Page 81 of Lucy Undying (Dracula #1)

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Salt Lake City, January 13, 2025

Dracula

Somehow, you knew what he wanted. You’re out, alone in the night that belongs to him, walking on a trail through the lonesome hills.

Tonight it begins, but he can feel the ending as if it’s already happened. All your futures, all your potential, his. He’s inevitable. The black drag of gravity, pulling you down to where you’ll join the lives he’s collected and become one of his secret safe graves. Unholy and perfect, pulsing across the globe like fireflies burning in a color only his eyes can see.

But you. You’re all he thinks of tonight. His only now in an infinite expanse of then.

You walk down the wooded trail with confidence, warm brown curls bouncing defiantly. Such unjustified fearlessness. You don’t realize yet how powerless you truly are. How easily the teeth of this world can pierce you.

That might be his favorite thing about this current age. Everything has been made so secure, so safe. People scurry about their short, empty lives, certain that they have death held at bay. But it’s always waiting. He’s always waiting. They’ve simply forgotten how to look for him.

He’ll teach you. He’ll catch your cry in his teeth and savor the taste of your surrender, that bitterest bite. That sweetest bite.

He reaches out into the night and finds the hungry, willing minds of feral beasts waiting for his call. It’s time you felt the first wave of fear dragging you from everything you’ve hoped and planned into everything that’s left for you in this world: only him.

The snarls of the stray dogs chase you, nipping at your heels but never quite connecting. He won’t let them taste you. You belong to him that way. But dogs make excellent shepherds, guiding you into the wild. Just when it seems the whole world is fear and danger and death, you burst free of the scrub and hills. Onto the path and into his waiting arms.

He relishes your expression—fear and relief in one. You view him as your savior, and he is. Both your salvation and your damnation.

He sweeps you into his embrace, his the strength of generations, yours the weightlessness of mortality. You tremble against him. He can see the pulse pounding in your neck. He relishes the tantalizing agony of restraint as he sets you down next to the street. You eye the darkness warily, staying close to his side. He can still hear your rabbit’s heart, scampering in your chest, looking for safety. He knows how your pulse would feel, flooding his mouth, coating his throat, and it’s too much, you’re ready, he’s ready, he—

You look at him then, and something in your face stops him. Because it isn’t gratitude or even fear in your expression. It’s…a challenge. There’s something indecent in your gaze, a bold defiance that makes him want to hurt you right now. Abandon the dance entirely and break you on the spot.

But no. He reminds himself to be patient. He needs to break your will, not your body. And to do that, he needs you to let him in. Come with me, he says. You must recover from your fright. I live nearby.

And then you laugh.

His fingers spasm, reaching toward you with animal urgency to silence that sound. But you’re already stepping away from him. Rage boils, more than he’s felt in ages. He’ll show you, he’ll teach you to be afraid, he’ll—

You say you’ll be walking again tomorrow, this same trail, this same time. He watches you leave, barely able to contain the storm in his chest.

He thought he wanted you the way he’s wanted all the others, but you. You’re something special, something new. The longer it takes to make you his, the more you’ll pay for the privilege. This bubbling in his chest could be anger or lust or thirst, but it feels closest to something he lost so many lifetimes ago.

His own laughter.