The new moon has come and gone since I arrived at Castle Bran, though it feels as if a lifetime has passed. Vladimir has proven to possess an insatiable need that I have yet to fill. He comes to me each night when the moon is high and leaves me long after I have fallen unconscious.
The masquerade is nothing more than a distant memory now, wrapped within a haze of pain and torment. The mysterious stranger a ghost, a figment of my tortured mind. A falsehood that I cannot bring myself to think upon during my waking moments.
I stare at myself in the mirror perched atop my small vanity. Its frame is slightly warped and its glossy finish fading with age. My silver mirror has vanished and I have reason to suspect Cyra pinched it before leaving after the party. She did seem to have a keen eye for pretty things.
My fingers tremble as I gingerly touch the bruised skin encircling my right eye. It is tinted with a mixture of blue and purple and is deeply painful. The swelling and discoloration extends over to my nose. My upper lip is split and seeping blood. My jaw feels as if it has been lodged within a vice. The back of my head is split and bleeding, matting my hair. My vision is blurred, though I have grown accustomed to this.
I sit back, no longer able to stomach my image in the mirror, and absently brush my finger over the new flesh that replaced the deep gashes I carved into my wrists the week before. Whatever God my mother believed in has refused to hear my prayers.
My mother would turn over in the grave, if she had been buried, at the thought of me attempting to take my own life. She would not understand the depths to which I have sunk. One beating melds with the next. I fear the day and cower from the night. Vladimir always comes for me.
He flew into a rage when he entered my room to find me collapsed in a pool of my own blood after my first attempt to kill myself. I vaguely remember staring up at him as I felt my lifeblood draining away, watching as he frantically bit into his own wrist and tore a gash in his wrist, forcing me to drink.
The beating I received after I had healed was by far the worst I have endured to this point. My brethren would have been mortified to see Vladimir in such a state. Even I was shocked by the fear I saw in his eyes.
Why does he fear losing me when he so obviously despises having me near?
I am nothing more to him than a body to warm his bed each night. I lie as still as possible until he is finished, praying that I can withhold my screams. They only make him more ravenous.
I wake each morning with the light of the sun to inspect my wounds, ever ignoring the cup of blood left on the side table for me to drink. I refuse. If he finds me ugly, then so be it. I will not give him the satisfaction.
A monster lives in the room beside mine, not a figment of my imagination nor devils playing in the shadows of a child’s room. Flesh and blood, just as my mother always feared. Vladimir Enescue is a demon clothed in beauty. My brethren are no better. I shudder as the memory of his brutality traipses across my mind, for I know all too well what wickedness lies within the depths of my husband’s eyes.
I stare blankly across the length of my room toward the far wall, its uneven stone surface draped with a beautiful woven tapestry that reminds me far too much of the ones that were lost in my wedding pyre. A tear slips from the corner of my eye and trails down the curve of my cheek. When it splatters against the pale flesh of my upper chest, I don’t bother to wipe it away.
I can hear the drop with perfect clarity. It is no more impossible to hear than the sound of laughter on the far side of the castle or the horses prancing in the rising muck in the barn beyond the high walls that surround my new home, an impenetrable prison of rock and mortar.
Vladimir told me once that the wall was built to keep people from the villages out, yet I know better. It was built to keep his victims in.
I keep to my room now, fearful of emerging. I have not seen Atticus, Amadeus, or Emeline since the ball, though I hear their taunting from below. They mock me from afar, knowing I can hear each of their words. Their cruelty seems to have no limits.
Verity worries me. I now fully understand why Vladimir warned against her involvement with me. The dark-haired beauty has a rebellious heart of stone and a passion for decapitation. Even my own brethren avoid her except to bed her, when she is so willing.
Her brother Cassius is deeply protective of her. A protection that I sense stems deeper than brotherly affection, although I would never dare to say so. Two nights ago I heard the wailing pleas of a blood slave as Cassius staked him to the floor of the great hall and set him alight for touching Verity. It took hours for the man’s screams to fade. He was obviously no longer a human, yet something caught in between. Cassius turned him only to see his suffering lengthened.
I rocked in the corner of my room, humming to drown out the screams. Vladimir did not come to me that night. As punishment for killing without permission, Vladimir took Verity to his bed in the room beside me. Instead of screams, I heard laughter. Her love of depravity seems to have no end, nor does her plot for power. After she cast Marcus aside, she set her sights on a loftier target: my husband. If only he would choose her over me.
