Page 22 of Love Immortal

Twenty-One

May 1891

Transylvania

T he count never intended to let the human leave his castle alive. Some secrets were simply too dangerous to let them out into the world. But the danger wasn’t what the count was thinking of just now as he strained his face to avoid bursting into laughter. He’d disguised himself as a coachman and was giving the young solicitor the fright of his life as he sped their carriage along the serpentine Carpathian roads, skidding around the bends and barely avoiding the cliffs’ edges. And the way the poor human twisted in terror when the count summoned his wolves to chase them up the slopes! Of course, the human had no way of knowing that the wolves would never harm a hair on his head—not without the count’s command, that is.

Later, the count would decide that the whole thing had probably been just a little unfair, but he simply could not pass up a chance for some amusement before returning to the gloomy hallways of his keep. Besides, he’d always found that terror looked ravishing on a handsome face, and if the shadows weren’t lying, the young solicitor’s face was handsome indeed.

If he was lucky, perhaps the count might find further amusement in this human’s company. It had been decades since he’d had a willing visitor.

His castle used to be so much livelier even half a century ago, with months-long revelries marking each successful campaign against the Janissaries and endless processions of nobles who showered the dark voivode with hoards of gold and jewels. But that was when they still remembered why the count was here, why his fortress had been built in such an inhospitable place that only the people who had lived in these lands for generations would dare seek refuge inside its walls. When the castle wasn’t just an ominous decrepit ruin staring down a snowy peak, a nightmarish legend to scare off the superstitious.

But the time of great wars and unceasing border skirmishes had passed, it seemed. The things that used to be magnificent were facing the inevitable fate of decay and obscurity. The nineteenth century had rolled in, and now the threat of invading Turks was but a sham excuse to keep the roads in a perpetual state of disrepair. There was no longer any use for a castle such as the one ruled by the count, nor a need for a terrifying being born of darkness and bloodshed such as him.

The locals had always feared him, even when they’d deemed the count’s monstrous strength vital to their own survival. But in previous centuries, they hadn’t shunned his mountain so completely. Truly, those humans were to blame for the abominable state of this place! These days, the only people who entered the count’s employ of their own volition were the Travelers. They still remembered the price by which this land had been preserved: bones and blood. But they were no stonemasons. Or carpenters or textile makers, for that matter. All the treasures the count had accumulated over the centuries were useless when it came to quelling the primal fear he roused in the souls of the common folk.

That is how, to his great dismay, he found himself personally tidying the guest room and preparing supper for the human visitor. What did he know about making suppers? It had been ages since he’d tasted a vegetable. The sisters might still remember—their human days weren’t as far behind them—but he had banished them to the dungeons for the solicitor’s sake. His troublesome progeny had never quite learned to control their appetites. What else was he to do with them?

In the olden days, it hadn’t been uncommon for the grateful and terrified locals to send the count maidens as gifts to mollify him after particularly vicious battles so that his bloodthirsty rage wouldn’t spill over into the nearby villages. As if he’d ever had any interest in maidens. But the count found his hands were rather tied when it came to dealing with such “gifts.” There weren’t many choices left for a woman whose family had sent her to slaughter to save their own skins. Perhaps it was merely the endless silence that haunted the derelict castle that was to blame, but the count had shared his powers with three of them.

Alas, in the end, not a single one proved a suitable candidate for the insatiable demands of the shadows. None possessed a character strong enough to curb the ill effects the dark magic had on their minds. Instead of worthy companions, he’d gained a nightly headache trying to stop them from inciting terror in the villagers at the bottom of the mountain.

He supposed he could’ve snatched someone from Bukovina and made them cook supper for the human, but that might have stirred more trouble with the locals and interfered with his plans to leave this place.

He was noticing it more and more every day—the weakening of the hold this land had on him. For the first time in centuries, the count felt the invisible chain of ancient magic, which bound him to this place like nothing more than a Transylvanian guard dog, starting to crumble. And so a dangerous idea had been born in the tenebrous recesses of his mind. An idea that after years of serving the Order, after watching empires rise and drown in blood, after seeing countless bodies massacred and turned to dust, he too could be free . The count’s plan to test that idea was already in motion, and he wasn’t willing to risk it for anything.

Besides, as he raced his black steed with the carriage rattling in tow, he thought that just for tonight, he might want to have that human to himself. For what purpose? He couldn’t yet explain.

There was something about him, this stranger in a strange land. He hung on to his seat for dear life, shaking like an autumn leaf, but he didn’t beg the count to slow down or take him back to the train station. No, he stayed, and when the time came to disembark and enter the castle’s grand hall, which used to host kings and queens but now looked like a glorified prison for one, the human went in willingly . And in the soft glow of the golden candlelight, the fortress inside the count shuddered. He didn’t need candles to see; those were for the human’s benefit. The count much preferred the lush embrace of darkness. In the shadows all his senses were sharper, his strength paramount. But the light did something to the human, to this Jonathan . The pulse trembled in his neck as he introduced himself to the count who had shed his coachman disguise—a tiny movement, a flicker of nervousness in unfamiliar surroundings, perhaps. But there was something else there, too, something warm and curious and fluttering, like the tiny birds in the spring when even the mountain snow had melted and the overgrown trees in the courtyard turned a lively shade of green.

The count opened his mouth to reply but froze. For a moment, he didn’t want to be this —a member of the old guard with the powers of the gods of death and ruin, forgotten in this century that was all about science and progress. Just this once, he wanted to feel like he still had something to live for. And so he told Jonathan his old name, the one his mother had given him all those centuries ago when he, too, was still human.

“You may call me Dacian,” he said, and shook the human’s hand.

Jonathan’s eyelashes dipped, and a flush spread across his cheeks at the contact. To anyone with mere human sight, it would’ve been a faint color, but to Dacian, it may as well have been the blazing fires of the sunrise.

That night, in his diary, the count wrote: “Help me, great shadows, for today I met my own ruin and invited him in.”