Dracula and His Brides Read online

  Dracula and His Brides

  Darren Cage Cage

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Author’s Note

  About the Author

  Other Books By Darren Cage

  Copyright © 2019

  Cover Artist: Asep Ariyanto

  https://www.artstation.com/asepariyanto

  Typography: Dark Matter Book Covers

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Created with Vellum

  To all real-life superheroes.

  Chapter One

  For so long, my life had been nothing but pain and suffering as I caused both against my enemy so they wouldn’t do the same to me.

  War. We were at war.

  But the battles were done, finally at long last finished, and a peace treaty had been signed. For two days now, I had been riding a horse long and hard to return home to my love, the perfectly wonderful and lovely Mihaela Dalca. A vision of wonder and awe, I worshipped her from afar for years before her father agreed to allow us to marry. Thus far, we have had no children, unfortunately, as we thought her pregnant twice but no baby grew for long within her. Still, my love only ever thrived, nurtured by her grace, beauty, and adoration.

  Such wide hips meant for child-bearing. Such full and luscious lips meant to be kissed and sucked. Such wide, deep eyes ready to consume one’s soul. Such soft, wavy, long dark hair that would tickle my chest as I would take her from behind. My Mihaela liked to moan and scream as we made love day and night. We lived on a hill, no persons living nearby, but on more than one occasion, the man living the closest to us would congratulate me for being able to pleasure my wife so well.

  Her pleasure was my pleasure, and I was more than ready to bury my seed deep within her again and again until her belly would grow with our child until that son or daughter could be born.

  The horse was beginning to struggle, and I muttered a curse. It was bad enough riding horseback with a hard cock, but that the beast was laboring and had to travel slower infuriated me all the more. At least a small village was up ahead, and I exchanged the tired horse for a more youthful one. My attire as a soldier returning from saving the country of Romania from invaders made the man willing to take on the half-dead beast without also asking me for some money in exchange for the fresh mount. My Mihaela and I did not own a car, and even if we did, it would have remained with her as I had gone to war. It might have been faster to attempt to hitchhike my way to her, but I wished to concern myself with my Mihaela and no one else if I could help it. Most everything within the town is within walking distance, but to travel from town to city requires a horse, carriage, train, bus, or car.

  Without bothering to take the time to eat first, I left immediately and rode hard. The dirt roads were just as terrible as I remembered, but I maneuvered the horse with ease around the largest holes, not wishing for the horse to break a leg. The horse-drawn carriages moved slowly than tortoises, and I bypassed them all, kicking up a cloud of dirt behind me.

  That night, I slept beneath a tree deep within the forest. Some spoke of wicked creatures wandering the world at night. I knew that was true enough. I could not forget the pooling of blood beneath bodies, the stench of death, the stank of decay, the way a man loosed his bowels just before death, the fear in his eyes…

  War changed a man and left countless wraiths, specters that would follow a man to his grave. The number of men I killed I could not say, but I had survived whereas all of my friends who had fought alongside me had fallen. Even though I attempted to shield the body of my friend, Dorin, he was stabbed in the back and died despite my efforts. I had been coated in blood—none of it mine. The only injury I suffered the entire time had been muscle fatigue from hacking and spearing and slicing and chopping off limbs.

  It hardly seemed fair that I should live while so many others had fallen, but I must have survived for a purpose. Perhaps I was destined to have a long legacy.

  All the more reason to make love to my wife as soon as I returned.

  My sleep was restless, and I only attempted to slumber for two hours before I returned to my task. The light of the moon gleamed, shining on the path, and I reached our small town in Transylvania by the time the sun peeked over the mountains.

  I dismounted, not bothering to tether the horse, and raced up to the door. It banged against the wall with a thud, shuddering at the impact.

  “Mihaela!” I called. “My love! Your Vladislav has returned!”

  But my raven-haired beauty did not appear.

  Perhaps she was in the kitchen. She was a cook like no other. I had gained some weight, mostly muscle, after we were wed three years ago nearly to the day.

  But my darling wife wasn’t tending to the pot over the fire. In fact, it seemed as if a fire had not been lit in quite some time.

  Swiftly, I raced through the house, my alarm and worry growing with every empty room. Worse, my search led me to discover that Mihaela was not in attendance at all. She was nowhere to be found.

  My love had written me a few messages, most likely a good deal more than the three I received while at the battlefront. I had memorized each one. Mihaela had told me she visited the church every day so that she might pray for my safe return. That must be where she was.

  I rushed out of the house, jumped onto the horse’s back, and rode swiftly for the church. The majestic building was just as I remembered. Hundreds of designs were carved into the stone walls on the outside. The door opened easily, but I refrained from banging this one.

