Page 95 of Lucy Undying (Dracula #1)

95

Salt Lake City, January 25, 2025

Dracula

Now you have the sense to be afraid. He’s in control, and always has been, and always will be.

It’s not the symbols themselves that hold power. It’s that sacred space inside someone, that core of absolute faith no one can touch. That’s what keeps him out. That’s what refuses to invite him in. God or Jesus or even love. Hope. Whatever you hold sacred, whatever you know he can never take from you.

But you. You’re nothing but a gaping wound of need and loneliness and pain. Life has taught you that faith in anything is weakness, that love is a step into the grave. That nothing and no one can be trusted, not even yourself. You’ve always been waiting to welcome him. Your very existence is an invitation.

Why are you crying?

He catches the tear on one long fingernail, lifts it to his lips and baptizes himself in your pain. He’ll take it from you. All of it. The striving and the fighting and the fear. You’re his. You were always meant to be his. He knows it, and now, so do you.

“Iris!” someone screams from the doorway. “Iris, invite me in!”

They’re too late. He bites open his finger, pressing it to your lips. Then he grabs your curls and drags your head to the side, opening the white expanse of your throat.

His.