All the thanks to inkmagpie, Scarlet Empress, She-Devil Red, Gerhiel, and Guest for the reviews this week! You guys are honestly the best and your enthusiasm and support means the world! Thank you for carrying me through yet another difficult week!
CW: vampire violence and some gore
Copyright © 2021 TSM. All rights reserved.
Chapter 34
Prison Break
Frankie found it amusing how chatty Vlad was this evening.
The moment they had left Carmen's and entered the ancient passageways beneath the city, he was suddenly overflowing with questions about who Frankie was, the people she had met, what her life had been like. He had insisted that he merely wanted to get to know her better and given the newfound affability between them, Frankie found she could not refuse him. She did not tell the man everything, of course, but in a strange sort of way it had become a little easier to now open up to him than it had been previously.
Perhaps it was because they were alone and he seemed genuinely interested in what she had to say. There were no signs of ulterior motives about him – just a sincere curiosity. In exchange for her honesty, the man had returned it in kind, answering her own queries. Naturally, if a topic arose that one or the other did not care to touch on, they moved on to something else and this unspoken arrangement between the pair was something Frankie silently admitted she could get used to.
Little did she understand the significance.
Vladislaus Drăculea had never been known as a particularly talkative man – but conversing with Francesca was proving itself an effortless endeavor.
"So why the name Rémy?" he asked, following up on their present course of discussion. "It doesn't exactly fit as a shortened version of Reynaund – nor does it strike me as an appropriate name for the son of a duke."
"When I was a child, I had trouble saying his given name, so he shortened it for me and it just sort of stuck," Frankie explained. "The family apparently found it so endearing that they chose to adopt it themselves and so it has been ever since."
"I have to admit, I'm still struggling to wrap my head around the fact that your brother is technically heir to the French throne."
"If it still existed, you mean," she laughed. "Regardless, no one in my family has ever had much of a desire to rule anything, save ourselves."
"Is that why your father and uncle remained so well-hidden from vampire aristocracy and his majesty's court in general?" he wondered, though mostly to himself.
"In part," she confessed. "Armand and my father had been pawns in the political machinations of their grandfather from the day they were born. My uncle in particular was usually the more openly vocal when it came to his dislike of being ruled by another person, but my father's pursuit of personal privacy ran far deeper than my uncle's ever did. Father was genuinely anxious at one point - shortly after our family was turned - that if the wrong people discovered his claim to France, he might be ordered by the likes of Dracula to take possession of the country on his behalf so our kind could obtain some sort of political standing in the world as our own sovereign nation."
"Really?"
"Yes."
"Is that such a terrible idea, though?"
"It wasn't what he wanted," she stated simply.
He pondered this for a moment.
"I'm beginning to get the impression that your family doesn't particularly care for our king," Dracula pointed out after some careful deliberation.
"Well, it's less outright dislike and more of an inherent wariness," the woman replied, unwittingly reassuring him. "We moved in very different circles, and Father was never inclined to associate with the man in general given his reputation. To him, it just wasn't worth the risk."
"His reputation as what, exactly?"
"At best – a merciless, arrogant, self-serving king who took what he wanted, when he wanted it, without question."
"And at worst?" he asked, not entirely sure he wanted the truth. He could guess it though - Dracula knew better than anyone the extent of his reputation, and the preconceived notions it garnered.
"Cruel. Domineering. Tyrannical. Unfeeling. A manipulative monster, beholden to no one, who had only ever seen others as objects for his use and little else."
He tried not to take that personally.
"Do you believe that?"
Frankie paused, considering.
"Truthfully? I don't know anymore," she admitted, voice suddenly soft. "Hearing such different accounts of the man over the years has left me conflicted on the matter. And these days, I'm not sure what I believe at this point. My father was convinced that because Dracula had historically always gone unchecked and unchallenged, it was better to avoid his court entirely than to get tangled up in his web. We de Chaciers have always prided ourselves in our autonomy – to live as we pleased. If our king could be beholden to no one, then so too would we be."
Dracula didn't particularly care for the apparent disapproval of his betrothed's long-since dead father. He was grateful, however, that Francesca didn't seem to share in the male's feelings. He could live with her being presently undecided. If anything, it provided him with an opportunity to help shape her opinion of him, perhaps prove the rumors false.
"Tell me – was your father at all acquainted with Dracula?"
"Vaguely, though I doubt his majesty would remember. Our family's sire – Señor Meirás – made a formal introduction at a ball once upon a time, but nothing ever came of it."
"Meirás. Where do I know that name?" and Dracula paused, watching as Frankie started to open a circular door at the end of the corridor they were in.
