Chapter One: Prologue

1820, Romania

Violca tied her raven curls back with a black ribbon as the moon rose to take it's place in the Romanian night sky above the gypsy camp. Dipping her quill back into the little jar of ink, she continued scribbling out her thoughts. Thoughts that mainly revolved around a certain man. A tall man with wavy black hair that shone with a brownish tint in firelight. A man with ebony eyes that seemed to burn at her like smoldering coals in a fire pit. A man who held her heart in his firm, icy grip. A man she knew simply as Emil. She wrote of how much she loved and …loathed him. She had given him everything she had to give, but it had all been a lie. A lie from the very start. He didn't love her. He didn't even care about her. She was merely his prey, and she'd fallen easily for the seductive predator's trap.

Violca sighed heavily and laid down the quill at the shrill cries of her infant son. She rose from her chair and glided over to the cradle. "Poor child." She cooed. "I know. Your mother should be paying more attention to you, instead of writing about her silly misfortunes of love." She lifted the wailing baby boy out of the cradle and began to bounce him around in her arms. "Shush now, love. No more crying." She smirked as she gazed lovingly into her son's large, dark eyes.

His birth had been terribly difficult. The labor was long and she had feared that the baby wouldn't come. He had been a large baby. But even after all the pain she had endured, both through childbirth and the circumstances surrounding his father, she loved him unconditionally. She never knew that she could love something so much. She thought that he was the most beautiful baby she'd ever seen, but don't all mother's feel that way about their children?

A pounding at the side of the wagon made the young mother jump in surprise. "W-who is it?" She asked, whirling around to stare daggers into the heavy blanket that served as a door.

"Violca." Called the suave voice at the blanket covered end of the wagon. "It is I. Let me in, my love."

Violca felt a chill sweep down her spine. "Emil?" She squeaked, her grip on the baby tightening in dread. No! How? How could he be here? How had he found her?

"Hurry, dear one. It is cold out here." He chuckled. Violca knew too well that he was not cold. He couldn't feel the air anymore, and he hadn't for a very long time.

She looked down at the little bundle in her arms and a new kind of fear took root in her heart and soul. If he saw that he had fathered a child she knew that he would kill them both. She must hide the baby! "Just a moment." She replied, scrambling around for a good hiding place. After disregarding several places, she finally settled on a wooden chest, filled with blankets and cloth. It would make a good bed for him and the thick wood would muffle any sounds that the baby made. She tenderly laid the baby inside and wrapped it in a wool blanket. Finally she took a couple of cloves of garlic from her mother's cooking supplies and laid them next to her son. The smell of it would keep Emil from catching his son's scent. Well…she hoped it would anyway. Carefully, she closed the lid, entrapping the helpless child in a cocoon, shielding it from whatever harm his father may wish to bring to them, this night.

Loosening her hair from it's ribbon and smoothing out her dress, she walked slowly to the back of the wagon and pulled away the blanket. Behind it stood the handsome Emil. He still looked exactly the same as the last time she'd seen him. He hadn't even grown any facial hair. Not that she had suspected that he would look any different, not since she learned the truth behind his identity.

"Hello, Violca. You are looking well." He said smoothly with a charming smile.

"Emil. How wonderful it is to see you." She smiled politely. "It has been too long."

"It has." His eyes sharpened as they flittered over her small frame. "I have to admit, I am surprised by how healthy you look." He said as he stepped up the small ladder into the wagon. Violca took several steps back to keep her distance from him. She was careful to make sure that she placed herself in-between Emil and the chest.

"Why is that?" She asked, praying that he didn't notice how nervous she was at his presence.

Emil looked around the tiny wagon, which served as the family's home in their nomadic life style. "I have heard rumors that you have recently given birth. To a son, I was told." His eyes glinted sinisterly. "I see you have a cradle. So I take it the rumors were true."

Damn! Violca inwardly cursed. Why hadn't she thought to hide it? She scrambled to think up a good excuse. "I-I did have a baby, Emil, but I'm afraid that it was still-born. I am sorry." She muttered in a sweet, sympathetic voice. "But our child is dead."

"Is that so." Emil said calmly, reaching out a hand to touch one of Violca's curls. She took another step back and hit her backside against the edge of her desk. "I am deeply grieved to hear that, my pet. Very grieved indeed." With a hiss, he rammed his hand straight through Violca's middle. She slid down his arm, allowing his hand to protrude entirely. Violca gasped and moaned in agony as blood poured from her wound and out her mouth and nose. Emil held her close to him, in a hypocritical lover's embrace. "I was looking forward to slaughtering him in front of you." He whispered with an inhuman cackle. With a quick gesture, he slung her off of his arm and she flew across the small space to hit the wall of the wagon. She crumpled in a bloody heap on the floor in front of the chest.

She turned her head weakly to glare up at him. He stood above her, licking her blood from his fingers, with a gleeful look in his dark eyes. "It really is a shame you had to get pregnant. I hate to waist such delicious blood, but I can't let anyone find out that I fathered a child. You understand?" He shrugged his broad shoulders and smiled crookedly down at her. His sharp canines glinted in the dim light.

I hate you! I hate you! She screamed inside her head at him, unable to speak. How had she ever fallen in love with this monster to begin with? There was nothing there to love. He had no heart. No soul.

He picked up Violca's favorite dress from it's resting place by her cot and wiped the gore from his hand as if it were a handkerchief. "Farewell, my love." He sneered, as he walked away towards the back of the wagon. "Have a pleasant night in hell." He laughed at his tasteless joke as he left the wagon.

Violca laid there a few more moments, listening to his evil laughter as it slowly faded with distance. Then, relying on all the strength that she still possessed, she dragged herself to the trunk and draped her battered body over it, protectively. As she wrapped her arms around the wooden chest, she began to sob quietly, for she knew that this would be the closest she'd ever be again to holding her son in her arms.

Slowly the fire of life eased into nothingness within the mother's body and her spirit left her, leaving her child alone in the world, a world that he could never truly belong to.