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“I impaled them as well. You are no different,” Vlad grunts.

“But they died eventually. When will I die?”

The question, though asked dispassionately, immediately escalates the tension between us. Vlad may want to punish me, but my death is not the desired outcome.

“You provoke me deliberately, but you will not win,” he growls with annoyance. “I will not kill you, beloved wife.”

“And you compound your cruelty by ensuring I cannot kill myself.”

The first night after my impalemen

t, I attempted to rip my body free of the stake. I despaired when I discovered that, though I can move my arms and legs, my torso is cemented by a spell to the bier. Otherwise, I would have already torn my body free—or, in my darker moments, killed myself by pulling my body toward the stake until the silver coating destroyed my heart.

“My dearest Erzsébet, I do not wish to see you dead. You know this,” he says in a chastising manner. “If you believe I enjoy seeing you lying in this filthy mausoleum impaled on a stake, starving, and alone, you wound me. This gives me no pleasure.”

“Yet, here I am.”

“By your own doing, Erzsébet.”

My laughter is bitter. “The lies you tell yourself.”

An angry growl erupts from his throat. Stalking about my resting place, he says, “Your impudence has compromised me! Made me vulnerable to his attacks! Lucifer knows that you are my weakness and he will use you as a pawn. Surely you must see that your defiance only weakens us.”

“Weakens you. Not me,” I retort.

“Yet here you lie,” he snaps.

“This is the result of your choices, not mine,” I remind him.

“And you never made a choice you did not regret?” Hesitating beside me, he leans over me, his auburn hair falling to form a veil that blocks out the torchlight. Within the depths of his green eyes are coals of fire. It was this fire I was drawn to from the moment I first gazed upon him. At times I yearn to lose myself again in the scorching heat of his passions even though it would be the end of me.

“I have made many mistakes,” I say each word so it forms a complete accusation against him, not me.

“You will recant those words.” Straightening, he smirks. “We are but a few years into this game we play.”

“And now a new player has made himself known. What will you do to thwart the devil?”

Fear shadows his features and I am satisfied. I will never make a deal with Lucifer, but I will let Vlad live in dread that I will.

“I shall move the mausoleum,” he mutters.

I laugh at his sullen expression. “He will only find it again. He is determined to sway me with his offers of freedom.”

“You would not dare!”

Despite his shout, I detect the distress underlying his anger.

“Death would be a release, one I would welcome,” I say blithely.

“Do not tempt me, Erzsébet.” Vlad clenches his fist and hisses with frustration.

At one point, I would have welcomed death, but no more. Lucifer has confirmed what I had dared not believed to be true. A remnant of Ágota’s magic remains in the world, and with it dwells the hope of true liberation.

Resting my hands above the garish wound in my chest, I watch him pacing about muttering. The promise of violence is in the arch of his back, his furious gaze, and clenched fists. I do not fear his ferocity and never did. Perhaps that is why I am impaled on this bier.

Again bending over me, he seethes with barely contained fury. “I will not allow you to make a foolish choice that will destroy you!”

“Then release me. It is that simple, Vlad.”