After that night, Vladimir’s demeanor changed when he came for me. He became more aggressive, although I did not think it possible. He was more animalistic, growling and snarling as he ravaged me over and over.
Some days I can hardly walk to my privy and back. Others I lie in bed and dread the sun dipping below the horizon. I do not know how much more I can take.
I handled the loneliness well at first. As time passed, it became smothering. I have no one to speak to, no one to share my grief with. No one to care.
It is in these moments that I miss my sister most. There were no secrets between us. At night we would lie awake in the loft until long after our parents were asleep and talk about silly things and the future. Who we would marry, what our children might look like, what our first kiss might be like.
I rub my hands along my arms and feel a chill that I know has nothing to do with the cool draft seeping beneath my door. I could never have imagined a future such as this.
Staring unseeingly toward the mirror, I realize my torment will never end. I have seen enough to know that Lucien did not lie about my being immortal. I have seen limbs reattached and severed abdomens sealed with new flesh. Gruesome, horrible wounds all healed by human blood.
I have attempted to smother myself in my down pillow to no avail. Apparently, I no longer have a need to breathe either. I have considered setting my skirts alight, yet after listening to Cassius’s torture, I could never have the heart to attempt it.
I long for a swift, clean death. However, I know no one would aid me with it. Verity might be willing to lop off my head if provoked, but even she is not fool enough to come near me and risk Vladimir’s wrath.
I am untouchable. He made sure of that.
Men stare at me from time to time, though none dare approach. I am a leper among my brethren and for this I am grateful. They are all wicked. I am nothing like them.
Fading sunlight streams in from the window behind me, warming my shoulders. I shift, comforted by its presence. It is nice to see the sun again, even if only for a few brief moments. Fall shifted abruptly into winter only days past, and I have scarcely seen the sun through the constant gloom.
I can hear Vladimir still snoring in the room beside mine. I suppose I should be grateful that he does not wish to sleep in the same bed. I do not know if I could be forced to endure that level of intimacy, nor could I give up these sparse hours of freedom.
The castle is still. All remain asleep apart from me, though they will wake soon.
I turn to look back at the window over my shoulder, knowing the time has come. I rise slowly and draw open the glass, breathing deep the fresh air.
My hair lashes against my cheeks as I lean out of the window to stare down from my turret. The ground below is moist after the drenching rain that fell through the night. Trampled leaves are strewn about the courtyard, buried amid several inches of muck
and straw. The scent of manure and urine rising from the stables below burns in my nose as I cling to the window frame. The glass beside me is warped and dingy, rattling in its frame as the winds gust.
Vladimir told me that I am to call Castle Bran my home now, yet it has proven to be nothing more than a prison built of wood, stone, and a vile appetite for degradation.
It took every ounce of willpower, and no small amount of threats on my father’s part, for me to speak the words that bound myself to Vladimir Enescue. I had thought it was only for one lifetime. Now, with an eternity spread out before me, I realize I may never be free from this prison.
Roseline Dragomir is dead. Now I am nothing more than a hollow shell of the girl I once was, young and foolish. I have learned much since the day I died.
My nails pierce into the flesh of the wooden frame as I lift up into the sill. I perch atop the uneven ledge and take a calming breath. It will all be over soon, I silently vow as I close my eyes. This will work.
I can hear the rustling of leaves in the trees and the rippling of the waters that feed into a lake just beyond the castle walls. Cows and sheep mill about in their pens, sniffing along the ground for stray bits of hay. An owl hoots and calls forth the night, eager to spread its wings and soar on the cool winter currents.
The horses seem uneasy. Perhaps they too realize the sun is about to set and their unsavory owners will soon wake.
A part of me has come to accept that my fate was sealed the moment Vladimir set his sights on me. I could not have turned away, no matter how desperately I desired to.
I am his. His claim on my life and my body is absolute.
I live in fear every moment of every day. My nights are filled with pain when Vladimir comes to me, my days filled with anguish as I nurse my wounds.
I must escape this torment. I must be free.
Time seems to slow as I release the window frame and lean forward. I do not open my eyes as the winds buffet my descent. My skirts flap against my legs as I plummet from the third-story room. A hint of a smile curves across my lips as I anxiously await my death.
THIRTEEN