"She's merely a child Master. What can she possibly do to you?" Verona pleaded as her master stormed out of the Frankenstein Castle.
"What harm?! She's knowledgeable about something and she's telling Anna instead of me. They say they don't know where she comes from, but that she has the skin of a ghost and the eyes of smoke. Her hair is dark like ebony and her lips red like silk. Oh and she is no child Verona, she's a grown woman. She's eighteen and able to take care of herself now that Anna is preoccupied with finding her father. We have very little time to get to her and figure out her secret."
"We cannot go Master." Marishka whimpered. "She looks too much like our sister."
"Have you seen her?" he growled.
"Well…no."
"Then do not pass judgment until you have. I will go fetch her myself." He roared and took off into the sky.
"Anna, where are you going?" Marissa asked as her sister rushed out the door.
"No time to explain Marissa. I have to go check on Velkan. He's setting up a track for the werewolf." Anna paused in her rushed statement to hand Marissa a gun. "Use it if necessary."
Marissa winced when the silver hit her hand and once Anna left she quickly dropped it on the table. She smirked slightly and said "Oh Vladislaus, you know better than to sneak up behind me."
"How do you know my name?" he questioned as he breathed in her scent of cherry blossoms and sage.
"That is of no concern of yours." She said softly and she headed over to rearrange the flowers that were wilting in a vase.
He grasped her hand and pulled her to face his unholy eyes.
"Marissa?" he questioned, peering at her face.
"You left me for dead." She laughed. "Pity that I survived,"
"You didn't survive my bite, I thought I killed you." He stuttered for the first time in over a century.
"I wouldn't believe that in all the time you've been alive, Vladislaus. I know very well that all you wanted was her. She was beautiful wasn't she? Aleera, the oldest of your brides,"
If vampires could have flushed with embarrassment and fury he would have. "You know very well that's not true." He growled.
"Oh really, I do? Then explain to me why you are here now in my house harassing me." She snapped. "Explain to me what you need to know."
"You know my plans and how to keep my children alive." He sighed.
She smirked "You still haven't changed. I knew that as soon as I returned to visit my good friend Anna."
He pushed her up against a wall and said "You are still my bride Marissa. I made you so." He ran his mouth along her cheek sensually and rasped "I could take you right here, right now if I wanted."
"And risk having a live child, you wouldn't dare." She snarled.
"Don't toy with me Marissa. What do you mean?"
"How else do I know of your experiments if I wasn't an experiment myself?" she laughed harshly. "I was in the East for some time and they managed to put what they call a "living seed" in my body, so that if I was impregnated, I would bear a child."
"THEY WHAT?!" Dracula grabbed a vase and threw it in the direction of a window and fell to his knees so that his face was at her stomach. She winced and tried to turn away but he ripped open the cloth of her shirt to reveal a long scar down her stomach. "What did they do to you?!" he stared at her in shock and he grabbed her stomach and pressed his head against it.
A heart beat
"You are supposed to be dead Marissa and you have a HEARTBEAT?"
"Yes…I am alive, yet I am dead on the inside. I feed of the truly living. Emotions…are something I don't comprehend anymore." She turned away, as if she didn't believe the statement.
"None at all…" he paused.
"Oh I feel one Vladislaus. It's love. Something you'll never understand." She attempted to pull her smaller body out of his grip but fell forward into his arms when he tugged her back.
"How dare you Marissa Angelia Dragulia. HOW DARE YOU SAY I DON'T LOVE!" He roared and he sank his fangs into her stomach.
She screeched loudly and struggled in his arms as the wound healed over, but he licked the blood off his lips.
"That blood, that unearthly blood, runs through you because of my veins. It runs through you because I wanted to be with you."
"LIES!" She yelled "You never wanted me! You wouldn't have left me to die." She fell to the ground sobbing crimson tears and pointed to the window. "Please just leave Vladislaus, before you hurt me again."
"I'm not leaving without you." He said coldly. "You belong to me and you hold the key to something I've dreamed of for a long time."
"I'm not a baby making machine." She growled, her eyes still focused on the ground.
"How are you going to explain to Anna why there's blood on the floor? You have a choice Marissa. You can be discovered by Anna and destroyed, or come with me back to Castle Dracula. You have a good second to choose."
She stood on her feet and said "I will go with you Count. But expect nothing of me. I refuse to fall for you again."
"You have no say in the matter of whether you fall in love or not. Fate decides that." He said simply. He held out his hand and she took it feebly. "Come my beauty…let us take off into the night." He paused. "The villagers said you had a nickname. What was it?"
She looked him in the eyes "Cherry blossom."
