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Vlad does not answer.

The mortal man appears to gradually become aware of me. It is my legs upon which he lays, yet his gaze remains riveted to the furiously pacing vampire. Only when Vlad steps close to the head of the bier to glower at me does the man become aware of the iron stake piercing my body. He recoils in shock.

“You drove me to this!” Vlad grips the iron rod and leans over me. “Why will you not confess your sin and beg for my forgiveness!”

I snap my teeth at him.

“I love you, Erzsébet! I love you so fiercely it is as if hell itself was consuming me!”

“Hell will consume you for what you did!”

The old man attempts to dart toward the door, but Vlad vanishes from my side to reappear before him. He backhands the man, knocking him across the room and into my arms. I do not hesitate. I drive my long teeth into the man’s throat and feed.

The taste of hot blood overwhelms all my senses. The rapture of feeding on a living, breathing man is transcendent. Nothing compares to the pleasure I feel when I drink the blood of the living. It swirls through my veins to restore my life and power.

I am renewed.

Born once again.

When the man’s heart fades, I drop him to the floor. I am sated and my body flushes with pleasure. I lick the blood from my lips while resting my hands against the curve of my cheeks. They are rounded and soft again. My beauty is fully restored. Should I be free of this place and among mortals, I would appear as a living, breathing woman full of life.

Vlad drags the body to a corner and drops it with disdain. “He was a liar and a cheat. Presented his daughter as a princess and himself as a man of means. All he wanted was to marry her off and empty the coffers of her new husband.”

I ignore his muttering. I am in agony after feeding so well. My body attempts to heal the wound beneath my ribs, but the silver-coated stake resists. The pain compels me to writhe. I grip the stake, seeking relief, but find none. My body refuses to acknowledge the stake driven through me and attempts to heal my flesh only to have it ripped apart once more. I do not care about Vlad’s domestic problems. I desire for him to leave me to my memories. How like him to destroy my blissful reminiscing.

“Do you not see, Erzsébet?”

Vlad stares down at the dead man who inquired where his daughter was just scant minutes ago. Ironically, his body now leans against her tomb.

“See that you have destroyed yet another woman and her family?”

In an instant he is stooping over me, green eyes glimmering with coal fires. “Do you not see how much I love you? I could have killed him and been done with him back at the castle. But no, you haunt my every thought, so I brought him to you. I cannot bear for your beauty to fade.”

“Yet you can bear to witness me suffering. How loving you are, dearest husband.”

He slams his fist against the bier. The stone cracks, but does not crumble. “I love you to my detriment!”

“Kill me and be done with it,” I retort. “Release me from this hell.”

“Beg for my forgiveness and it will be yours!”

“Never!”

He smothers my lips with kisses. I bite at his thick lips, but he ignores the wounds I inflict on him. Blood streams from our mouths, and for one voluptuous moment, I respond to his kiss. His tongue in my mouth reminds me of the soft flesh of a pear. I remember Ágota and what he did to her.

I savagely bite down.

Recoiling from me, he wipes away the blood with the back of his hand while chuckling bitterly. “You will return to me, Erzsébet. One night, you will say the words and I will release you.”

“Never.”

“You once kneeled before me and you will again.”

“Only to give you pleasure. Never in subjugation.”

I only bowed to one man when I was young and nearly died for my naiveté.

Vlad snatches the torch from the wall and throws it on the body in the corner. He knows I despise the smell of burning flesh after all I endured when mortal.