not when I can choose to make it pleasurable, as you saw with the widow. Jonathan, too, though he is much more ill than you have been, for he was bitten many times and also had to survive the treacherous lands around my castle. That he did is proof of his strength. He will recover and marry that wonderful Miss Murray.”

“Bitten many times.” My words come out as both a groan and a gasp.

“He enjoyed it. We made certain of that.” When Vlad looks at me, an image appears in my mind of the ever proper and self-possessed Jonathan Harker, looking neither proper nor self-possessed as he lies stark naked on a bed, his arms and legs sprawled apart while Vlad and two dark-haired women bend their heads over him, their wicked red mouths tasting more than just his blood. Vlad laughs, watching me shiver. “Oh, yes, he enjoyed it indeed.”

I know full well that this is part of his strategy to possess me. He can choose unnecessary pain and violence when it pleases him to hurt and frighten me, and he can choose to be tender and playful when it serves him best, because he knows that kindness will win me back to him. Always, the choice is his. Not mine.

But I will choose. I have played the game of love for many years, with many men, and I can manipulate as well as he can, though I have not his powers.

Gently, I pull my hand out of his. “It felt wrong, the way you and I parted that evening, and so I came tonight to say a better goodbye. Thank you for being my friend, and for giving me a measure of freedom and happiness that I will never know again.”

“Goodbye?” he echoes.

“I am marrying Arthur soon and must put all of this behind me.” I feel no invasion of my mind at present, but as I speak, I imagine another shield around my skull, strong and silver, keeping my thoughts secret. I let it snap into place as I look up at the stars, taking care to show nothing upon my face. “I, too, have done much thinking this week, after you showed me the pain and brutality of being bitten. You say it can be pleasurable, but I have only known terror and suffering. So perhaps it is wise that I give it up. Give you up.”

Vlad looks at me, his eyes piercing, and I wonder for a moment if I have overplayed my hand. And then he asks, “But why, if you have known freedom and happiness with me, must you give me up?” And I know that I have him. I have him, and we shall see who controls whom.

“It frightens me how right this feels, being with you. Even the marks you left on my throat feel right.” I touch the scars lightly with a fingertip. “I can’t stop thinking about how close I came to what I wanted. I don’t regret asking you for it. But I think it is time we said farewell.”

“Why do you think,” he asks slowly, “it is yours to decide if we say farewell, or when?”

I ignore the flicker of anger that rises in me. “We must, for I would come closer to being the woman I ought to be. I must be perfect, the sort of wife Arthur deserves, for soon I will belong to him and only to him. You are the moon and the mist, beautiful and terrible … but now I must turn my eyes to the sun. To Arthur.”

There is a long silence, and I know that I was right to protect my thoughts. Around my skull I feel a tingle, the sensation of Vlad probing for the truth inside me. I close my eyes and bow my head, as if in sadness, and focus on strengthening that shield and keeping him out.

“Marrying him will be the end of everything you are,” he says. “You told me that you and I are equals. Is he your equal? What happened to your desire for more ?”

“I have no right to desire more,” I say calmly. “I will have a beautiful home, a good name, and a loving husband. Arthur is my kindred soul after all, and not you.”

Vlad’s eyes have darkened to a poisonous green. “But you and I found each other for a reason. Did you not imply that we were always destined to meet, perhaps for eternity?”

I stand up. Even on my feet before him, he is so tall that we are almost at eye level. “You exhaust me, Vlad,” I say with honest fury. “I am tired of you pulling me like a kite in whatever direction you please. I begged you to let me be with you, and you rejected me. And now, when I want to leave you to regain my virtue and dignity, you lure me back? I cannot stand this!”

He takes my hands in his iron grip. “Lucy, calm yourself. You will not leave me,” he says, his voice low and determined, spurred on by my refusal of him.

“Why should I stay with you?” I demand. “You don’t want me. You like a challenge, not a woman who runs to you with her arms open. That is what you told me. And so I must belong to Arthur, when what I truly wish is to give myself to—” I cut myself off and turn my head away as though I can’t bear to look at what I cannot have.

“Give yourself to whom?”

I close my eyes and do not answer.

He keeps my hand tight in one of his, and with the other, turns my face back toward him. His eyes are so dark now that they look almost black, and for a moment I see a flash of the great grey wolf in his features. “Give yourself to whom?” he asks, the words slow and deliberate.

“To you,” I whisper. “I want to be yours, Vlad.”

He stares at me, deep into my eyes, and I feel my resistance wavering as he begins to reach into my mind. But I steel myself, hard. I think of the silver of Mina’s bracelet and of my great-grandmother’s ring, and of all the people who love me, and I push away his intrusion.

