Page 50 of My Big Fat Vampire Wedding

One Year Later

Romania

“I think I owe Uncle Reginald an apology,” Pandora whispered to Victor as they stood in the center of a cobble-stone path. Where, just five feet in front of them, a bat had transformed into a man.

“That’s … That’s not really … Dracula, is it?” Victor whispered back.

He certainly looked like the titular character, Pandora decided, as she admired the tall, ghostly-pale man with slicked-back black hair, coal-dark eyes, and a long purple-velvet-lined cape.

At Victor’s words, the man before them scoffed.

“It’s Drachmar. I don’t know why any of those pesky mortals can’t get that right. All the books, the telly shows, the movies. Drachmar. How difficult is that?”

Victor stared at him. “So you’re not—”

“I am he,” Drachmar said. “I am the one. The first. The infamous. The fearsome. The eternal.”

“And a man of so few words,” Victor said, lips curving up.

Drachmar’s eyes narrowed at that and Pandora was ready to step between them.

“Mortal, you will cower before me in fear.”

Those weren’t just words or a command, but a glamour.

Luckily for Victor, and unluckily for Drachmar, Pandora had been sure to return Victor’s protection necklace to him once they’d got back together.

“I’m not much of the cowering type,” Victor said, making Pandora have to force her lips into a straight line, not wanting to irritate their host. “So … this isn’t Bran Castle.”

That got a growl out of Drachmar.

“That,” he said, with a wave of his arm that made his cape fly out dramatically, pointing to the other side of the hill, “is Bran Castle. Yet another thing the storybooks get wrong. This,” he waved at the castle he stood before, “is my true castle. Built by the same bloody Saxons. But better. Not crumbling like in all those ridiculous books.”

Pandora and Victor shared a small smile.

“I’m sorry, Drachmar, but we were under the impression that the castle was open for guests. Had we known you were here, we never would have come.”

It hadn’t been Pandora’s first – or fiftieth – choice, in fact.

But Victor had been intrigued by the idea of staying in the castle where so many of his fictional vampire stories took place.

Even though Pandora had insisted time and again that Uncle Reginald was notorious for embellishing the truth. If not outright lying.

“It is yours,” Drachmar said with another wave of his long-boned hand. “I’m afraid I have to track down my familiar.”

“Renfield?” Victor asked.

“Raymond! Ray-mond. That is his name. You mortals.” Then, before anyone could say anything else, Drachmar shifted into a bat and flew off with an eerie shriek.

“How long until you can turn into a bat?” Victor asked, looking over at Pandora. She whacked him across the stomach. “Shall we?” He waved toward the front door.

“I don’t know what I was expecting,” Pandora said as they stepped into the castle. “But … ah, this was not it.” They both looked around, not sure what to think.

Sure, it was a castle. Stone walls. Long, sprawling rooms. Heavy drapery. Fireplaces large enough for families to live inside.

But it wasn’t the bones of the place that had their attention.

It was what Drachmar had decorated the space with that had them not quite believing their eyes.

Nearly every inch of the entire lower floor was full of TV and movie posters, thousands of books, even action figures and stuffed animals that were based on the character of Dracula.

“He’s his own fan club,” Pandora said with a little laugh.

“I’m kind of disappointed I already finished my thesis,” Victor said. “Because … this would have been an interesting twist. Looks like Reginald wasn’t lying, was he?”

“No,” Pandora said, running her fingers over the comic-ally large fangs in a full-sized vampire replica she figured must have been from a movie set or museum at some point. “So now I’m wondering if the perch Vlad uses at my mum and dad’s house actually did belong to a king.”

And maybe he had talked about philosophy with a drunken Socrates. And had helped design the Notre Dame cathedral. And had been the one to make the famous Mona Lisa smile while Leonardo da Vinci had painted her.

“Maybe that ancient scroll he gave me really did come from the Library of Alexandria,” Victor said, reaching for Pandora’s hand. “What a place for a honeymoon,” he added, lifting her hand to his face and kissing her on the finger, just in front of her engagement and wedding rings.

This time, they’d actually gone through with the ceremony. Though, it had been touch-and-go there for a while.

For example, they had all almost burned to death because one of her aunts had decided to set up a bunch of candles around the library. The library full of old books loaded with ancient, dry paper.

