Well, there goes the month of August. *sighhhhhhhhh*
I hope everyone is doing well. Here in CA, we're still baking in the outrageous heat and choking on smoke, as per usual, and a huge portion of one of my favorite National Parks in the northern part of the state went up in flames recently - and if that's not a perfect encapsulation of how I feel about life these days, I don't know what does! lol But at least me and mine are safe, and for that I am grateful. In fact, in spite of the fact that so much of the world is literally and figuratively on fire these days, there's still much to be grateful for and I'm trying very hard to focus on that.
Like you lovely readers! And you glorious people who take the time to review (especially consistently). Y'all are real ones and I adore you. Speaking of which, many thanks to Scarlet Empress, She-Devil Red, inkmagpie, and ameh. rae. 16 for reviewing over the weekend. I know it's such a small thing to do, but it really does mean so much.
All the Dracula-shaped cookies for you.
Forgive any errors I may have overlooked. I am a fallible mortal.
CW: PTSD, references to past trauma/abuse and murder of a loved one
Copyright © 2021 TSM. All rights reserved.
Chapter 9
Quid Pro Quo
This clearly caught the attention of the others who all looked on with rapt attention, awaiting further explanation, but before Frankie could elaborate further, they were interrupted by a knock at the door.
Zeke peeked his head through.
"I hope I'm not interrupting."
"Not at all!" Tempest called out. "It actually is getting quite interesting."
"Talk about perfect timing. Oh! And look who I found wandering through the halls…" and he opened the door more fully to reveal Niklaus standing in the corridor behind him.
Tempest was on her feet in an instant as she shouted her brother's name before racing across the room and leaping into the man's arms. She would have tackled him to the floor in her excitement had it not been for the wall behind him.
When he placed her back down on her feet, she smacked the side of his head abruptly, much to the surprise of Frankie, though the others all laughed at this.
"You idiot!" Tempest shouted at him. "I cannot believe you would do that!"
"What did he do?" Francesca asked Jack quietly, not wishing to interrupt the moment, but the three in the hall had heard her.
"This fool of a brother of mine thought it would be clever to break into the palace archives without any back-up whatsoever!" Zeke explained, shoving the man into the room with a smile as Tempest led him toward the sofa by the arm, directing him to sit down between her and Louise.
"You did what?"
"Guilty as charged. But believe me, it was well worth the risk," and Niklaus pulled a folded piece of paper out of the inside pocket of his jacket, placing it in the center of the table.
"You got it," Louise breathed in disbelief, squeezing his hand as Frankie unfolded the parchment. "You actually got it."
"Of course I did!" he exclaimed, beaming with pride as Tempest reached into a pocket of her own to pull out another piece of paper with what appeared to be a sigil of sorts sketched into the center. She placed it on the table next to the page he had clearly torn from a book.
"So my drawing was a little off," she admitted, "but I got this part right. See?"
"Yes, but we need to confirm the rest; and the book I pulled this from had been damaged, so part of the actual sigil is still missing."
"So we still don't know if my drawing is accurate?"
"Sadly not, but we're closer than we were before."
"So what does it say?" Jack chimed in. "I don't recognize this language at all."
"Your guess is as good as mine," his brother admitted, leaning back in his seat on the sofa between his two sisters.
Louise wrapped her arms around him, appearing to be near tears all of a sudden as she buried her face into his shoulder.
"What you did was very, very stupid, Nicco."
"I know… you're welcome, Lou," and he kissed her brow affectionately as Ezekiel dragged over another chair so he could join the group by the fire.
Meanwhile, Frankie had begun to study the two pages in silence, committing what she saw to memory. It was true, the text on the page Niklaus had stolen from the palace archives was unfamiliar to her, but she recognized the sigil from somewhere. It was a kind of circular brand with unfamiliar runes along its edge.
"My apologies again for interrupting, Francesca," Zeke interrupted, pulling Frankie's attention away from the curious pieces of paper.
"Oh, it's quite all right… what are these?"
"We can get to that in a moment. I believe you were saying something before we came barging in."
"That's right! Did you know that Francesca is la sirène?" Tempest told her older brother excitedly.
"So that wasn't just some fairytale Mariella made up?" the man replied, getting more comfortable in his chair, though the knowing look he sent Jack suggested that he was already aware of this piece of information.
"Apparently it was based in fact," Louise explained with a curious look sent in the direction of her father's intended. "Francesca was about to explain why she ran from Father that night. Something about how he made her feel."
Frankie could feel herself blushing.