“I want to be yours,” I repeat as I bring his hand to my lips, feeling the sharp edges of his garnet ring. And then I grip his fingers, bring the gem to my neck, and scratch my throat as hard as I can beneath the two wounds. A bright, wet, hot line of pain bursts across my skin, and at the smell of my blood, Vlad’s eyes shift at once into great dark pupils ringed with scarlet.

Roughly, he seizes me by the waist and pulls me to him, but I put my hands on his chest to keep us apart. He is a being that does not need breath, yet his broad shoulders are heaving as though from exertion. Slowly, I bring my face an inch from his. “This time,” I say, very low, “I want to feel pleasure. I want you to give me what you gave to Jonathan.”

Vlad’s fangs snap down, and fear slips through my desire. I am in the arms of a monster that could tear my head off with a flick of his wrist, yet I dare toy with him as he does me. His hands slide to my bottom, crushing me against him as his mouth laps up the blood on my throat. I tense, remembering the awful pain of his bite, but his fangs do not touch me. Instead, I feel the long, slow stroke of his freezing tongue tasting my throat and my collarbone. He tears my nightdress off my shoulders, exposing my breasts to his cunning, clever mouth. The edges of his fangs just brush my nipples, featherlight. I cry out and lean my head back, closing my eyes at the unbearable sweetness of it.

He raises his head and fixes his wicked, blood-ringed eyes upon me. “If it’s pleasure you want, Lucy, then I will give it to you,” he whispers. “We both know you will not get it from Arthur, not like this. He doesn’t know what you want. But I do.”

With one swift and powerful movement, he lifts me onto his lap, facing him. He is like granite against me, and so, so cold. I lock my legs around him and shiver against the bulk of his massive body as his embrace devours me whole. His mouth sucks at the cut on my throat as his hands slide up my bare legs, bringing the hem of my nightdress with them. His thumb skims my upper thigh, and I shift impatiently on his lap, trying to bring it where I want it.

Vlad laughs against my skin. “I asked you before why you think it is yours to decide?”

He presses his brutal face against mine and kisses me. I gasp for air. It is like breathing in winter or feeling the first shock of cold as I dive into the sea. Somehow, he keeps his fangs from cutting me and maneuvers his mouth so that I only feel his lips forcing mine open and his greedy tongue tasting me. It is nothing like my kisses with Arthur. There is an underlying malice, almost hatred, as though he has realized that he has played right into my hands. I can taste the rusty wine of my own blood in his mouth, heady and thick and metallic.

I cling to him for dear life, my arms around his neck, and let his mouth have its way with me. He pulls his face away for a moment, his eyes glinting as I struggle to take in air. And then, without warning, his hand on my thigh slides across the drenched seam between my legs in one hard stroke, rough and slow. Electricity shoots through me and I throw my head back once more, almost weeping for more. He laughs again, pleased, and moves his fingers again in a sweet, savage glide from the back of me to the front. I am shaking uncontrollably, and my arms and legs are wrapped so tightly around him that I do not think even his prodigious strength could dislodge me.

“Do you think Arthur would know how to do this?” he murmurs against my mouth as his long fingers stroke me over and over. “Answer me.”

“No,” I gasp because I know it is what he wants to hear. Somehow, my untrained body knows what to do. I arch my back, my hips moving against his hand. I have lost all my senses. I can no longer see the churchyard around us, smell the soil, or hear the crickets singing. My entire universe has been reduced to this single point of contact between his hand and my body.

But I have never been one to relinquish the upper hand, so I lean forward and claim his mouth with mine, careless of the fangs. One of them pricks the tender underside of my lip and he sucks in the bead of blood that forms. “Give me what you gave to Jonathan,” I breathe again as my hand slides down his chest to the rigid swell I know I will find in his lap.

Vlad shifts beneath me, removing the fabric that remains between us. “Another request?”

“No,” I say. “That was a command this time. Can’t you tell?”

His face tightens. “You have no power over me,” he says through gritted teeth, but his actions disagree. His strong hands move to my bottom and lift me into the air, holding me helplessly crushed against him with my face just an inch above his. “Arthur is nothing. You will not belong to him. I am all you will ever know. Do you understand me?”

My body aches for him. I try, desperately, to lower myself, but he tightens his grip on me.

“Do you understand me, Lucy?” he asks, his voice like steel.

“Yes, I understand,” I whimper.

He smiles, pleased to be torturing me into a frenzy. “To whom do you belong?” he asks. “Tell me or you will not have your reward.”

Even in the heat of my desire, even in the agony of pleasure, I think, I belong to myself. But he is watching me, his blood-ringed eyes relentless and cruel, and I am dying for what he can give me. “I belong to you, Vlad,” I say, panting. “I am yours for the taking.”