If it hadn’t been for a quick-thinking and moving Lucy, the knocked-over candelabra would have ignited a whole shelf of encyclopedias and trapped them all in a burning room.

Sure, the encyclopedias had been full of old, inaccurate information. But it would have been a real tragedy for everyone to have died on such a lovely day.

Then, well, there’d been the reception. Where Ravenna and Henrietta had got into an argument that had devolved into an actual, real-life food fight.

While Vlad had sulked and pretended not to be jealous of Elizabeth’s new beau – a lovely Camelot macaw who hadn’t seemed to know that Vlad and Elizabeth had ever been an item.

And Victor’s father almost finally figured out the whole vampire thing.

She and Victor had decided as a couple not to share that information, both believing his parents were a bit too …

practical to be able to wrap their heads around the idea of supernatural creatures not only existing, but marrying into their family.

Most humans wouldn’t be able to handle that kind of truth without hysterics or even an outright breakdown as the world they thought they knew fell apart around them.

It wasn’t worth the risk. Especially considering how infrequently the families got together. It would be even less often when his parents finally moved to Portugal like they’d been dreaming of after retirement.

As crazy as it had all been, Pandora knew she would look back on it with nothing but fondness for the rest of her life.

Even just thinking back on some of Victor’s vows made her feel like she was flying.

Being with you has taught me that real love lies in embracing every part of who we are. Today, I vow to cele-brate all that makes you unique, to cherish your heart, and to love you for all the time we’re blessed to share …

“I’m afraid to see what’s behind this door,” Victor said as they followed a trail of dried red rose petals up the grand staircase and toward one of the doors on the second floor. “What are the chances we won’t be sleeping in coffins?”

She’d mentioned the need for human beds to Uncle Reginald. But, well, as much as the man had the memory of a steel trap when it came to ancient Greece or every war mankind had struggled through, he had a remarkable ability not to remember things told to him just moments before.

“Worst case, we build a fort,” Pandora said, not caring where they slept so long as they were together.

“That sounds quite romantic,” Victor said. “Ready?” He reached for the brass doorknob in the shape of a human hand.

She’d thought she was prepared for anything when it came to a vampire home, having spent so much time in different ones throughout her life.

This one, though, was straight out of gothic fiction.

The room was colour-washed – walls, moldings, ceiling – in black. The old windows were hung with thick black velvet drapes that blocked the sun and kept out cold drafts.

The stone floor was covered in various rugs. Likely just for the aesthetic. But it worked to keep the chill from creeping in through the floor as well.

There were massive canvases on the walls with gilded frames, half a dozen gorgeous women looking down at Pandora and Victor as they stepped inside.

“The brides, I presume?” Victor said, looking around at them.

“Kind of creepy, if you ask me,” Pandora said, feeling like their eyes watched them as they moved.

“But at least there’s a bed.”

There was.

It was bigger than any she’d ever seen before, a black four-poster bed with crimson crushed-velvet drapery and black silk and linen bedding.

“We can close the fabric if the portraits get too creepy when we try to sleep,” Victor said.

In sconces on the wall, candles flickered as if with a breeze, their wax dripping down their pillars to hang off of their holders. There were even some old drips on the stone floors and carpets.

“The petals are a sweet touch,” Pandora said, seeing the way they led to the bed, but didn’t cover the fabric.

“Guess Drachmar is a romantic,” Victor said. “Something else I feel needs to be found in fiction about him somewhere.”

“Maybe you should write it.”

“Hmm?” He reached for her suitcase and brought it to the foot of the bed.

“Write it. I was saying that maybe you should consider writing it yourself.”

“I already submitted my thesis.”

“I didn’t mean a thesis,” Pandora said. “Ever since I read that, though, I’ve been thinking that maybe you should write fiction.”

“Fiction? Me? What gave you that idea?”

“Well, I think we can both agree that I’ve been around a while.”

He smiled. “We could say that.”

“And in that time, I’ve done a lot of reading.”

“I did see your reading app,” he said.

“And before I figured out how much I love a good romance, I tried out all the other genres. I ultimately decided that most nonfiction books weren’t for me because they can be so dry.

But your thesis was so rich and engaging.

It read like fiction, it was so inviting.

I just think that if you can make nonfiction that interesting, then something fictional would be unputdownable. ”

“It’s funny you say that,” Victor said, sitting on the edge of the bed and patting the spot next to him. Pandora walked over, sitting down at his side.