"This conversation has gotten completely off track," she insisted, delicately trying to bring the focus back to Tempest's interview and perhaps even to the mysterious page produced by Niklaus, but to no avail. She could tell just from the looks she was receiving that a change of subject was out of the question. Frankie sighed in defeat. "There's really not much to tell," she maintained. "We met at a masque. We danced, we kissed, I ran, he never pursued, and that was the end of it."
"Hardly," Louise replied without missing a beat. "If I remember the story correctly, you kissed him first."
"So?" Frankie defended.
"So… why did you do it?"
"It seemed like a good idea at the time," she answered unconvincingly, suddenly quite captivated by her cuticle situation.
"Bullshit," Niklaus insisted with a laugh. "Come on… we've all heard Father's side of things. I'd like to hear it from the woman that was actually present. Not the second-hand account we got from Mariella and Antón."
"This interview is supposed to be for Tempest," Frankie reminded them, "not me."
"Oh, who cares about me?" the girl insisted with a wave of her hand. "You'll absorb my memories by the end of the night anyway. I want to hear about how you and Father met!"
"So do I," Niklaus insisted.
Frankie looked to Jack for support, but the man merely folded his arms over his chest, the most self-satisfied smirk she had ever seen situated perfectly on his face. He and Zeke were the only ones that knew she was already in contact with Vlad, but it was Jack who had most of the details – undoubtedly retrieved from Bernardini, if her suspicions were at all accurate. So why was he suddenly so eager to have her tell her side of the Venice story?
She knew the answer to that question before the words could finishing skidding across her brain.
He wanted her to tell it because he knew the kind of power saying the words out loud would have. If she confessed her attraction to Vladislaus, the pull she had felt from the very start, it would make it real and she would then be forced to acknowledge what she was feeling for him now, what she was trying so desperately to ignore.
Her eyes narrowed a little in his direction at his clever move. Who knew the man had such a meddlesome streak in him!
"Very well," she conceded. "Where would you like me to start?"
"Why were you in Venice?" Louise asked first.
"My family were members of French nobility and when we were turned, we made a number of enemies. We were taking sanctuary in Italy with my aunt's family – although, if I recall correctly, Rémy was still in France at the time."
"Who's Rémy?"
"Her brother," Jack explained.
"I had been a vampire for just under thirty years at the time, but given the life I had had before my transition, it was like I was experiencing the world anew for the first time. My cousin, Alayna, and I had longed to attend the annual carnival in Venice for ages and so that year, we chose to go. We acquired lodgings in the city with a friend, and attended the masquerade at the Doge's Palace the following evening."
"Uncle Antón had said that Father had found you feeding on one of the guests in some darkened corner," Tempest interjected, apparently eager to get to the good part.
"That is true," Frankie confirmed, trying to keep herself from getting too lost in the memory, but it was proving difficult. She was astonished at how well she could recall the events – the setting, the guests… Vlad moving through the room toward her, convinced he was going unnoticed. The recollection made her smile a little.
"So he noticed you first?" Niklaus prompted.
"No, actually, I noticed him almost as soon as he entered the room," she confessed. "He had smelled the blood of my little midnight snack almost instantly and I had watched him move across the dance floor in search of the source."
"And then he asked you to dance?" Tempest inquired.
"After I had rejoined the party, yes. He was refreshingly forthright, effortlessly charming. I agreed to dance with him and soon one dance became several."
"What did you think of him? Did you like him?"
"It was very difficult not to," Frankie admitted, eyes staring at nothing in particular as the music from several lifetimes ago began to play in her head. "He was quick witted, intelligent, captivating. Conversing with him was as natural and intuitive as our dancing. Where he led, I followed on instinct, and yet he never once talked down to me as if I were his lesser – a practice so many noble men engaged in at the time. I could sense his more dominant sensibilities in the way he carried himself, but he remained respectful during our tête-à-tête."
"So what happened?" Louise asked, attention transfixed as Frankie unwittingly closed her eyes, surrendering to the reminiscence.
"It was during the allemande," she recalled with a sudden wistfulness. "There was something about him, the way he looked at me. Despite our concealed identities, it was as if he could see me, beyond the masks and the pretense and the double-entendres. Every time I fell under his gaze I felt almost laid bare, and every touch inspired thoughts and sensations I had never experienced before. A mere half hour in his presence, and everything I had learned about the inherent power struggle between the sexes, how to manipulate and control one's intended prey, how to avoid becoming a victim yourself… one look and it was gone and I found myself surrendering without ever intending to."
She opened her eyes shortly after the confession escaped her lips, but she was no longer in lycan territory with the Dracul Sânge as her rapt audience.
