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There’s not much else to the room, save for a large wrought-iron four-poster bed, a large rug, and an en suite bathroom. But when I look at the bed closer, I realize there are ropes and chains at each post.
I gulp.
“Now, be a good girl and stay here while I talk with my friend,” Valtu says as he steps back into the hall, his hand on the doorknob, “and figure out what I’m going to do with you.”
His eyes go cold and crude, and then before I can protest, he shuts the door. A strange energy hums from it and I immediately go for the handle, trying to open it.
I can’t. He’s locked it with magic, which is smart because I’m sure I’d have no problem breaking the door down eventually.
I’m officially trapped here.
I sigh and sit on the corner of the bed and wonder what my fate will be.
Chapter11
Valtu
Iclose the door to the girl’s room and the wards come alive, their magic sealing the redhead inside. Normally I don’t have to worry about humans breaking down the doors or busting through the locks in this place, but since this girl is a vampire, I’m not about to take any chances. I don’t want her wandering through my house unaccompanied, and I’m not naïve enough to think she might not run. It’s happened before, the human having changed their mind and gotten scared, trying to escape the mountain.
They never get far, though. If the mountain wolves don’t get them, the demon will. Sometimes the demon is feeling especially generous and wants to share the human with me. I feed then let the demon do what it wants with them. Less messy that way and keeps my hands clean, for the most part.
The humans are always innocuous. That’s one of the reasons I like them, especially the ones that Abe selects for me. He picks ones that are obsessed with vampires and feeding, that mourn the invention of the blood pills as much as I do. They scour the earth looking for the infamous feeding cages and Red Rooms of the glory days. When they’re eventually brought here, they’re ready to submit to me in any way I see fit, especially when they learn who I am and my history.
Everyone wants to suck Dracula’s dick.
But vampires? Vampires have always had disdain for me. A century ago I would have said it was all Bram Stoker’s fault. Vampires were jealous that I was the one who inspired the most famous bloodsucker of all time. Later, if they got a chance to know me, they then thought I was a joke, not worthy enough to be written about.
Now, though, it feels different. Not that I have a lot of interaction with vampires these days, but when I do I sense their animosity. Rumors had spread long ago that I was the one who let Bellamy and the coven on the loose, that I was the one who let Saara go (you can’t blame me for thinking she was dead, that fire should have killed her) and that I was the one who had an infamous book of black magic that I kept hidden away. I get the impression that they think the book belongs to all vampires. Well, it’s a shame for them that I don’t share their ideals.
So the fact that Van Helsing brought a vampire here is very unusual indeed.
Even more unusual is the fact that I detect zero resentment or animosity in her.
Instead…I feel, well, something like love, if not infatuation. I can’t explain it but when I look into her eyes, green eyes the color of faded moss in late summer, I see someone who has intense feelings of adoration for me.
Van Helsing did say she was an admirer of mine, and I have to believe him on that, it’s just strange to be so openly adored by another vampire.
Hence why I need her to be sequestered away while I talk to him. Though she’ll never get her hands on the book even if she tries, that could be the reason why she’s here.
I head down the hallway and back to the music parlor where Van Helsing is standing at the window, looking out into the great beyond.
“Well?” I say to him, and he jerks around to face me, looking startled. He’s a little jumpy today. Sometimes that happens after the journey here.
He clears his throat, composing himself. “Do you like her?”
I think that over, rubbing my lips. “I find her strange and peculiar.”
“In a good way?”
“I’m not sure. Shall we have a drink? When’s the last time you had real blood, Doctor?”
He laughs as we head down the stairs to the lower level. “I may have invented the pills, but I’m not a saint, Valtu. You of all people should know that.”
“People change,” I counter. “And you of all people should knowthat.”
He takes a seat at the large chestnut table in the dining room. It’s long and solid, the kind of table you would see used for dinner parties at royal palaces in the days of yore. Now it has a lonely existence, save for the occasional friend I may have over every other year or so. I haven’t even fucked on it, which suddenly seems like a real waste of craftsmanship.
I bring him a bottle of red from the rack and then a bottle of blood from the fridge, along with two glasses and place them down in front of him.
