“Please,” Elizabeth said. “Please help me.”
“I . . .” They’ll hurt Elizabeth if I don’t stop them.
“Ruxandra?” A note of desperation underlay Elizabeth’s tone.
I must help her. “I will do my best.”
“Thank you!” Elizabeth wrapped her arms around Ruxandra, holding tight. She put her face against Ruxandra’s neck. Her breath was warm and tickled Ruxandra’s neck. Ruxandra hugged her back, feeling the strength beneath Elizabeth’s skin, her rose-red heart, and the blood she did not want to take, only smell—like a perfume . . .
Elizabeth kissed Ruxandra’s neck.
Ruxandra swallowed, hard.
Elizabeth kissed her neck again, then again, each kiss sending a tremor through Ruxandra’s body. Slowly, Elizabeth worked up to Ruxandra’s ear. Her breath felt hot against Ruxandra’s skin. She kissed her ear, then turned her head and kissed her mouth. Elizabeth’s tongue pushed gently against Ruxandra’s lips. Ruxandra opened her mouth, and Elizabeth’s tongue slipped inside. Intoxicating as blood but even sweeter.
Ruxandra gasped, her knees trembling. Her entire body felt hot. She felt as swollen as the tongue that was enormous, blotting out thought. Petal soft. That made her dizzy. Had she thought of it as enormous? No, it was delicate and nimble. She opened her mouth wide, letting Elizabeth’s tongue play inside it.
Elizabeth pushed Ruxandra against the wall. Her lips pushed, hard and urgent, against Ruxandra’s mouth. Her hands left Ruxandra’s back and ran up and down her arms. Ruxandra felt hotter than ever before, and between her thighs, there was a warm dampness she hadn’t felt since . . .
When?
“No!” Elizabeth practically shouted the word. Ruxandra started in surprise, her reverie broken. Elizabeth pushed her back. Her hands came up to cover her face, and she fell to her knees.
“I’m sorry,” Elizabeth said between her fingers. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
“Why?” Ruxandra reached for her, but Elizabeth pulled away.
“Because I took advantage of you!” Elizabeth’s shoulders began shaking. Her eyes closed tight, and when she opened them, they glistened with tears. Sobs punctuated her words. “You’re so innocent, so beautiful, and I’m lonely, and I wanted . . .”
She stopped speaking and took several deep breaths until the last of her sobs vanished. She stood up, straightened her back, and faced Ruxandra. Then she dropped into a deep, formal curtsy.
“Please,” she said, her voice tinged with regret, “accept my apology.”
“Of course.” But I liked it.
“And please, if you care for me . . .” She took another deep breath. Her deep brown eyes pierced Ruxandra’s soul. “Even if it’s only a little bit, if you care, please come with me to Vienna.”
“Of course I will.”
“Thank you.” Elizabeth took another deep breath. “These feelings I have for you . . . we shall keep them secret. Others mustn’t know, or they will use them against us. Do you understand?”
Ruxandra nodded. “Yes.”
Elizabeth took her hand, squeezed it, and then let it go. “Let us begin class.”
The following two weeks went by in a whirlwind of activity. Jana spent most of it dashing back and forth, securing travel trunks, proper clothes, boots, and bedding for the trip. Every evening Jana explained what she’d accomplished, to Ruxandra’s amusement and delight. Then Ruxandra went for her lessons.
She learned very quickly, she discovered. Sometimes the lessons felt almost familiar. But every time Ruxandra searched her memory for why, she found nothing.
The other girls were far ahead of her, and Ruxandra strived to be like them. They recited their lessons in clear tones, hardly ever forgetting their posture or their manners. The few who did were sent to Dorotyas, or occasionally Elizabeth’s study, at the end of class.
The girls looked thinner and more tired with each passing day. Some days they winced or limped when they walked, while on others a girl or two would miss class entirely. Those days, Ruxandra realized, coincided after a visit to Elizabeth’s study.
She must set them lessons to learn or words to meditate on.
This didn’t sound quite right, but she found she didn’t want to think about it.
At the end of the evening’s class, the girls would leave together, huddled in a clump as they walked back to their dormitory. None of the girls spoke to Ruxandra, except as required in class.