She was in Venice again, in the arms of Vladislaus, thrilled to her very core and absolutely terrified all at once.
"The feeling overwhelmed me, so I ran, but I didn't get far. I felt the loss of his presence almost immediately and when I turned to see that he had chased after me, it was like I was no longer the creature my maker had intended me to be. I wasn't la sirène; for a moment, I was Francesca again… I was Léonide. I followed him as he searched for me, unable to stop myself from doing so, as though I was helplessly drawn to him. The next thing I knew, we were in some dark alcove near the canals and I was kissing him and then he was kissing me and I knew nothing else… wanted nothing else."
Her words lingered heavily in the air as the remainder of the scene played out in her mind's eye – their playful banter and subtle struggle for dominance, the flirting, the promises of pleasure and an invitation for more. But it had been when he had commanded her to tell him who she was that she had realized his true identity, had felt and recognized the power radiating from him.
"I panicked," she continued. "I could feel myself spiraling and so in a desperate effort to regain control over myself…"
"You snapped his neck and ran," Louise finished, the words sounding a little more accusatory than she had intended, and she shrank a little when her brothers all sent her disapproving looks.
"I did," Frankie admitted with solemnity. "I ran and have seemed incapable of doing otherwise ever since."
The silence that hung in the air proved deafening as those present took in the recent revelations. Jack was the first to speak.
"So what happens now?" he asked Frankie expectantly. The woman sighed, leaning back further into her seat, elbows resting on the cushioned armrests as her hands remained folded in her lap.
"I don't know," she confessed. "I'm certainly more open to establishing a rapport with your Father than I was almost a year ago when these conferences of ours first began," she answered carefully this time, aware that not everyone present knew that she and Dracula were already well-acquainted, "but the issue of my blood condition and a host of other complications remain unaddressed."
"But what if we could find a cure?" Jack asked with eagerness, much to the surprise of everyone else in the room, including Frankie who looked up at him with guarded astonishment. "Antón in particular has been looking for some kind of way to undo the damage Augustine inflicted on you for months now."
"I appreciate the attempt, Jack, but my own family has been searching for such a cure for almost two centuries with absolutely no success," Frankie answered. "What was done to me cannot be undone. I reconciled myself with that fact a long time ago."
"But there has to be a way to fix it," he insisted. "You cannot become blood-bound to him unless we find a cure first."
"That's if I choose to be blood-bound to him at all," she reminded him. "I may be open to the notion of establishing a relationship with Dracula, but prophecy or no prophecy, I refuse to eternally bind myself to someone unless it's something I want to do, unless it feels right. You can't undo a blood-bond once it's been made. You of all people should understand that," and she motioned to the rest of his siblings. "And because there is absolutely zero chance of a binding being made in the first place, it would be cruel to nurture hope when there is none."
"But Jack's right! What if we could find a way?" Tempest asked. "Would you do it? Would you give Father a chance?"
Frankie's thoughts immediately turned to Vlad and her heart ached.
Dracula was no longer some abstract concept to her anymore… he was an actual person, a man whom she had feelings for, try as she might to deny them. She knew the answer to Tempest's question the instant it was asked.
Of course she would give Vlad a chance.
If there was hope that they could see a relationship through, she would do it in a heartbeat. But that was the crux of the dilemma – there was no hope.
Even if they got to know each other in the way she wanted, if he had come to know her and love her as she was, and she him, they would be doomed to a life of unfulfillment and dissatisfaction, never able to enjoy the pinnacle of intimacy so often pursued by their kind. She considered herself too damaged, and as much as she was loathed to admit it, Louise had been right in her previously made judgments.
As far as Frankie was concerned, Vlad had a right to everything she could not give him.
She knew the devastation that would come if she let him in, the disappointment they'd both face when it came time to consummate their devotion to one another not just physically, but in blood. If he were just some average vampire, maybe she could make the same excuses for him that she had made for others in the past, but he wasn't just an ordinary vampire.
He was a king.
"I'd want to," Frankie answered at last, and though the Dracul Sânge were pleased with her response, the way in which Jack and Zeke exchanged knowing looks was not lost to her.
"We want to help you, Francesca," Vlad's eldest son explained. "And we may have the means to do so. If we find a way to either cure or work around this particular obstacle, will you give us your word that you'll at least try to make things work with our Father – even in the interim, if the opportunity arises?"
Zeke tacked the last bit on quickly before Jack could smack his arm to shut him up.
"I'll consider it," Frankie answered carefully. "That is all I can give you at this time."
"I suppose that is all we can ask for," he replied with a shrug and he looked to his younger brother to continue the conversation.