The wheel that kept the entrance sealed was rusted shut, but with her renewed strength, she had managed to get it to turn. It squeaked and whined loudly in protest after so many years of being sedentary, leaving Dracula to continue muttering the name to himself quietly as they crawled into the significantly narrower tunnel before them.
Then a memory stirred.
"That's where!" he proclaimed. "Eduardo de Meirás – a Spanish Lord; though I recall around 1740 or so, people had started calling him Satanas for some unknown reason."
"An affectionate nickname my family had given him during his prolonged stay with us," Frankie explained with noted amusement.
"Yes, I remember now. There had been rumors that he had been staying in France with his latest protégé. He had this bewildering obsession with turning unassuming girls into femme fatales. But if you and your family were with him during that time…" and he started to put the puzzle pieces together.
Frankie had stopped walking, having reached a ladder that would take them up a level and she looked back at him, grinning deviously.
"You were his protégé, weren't you?"
"His preferred pupil," she announced with pride. "My cousin, Alayna, was a student of his as well – though only part-time. I was always his favorite. Still am, though he loves to remind me how much he hates himself for the preference," and she laughed.
"But that would make you… No. No, I don't believe it. There's no way you are la sirène," the man insisted, watching as she climbed the ladder ahead of him.
"Was. I gave up that name and everything associated to it ninety years after obtaining it, just before Rémy and I immigrated to America."
Dracula was still standing a level below her, head craned back as he watched her continuing to climb.
"I don't believe it," he called out, soon following after her. "La sirène was an untamable force of nature, a succubus, a heathen… impossible to resist, let alone control."
"Are you suggesting I'm not anymore?" the woman said with a smirk before offering a helping hand as he reached the top of the ladder. There was no way he was walking into that trap, so instead he asked,
"What made you abandon it all?"
"Oh, a whole host of reasons, though I fear this isn't exactly an appropriate setting for that sort of conversation."
When they were both on the same level, the pair paused in their discussion to take in their surroundings.
"So – forty paces to the left?"
"Yes, and then we should be right beneath the lower level of the dungeons," and he removed the small duffle bag he had been carrying over his shoulder, placing it on the ground as he examined the walls of the passageway with curiosity whilst Frankie started to remove the plastic explosives.
"How many do you think we'll need?"
"Given the state of this tunnel, probably not much. If the blast is too big, the ricochet could send the whole system down while we're still in it."
"I'm not sure about you, but I have no desire to be buried alive." There was an unspoken again at the end of that sentence and it sent a shiver through Vlad's body.
"Agreed," he said absently, still studying the cracks in the crumbling walls.
The air of the passageway they had just entered had an unusual scent – a combination of damp earth and something metallic. The ancient stone that lined the corridor was riddled with an extensive system of old roots and fungus, simultaneously keeping the dated walls and ceiling together while also slowly destroying the manmade construction. A number of yards ahead, the pair could see a very dim light coming from the ceiling – small and very faint, casting the shadow of what appeared to be a grate onto the ground, which would explain where that moisture was probably coming from.
Wasting no time, Frankie continued to take a quiet inventory of their little arsenal as Dracula moved in closer to the wall at his right, now examining a sigil he had noticed out of the corner of his eye, his sight having fully adjusted to the nearly consuming blackness.
This tunnel was old – extremely so.
The brickwork dated back almost eight hundred years, possibly around the time the city had been declared the capital of Hungary, maybe even earlier. The history here was long forgotten, but rich to a well-versed enthusiast of antiquity, and for the briefest of moments, Vladislaus felt his age.
A number of the blocks of stone were stamped with the seal of the Order of Saint George, the first secular chivalric order established by King Charles I of Hungary in 1326. These walls were part of Vlad's legacy, built by his forefathers, the original defenders of his native homeland, and for an instant, he found himself regretting what they were about to do to this little piece of history. Unwilling to let it all go to waste, he extracted a knife strapped to his belt before starting to carve out one of the stamped bricks.
When the stone had been removed, he realized Frankie was studying him with an inquisitive expression.
"This tunnel was built by the Order of Saint George a little under a millennia ago," he explained quietly, showing her the seal. "The first monarchical order founded in 1326."
"So?"
"So? This is a piece of history! One of the great fraternal societies of knighthood, the first of its kind; instilling a sense of honor and chivalry into the hearts of its men."
"Mr. Leinhart – it's just another boys-only club. There's nothing to get excited about," she teased, returning her attention to the bag of explosives.
"It was nothing of the sort," he insisted in a defensive whisper, a little affronted that she was taking this so lightly. "The Order of Saint George was innovative – the predecessor for other such confraternities and societies like the one of Saint-Michel, or even the Order of the Dragon."
