Author's Notes: Big thank you to everyone who read, reviewed, favorited, and followed.
I own neither of these series.
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Chapter 2: Caution
Seras awoke to the sound of wolves on the hunt, their howls echoing up to her window alongside the squeals of some unfortunate rabbit or hare. As she yawned and rose from her bed, she went to the glass door to balcony and looked out to see the pack in the twilight, all clustered around their finished prey. Eight of them she counted. The white alpha, an assortment of greys and blacks, a few pups, and the lowly omega that paced around his brothers and sisters for a chance at their quarry. She smiled and leaned over the palisade to watch the family at their breakfast. Had it not been first thing in the evening, she might've been tempted to take on her wolf form and join. They weren't unfamiliar to her, after all, and even the alpha showed deference to her whenever she appeared, loping toward them with her head and tail held high.
The wolves continued to snarl and circle below her for a quarter hour or so before melting away into the night, so she retreated back into her room and shut the door behind her. In the light of the newly risen moon, she shucked off her nightgown and replaced it with a linen underdress. Next, she threw on the silk kirtle she'd worn yesterday, although she found herself unable to lace up the back without her maid to help her. Oh…. Seras let out a long sigh and twisted her neck to look at her reflection, or rather the backside of her reflection, in the mirror. The laces were all tangled, not to mention reversed, and no matter where she put her hands, she couldn't…. Damn it all.
It was as she stood her, frustrated beyond belief, that a knock came at the door and she turned her head, mortified. If her master hear had come to visit her so early— "Yes?"
"Lady Seras?"
She stiffened. The Lisa woman? What did she want?"
"Are you awake? May I come in?"
Seras hesitated, then decided there was no harm in letting her in and slowly lowered her arms to her sides. "Very well. Enter."
In the door swung and she was surprised to find Lisa standing on her doorstep with a bowl of steaming water in her hands and a towel draped over her arm. "I thought you might like help dressing yourself," the woman said with a smile. "Dracula doesn't keep servants, but I was a provincial lady's maid for a time before I came here."
Seras flicked her red eyes down to the bowl with steaming water and the towel and speculated Lisa intended more service than simply lacing up the back of her kirtle. Annoyance flooded through her at the human's offer of assistance, but without a maid to help her, there wasn't much else she could do but accept. After all, she did not want to spend the evening with a loose kirtle and an ill-fitted houppelande. So she pulled up the chair to her mirror and washstand and took a seat. "Do as you like."
Lisa entered the room fully then, set the bowl down on the stand, and took up a wooden comb Seras had left from her previous visit. Without a word, she began to run the teeth through her fair hair, and it took all Seras' self-control not to flinch at the contact of a stranger's hands. She wanted to close her eyes and pretend it was just van Winkle going about their morning routine, but she refused to leave herself vulnerable in such a way. If Lisa was aware of her discomfort, which she hoped she wasn't, she gave no sign and combed her hair calmly and quietly.
"It's a beautiful evening."
Forget quietly then. Seras stared at the woman's reflection in the mirror, unblinking and hoping it would disconcert her. Yet Lisa gave no sign of unease and even smiled as she ran the comb's teeth through her hair again. She had gentle hands. Though Seras had short hair and it did not tangle too terribly, Lisa worked out what few snarls there were without any pain whatsoever. Nor with any particular speed. "Do pick up the pace. Tug my hair if you have to," Seras growled and snapped her fingers. "Else we'll never get anywhere."
"My apologies," Lisa said patiently and continued at a more brisk pace and finished the task within a few minutes. Then she withdrew a cake of soap that smelled of thyme and lovage from a pouch she carried and offered it to her.
"You seem to have adjusted well to a vampire's nocturnal hours," Seras remarked coldly as she took it and lathered her hands. "I trust it wasn't too much trouble."
As she began to scrub her face, Lisa answered sheepishly. "Oh, it didn't take long at all. The moment I first saw your father's library, I spent the whole night pouring over the manucripts and scrolls. And when morning came, I went to sleep without any trouble and slept through the whole day."
"Is that so," Seras rinsed her hands and face, then took the towel Lisa offered her and patted it over her pale skin. Then as the human was reaching for a bottle of rosewater, Seras turned to her and asked. "Why are you here, Lisa? Why come to the one place Wallachian men, women, and children fear most? Why not stay as a simple lady's maid?"
Lisa paused and looked at her, and Seras noticed for the first time her eyes were as blue as hers had been so many years ago. "That lady's lord husband thought he might enjoy me," she answered evenly. "And when I refused his advances, I was later accused of theft and dismissed from her service."
Seras fell quiet, an almost abashed feeling sweeping through her, and she turned away. She could understand the injustice of that all too well. Lisa reached for the bottle again and poured some of the sweet-smelling liquid into the palm of her hand, which she then brushed through Seras' hair.
"Which dress were you hoping to wear tonight? I could find a matching ribbon for your hair."
…
"I do hope you'll forgive my neglecting you last night, my dear," Dracula said as he seated himself before the old hearth in his personal chamber. "Your arrival was most unexpected."
"My apologies, sir." Seras dipped her head in a nod. "The fault is mine. I gave no sign that I wished to visit you, after all."