"That leaves us with one more favor to ask of you – and the reason why we're all here this evening," Jack announced, resting his hand on Tempest's knee before giving it a reassuring squeeze. The young woman began to fidget somewhat in her seat, suddenly taking on an appearance of anxiety, but originating from where, Frankie couldn't quite be sure.
"Francesca," Tempest began a little timidly before swallowing hard and squaring her shoulders, "You may recall an event that had taken place nearly forty years ago shortly after the final war. An event involving my siblings."
"Yes – the rumor that you had all been assassinated by some unknown enemy of your father, though it's clear that was a falsehood."
"In part, yes. When you absorbed the memories of my brothers and my sister, do you recall the events surrounding that rumor?"
Frankie thought for a moment.
"I know Augustine was involved, but there was nothing to be seen. The memories are dark. I confess, I haven't had a chance to work out all of the details yet."
"Perhaps I can help with that," Tempest replied and she leaned forward with her elbows on her knees, eyes momentarily fixed on the two pieces of paper on the coffee table between the sofa and the chair in which Frankie was seated. "We had been summoned by Uncle Marcus to our old home in the Carpathians under false pretenses. Each of us were poisoned with a cocktail of what we later learned was werewolf venom and a flower called vervain, which has been known to be quite toxic to our kind if taken in large amounts. Fortunately the dose we were given wasn't enough to do any lasting damage, but it did render us incapacitated, some more so than others."
"What happened?"
"We were bound and blindfolded and taken to a room where Uncle Marcus was waiting for us."
"Why did he want you blindfolded?"
"Because he didn't want us to see this," and she motioned to the drawing she had revealed earlier upon Niklaus' arrival. "He explained to us that Father's days were numbered and in order to ensure a smooth transition of power, we needed to be out of the picture. He insisted that he didn't want to harm us, but promised he would if we disobeyed. So, to ensure our cooperation, he had us branded with this hex," and she pointed to the torn out page her brother had risked his neck to retrieve. "To make sure we couldn't undo the hex, which simulates a break of our blood-bond, he had us blindfolded so we couldn't identify the brand… therefore, denying us the hope of ever having it removed, rendering the separation – for all intents and purposes – permanent."
Tempest's gaze fell to the floor as she began to ring her hands, breath catching in her throat as tears began to pool at her lower lash line. Jack tenderly rubbed the back of her neck in reassurance, but the feeling of safety his touch ensured only seemed to cause the tears to tumble more freely down her cheeks.
"He branded Zeke first, then Jack and Louise. By the time he got to Niklaus, I could feel Father calling for us through our mental link. Hal cried out for him, managing to remove his blindfold enough to see the brand on Nicco's flesh before it healed and vanished. Because we were twins, I was able to tap into his mind to see what he was seeing, but before either of us could communicate with Father what was happening…"
Her voice trailed off, lower lip quivering as she covered her mouth with her hand. Louise was now curled up in Niklaus' arms, both fighting back tears themselves as Jack and Ezekiel both wore hardened expressions.
"Augustine had my brother beheaded," Tempest managed after much deliberation, voice cracking with a suppressed sob. "Murdered without a second thought or hesitation. In a matter of seconds, I had felt him there and then he was gone, our connection severed… and then I too was branded and I could no longer feel my Father either."
"Marcus explained that the hex would not only imitate the breaking of our bond," Jack continued on his sister's behalf, "but that because it had been sealed with Father's blood, if we were ever within a certain radius of his person, the brand would be activated and we would risk true death if the exposure was prolonged or if we fell under his gaze, even for just a second. It's why we had to disappear, why we've been in hiding ever since. We can't run the risk of crossing paths with him."
Frankie's expression was grave as she took in all that she had heard, her heart breaking at the sight of Tempest's tears, even as the young woman bravely wiped them away from her cheeks.
"So that explains your collective absence over the last four decades, but I don't quite understand why you couldn't just tell Dracula what had happened – either in the form of a letter or why Bernardini, for instance, never told him. To keep something like that a secret… it seems so needlessly cruel."
"Unfortunately, Marcus has always had a knack for being extremely thorough. The hex covers that as well," Zeke explained. "As Jack mentioned, the iron in which the brand was cast was soaked in Father's blood as a means of sealing the spell. And because it was his blood that was used, he, too, has been cursed – without even realizing it."
"Cursed in what way?"
"The knowledge of our survival – if confirmed by one he trusts – would incite in him an irrepressible need to locate those with the brand," he replied, the words sounding as if he was quoting them from somewhere. "A kind of madness that he would not be able to break from until those marked had been discovered."