"Well then, a pity we have to blow it up," was her reply, though she sounded anything but remorseful.
"I was wondering when your sarcastic tongue would make an appearance this evening," he noted with a sly grin before placing the brick into the half-empty bag. The moment his hands were empty, she started passing him the neatly packaged explosives. "I must admit, I'm a little disappointed to find you so flippant when it comes to history."
"I'm not flippant – just a bit more preoccupied at the moment with this mad plan of freeing Vivian, making sure the lot of us escape, and then delivering her to her family – and all without getting caught."
As Frankie counted the forty paces down the narrow passageway, Dracula was given the task of planting and activating the bombs and when he had finished, he glanced ahead to find his unsuspecting betrothed scrutinizing the low ceiling above her head. The area under examination had clearly been sealed up some years ago with brick and mortar. Frankie ran two fingers between two stones, clearing the crevice between them of the crumbling cement and dirt in an effort to loosen the blockage, though her attention kept diverting to that light spot a few yards ahead.
"What is it?" he asked.
"Are you sure Vivian's cell is right above us? What if it's over there?"
"It's not."
"But what if you're wrong?"
"Trust me. The werewolf's cell is just above our heads. This right here," and he traced the large crumbling closure above them, "used to be a trap door before it was sealed some decades back."
"Then what's down there?"
"The hall outside of her cell – and there's no point entering through there. We didn't come with the right equipment to hack the security system on her door. Why are you questioning this all of a sudden? We reviewed the blueprints a hundred times…"
"I don't know… I'm just getting this feeling that we might be in the wrong spot," she insisted as they worked together to carefully remove the decaying bricks that were beginning to give way above them, littering them in irritating debris of dirt and dust.
"You are more than welcome to suggest alternatives, though I should remind you – much of the plan was of your own devising," and just when he thought she'd submit with a relenting sigh or something of the sort, Frankie surprised him when she momentarily left to check the water grate.
But instead of keeping his attention on the ceiling above his head, his focus remained on the woman before him, recognizing a little too late that in his distraction, he had pulled out the wrong stone. In an instant of mortified realization, the seal above him gave way and the bricks came tumbling down in a small avalanche right on top of his head.
In a morbid twist of fate, his body managed to muffle the sound of the tumbling rock as it surrendered to the will of gravity, and when he arose from the ground, disheveled and covered in dust, he discovered Frankie at his side once again. The woman was clearly trying to mask her amusement.
"So that's definitely the prison hallway down there," she began as he brushed himself off.
"I appreciate you taking my word for it," he mumbled rather sarcastically, his pride more wounded than his person. Frankie would have tormented him further with a comment on his impatience, but she chose to be sympathetic instead, helping him dust off the debris from his shoulders almost absentmindedly.
"Next time, I'll try to remember to believe you; although you should know by now that I prefer to see things for myself."
"Yes, well, no harm done, thankfully," he said with a bit of a sigh.
"True – and I'm glad you decided against the nice suit this time around," and when she smiled, his annoyance vanished.
"I suppose after the destruction of at least two outfits, I've learned that any misadventures involving you and the werewolves requires more appropriate attire."
His teasing earned the broader smile he had been after and he was now internally cursing this gloomy darkness they were in – that radiant grin would have looked all the better in the light.
"Well, hopefully our next assignment together doesn't involve sewers, catacombs, or prison-breaks… or really just werewolves in general. I usually prefer something a bit more glamorous," and before he could comment on her evident anticipation for further time spent in his company, she removed a small flashlight from her pocket and pointed it up at the gaping hole above their heads. "Looks like the trap door is still there. We're definitely in the right place."
"And to think you doubted me."
Smiling, though not without rolling her eyes, Frankie placed the small torch in her pocket before jumping up into the hole above them, her inhuman strength and abilities allowing her to position herself in such a way that she was able to stay suspended above Dracula's head in the hollow they had just uncovered, her feet pressed against the lower part of the walls surrounding to keep her steady.
"Is it unlocked?" he asked, craning his head back to look up at her… or rather, at the shapely ass now inches from his face.
"I think so, but it won't budge..." and she tried to push the door above her open with little success.
"You're probably not pushing hard enough."
"Are you questioning my ability to open a door?" she asked incredulously, glancing down at him.
"Not at all – just your… actually, yes. That is exactly what I'm doing."
Frankie unleashed an irritated exhale before moving farther up into the chasm and slamming her shoulder against the door above her with as much force as she could. But their only entrance into the cell remained shut.
"Come down and let me try."
"It feels like something's on top of it."
