Chapter 10

While the beast inside Anna's mind had grown so strong she could no longer fully tell where it's desires ended and her own began, she noticed that she still had the ability to disobey Dracula's orders. It surprised her because she was certain the former brides of Dracula had been completely subservient to him. What made her so special that she wasn't a total slave to his will? Was her fierce hatred of him protecting her mind? But that hatred had faded quite a lot in the past few years…. and yet she still felt no desire to obey that she couldn't resist. A strong, embarrassing desire to mate with him yes, but no desire to blindly follow his orders.

Isabel was different. She seemed exactly like the previous brides, albeit a continuing fondness for Anna, despite Anna's coldness and desire to keep her at arm's length. She guessed Isabel's unending devotion was because Anna had turned her and not Dracula. It was clear that Dracula couldn't make any more children or turn any new humans. As evidenced by the fact that Dracula had been mating with Isabel for quite some time and Isabel never became pregnant.
Dracula had deliberately agreed to let Anna turn Isabel that day. So perhaps the only way Dracula could expand his species was through Anna. This gave Anna some comfort that she was the "gatekeeper" of this power and could indeed prevent the vampire curse from being spread to anyone else… since Isabel had been a creation when Anna was new and her control of her bloodlust still very weak. But it also terrified her because it meant Dracula would likely always look for ways to use Anna to multiple his kind. Anna had been turned into a vampire before Dracula had used the werewolf antidote, so her venom alone was the only one left potent in the entire world. That painted a huge target on her back. For Dracula, who would try to use her to propagate the species, and for vampire hunters, who would kill her if they discovered she was the real source of all future progeny. Dracula was truly immortal and invulnerable now thanks to the antidote, but Anna was not. She was surprised Dracula hadn't imprisoned her in some dank hole to keep his "key" to progeny production safe. But she supposed it would look suspicious to any hunters and it certainly wouldn't convince her to cooperate willingly in any evil schemes he might concoct. For whatever reason, she had the ability to disobey him, unlike the previous Brides and Isabel, so he would have to rely on trickery and manipulation to gain her cooperation.

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Anna tossed another book onto the table in frustration. She had been combing the library for hours. Searching for any way to break this connection she had with Dracula. But every book about vampires was clear. Fledglings could not unsire themselves from the master who had turned them. The only useful thing she had learned was that she was indeed unique to have her free will so intact after being sired. Fledglings usually stopped at nothing to please their master. Anna couldn't decided which was worse: being a mindless and blissful slave, or having her mind intact but with no escape in sight.

What the books didn't explain is why her will was still intact after being turned. Anna rubbed her eyes in exhaustion, trying to piece the puzzle together.

Vampires were created when the victim was left near death after a bite wound, but never fully drained. Hence, the strong instinct in every vampire to utterly drain their victims to prevent accidentally siring any new vampires.

Any vampire could sire, but fledglings only possessed half the strength of the sire and were completely submissive to the sire's will. The higher in the family tree you went, the more fledglings a sire had power over. In other words, since Dracula was the King and originator of all vampires, he had total control over every vampire ever created… in theory.

But not Anna. At least, not completely. He was also the King of Manipulation, so it was often hard for Anna to parse out which of his tricks were simply in his arsenal due to him being a vampire vs something that had a special hold on her because of their blood connection.

Anna thought through her own turning. She had been near-death, almost-drained, and Van Helsing had interrupted. She couldn't see anything different about her turning compared to others, other than the fact that she was sure Dracula had meant to kill her and not turn her. Was that the key? It seemed rather stupid. Unintentional turning resulted in free will after death? That didn't make any sense to her.

Add to the fact that she seemed to be almost as strong as Dracula, judging from their contests of strength during her many previous assassination attempts. She had been too furious with him to notice that detail at the time. But looking back on it with a cooler head, she realized he had been winning because of experience, not because he had been massively stronger than her.

It was rather tempting to start fighting with him again, just to learn all of his tricks of the trade.

The only other curious thing that still weighed on her mind was why Dracula hadn't attempted to have Anna turn any more vampires to repopulate his ranks. It had been over 2 years now and it was still just Dracula, Anna, and Isabel. What was he waiting for? He had been so hell-bent on World Domination with all of those disgusting hellspawn created with his former brides. And now that every vampire except Anna and Isabel was gone? He didn't seem to be doing anything. She'd watched as he wandered from one hobby to the next, with no obvious goal in mind other than to pass the time. He didn't seem to be grieving the loss of his entire species. He was always so cool, calm, and collected. But she couldn't fathom why else he had stopped his megalomaniacal plans of the past 400 years.