"So, us," Niklaus translated. "We can't make contact with him and he can't make contact with us without risking our collective destruction," and he motioned to his siblings.
"It was the perfect way to ensure our cooperation," Jack continued. "The illusion of our blood-bond breaking would convince Father that we had tasted of true death, and the hex would make certain that it would stay that way. And to make it more poetic, if you will, we would be alive and right under his nose the entire time."
"That's sadistic," Frankie whispered in disbelief.
"That's Marcus Augustine," Jack replied.
"He knew it would never be enough to just kill us like he did with Hal," Tempest clarified. "He didn't just want Father to suffer, he wanted us to suffer as well – to live forever away from the one person we all love most, with no means of contact. And if we were caught, it would force Father to endure the pain of losing us all over again, only it would be real and therefore ten times worse."
Frankie muttered an oath under her breath in her mother tongue, her inner demon stirring as a familiar anger began to boil beneath the surface.
Marcus Augustine.
The suffering of so many, herself included, always seemed to lead back to him the way all roads in that old adage led back to Rome. But these men and women before her – the Dracul Sânge, blood-bound heirs to Dracula's throne, his children… his children.
The empathy she felt in the face of their torment – being denied access to the father they clearly loved more than anything. Frankie had never quite grasped the risk they were all taking until tonight – not just by being here in the city, but in their efforts to bring her and Vladislaus together.
Although a part of her wanted to believe that their motives perhaps extended beyond the prophecy and their own desire for Augustine's destruction, in that moment, she understood perfectly well their desire to put an end to this monster's reign of terror.
This was so much bigger than herself now.
The alliance, the prophecy and her role in it… all of it paled in comparison to the fight the Dracul Sânge had been waging for nearly forty years.
The fight to get back to their father.
Frankie would have given anything to see her own father again, as well as her mother – both of whom had been taken cruelly from her by the same man who had sadistically torn these five souls from Dracula.
She may not have been able to perfectly understand the grief they felt specifically, but it was easy to imagine when she compared it to her own.
"What would you have me do?" she asked after a moment of deliberated silence.
"First, we need your help in completing the sketch of the sigil," Jack explained, pointing to the page Niklaus had retrieved. "As you can see, the one from the book is incomplete and though Tempi has done her best to recreate it…"
"I'm not the best artist," Tempest finished a little sheepishly. "And the memories are so old, I'm having more and more trouble recalling the details."
"That should be easy enough once I absorb your memories," Frankie replied. "What do we do once we complete the drawing?"
"We'll need to decipher the text, and that's where we'll need your help the most," Jack continued. "I have it on good authority that your brother-in-law has been practicing magic for nearly four centuries?"
"You mean Jacob? How do you know about him?" Her eyes seemed to move instinctually to Zeke who smiled. "Oh, that's right. I keep forgetting you're married to Isabella."
"It certainly has its perks."
"Well, yes, Jake practices magic, but I haven't been in contact with him for months. I do know someone who has, though. Shouldn't be too difficult to track him down."
"Wait… your brother is married?" Louise asked, evidently having trouble drawing the connections between Frankie's relatives.
"What? No, Rémy has never been… oh, you mean to Jacob? No, no… Jacob was married to my sister, Margot."
"You have a sister, too?" Tempest asked with noted interest.
"Had," Frankie corrected. "She died when I was still mortal."
"Oh… oh, god, I'm so sorry. I didn't know."
Francesca smiled reassuringly but said nothing.
"Can he be trusted? This brother-in-law of yours?" Louise continued.
"With the basics, yes. I can make inquiries; see if he can even translate it in the first place, though I can't speak to how long that will take. This looks like very dark magic and last time he and I spoke, he told me he had given this particular brand up over a decade ago."
"If he can help us in any way, either directly or by pointing us to another reliable source, we'd be grateful," Jack admitted. "Once we've deciphered the text, hopefully what we need to break the curse will already be provided on the page and we can move from there."
"I'll see what I can do."
"Good. Thank you, Francesca. This means a lot to us."
Frankie leaned forward to switch off the digital voice recorder, which was still situated on the coffee table between them. After returning it to her coat pocket, she rose from her chair.
"Now then… let's see if we can complete that drawing, shall we?" she announced, looking to Tempest who was watching her expectantly.
"Do you have a syringe with you?" Jack inquired, referring to the serum she had needed administered to her person the last handful of times she had conducted these interviews. But Frankie shook her head "no" as she moved to sit on the edge of the coffee table directly in front of Tempest.
