DISCLAIMER: If I owned Dracula, I would be too busy clinging to his hot body too even come up with fanfics. As for Verona, if I owned her, she would be out on her ass in the snow already. That lucky bitch has had her turn.

He missed her. He missed her desperately, which was bitterly ironic, considering she had never left. Not really. In every sense that used to matter, though, the Verona he had loved was gone. His beautiful Verona, His first and favorite bride. She left over four centuries ago, leaving behind a fearful, jealous, shell of a woman. Had he any human emotion, he would have felt terrible remorse for doing that to her.

I came to let you know

That I love the way you laugh.

I want to hold you high

And steal your pain away

Verona had not instantly loved him or surrendered to his will immediately, as others had. He had to work for her, and he found that compelling. He was determined to have her. She had an enigmatic strength and charming beauty about her, and she had once genuinely loved him, unlike Marishka and Aleera. For them, it was all simply blind infatuation. It had saddened him beyond lamentation to watch Verona slowly fade away into the soulless undead being she was now. He wouldn't have wished it on her if it wasn't the only way to keep her with him forever, which was what he wanted since they first met.

I keep your photograph

And I know it serves me well

I want to hold you high

And steal your pain.

Because I'm broken

When I'm lonesome

And I don't feel right

When you're gone away.

Sometimes he would question whether she was worth keeping when she was like this. In the end, he would always decide that spending an eternity with Verona like she was now was better than an afterlife without her in any form at all. He often yearned for the time hundreds of years agowhen he could sense the pure adoration she felt for him, when she worshipped him on her own. Now, all he could perceive was the insincere passion that dripped from her delicate crimson lips.

You're gone away,

You don't feel me here

Anymore.

Occasionally he wondered if she noticed the change in herself. If she did, she certainly never let on. He himself hardly noticed the subtle transformation as it was occurring. Only little things about her would alter ,but over a course of four hundred years, her whole personality was modified into that of a stranger. Verona was not herself anymore, he didn't know who she was.

The worst is over now,

And we can breathe again

I want to hold you high

And steal my pain away

He mourned the loss of her heartfelt embrace, one of sweet compassion and true love, which had been replaced by the caress of pure lust and unsighted desire. He never wholly disliked this change, but it wasn't the same loving touch that had captivated him, the same arms that had enveloped him so passionately. If he could have only one aspect of his bride given back to her, it would be her gentle, soft touch.

There's so much left to learn

And no one left to fight

I want to hold you high

and steal your pain.

Because I'm broken

When I'm open,

And I don't feel like

I am strong enough

It had shocked him to lose the closest thing he had to love in it's entirety. It nearly drove him insane to look upon her every day and know that she was not actually there.

And I'm broken

when I'm lonesome,

And I don't feel right

when you're gone away

He didn't know who to curse for taking his bride from him. It enraged him to not understand why she had to disappear, to change who she was to be what he wanted her to, when he himself hadn't. Had he?

You're gone away

You don't feel me here

Anymore

He drew a deep sigh. He did miss her so.