In one quick, deliberate movement, he lowers me, and I cry out in relief and surprise as he plunges to the core of me, burstingly hard. There is no great pain, certainly nothing compared to his bite, but the sensation is sharp, foreign, and freezing cold. There is no other word for it but invasion. He holds still, giving me time to adjust to the frigidity of him inside my own burning heat. I shift my hips tentatively, leaning back and then rocking toward him, and feel the satisfaction of hearing him utter a low, pained groan. So much for not having power over him.

He presses his lips to my ear. “I’m going to hold you to those words.”

And then he lifts me off him and brings me back down again, hard and rough. I cry out as my body envelops him, my muscles tense with pleasure. He repeats the movement again and again, controlling the slow and steady rhythm, and as on the night of our harp duet, I feel as though I am climbing a hill with mad eagerness, starving for the thrill of plummeting down the other side. I am there, upon the threshold, about to fall … when he suddenly stops. He has lifted me just high enough to still feel the icy edge of him between my legs. I moan and struggle against his broad chest, raving and wild for completion, but he only looks straight into my eyes.

“I will ask you what I asked you that night on the terrace,” Vlad says, breathing hard, his arms like a vise around me. His cold black eyes rake down my face to my throat and back. “This is what you truly want? You want me to bite you?”

I have no dignity left. No pretension. I have given him what a good girl would save for her husband, offered myself up like a flower to be plucked. I have made my decision and he knows it, too, from the flash of disdain I see in his gaze, still repulsed that I insist upon my right to choose. But he wants to hear my consent to seal our bond like a spell spoken in the night air.

Somewhere in my haze of desire, my rational mind must still be functioning, for I hear myself say, “I want immortality. And I want to feel pleasure, and not to be so ill again as to worry my family. Will you promise me these things?”

He does not promise. He looks at me, waiting.

And I am so far gone, so greedy for everything he has given and can give me, that I hear myself say, “Yes. Yes, Vlad, I want you to bite me.”

He lowers me in one sharp, deliberate movement, joining us together once more. I slide down the length of him to the root, gasping at the intense, delicious cold as he positions his fangs over the wounds in my neck and bites down hard. There is pain—of course there is, searing and red-hot, but not nearly as unbearable as before. I am too focused on where my naked skin meets his and how the jarring shock has risen to a crescendo as I plummet, crying out. His mouth remains on my throat, drinking lazily before he pulls his fangs away. We hold each other, his arms as tightly around me as mine are around him, and stay motionless for a long time.

Slowly, the churchyard comes back into focus around me. I rest my head on Vlad’s shoulder and look, heavy-lidded, at the rows of graves behind him, the silent witnesses to what we have done. What I have done, gladly and greedily. The Westenra mausoleum, too, was watching the destruction of my virtue and my life as I have known it. I stroke the back of Vlad’s head, my fingers tangled in his soft hair. My limbs feel heavy and drowsy and weak.

“Do you hate me for what I’ve chosen?” I whisper.

“Would it matter if I did?”

“No.” I pull away to look at him, dazed. His mouth is stained with my blood.

“You are the only one who has ever demanded this of me,” Vlad says, his face impassive. “Everyone else screams and fights and begs. Everyone else tries to run away. But you, who dare to desire this, expect my approval for that?”

“No. I expect only your understanding.”

He runs his icy fingertips over my cheek. “Lucy,” he says.

And then a shrill scream shatters the night.

I blink my eyes, and suddenly Vlad is gone. I am lying flat on my back on the cold bench. I turn my head to see Harriet running down the path, parting the mist over the graves. She sobs as she holds a lantern over me. “Oh, miss, are you all right?” she cries. “There was a wolf, a great ugly beast. It ran and jumped right over me! It was … You were … I saw …”

She trails off, her eyes widening in horror as she takes me in.

When Dr. Van Helsing performed my transfusion, I had felt like I was floating above my own body, watching the scene from somewhere above. That sensation returns to me now, as though the mist has lifted me into the night air, and I can see myself clearly through Harriet’s eyes: my long hair is a dark tangle, my knees are spread wide apart, and my toes are touching the grass on either side of the bench. My nightdress is ripped down to my waist, baring my breasts, and the hem is rucked over my legs, hiding absolutely nothing, including the splatter of blood staining the inside of my thighs.

A hundred emotions flash over my maid’s face in seconds.

I feel as empty as a shell or a husk. My throat throbs with pain and I am sore and bruised between my legs. “Harriet,” I say faintly, “I think you ought to take me home now.”

And then, in the darkness and the mist, I laugh and I laugh and I laugh.