"Just… do as I say. You keep this up, and the entire dungeon will hear you."
"Fine!" and she dropped back down into the tunnel at his side. "You think you can do better – be my guest. Maybe we'll get lucky and more bricks will fall on your head."
Handing her the half-empty duffel bag of explosives with an ironic grin, Dracula briefly examined the cavernous space above them before positioning himself in just the right spot. Then with an inhuman leap, he shot straight up into the narrow passage, crashing through the trap door and into the prison cell above them.
Upon impact he was forced to admit that Frankie had been right about one thing – there had been something on top of the door: a bunk bed with two grown men inside of it. With his abrupt entrance, the bed had toppled over to the ground with a loud bang, rudely awakening the pair of prisoners who had been previously fast asleep.
"What the hell was that?" Frankie called up at him from the tunnel, but Dracula was too distracted to answer.
The prisoner who had been on the bottom bunk was still buried beneath the rubble of the bed, but the other – a hulking behemoth of a man with a good six inches on Vlad – had clearly not taken kindly to the rude awakening. At the sound of the female's voice, however, the giant quickly grew disinterested with the newcomer, realizing that his way out of this hellhole was only a few feet away, and there was a pretty sounding woman at the other end.
Violence immediately broke out as the inmate dashed for the broken trap door, slipping into a blind rampage of fury when Dracula tried to stop him.
"What's going on up there?" he could hear Frankie calling from below.
"Definitely the wrong cell!"
In a desperate attempt to focus on the task ahead of him, Dracula fought back against the mad convict, dodging blows as best he could while struggling to keep the man away from the exit and consequently away from Frankie. But the other prisoner, thankfully more normal in stature, had emerged from the rubble, grabbing hold of a piece of wood and using it as a club to hit Vlad against the back of his head.
The rudimentary weapon shattered on impact, causing no real damage to the king of vampires.
Instead, the blow infuriated him, and with a violent shove, the second man stumbled back into the broken bed, the fall causing one of the metal parts of the frame to impale him directly in the gut.
It didn't kill him, but it did provided the vampire with just enough temporary distraction so Dracula could focus all of his attention on the giant. Adapting to the brute's attacks, Vlad quickly gained the upper hand, delivering blow after violent blow to the man's face and body, before tossing him like an oversized rag doll head first into the steel-enforced door.
The impact was enough to disorient the prisoner just enough so Vladislaus could get behind him, straddling his fallen body with both his feet.
With a quick maneuver of hands and great upper-body strength, Dracula took the giant's head in his grip and snapped his opponent's neck with a sickening crack of broken bone, but he didn't stop there. The tearing of ligaments and muscle followed and in a single gory instant, the enormous vampire's head was partially removed from his shoulders just as Frankie emerged from the hole in the floor.
She eyed the violent spectacle with a strange sense of awe as Dracula straightened, triumphant with the now partially decapitated head of his opponent in his hand. With a single look in the woman's direction, he paused, not removing the skull completely and therefore merely rendering the prisoner unconscious as his body would now struggle to heal. He would have finished the job, only the second inmate had somehow managed to free himself from being impaled in the wreckage of the bunk bed and he was sneaking up behind Frankie, ready to attack.
The expression of alarm in Vlad's eyes was enough to warn her, and she spun around, knife in hand as she caught her almost-attacker off guard. She shoved him against the neighboring wall, gripping the column of his throat, the tip of her blade between his legs.
Dracula waited for her to gut the man cock to belly, but it never happened, as she and the prisoner were far too busy staring at one another in a bewildering mix of recognition and utter disbelief.
"Frankie?" the stranger called out in a whisper. "Oh my god… it can't be. It's you! It's really you!"
"Jacob?"
At the sound of his name, the man called Jacob burst into tears of utter elation, as if the mere presence of the woman offered him a sense of hope he had for so long been without.
Dracula heard her knife crash to the floor as the man's arms wrapped around her neck, his filthy unshaven face soon buried in her shoulder as he wept openly. When Frankie recovered from the initial shock of it all, she wrapped her arms around him in return, though Vlad could tell that her feelings on this unanticipated reunion were mixed at best.
The room was dimly lit, a slight improvement from the darkness of the tunnel below their feet, but it provided enough light for Dracula to get a better look at this man named Jacob. He was perhaps just barely over six feet in height, his dark hair, which fell to the base of his neck, oily and disheveled. His wrists were shackled, yet there were no chains that kept him bound and it made Vlad curious as he finally released the giant's head from his grip in an effort to move closer.
"What on earth are you doing here?" Jacob exclaimed in excitement, releasing the still visibly stunned Frankie as the man took her shoulders in his hands.