She still did not know why.
Every fourth night she woke hungry, and the Beast woke with her. Jana had learned Ruxandra’s patterns and knew better to be in the room on the fourth evening. Ruxandra fought to keep the Beast from breaking free long enough for her to reach the dungeon and the prisoner waiting in the cell.
Then the Beast would emerge and drain the prisoner dry.
She tried to maintain power and feed herself, but the Beast was too strong and always took her kill.
On the twelfth night, Ruxandra woke with the Beast stirring. Ruxandra’s clothes lay on the chest, and a fire crackled in the fireplace. Ruxandra slipped out of bed. She kept better control now, though she still did not want to risk Jana’s life on it. So she made her slow, silent way to the dungeon, avoiding other people.
When she opened the dungeon door, the smell of fresh human blood filled her nose. The Beast roared, causing Ruxandra to stagger and fall against the wall as she fought for control. The Beast raged and tore at her mind.
BLOOD! The Beast screamed in her head. BLOOD! FEED! KILL!
No! Ruxandra clamped down on it hard. She held still against the wall until she forced the Beast back down. When she had control, she began down the steps again.
With every step down, the smell grew stronger. The Beast slathered and hissed and yowled, fighting to charge forward and find the source. Halfway down the stairs, Ruxandra heard pleading screams suddenly muffled and then sharply cut off.
The Beast nearly took over, then. Ruxandra stumbled and fell backward, her hands clenched in her hair, using the pain of it to distract the Beast and drive it back. When she regained control, she walked down the final steps.
The Beast’s roar nearly drove Ruxandra insane.
Torches lit the dungeon. The cell doors and the small windows in each were closed. There were no guards, no prisoners in sight save a man in Ruxandra’s cell.
The man was staring, his eyes and mouth wide, his entire body trembling. Tears rolled down his face, and he uttered a low, dull continuous moan. Ruxandra turned, her eyes following the man’s gaze to the center of her room.
In the middle of the room, two teenage girls hung naked from the chains over the tub. Their bodies bore the marks of a fresh beating, their skin faded purple and red, and the flesh open in a dozen places each, though no blood came from them. Their arms were bound tight behind them. Their ankles were in shackles, hooked on to the chains that held them suspended in the air. Each girl had a gag on her mouth, long, thin piece of wood protruding from her urethra, and another, much thicker piece, from her anus. Dorotyas stood between them, holding their hair back in tight fists. Their mouths and eyes were wide open, their faces frozen in terrified screams.
A wide red gash stretched across each girl’s throat from ear to ear.
The first girl’s had stopped bleeding.
The second girl’s blood still spurted from her neck.
Below them, her naked body half-submerged in the blood-filled tub, sat Elizabeth.
Her eyes were closed and her face turned up to let the blood spatter down on it. She wore a beatific smile, and stretched languidly under the hot red flow.
Ruxandra convulsed. The Beast wanted to claw at the bleeding girl to drink the last of the blood before the girl’s life went with it. Ruxandra’s knees buckled, and she fell. She forced her talons out, forced them to dig into the floor and turn away from the bloody girls.
Inside, the Beast screamed BLOOD! EAT! FOOD! FOOD!
The Beast wanted to turn around. Ru
xandra didn’t let it. She crawled, inch by inch, to the cell. The man inside didn’t see her. His eyes were still fixed on the girls. He’d voided his bladder. The sharp stench of his urine mixed with the coppery smell of the blood in the air.
Ruxandra reached the cage. She grabbed the bars and pulled herself to standing. The man didn’t move, didn’t take his eyes off the tub. Not when she put the key in the door, or when she pulled it open. He didn’t even move when she stepped close enough to touch him.
The Beast roared and tried to charge forward.
With a supreme act of will, Ruxandra drove it back to submission and made it watch as she grabbed the man’s neck and sank her teeth deep into it. The large artery ruptured, and she drank and drank from it until the man collapsed in a heap on the ground.
The Beast faded away, and Ruxandra wiped her mouth.
I win.
She turned around to face Elizabeth.
Thick, dark red blood coated the woman from head to foot. It covered her long, dark hair, the skin on her face and neck. It ran in thick rivulets over her breasts and belly. Elizabeth smiled at Ruxandra and sank into the tub until she disappeared beneath the surface.