"I won't need that tonight," she assured him, extending her hand to the youngest Dracul in invitation while holding the young woman's gaze. She took a deep, cleansing breath to steady her nerves and quiet her mind, despite Jack's continued questions.
"Are you sure? What if you lose control?"
"I won't."
"But if you do…"
"Then you lock me in this room and go get Tristan. He'll know what to do… but it won't be necessary," and she paused as Tempest's comparatively smaller hand slid atop her outstretch palm. She then rested her free hand over the woman's, encasing it gently as she continued to hold her stare, gently reaching with her mind for Tempest's conscious thoughts.
"Francesca…" Jack persisted, but she shushed him.
"I'll be fine. Tempest, can you feel me reaching?"
"Yes."
"Good… don't be nervous."
"I'm not. I'm ready."
As if the invitation were the magic words, Frankie felt the floodgates of Tempest's conscious and subconscious mind break open as a lifetime of memories poured for to saturate her brain.
As expected, it was a lot less traumatic than the others had been, undoubtedly because the female was still so young in comparison to her siblings, and the majority of her immortal existence had been surprisingly pleasant. Frankie absorbed these memories with ease, the images and scenes and emotions all flashing in rapid succession before her eyes.
The key was not to focus too hard on what she was taking in. She could always go back and revisit if she needed to, but right now she had to save her energy for one memory in particular.
Soon enough, Tempest's timeline began to catch up with the present and when the events previously described by the young woman and her siblings arrived, Frankie had to force the vision to slow down to a more digestible pace so she could take in as much of the details as she could.
She could see it in her mind's eye – Castle Dracula – a fortress of blackened rock and ice, hidden in the snow-covered peaks of the Carpathians in the wilds of old-world Transylvania. They were all there – the Dracul Sânge – summoned under false pretenses before they had been drugged by a man they believed they could trust. Seeing Marcus Augustine through Tempest's eyes triggered something in Frankie and she could feel her dark passenger beginning to rouse in recognition of the one who had brought it forth in the first place. It took a tremendous degree of will and energy to suppress her own memories so she could focus on Tempest's, and while the task proved difficult, she managed to subdue her inner beast.
Frankie waited patiently through Augustine's villainous tirade, the sound and stench of the red-hot iron searing the flesh of first Zeke, then Jack, and then Louise.
Then it came. The moment of truth.
Through Tempest's memories, she was able to witness the mental link between her and her twin brother Hal as he managed to remove his blindfold just as the branding iron came down on Niklaus' naked back. She struggled to ignore the man's shouts of pain, fixating on the bubbling skin and the awful markings that temporarily marred his flesh. Augustine was not alone in this endeavor, however, and Frankie felt the bile rise in her throat as her eyes fell upon a series of familiar faces she thought she'd never have to see again.
The Fraternitatem et Sanguis.
Brotherhood of Blood – an order of men and women brought together for the sole purpose of putting an end to Dracula's reign.
They had been the ones who, under Augustine's order, had murdered her parents and taken her prisoner. They had been the ones who had tortured her, who had mutilated her flesh, drained her of blood, and violated her mind and body in ways that had left her irreparably scarred by the end of it. Frankie's own trauma began to take hold as memories she had long suppressed came flooding to her conscious mind, at first blending with Tempest's recollections before they overcame them completely.
Frankie could recall how after her escape from Augustine's clutches, the vast majority of the brotherhood had been disbanded, hunted and destroyed by her maker, Eduardo de Meirás, and her brother, Rémy. But two of the original members had survived – Marcus Augustine, and one of the first men who had been appointed to the council after Dracula went under –
Council member Krisztian Sokolov.
The man who had behead Hal… and with the same sword he had used to behead Frankie's father almost two hundred years ago.
In a moment of frightening clarity, Frankie was able to experience the loss of Tempest's connection with her brother, the agonizingly painful snap and then nothingness as the sound of his recently severed head hit the cold, stone ground before his lifeless body fell forward only to dissipate into ash and bone. The pain Tempest had experienced was another thing Frankie had not been entirely prepared for. That ache rekindled in Francesca a host of other suppressed memories from long before Augustine and Dracula and her life as a vampire.
Now intertwining with Tempest's grief was a crystal clear recollection of the night Frankie had lost her sister. She had received a letter from her well-intentioned cousin, Alayna, with the news, and it had left her devastated. But what made it all the worse was when the stress of the loss caused her to miscarry the child within her – her husband's heir.
Feelings Frankie had kept buried for centuries were suddenly resurfacing – the pain, the anguish, the isolation, the fear.