"I should be asking you the same question," she managed. "How long have you been down here?"
"I'm not sure – what year is it?"
"We're nearing the end of 2137," Dracula answered, his voice reminding Frankie that she and Jacob were not alone and Vlad's presence seemed to help her in collecting her senses.
Jacob started to visibly count the years in his head before answering, "so about three years then."
"How did you end up here?" Frankie then inquired, picking up her knife from off the ground and sheathing it, still watching Jacob with an expression that Dracula could only describe as mildly cautious.
"You know that vampire virus Augustine unleashed a while back? Well, after Rémy and I had our falling out, I continued to track the origins of it and it lead me to an alchemist who was working for the palace. When he failed to produce a cure to the disease he had been paid to create, one of Augustine's lackeys discovered my research and tried giving me the post – or rather, tried forcing it on me. When I refused to cooperate, I was thrown down here. They bound up my magic so I couldn't escape," and Jacob revealed the chainless shackles around his wrists, "and they've been slowly starving me. Sent that pile of uselessness to be my cellmate because he's already infected. I think they were hoping I'd crack and just feed off of him, which would inspire me to be more compliant."
"Wait, he's infected?"
"Yep – it's a different dog, but the same trick for the last several months now. I swear, the idiots Augustine has working for him have no imagination when it comes to getting what they want."
"Yes, well, you're lucky Augustine doesn't really care right now about a cure, or you'd be dealing with the man directly and he's got enough imagination for the rest of them," Frankie explained, speaking as if she knew from experience. She started to study the wound where Jacob had recently been impaled. "You weren't kidding when you said they were starving you. You're still bleeding."
"At least I'm not the other guy," and he motioned to the unconscious giant in front of the door, the man's neck still mangled. "Sorry about the club over the head, by the way," he added, nodding toward Dracula. "Friendly fire – happens to the best of us."
"I've endured worse," was all Vlad said, before stepping in closer to Frankie while lowering his voice. "We need to go."
"I know, but we can't just leave him here."
"Wait, this wasn't a rescue?" Jacob chimed in, seeming a bit deflated.
"Not for you," Dracula explained a bit caustically. He then turned to Frankie. "We need to move before a guard comes. That other grate will let us out into the hall."
"But we don't even know where Vivian is!" she whispered harshly. "You said she'd be here. Why isn't she here?"
"I don't know."
"We can't leave without her. We promised Isabella…"
"And no one understands the gravity of that more than I, but…"
"Hold on, sorry to interrupt," Jacob interjected once again, "but did you say Vivian? As in Princess Vivian, the werewolf?"
"This doesn't concern you," Dracula began, but the man continued anyway.
"I know where she is. I can help!"
"You're in no condition to help," Frankie insisted. "You keep bleeding out like that and you'll pass out for sure. Besides, those shackles around your wrists bind your magic. I'm sorry Jake, but at the moment, you're pretty useless."
"But you can break them off!"
"I will do nothing of the sort."
"Ah, come on, Frank!"
"I can't trust you, Jacob."
"That was over a decade ago! I swear, I've got it under control now."
"I'm sorry – magic? What magic?" Dracula inquired.
"Jacob is a warlock," Frankie explained rather impatiently. "A dangerous one at that."
"That's not very fair. You know better than anyone that what happened was an accident."
"Yeah, because you playing with dark magic and practicing necromancy was totally accidental."
"We don't have time for exposition," Vlad interrupted once again, the stress in his tone starting to become more noticeable. "The fact of the matter is, Vivian is not here as planned, which means we need to rethink our next move quickly before we are discovered. If this Jacob here says he can help, we should let him."
"New guy is right. I can totally help!"
Yet Frankie remained anything but convinced.
"Where is the princess located?" Dracula asked.
"She was in this cell until recently. They moved her to isolation five days ago for attacking a guard. Asshole totally had it coming."
"Isolation? Where is that?" Frankie inquired.
"At the end of the hall," Dracula and Jacob said in unison.
"If we can get a guard into the cell, one of you can jump him and steal his keycard so you can get into that cellblock," the latter continued.
"And you and I can go grab Vivian and then we'll all head out the way we came," Vlad finished, following the man's train of thought.
"I don't like this plan," Frankie hesitated. "There's too many variables," but then Dracula took her shoulders, bringing her gaze to his.
"I know, but right now I need you to trust me. This could be our only chance." He could tell just by looking into her eyes that she was still very unsure, greatly disliking her rapidly diminishing sense of control, but he had no time to make her feel more at ease. Returning his attention to Jacob, Vladislaus then said, "Any suggestions of attracting a guard's attention without having to gallivant down the halls?"