  The church was not entirely empty, and I continued my frantic pace as I marched down the center aisle, looking at each and every pew to take note if anyone was there. To my horror, I reached the altar, and Mihaela remaining absent.

  Just then, a priest crossed over to the altar.

  “Where might Mihaela be?” I asked him.

  The priest barely glanced at me and then looked again. Immediately, his expression shifted from annoyed to sorrow.

  “Vladislav Dalca I take it.”

  I nodded.

  Mihaela had been the one to pray far more often than I. Likewise, she was the better person than I by far. Every person involved with the church knew her by name but not I, so I was surprised this priest I did not recognize knew me by name. But, then, I supposed it was possible Mihaela had spoken to him about her husband.

  “How can it be that you’re alive?” the priest asked.

  I gaped at him, not understanding. “Of course I’m alive, you blithering imbecile. Am I not standing in front of you?”

  “But Mihaela received word that you had died in battle.”

  I swallowed hard past a lump in my throat. “Where is she?” I
demanded.

  “Sir, I would have you kindly lower your voice. Others are here for their worship and—”

  “And I do not care about them or their prayers. I want to see my wife now!”

  “She is here,” the priest said.

  “Where?” I gestured to the assembly that clearly did not contain my wife.

  “Come with me.” The priest placed a vial onto the altar and then turned to go through a door to the back right of the altar.

  He led me to a small room with several books and other items to help with the mass, but the priest continued to another door. This room was much larger, and beyond a curtain was a table with a person resting upon it.

  “She’s prayed herself to sleep,” I guessed, rushing forward.

  The priest gripped my wrist, his hold shockingly strong for his frail, tall frame.

  “She is not sleeping.”

  I gaped at the man, not understanding. “If you do not start to speak plainly…”

  My free hand went to the small blade at my side. Although I had left the battlefield, I could not willingly go about without protection.

  “Weapons are not to be drawn here,” the priest said primly. “They should not even be on one’s person.”

  I yanked my wrist from his grasp and moved to step around him, but he shifted to block me.

  “Mihaela is not sleeping,” he repeated.

  I sniffed. The scent of death was not here, or perhaps it was underneath the perfumes and lit candles throughout the room.

  “She died?” I asked, my words coming out all raspy and strangled.

  “Actually…”

  I had had enough of this priest and his limited answers. With a shove, I tossed him aside, and I traipsed around him, threw back the curtain, and gazed upon my wife’s still form. She lay in one of her favorite simple white dresses. A scarf was draped about her neck, but Mihaela did not own any.

  Carefully, I removed the scarf from her neck and gasped at what the soft material had hidden—a terrible gash across her throat.

  "She…" I could not bring myself to voice aloud the terrible tragedy that had occurred.

  “I’m afraid your wife committed suicide because she had been convinced you had died in battle.”

  “Why did she think that?” I growled, the words possibly impossible to understand.

  “A letter perhaps. I am not altogether certain.” The priest patted my shoulder. “We were going to bury her tomorrow.”

  “Why wasn’t I told?” I glowered at him.

  The priest backed up a step. “We wouldn’t have been certain as to where you were. It only happened the night before peace was acquired, and we had no notion how to locate you, and besides, she told me herself that you were dead…”

  “She will be buried by myself.” I gathered my wife into my arms, sweeping her close for an embrace. Even in death, I loved her.

  The priest hesitated. “If you so desire.”

  I narrowed my eyes at him. “Are you not going to insist that she be buried on hallowed ground?”

  “As she will not be going to Heaven since she killed herself, there is no—”

  “She was one of the most devout women alive, one of the best. Why wouldn’t she go to Heaven?”

  “As I said—”

  “I heard you,” I snapped.

  “Vladislav, if I may—”

  “You may not.”

  I stalked around him and ignored the onlookers of those few gathered to pray. Tenderly, I laid Mihaela on my horse and walked her back to our house. There, I dug her a hole and tenderly placed her in the spot. All the while, my thoughts churned, and before I tossed the first shovel of dirt onto her body, I had settled on a plan. Quite simply, I would join her in death.

  But how best to do that?

  I hesitated and eventually did not dump that shovel of dirt on top of her after all. Instead, I jumped into the grave, cradled Mihaela to my chest once more, and brought her back into the house.

  For years, well before the war, I had studied magic. I could not bring her back, but I could perhaps uncover a way to ensure that I would join her in the afterlife. No matter what the priest said, I was not certain that my love would go to Hell. As I remained ignorant of her true destination, I must establish another way to link myself to her.

  This mortal coil of her body lacked her spirit, her soul, but it still remained another outlet of her.

  “Forgive me, Mihaela,” I murmured.