"No doubt you were alarmed by the presence of Lisa."
"I was, sir."
He smiled. "But I trust there was no urgent matter in your own household that required my immediate intervention? Or perhaps there is something wrong with your mirror and you were unable to contact me?"
"My household is insufferable and it pleases me to take leave of them when their relentless squabbling tests the bounds of my patience," Seras scowled as she seated herself in the chair opposite him, arranging her dark blue skirts neatly around her. "Walter nags, Van Winkle is timid, Jan's a lech, Luke is a bootlicker, Zorin thinks of nothing but violence, and Schrödinger constantly speaking in riddles." Truthfully, it was only the werewolf who did not speak that did not raise her ire and she'd grown to enjoy the brute's silent company.
"I imagine you've left them all in a veritable uproar," Dracula chuckled quietly and propped his elbow on the arm of his chair to rest his chin against his knuckles. "What of Wallachia? Tell me."
"Not as quiet as I would like," she sighed. "I've been hearing troubling accounts of a new forge master making trouble in Moldova. Ottoman forces of the human variety have their eye on the southern border. A Styrian vampire lord has been killed by his own fledgling." Her eyes flashed with a sudden thought. "And I hear Godbrand has come down from the north again."
"He still hasn't forgiven you then? For that business in Oltenița?"
Seras sneered and looked to the fire. "If he's out for my blood, I'll just chase him to the border again. The Berserker Draugr does not concern me. I nearly killed him once. I can do it again."
"He underestimated you the first time, Seras," Dracula corrected. "He may not make the same mistake again."
"We'll see." And yet Seras turned away, forlorn. She hated fighting. She hated violence. A century had passed since she'd become a creature of the night, and she'd never really attained the same level of aloofness and cruelty that was so common of her adopted people. Humanity had rejected her long ago, and in the end, the vampire world had welcomed her not. Like a royal court, she found nothing in the night but intrigue and treachery and an endless game of power among her own kind. Given those options, solitude seemed to be the only solace for her. Only now, she lived in comfort instead of starving and half-wild in random villages across the countryside.
Without her sire, she couldn't imagine where she would be today.
She sighed. "May I speak freely, sir?"
"Of course, Seras. You are, after all, my most trusted General, and I delight in your frankness."
"The human troubles me," she said without preamble. "You bring this woman, Lisa, into your home, show her your secrets so that…what? What does she intend to do with all this knowledge? What do you intend to do with her, Master?"
"If you must know, Daughter, I hope to marry her."
The words pierced her like a knife and Seras felt her eyes widen. "What?"
But Dracula had gone silent again and she could sense his eyes watching her, gauging her reaction, and he was smiling even. Not his genuine smile she'd seen the other night but his cold, calculating leer that was so familiar to her. God, he was serious. Almost imperceptibly, Seras clenched the fabric of her dress in her hands and she turned to him, red eyes meeting his without flinching. What in the hell was this woman that she was so easily able to warm the heart of her cruel and forbidding father?
"Are you going to turn her?"
"No."
"Have you asked her?"
"To be my wife? Not yet."
"You would make a mortal woman your bride? As if she were some great lady or princess?"
Dracula's tone took on a touch of anger then. "Recall the diligence in her studies you briefly witnessed last night. She means to be a doctor, a scientist who means to revive the ancient medical arts long forgotten by humanity. A true healer, not a mere hedge witch or swindler divining fortunes and leaving fate up to God. Now tell me she is not a great lady."
Seras had nothing to say. It chafed her pride to hold a human in the same regard as her master, or any of their kind for that matter. Humans were mortal. Scared. Narrow in thought and ever fearful of a god whose love was promised to be unconditional. And yet God had abandoned her to wander alone for years, and when she'd become a young woman, the annoyed kicks and thrown rocks of her youth suddenly became unwanted advances from the men in whichever village she happened to find herself in. Their wives called her a harlot as if it were her fault for the attention she received. How many nights had she slept in her crude shelters, afraid someone would come to force himself on her? How many men had she fought off, tooth and nail, a knife if she had one, or a large rock if she could find one? How many times had a furious wife or sweetheart slapped her or pinched her or hurled insults at her in the street in front of everyone?
Who was this Lisa to claim she was any better, or any different, from the rest of the rabble?
Her father sighed and braced his hands against the arms of his chair to stand. "You have slain many humans, Seras. For vengeance, for food, for sport, and you suffered many hardships at their hands during your human life," he said as he rested his hand against her fair, short hair. "You have grown into a fine creature of the night, and you know I have always been proud of you. And yet when I see your face, sometimes I still see that poor child atop the lonely hill in Cașcaval where she died under the full moon."
Seras swallowed a hard lump in her throat.
"If you cannot accept Lisa, then harm her not. Leave her in peace." As he returned his gaze to the fire, he waved his hand at her, a clear dismissal if she ever knew one.
Seras stood, made a quick bow, and hurried toward the door, eager to get away for the first time. Master had always been kind to her. In his own way, at least. She loved him as much as she'd loved her father, and losing Dracula would be tantamount to the same devastating grief she'd felt that terrible night in her home village.
What was Lisa?