"I'm sure if we made more of a ruckus, they'd send one down to shut us up."
"Are you inviting me to retaliate for that club against the back of my head earlier?"
"Oh don't be stupid, you two aren't going to fight. Jacob can hardly stand as it is," Frankie intervened, standing between the two. "Mr. Leinhart, Jacob needs blood if he's going to be of any use to us. You take care of him – I'll go fetch a guard," and she began to make her way over to the hole in the ground where the trap door used to be before Dracula stopped her.
"Wait, what? I'm not going to let him feed off of me! He's your friend."
"And her blood will kill me, which is kind of counter-productive, mate," Jacob added rather absently, but before Dracula could comment or argue further, Frankie had already vanished back into the tunnel. "I don't need much – just a mouthful will do the trick."
"You're not getting a single drop out of me."
"Why not? You heard the woman – I'm useless to you guys with this gaping hole in my gut."
"It's not that simple."
"What? Do you have a thing against males sinking their fangs into you? Would it be better if we called Frankie back and had her bite you and then spit the blood into my mouth?"
The crassness had been meant as a joke, but Dracula's sense of humor was all but gone by that point. With tremendous ease, he broke the shackles from around Jacob's wrists with his bare hands and the show of strength had its intended effect.
Jacob's mouth snapped shut.
"You're not a normal vampire, are you?" he asked in quieter tones, watching as Dracula begrudgingly rolled up the sleeve of his right arm just a little before his fangs lengthened.
"I swear to you now, if you utter a single word of this to anyone, I will make you rue the day you were ever born," and then he bit into his own hand.
"I think you might be overreacting," Jacob started with a nervous laugh, but he was effectively silenced when the man pressed his bleeding palm over the man's open mouth.
The dark crimson oozed from the self-inflicted wound like oil, thick and dribbling down the smooth palm before falling into Jacob's waiting mouth. The effects were immediate. Being able to feed, even if it was just a little bit, was a heavenly release that the man was clearly grateful for.
Only that moment of relief was quick to transform into something far different when Vlad's blood slid down his throat. The instant it settled in his empty gut, a jolt of primal perception shot through his body as he rather abruptly realized – and then recognized – who was actually standing before him.
The man Frankie had called Mr. Leinhart was no Leinhart at all.
It was Dracula – the Dracula – and Jacob's eyes widened first in disbelief and then temporary horror.
He went to cry out, but Dracula's hand tightened around his mouth, muffling the sound.
Vlad's irises began to glow a frosty blue, the intense gaze offering a wordless, yet extremely effective warning as Frankie could be heard down in the tunnel, heading back.
"Get ready! One's coming!" she was whispering loudly from down below, but Jacob was still staring directly into the hypnotic gaze before him. The wheels began to turn in his head, and when he made the connection between why Frankie and Dracula would even be in the same room together, the man's brows shot up to his hairline.
Realizing now that this Jacob was all "caught up", Mr. Leinhart leaned in close, hand still over the man's mouth.
"Not one word," he said. "No one knows and I want to keep it that way. You so much as breathe a syllable, one solitary hint and I'll…" but they were interrupted as Frankie soon reappeared, climbing up through the passageway.
"One of the guards is coming. If we're going to do this, we're going to need to do it now," she announced, ignorant of the tension between the two men.
"Works for me," Jacob said a bit shakily, moving closer to Frankie as if the woman could protect him. "By the way, Frank – does new guy have a name? You haven't introduced us."
"Sorry, it completely slipped my mind. Jacob, this is Vlad Leinhart. Mr. Leinhart – Jacob Šarić."
Dracula said nothing.
He only continued to watch with hawk-like focus, even as he and Frankie took their positions out of sight of the door as an unsuspecting guard soon appeared in the hall.
It all happened rather quickly.
The guard, upon seeing the brutalized and unconscious giant on the floor of the cell, soon entered to assess the damage, unwitting of the trap that had been set for him. Once he was inside, Frankie and Vlad effectively disarmed and silenced him, taking what they needed as Jacob was left behind to more thoroughly secure the now two unconscious vampires in his cell.
Frankie followed Dracula in silence as they ran quietly down the hall in the direction of the isolation block, an area of the palace dungeons that was protected by a thick and impenetrable door. With a mere swipe of the stolen access card, however, they were able to obtain entrance and the two moved with great speed and efficiency as they took out the pair of guards near the door before locating the chamber in which Vivian had been sealed.
Upon entering, the werewolf princess gave no indication that she noticed her saviors.