Still feeling the contentment of her meal and pleasure at her victory over the Beast, Ruxandra walked to the tub. Slowly, she became aware of her bewilderment. What was Elizabeth up to? She watched the ripples on the surface grow smaller and smaller until it became a single, smooth mirror of near-black red.
Ruxandra waited.
Slowly, smoothly, Elizabeth broke the surface, rising like a Venus from a deep red sea. She stood, letting the blood drip down her hair and her body until the red gave way to streaks of white flesh. The blood still filled her hair, both on her head and between her thighs. It still dripped from the hard tips of her breasts and the end of her fingers. She raised her head and opened her eyes. The whites stood stark against the red of the flesh around them and made the dark brown of the eyes even darker.
“Dorotyas,” she said. “Now.”
Dorotyas let go of the girls and picked up a large bucket of water from the side of the tub. She raised it high and poured it over Elizabeth’s head. Elizabeth shuddered, and her skin broke out in gooseflesh. The blood sloughed away from her face and ran out of her hair.
Dorotyas poured a second bucket, then a third, and went to refill them from the cistern. Elizabeth smiled at Ruxandra. “How was your feed?”
“I controlled the Beast,” Ruxandra said. “I didn’t let it come out the entire time.”
“Very good!” Elizabeth clapped her hands, sending droplets of blood flying through the air. A few landed on Ruxandra’s dress. “That’s wonderful!”
Ruxandra looked at the swirling red mess in the tub, then at the two girls hanging from the chains. They were so young, and they’d been so frightened. “Why do you do this?”
Elizabeth followed her gaze. “The gags and the plugs keep other fluids from flowing out.”
“Not those.” Ruxandra looked down at the tub. “Why do you bathe in their blood?”
Elizabeth smiled. “Power.”
“Power?” Ruxandra shook her head. “I don’t understand.”
“A woman’s power comes from her beauty. With beauty, a woman controls the men around her. She bends them to her will.”
Elizabeth stepped delicately out of the tub. “Without beauty, a woman has nothing in this world. No husband, no power, no control. I have learned how to preserve mine.”
She walked to the cistern, leaving a trail of bloody puddles behind her. Dorotyas was waiting and poured bucket after bucket of water over Elizabeth’s head. The water splashed and foamed on the floor before disappearing into the drains in the floor.
“I learned of it years ago,” Elizabeth said. “A peasant girl seduced my husband. She dallied with him in the hayfields. I caught her while he was away at war and brought her down here. I racked her for three days. Then I suspended her by her elbows and whipped her. Back, legs, face, belly, breasts, and cunt. Her blood spattered me. When I washed it off, I realized my flesh was firmer and stronger. So I cut her throat and rubbed the blood over my body.”
Elizabeth spread her arms wide and turned in a circle. The flesh on her body was taut and the muscles beneath it strong. There were few wrinkles in her flesh and little sag in her breasts.
“I am forty-nine years old, Ruxandra!” She grabbed her breasts and squeezed them. “I suckled four children and saw them grow to adulthood, yet my breasts do not sag. I have the body and face of a woman of thirty-five. When I bathe in blood, I absorb strength and youth. It fills me with vitality!”
Elizabeth’s eyes were bright and wild. Her lips pulled back wide in a grin that made her teeth flash in the firelight. “I cannot grow old, Ruxandra. Not while I need to protect my family and my lands. So these girls must be sacrificed, like the ones we sacrifice to your appetite. Do you understand?”
Ruxandra nodded, though her mind was a swirl of confusion. Elizabeth kills girls and bathes in their blood to look young. The revulsion was sharp and immediate, but it did not seem to affect her attraction to the woman. Maybe I’m being hypocritical.
“Oh, but if I were like you,” Elizabeth reached for her but stopped. Her smile became rueful, and she shook the cold water from her hand. “If I were like you, I wouldn’t need to bathe in blood any more. I wouldn’t need to do anything to keep my youth and beauty and strength.”
She stepped closer. Her cold, wet hands closed over Ruxandra’s arms.
