This was the moment he had lived for, had fought for. This was a moment too good to be true; so beautiful it was enflaming, painful, galvanising and heartbreaking all at once.
His sights and goals had been set in unflinching stone, his focus unwavering, his ruthlessness a fire raging within him and his determination the sword which gave him power. Mina would be his once more, and none would dare oppose him. None could stand in the way of his desires, or of a love which consumed him, and was greater and stronger than himself and all of his years of vengeance, darkness, knowledge, might and survival.
And despite all the fire and stone storming within his soul, he had never thought that this moment would ever come. That she could look past all that he was, see the love there, and accept him. That she would be the one to take him into her waiting arms.
Even as he had craved it, he had doubted that this promise of happiness could truly be within his grasp, that she wouldn't be somehow lost to him again.
Of course, she had been. She had been lost once more, and of her own free will, despite her heartbroken regret. She had left, deserted him for another. And his blood-rage and icy determination, fuelled by grief, had doubled in intensity.
But she had returned. He had compelled her back to him, and she had compelled him to do so. She had made her final choices, and had taken him into her embrace, and her heart, and Vlad knew she would not let him go. And with a caressing, searching touch, with one look of tender desire, his beloved Mina had calmed the storm and re-lit a gentle flame of hope.
The bravery in her loving eyes, the ripeness of her mouth, and the vulnerability of her trembling and blushing skin had also lit fires of a different nature. Past the warmth and affection, and the sense of her finally embracing her feelings for him, he also saw metal and flame in his Mina's eyes which mirrored his own passion – the iron of certainty, and a kind of quiet determination that was all her own, and the dancing fires of anticipation.
No, he had not thought that it would be like this. Breathing in the deep scent of her raven hair, he knew he could not have prepared for the intensity of this, for all it sparked deep within him, past blood and bone.
It wasn't madly passionate, but achingly slow and tender, as delicate and quiet as a cloud passing over the moon. Softly and sweetly, they consumed one another; accompanied by the mellow sounds of skin against skin, breaths that ranged between ragged, hushed and sonorous, and the night-music outside the partially-opened window.
Each kiss, each touch, robbed him of himself. With no more than uncertain caresses grazing across his skin, laced with awakening confidence, burning need, but vulnerable with inexperience; she melted away the ice in his spirit, carved beauty out of the stone and banked the violent flames, transforming the darkness within into the tenderest of touches, the most stirring of actions, the most passionate of kisses. In that brief stolen moment, he shed the burdens of stone and fire as he had never been able to in all the centuries before. Vlad lost and rediscovered himself in the hallowed quiet of one small room, the only sounds those of the cool night breeze and the delicate, sensual music of Mina's breathing and her thundering heartbeat as her soft flesh trembled and flushed against his own.
With love and light, teasingly brushing contact, she slew all that had been and recreated him. They laughed and cried together, pulling each other closer until, uncovering new depths of sensitivity, it was impossible for them to differentiate whose mouth was whose and whose tears were whose, as everything mingled.
His knowledge of the carnal was vast, his experience immense, and his intuition of Mina's own desires innate, but all he had known in the vampiric times before were the bestial mating passions of blood, the feral fury of his brides; the wanton, the voluptuous, the desperate, and the blood-stirring dances of demons. His familiar territory was of animal passion black as night, livid red as blood, as filled with hate and bloodlust as much as physical want. He knew the scratch of nails, the bite of teeth, the tearing and pounding of flesh, the dark gasps and screams made glorious by lust and sin.
This was different. She was different. Her smiles were full of light and compassion. Her touch was a treasure. He kissed her delicate fingertips as they brushed past his mouth, then ardently bestowed open-mouthed kisses to her hand; worshipping her as the princess she was. Her own silken kiss and the feel of soft lips clinging to him and slender arms slipping round his chest was glorious devotion. Those arms pulled him closer, keeping him from all cold.
With the back of her small hand softly stroking down his cheek, the metal of her wedding ring cool against his skin, she took all his power. Her kisses; her mouth and tongue against his, brushing, inviting, needing…they were like sunlight. They scorched him, left him weak. They redeemed his soul.
There was so much he had wanted to teach her of the night and its secrets, of flesh revived and impassioned in the darkness and shadow, but it was she who was teaching him. In hot kisses and burning embraces, she taught purity of emotion, true love, and showed him that he still had some innocence within him. He gave her that innocence; the greatest thing he could offer her.
Even though deep in his heart, he hadn't truly believed it would ever happen, he had prepared for this moment in desperate fantasy. He had wanted so much. Wanted to impress her, to guide her, to enrapture her, to lose himself in her, to worship her, to make her need and hunger for him, to give her unending passion for all her days, to drive her beyond wildness and back again, to be gentle with her, to bind them forever, to slake his hunger and lust for her, to make love to her soul, to light up their world, to make up for centuries of grief, need and loneliness. He would make loneliness and the coldness of night a forgotten thing to both of them. He would banish such sorrows from them forever. He had wanted a thousand contradictory things, and in the end he'd had none of them and all of them at the same time.
In the end, it was slow as a love ballad, tender as burgeoning spring, meaningful as a sonnet. His great mastery was forgotten, unneeded. They were slow, gentle and hushed in their reawakening and their rediscovery of one another. As he peeled away her nightdress and put mouth to skin, brushed his lips against where she was softest, it was as if he had never done such a thing before. He had never witnessed such beauty as her. The impact of making love to the woman who could only be described as his soulmate, the great love of his life; the love he had lost so long ago but now had reclaimed and held in his arms once more after four hundred years of anger, mourning, yearning and consuming hopelessness, was all too much. He couldn't comprehend, only cherish every moment. He could only love her as a man reborn, both afraid and exultant.
His body was love in motion, his mouth drawing sweet poetry over her body, creating great songs within her soul. He found himself trembling, a thing impossible, and his heart soared. All the sensations and emotions sweeping through him felt impossible. All the while they were careful, quiet, and aware of their surroundings even as they let themselves go.
Touching her, revelling in the almost-forgotten sensation of sinking into her warmth, looking into her eyes at that moment, he could not be the great Draculea of legend, the master-vampire, but a human man of flaws, of weaknesses, of desperate needs and of aching vulnerability.
She saw it all, caressed all wounds, kissed all pains. As he madly kissed at her own pains and torments, softly and gently stripping her of all fears and sorrows, the past was redeemed and the centuries of blood were worth it to have her once more. With her, he was transformed and in the soft hush of the bedchamber and felt truly human again. Living once more.
Was it only her heart beating, or had she rekindled his and had it joined her in its desperate music? For a moment, he couldn't be sure.