  The priest or another had washed her throat, but I pulled apart the two pieces of her sliced neck. Blood oozed out, only a few drops. What better tether than her lifeforce?

  I licked the precious drops and licked some more. A strange feeling washed over me, not quite the disgust I imagined I should feel.

  No matter, I ignored my emotions. They would make no difference as I would be dying momentarily. Soon, I would reunite with my love, even if not the way I originally intended.

  Without delay, I gathered some candles, a bowl, and several herbs including perilla, hawthorn berries, lime, graveyard dust, cypress, mandrake, and wormwood. Each of the herbs I ground and placed into the bowl. Then, I held the bowl over one of the candles. The stench from the smoke caused my head to grow heavy, my eyes to droop, but I was not yet finished. As quickly as my sluggish body would allow, I added water to the mixture of herb remains and drank it down.

  Immediately, I felt burned as if my insides were on fire. I coughed, sputtered, and crawled over to my Mihaela. The bowl possibly fell to the floor, but I paid it no mind. All that mattered was reaching Mihaela.

  I laid my head upon her breast. The world all around me descended into darkness, and I breathed my last.

  Chapter Two

  Dying should be permanent. No one returned from the dead, none save for a handful of saints and the Son of God.

  I was no saint. I was most certainly not the Son of God.

  And yet, here I was, dead but not dead. Undead.

  I was a living corpse.

  A vampire.

  The first vampire had been Ambrogio, a man who fell in love with a woman. She was both right for him and so very wrong as another loved Selene as well. Ambrogio asked Selene to marry him, and Apollo, wild with jealousy, cursed Ambrogio to be unable to stand under the sun's rays, an unsurprising sentence given that Apollo was, among other things, the sun god.

  Ambrogio fled to Hades as he had nowhere else to go. The god of the underworld kept Ambrogio’s soul for safekeeping and gave the cursed man arrows and a wooden bow. If Ambrogio were to offer up his kill to Artemis, she would come. Ambrogio was to then steal her silver bow. Hades would return Ambrogio’s soul only if given that most precious object. So much for Hades helping Ambrogio.

  Instead of doing as the god wished, Ambrogio used the arrows to kill swans. With their blood, he wrote poetry to his love. It did not matter that he could not see her. His love never waned.

  Eventually, though, Ambrogio did make an offering, and he was able to steal the silver bow, which brought upon the wrath of Artemis. One really should not interfere with the gods and especially not steal from them. Artemis cursed Ambrogio further so that silver harmed him greatly.

  Of course, Ambrogio had no choice but to drop the silver bow, which meant he could not reclaim his soul. He fell to his knees, sobbing, and told Artemis the entire sordid story. His begging for mercy touched the goddess of the hunt, and although she had just cursed him, she now blessed him. Ambrogio became a powerful hunter and was turned almost god-like with his strength and speed. He grew fangs so that he could acquire more blood for his poems for Selene.

  In addition, Artemis granted him immortality but on the condition that he would serve her and no other god or goddess. Naturally, he agreed even though to be a devout follower of Artemis meant celibacy. He wrote Selene, begging her to board a ship that night. Once on board, she found a coffin and another note with instructions not to open the coffin until the moon had risen. Such was Selene’s love for Ambrogio that she obey
ed every word.

  The two lived in a cave together for many years, devoted to Artemis. Ambrogio never aged, but Selene grew old and ill. If she were to die, they would be parted forever, as his soul remained with Hades and would forevermore.

  Ambrogio found a swan, much like the ones he had hunted years ago to write his poems. As before, he slew it, but this time, he offered the majestic bird to Artemis. The goddess appeared and granted him the chance to touch Selene just this once. Once he drank her blood, her mortal body would die, but they could continue to be together anyhow.

  Once the deed was done, Selene’s body began to glow. Selene rose up and became the goddess of the moon. Her moonlight touched Ambrogio each night, and they were indeed together. It was said that new vampires could be formed if the blood of Ambrogio and Selene were mixed.

  But I had done no such thing. I was a new kind of vampire, or so I could only assume.

  How did I know for certain I was a vampire?

  Because of this insatiable thirst within me that I knew only blood could quench. I found myself eyeing my beloved Mihaela, but how could I? I would never defile her body in that manner.

  What had I done wrong? The herbs had killed as me as I had desired, and the blood I had drunk should have caused my soul to journey onward to locate Mihaela wherever she might have ended up upon on her own demise.

  My gaze fell on her immobile corpse. I was here with her, yes, here on earth still despite dying. What a cruel, vicious world we live in. First, I outlived all of my friends during a brutal war, and now, I lived again despite dying so that I might join my wife in death.