She was curled in a ball in one of the far corners of the intolerantly small space, lying on the ground, half naked and filthy, her wild dark hair shielding her face from view. It was only after Frankie said her name that she made any sort of movement, the toned muscles beneath the tanned flesh of her arms and back visibly tensing as she sat up slowly before turning her head.
Vivian's eyes glowed a brilliant yellow in the depths of her private hell, Frankie and Vlad appearing like two angels who had come to rescue her, the light from the hallway shining behind them as it flooded the room. The werewolf did not recognize the woman at first – it took several long seconds of staring for the memories to stir. But before a look of hope could spread across her features, her eyes moved to that of Dracula and her brows knitted in first confusion, then an almost-recognition, yet not quite… as if she knew his face but could not place from where.
Dracula was relieved to find that the werewolf could not recognize him as he had initially feared and that his concealment charm was still working. The revelation of his true identity to one person this evening was enough for him.
"Vivian, we're here to take you home," Frankie called out, extending her hand in gentle invitation. "But we need to hurry."
The werewolf remained unmoved, though her attention had returned to the woman before her and her expression seemed to relax the longer she rested under Frankie's gaze.
There was a sudden crash down the hall in the direction of Jacob's cell and they all jumped in surprise. A single look between the rescuers and Dracula had silently excused himself to check on the noise as Frankie moved into the chamber, removing the jacket from her body in an effort to cover Vivian's exposed front.
As she tenderly, but quickly, dressed the female, the werewolf was finally able to place the face in front of her.
"Francesca?" she whispered, voice hoarse as if she hadn't uttered a word in days.
"Yes, it's me."
"But how…"
"There's no time for that. We need to get you out of here," and she began to pull the woman to her feet so she could lead her toward the door when Jacob suddenly appeared. Frankie's eyes widened. "What…. where's Leinhart?"
"In my defense, I'm really out of practice and I didn't mean to blow a hole in the wall."
"You did what?"
"The guard and Goliath were waking up! I panicked!" and in an effort to appease Frankie's worsening temper, he moved to the other side of Vivian in an effort to help in supporting her – or maybe it was so he could create a buffer.
"Where is he now?"
"Your new boyfriend is taking care of our company. Says you need to hurry."
"Oh shut up, he's not my boyfriend."
The trio moved as quickly as they could out of the isolation block and into the hall where Jacob's cell had been. They were soon to discover Vlad in the middle of a full-on brawl with three other guards. It was clear the man was outnumbered, and yet despite the assumed disadvantage, Frankie was quietly impressed to find him holding his own with remarkable ease. He fought with great proficiency and skill, with an unforgiving brute strength she had never seen the likes of before.
Every hit he took appeared to have little to no effect on him, the swiftness of his movements impressive as he viciously tore the heart out of one guard while slamming the face of another into a nearby wall. This display of violence and masculine strength turned her on unexpectedly and she had to physically shake her head in order to quash her blossoming arousal so she could focus on the task at hand.
When he realized they were approaching, Dracula made quick work of the guards, masterfully slaughtering them where they stood before straightening his posture and brushing the ash of his last kill from his shirt as if the deaths of these well-trained sentinels were more of a chore than an actual challenge. He even tucked an errant lock of his dark hair from behind his ear with the tip of his pinky finger.
"In the worlds of an old friend of mine – I do believe we've overstayed our welcome," he announced.
"Couldn't agree more," Frankie managed as they all reentered Jacob's cell, though the giant inmate and captured guard were little more than burnt husks now. Frankie sent the man a disapproving look and he shrugged.
"I told you – I panicked."
Though no words were offered in rebuke, a single look from the woman was enough.
Dracula sealed them within the cell in an attempt to slow-down the security back-up who were shortly to arrive in response to the chaos of earlier. When the door was secured, his eyes met Frankie's as she looked back at him.
While on the surface she was all steel and calm, he could tell she was not at all pleased with this turn of events.
So much for a quiet in-and-out rescue mission.
"I'm going to need you to catch her," was all she said and he understood immediately, making his way quickly through the small room before dropping down into the hole where he landed in the darkened tunnel beneath the dungeon.
When he was on more stable ground, he nodded up at the woman as she and Jacob carefully lowered a weakened Vivian down to him. He caught the she-wolf in his arms with ease, stepping out of the way so Jacob could leap down next just as the door to the small room above was thrown open with Frankie still inside.
They could not see the chaos that ensued above, but they could hear it – the angry shouts of monsters followed by blood-curdling screams, the sound of broken bones and disemboweled innards sloshing and falling to the floor, the stench of blood and something almost acidic – like chemically burned flesh.