With a sudden jolt, she was torn from the memories and thrust back into reality. She gasped for air as if she had just come back to life and in an effort to create distance between herself and Tempest, Frankie flung herself away, grabbing hold of the mantle of the fireplace as her inner demon scratched and clawed angrily inside of her like some kind of animal, feeding on the negative energy that had temporarily hijacked her brain.
She struggled to reclaim control over herself, to bury the memories even as they fought to break free from their prisons, but it was difficult. Tempest's pain had been exquisite and so very reminiscent of the kind of suffering Frankie knew too well.
The loss of a sibling.
The loss of a parent.
A severed link that could never be restored.
Frankie could feel the devastation turn to fear as for the first time in decades, she stood face to face with her past, unable to escape it. She could see him with her waking eyes, even as she stared hard into the wall in front of her.
Alphonse de Châlon, Duke of Nivernais.
The husband who had shaped her in more ways than she would ever dare admit.
She could hear the echoes of her mortal self as she wept for mercy, could see the ghosts of memory – her shadowed-self struggling to escape his drunken rage, desperately hiding in some remote corner of the house, tears streaming down her cheeks as she tried to keep him out. But he was stronger. He had always been stronger than her.
Augustine had been stronger than her, too.
Frankie shuddered violently as she clenched her eyes shut, gripping the mantle of the fireplace so tightly that the wood began to splinter beneath her fingers. Her chest grew tight with a familiar anxiety as a wave of nausea swept over her, breaths coming out in short, panicked gasps.
"You can't hurt me anymore…," she whispered harshly in her native tongue, the words spoken behind gritted teeth as she forcefully buried the memories of not only Augustine, but Alphonse deep down. Down, down, down. "You can't hurt me anymore. You can't hurt me anymore," she continued to say, her tone becoming more emphatic as she clung to the mantra, desperate to regain control and quiet her demon. "No more… no more… no more."
It took at least a whole minute before she could begin to steady herself, taking in a deep and slow breath, relieved when her dark passenger finally submitted to her inner pleas before settling back down as all thoughts of the past were frantically compartmentalized and locked away once more.
When the task was complete, Frankie became aware of the tears she had been unconsciously shedding, her cheeks stained in rusting trails of fear and anger. Remembering that she was not alone, she brushed them away quickly before straightening suddenly, though she kept her back to the five pairs of eyes that continued to watch her expectantly.
"I'm all right," she said aloud – though the reassurance was more for herself than it was for anyone else. "I'm all right."
Despite her assertions, however, the tension in the room only seemed to be steadily increasing the longer she stood there. No one dared to utter a word and she was too embarrassed to turn to face them. So, to at least make herself useful, she turned on her heel and made her way over to the old desk at the other end of the room in search of a pen. Upon finding one, she extracted a blank sheet of paper and proceeded to draw the sigil from Tempest's memories in its exactness, from the runic shapes on its edge, to their precise location in relation to the pentagram in the center.
When she was finished, Frankie placed the pen down on the desk and stared hard at the sketch before her in a feeble attempt to distract herself from the eyes she could still feel lingering on her person.
"This is the sigil that was branded onto each of you," she explained, eyes still downcast.
"Francesca," Jack called out, but she continued to look down, unwilling to meet his gaze or acknowledge the apprehension in his tone.
"The runes look to be of some Nordic variation. They also appear to cluster around each of the five points of the pentagram."
"Francesca," he said again, the worry in his voice unmistakable.
She tried once more to brush off his concern, but even she could hear the wavering in her voice. She struggled to blink away the tears now welling in her eyes before they could tumble down her cheeks.
"It's very possible that the sigil itself can tell us what was used to create the hex in the first place, or maybe even a way to break the curse. I can't be sure until I get this to Jacob."
"Francesca, you're shaking."
Frankie looked down at her hands to find that she was indeed trembling.
Balling them into tight fists, she pressed her knuckles down into the desk slowly, desperately fighting to control her emotions.
"I'm all right," she said once again, but not even she believed her words that time.
Jack and Louise exchanged glances.
"I know PTSD when I see it," Louise called out gently, the first to step forward as she moved around the sofa, stopping somewhere halfway between its back and the desk. "You were muttering something in French… You can't hurt me anymore."
"What did you see, Francesca?"
The woman's attempt at taking a deep breath failed as a sob caught in her throat, leaving her to shudder somewhat. She pressed her fist down into the desk again, rapping it lightly, eyes still cast down.
"I saw the man who murdered your brother," she said, feeling those stubborn tears still prickling in her eyes. "I- I recognized him."
"You mean Krisztian?" Tempest asked. "Yes – we all know who he is. He's on Augustine's council."
