Curse of Dracula - Kathryn Ann Kingsley Page 0,109
now she was in his mind. But where was she? When was she?
Fires burned in the distance, and she could smell the desert air. It was night, and the sky was lit up with a hundred thousand stars she did not recognize. Structures in the distance were peppered with large obelisks that reached up into the darkness with their polished faces.
“I had forgotten this place.”
She turned to find who had spoken and drew back a step at what she saw. It was not a voice she recognized. It was not a face she knew. But the man she saw gazing up at her, from features that were bronzed and foreign, was familiar all the same. It was not his face. It was his eyes. They were brown, not crimson.
Not yet.
He was bald, kneeling on the ground, his hands bound behind him in crude rope. It looked as though he had been beaten. He was mortal. He was…he was alive.
“Vlad?”
“In a fashion, perhaps.” He smirked. “I had forgotten all of this.” His eyes drifted shut. “I had chosen to. This is where it all began. This was the start of my curse.”
“I…what is happening?”
“I cannot say. You were inside me. I felt you shatter a vessel. My soul was the container for the plague that consumed me. Now that the vessel broken, I…do not know what has transpired. Perhaps we are trapped here for the rest of time. How grand.”
Two men stood beside him, one on either side. They carried spears tipped in polished metal. They gazed up at the altar, stern and waiting. Vlad—or whatever his name was in this time, since she had a feeling it wasn’t Vlad—was a prisoner. “What did you do to deserve this?”
“I loved a princess. She loved me. I despoiled her. And this was my punishment for my love. I was advisor to Pharaoh…the right hand to a living God. It was seen as a deep betrayal.”
The sound of a cymbal or a bell echoed in the space. She nearly jumped out of her own skin, she was so startled. It seemed the memory wished to play on. She watched, agog, as several men walked into the room. One was carrying a large bowl with a thick, viscous liquid that she recognized. Blood.
Another was carrying a falcon. Tied and bound, it struggled frantically for freedom. For its life. Falcons were sacred to these people. She could only stand and watch in horror at the memory. There was nothing she could do to change it.
“They killed my love.”
She did not turn to look at Vlad where he knelt, so captivated was she by the actions of the priests. They placed the bowl of blood in front of the statue of Ra. While one held up the falcon, the other one said several words she could not understand, before the first submerged the head of the bird in the liquid.
The falcon thrashed, struggled, and eventually…went still. The priest pulled the dead bird from the substance, his own hands and wrists coated in the crimson liquid, and left the room.
It was sacrilege.
Or the worst kind of curse.
The action left the head priest, gold bangles and jewelry swaying as he moved, to carry the bowl to the waiting prisoner.
The man on his knees glared up at the priest in utter defiance. She knew his eyes would turn crimson the moment the deed was done. The man would become the Vampire King she loved so dearly. He yanked on the ropes, but there was no freeing himself. Without looking at her, Vlad spoke to her, his voice quiet even as he struggled against the restraints and the soldiers.
“They drowned the sun within my love and bade me drink of her.”
The two guards moved to grab his head and hold it still. They meant to drown him in the blood as they did the falcon. And when he rose from that death, he would be a monster.
“Wait.”
The action stopped. It froze. She did not know how. She did not know why. But it obeyed her command. She wavered. I should destroy him. I need to destroy him. He wishes for death. To be free of this curse. Of this pain that has haunted him since this moment.
She walked up to him and took his head in her hands. Leaning down, she kissed him. The shape of his lips was foreign to her. But the creature who burned within was not. He kissed her back. It was a gesture of love.