"I think we should go," Jacob answered with a note of concern in his voice as he started to back away from the hole in the ceiling.
"I'm not leaving without her…."
A deafening roar broke out above them, echoing through the tunnel and a noted chill suddenly filled the air as all fell quiet.
"If we don't leave now, we may not be leaving at all," the man insisted knowingly.
Without warning, Frankie dropped down into the passageway, landing on all fours like a large black feline. Strands of her dark mahogany hair hung idly in her face until she peered up at the men who were watching her closely, her fangs lengthened and stained in blood, irises burning bright in the shadows like stars. What was disconcerting, however, was the way the edges of the whites of her eyes had begun to darken, as if something sinister was trying to take her over.
"Run."
The command was spoken in a voice that was not quite her own, but the others dare not question her as they turned and high-tailed it for the exit, Dracula in the lead with a weak Vivian still in his arms. As the two men helped the she-wolf down a ladder and into another tunnel system, Dracula looked back at Rémy's sister. She had her head pressed against the nearest wall, her claws digging into the rock as if she were struggling to get a hold over herself… or perhaps get a hold over something within her.
With a single punch into the stone that crumbled upon impact, the woman then reached into her pocket and removed an earpiece that she immediately turned on.
"Rémy? Rémy, come in," she said, voice strained.
There wasn't enough time to attune his ears to the ensuing conversation between brother and sister, not that Dracula needed to. He knew what part of the plan they were at, and so he dropped down into the underpass where Jacob and Vivian were waiting.
"Is she okay?"
"She said run, so we run," was all Vlad said as he lifted Vivian into his arms once again.
Soon they reached the end of the pass where the large metal door was located, the same one that the pair of rescuers had originally entered through, and once they were safe on the other side, there was a loud boom and then the earth around them began to move. The ancient beams that had been put in place to hold the earth up above started to crack and splinter under the pressure as loosened rocks and dirt began to shift and then fall.
"The tunnel… it's going to collapse!"
"Come on, Francesca… where are you?" Dracula whispered to the air as the channel on the other side of the door started to cave in before his eyes.
As if the mere utterance of her name had caused her to materialize, Frankie appeared at the far end of the crumbling corridor. She attempted to make a run for the exit, but the falling rocks hindered her progress and for the briefest of moments, Vlad was gripped by the terrifying notion that he was about to watch his betrothed be buried alive. He placed Vivian down on the ground, ready to run in after the woman when Jacob suddenly stepped forward to assist.
With the outstretching of his hands, a blinding green light began to emanate from the man's palms. In an instant, a huge gust of wind from some source unknown tore through the shaft of the tunnel as an invisible force field of magic, light pulsating from Jacob's being before it expanded outward, clearing the tumbling boulders from Frankie's path.
Dracula reached out his hand as if doing so would bring her closer to him and just before the entire ceiling could collapse on her head, the woman took one giant leap forward and through the door.
The force of the rock-fall and her own momentum sent her crashing straight into Vlad. The pair fell to the ground as a thick cloud of dust and debris exploded through the open door from the now caved-in passageway, enveloping them all, and then the chaos turned to sudden calm.
It took a while for the atmosphere to clear, the sound of Vivian and Jacob in particular coughing as a result of inhaling the polluted air.
Yet Frankie and Vlad were utterly silent.
The woman had collided with the man with such force, they had both tumbled to the ground as a result, but at the climax of the commotion, Dracula had rolled them over so he could shield her with his body from any falling debris. They were now laying in the dirt, face to face, his body on top of hers, no words passing between them as they stared into one another's eyes.
When the initial shock and relief had passed, a sweet tension began to swelter and bloom between them the longer they lied in this fashion. It was the closest they had ever been to one another and as Dracula became more and more aware of how her softness felt beneath him, the temptation to lean in and steal a kiss from those tantalizingly breathless lips was almost more than he could bear.
"Don't you just love it when a plan comes together?" he whispered, the faintest hint of a smile causing the corners of his mouth to twitch just slightly. Frankie rolled her eyes and hit his chest with her fist in response and he grunted and then laughed. "Obviously not."
"None of that was at all according to plan," she informed him.
"True," he mused, "but we made it out alive…"
"And with one extra prisoner liberated than intended," and they both turned to look at Jacob who was rubbing an ache out of his neck, having not noticed the couple's intimate positioning just yet. "Rémy is not going to be happy about this."
"Why not? Who is he?"
Frankie didn't answer right away.
Instead, she gently pressed her hands against the man's chest, silently requesting he get off of her and he complied, moving to his feet before offering his hand to assist her up. When they were both standing, the woman sighed with a shake of her head.
"That's our brother-in-law."