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Vlad rose to his feet and moved to the side of the bath. With the flick of his hand, he dismissed Magda and she rushed out. Looming over me, he gazed down.

“We shall stay in Buda and continue our lives as the Count and Countess Dracula until all the arrangements have been made and we move to England. ”

“Cneajna, Elina, Ariana, what of them, Vlad?”

“As I said, their time has passed. Leave them to their castle home. ”

“Will you dismiss me as easily as you dismiss them when I am no longer of worth to you?”

Vlad laughed at this. “Do not be foolish. You are nothing like your sisters. ”

“But Cneajna is the first!”

Reaching down, his hand trailed down the side of my face, down my throat to my breast. Leaning over, he kissed my lips. “No, you are the first. I shall find you new sisters in England. ”

Twisting around in the bath, I rose onto my knees. “You cannot do this. ”

“Why not?” He knelt beside the bath, looking at me fiercely. “Why not?”

“You love them!”

“Their time has passed,” he answered me. He grabbed hold of my wrist and lifted me out of the water. I dangled from his grasp until he drew me tight against him. “Your time has now come. ”

I gasped as he drew his sharp nail across his throat, opening a wound.

“Drink,” he said.

I knew then there was a hidden meaning to this, but I could not fathom it. I still cannot fathom it. But I did drink. His blood was the richest of all blood, perhaps because I was created from it. As I drank, he bit into my neck and also drank.

The ecstasy swept me away as I shuddered with the power of this blood filling me.

Later, when he laid me down in our hidden room, my body limp and my mind drunk with his power, he pressed soft kisses over my naked flesh. He literally adorned my body with his lips and his hair fell over me like thick rich ropes of velvet.

Drunk with his power, I could feel his desires and thoughts. I heard the sound of battles and felt the heat of war. I heard his voice commanding armies and the screams of his victims. All the while, he laid his kisses upon my fevered body.

My eyes fluttered as he settled between my thighs and his mouth began to consume me, making me writhe beneath him. The shadows danced over the walls and I saw them evolve, twisting into the shapes of thousands of impaled people. Then the shadows fell away to reveal ghostly images of people. I saw a handsome man with features similar to Vlad, yet more striking, riding into battle in the robes of a Turkish prince. I felt Vlad’s hate for him, his need to destroy him. I saw Cneajna in the sunlight, flowers in her hair, holding Vlad close as he spoke of his conquests.

All the while, he made me gasp and claw at his hair and shoulders.

I saw Erzsébet, inhuman and beautiful, coming to him, holdi

ng him to her breast as he drank her blood.

I saw it all. I felt it all, yet all the while he feasted on me.

At last I screamed his name and he rose up to press deep into me and hold me tight as I held onto his broad shoulders. I was crying desperately and the room spun around me.

He did not kiss me, but stared down into my face, watching my eyes, watching my tears, then he lowered me down, as I clawed at my hair and wept.

“Now you know what I am, who I am,” he said.

I cried as I pressed my hands up against him.

“Tell me who I am,” he whispered and once more thrust into me.

“Dracul! Dracul! Vlad Tepes! The Impaler! The Dracul!”

Finally, I understood exactly what those words meant. He had been the Impaler, the Dragon, the Prince of Wallachia who had fought against the Turk invaders and his own brother. He was a man of vision and of passion. He was a force to be feared. He was my Master and in my blood.