“Ruxandra.” Her grip was tight and her expression deadly serious. Her face was only inches from Ruxandra’s. “Could you make me like you?”
“I . . . I DON’T KNOW how,” Ruxandra said. “I don’t even know if I can.”
“You can,” Elizabeth said. “In every story, vampires have a way to turn humans into vampires. Someone did it to you once.”
“I don’t remember . . .” Ruxandra felt a terrible wave of fear rising in her, threatening to drown her. She looked at Elizabeth with wide, frightened eyes. “I’m scared.”
Elizabeth leaned in close. “Why are you scared?”
“I don’t know.”
Visions filled her head. Jumbled images of a cave and men and something far stronger than her. Then blood in her throat and something with the stench of death chasing her, killing everything in its path.
Ruxandra clutched her head and fell to her knees, crying out. Elizabeth knelt beside her, pulling her into her strong, warm arms.
“I remembered,” Ruxandra whispered. “I remember something…”
“What?” Elizabeth asked. “What do you remember?”
Ruxandra tried to reach deeper, but nothing else came.
“Shh,” Elizabeth said. “It will be all right.”
“I’m sorry,” Ruxandra said through her tears. “I’m so sorry. I don’t know. I don’t understand . . .”
“Shh,” Elizabeth said gently, like a mother soothing a tired, crying child. “No more for today. I promise.”
Ruxandra nodded and pressed her face into Elizabeth’s breasts, clinging to her cold, wet flesh and taking comfort from the steady pulse of Elizabeth’s heart.
“We will speak again of this,” Elizabeth said, “after we go to Vienna and face our enemies.”
The night before they left, Jana was teaching Ruxandra how to play Flor, a game with three cards and much betting. Ruxandra had no idea about either. She was finally beginning to grasp the concepts when there was a knock at the door.
Jana answered and curtsied deeply to Kade. “Good evening, sir.”
Kade ignored her and smiled at Ruxandra. “Good evening, Ruxandra. May I come in?”
“Of course.” Ruxandra stood and curtsied. “Please, join us.”
Kade raised an eyebrow at Jana, who flushed red. “It is not seemly to play cards with the servants.”
“I did not know.” Ruxandra looked at the deck on the small table. “I have no one else to play with.”
“Then I will join yo
u.” Kade took Jana’s chair, picked up the deck, and began shuffling the cards. Jana stood behind Ruxandra. “What game was it?”
“Flor. I do not fully understand it yet.”
“It is deceptive in its simplicity.” Kade dealt a card to each of them. “Are you ready for your trip?”
“I think so.” Ruxandra’s eyes went to the three chests in the corner. “Everything is packed, aside from what we’re wearing tomorrow.”
“Very good. Have any memories returned?”
“Flashes, nothing more.” Ruxandra shuddered. “A cave and several men and something frightening. Then I remembered being chased in the woods. I have no idea by what, but it terrified me. It was… dead but it still chased me.”
She shook her head, trying to clear the images. “Why can’t I remember anything else? What’s wrong with me?”
“I don’t know,” Kade said. “I do know that the more you drink, the you experience, the more you become yourself. You will find you memories, I am sure. It will just take time.”
Ruxandra nodded miserably.
Kade put down the cards and looked at Jana. “Get some tea.”
“Yes, sir.” Jana curtsied. “My lady?”
“None for me, thank you.”
Jana left, closing the door behind her. Kade waited a moment, listening to her retreating footsteps.
“Another vampire . . .” Kade said. “Is that what was chasing you?”
Ruxandra shook her head. “No. It wasn’t like me. It was dead.”
Kade frowned. “How can something dead chase you?”
“I don’t know.”
Kade leaned forward and took Ruxandra’s hand in his own. It was as warm as Elizabeth’s, but with a roughness that Ruxandra found both strange and intriguing. He leaned close to her.
“My lady.” His voice was quiet and gentle. “I’m worried for you.”
“Why?”
“You haven’t even been to the village yet.” He squeezed her hand gently. “Vienna is a city with more people than you have ever seen. Thousands of them. If those people discover your true nature, they will hunt you down and kill you.”
No! Not when I have people to care about again . . . She stopped, her thoughts confused. I had people to care about before? Yes, I must have.