"It's not just that. He, umm…" She paused, feeling her voice waver and she cleared her throat roughly. "He's a member of a secret brotherhood Augustine organized in the early part of the twentieth century – the Fraternitatem et Sanguis. Their mission was to put an end to the reign of your father. After I managed to escape from Augustine, my brother and my maker organized a small group of close friends and family members and they were able to disband the brotherhood save the two most important members who were beyond their reach: Marcus and Krisztian. Krisztian killed your brother with the same blade that took my father's life. It just… it reminded me of…"
Her voice trailed off, a single tear managing to escape its lashed prison. She brushed it away quickly.
"I'm sorry… Seeing him behead Hal immediately reminded me of the way he had killed my father and it was just all downhill from there," and she forced out a small chuckle in some vain hope that smiling would keep her from breaking down further.
Fortunately, it worked just enough to give her the courage she needed to tear her eyes away from the desk and she finally looked up at her captivated little audience, their expressions all quite solemn and grave.
"I'm fine. I promise."
The explanation, though it did nothing to alleviate the tension in the room, seemed to appease the curiosity of the others, which made them more receptive to a change in topic as Frankie brought their attention back to her drawing.
"So this is your sigil," she repeated, clearing her throat roughly as she placed her hands on her hips. "I think it would be prudent to make copies just to be safe – of this and the actual page itself. I can then have Lyra track Jake down and get him started on deciphering the text right away."
"We'd all appreciate it," Zeke said.
"Very good. Well then, I guess this meeting is adjourned! How much longer will you be in Budapest?"
"Not much longer," Jack replied. "We need make our way out soon," and he looked to his eldest brother who appeared rather disappointed. "You should probably let Isabella know that we're done."
"Yes. She should still be with the elders for another couple of hours, but I'll make sure she knows we're heading out."
"And thank her for lending us the space to meet all together," Tempest called out as Zeke returned the chair he had been sitting in back to its proper place by the wall. "This was nice – having everyone together like this."
"It was," Frankie agreed, offering a gentle smile as she watched the eldest Dracul place an affectionate kiss on his youngest sister's brow, a silent sign of gratitude for her goodness. He then turned to Frankie, expression full of appreciation.
"We owe you a great deal of thanks as well, Francesca," he replied. "I can only imagine how difficult all of this has been for you, and you've handled it all with the strength and forbearance befitting of a queen." Zeke crossed the threshold of the room in a matter of strides before he carefully took her face in his hands, bringing her gaze to his. "Let Jack and I worry about the logistics," he whispered. "In the meantime, give him a chance. Give yourself a chance. We'll find a way around this. I promise."
He then kissed her brow and made his way to the door.
"Jack – have them ready to go by the time I get back."
"Will do."
And with that, the man left the room.
His departure seemed to prompt the farewells of the others, first from Tempest, who had nothing but the highest praise to offer, and then Niklaus who cordially kissed Frankie's hand. The siblings then slipped out into the hall, announcing that they were off to give their farewells to their niece, leaving Frankie alone with Louise and Jack, the latter busying himself with idly straightening up the room and fluffing a pillow or two.
Louise rolled her eyes a little in his direction, knowing perfectly well that he was stalling, but with a sigh and a look in Frankie's direction, her face softened as she proceeded to make her way over to her father's intended.
"I believe I owe you an apology for the way I behaved when we last met," Frankie began, but the blonde was quick to interject.
"It was my fault," she insisted, her poised visage falling faintly as evidence of her dejection. "My behavior to you at the time was unpardonable. I should not have been so quick to pass adverse judgment, nor should I have been so vicious. I'm heartily ashamed of myself."
Frankie smiled a little.
"Well, you'll recall I didn't exactly take your condemnation lying down," she pointed out with a faint sparkle in her eye and though it allowed Louise to relax some, the woman persisted.
"But you wouldn't have had the need to defend yourself if I had not attacked you without provocation."
"In your eyes, I am unworthy of your father," she reminded her. "And while I'm not entirely disposed to the sentiment, I do recognize that you were merely trying to protect him."
"That's still no excuse."
"No, it's not," she agreed. "But I understand now where you were coming from and I don't hold it against you. Do I condone your actions? Certainly not. But I have long since forgiven you, Louise. I only hope you can forgive me for my short temper, as well as my many other failings."
"There is nothing to forgive." Louise's countenance softened as relief seemed to overcome her. "As you can see, I healed just fine," and she motioned to her flawless cheek before continuing. "I am grateful for your pardon, Miss Chase… I mean, Francesca," she corrected with a smile Frankie dared to interpret as affectionate. The blonde female then curtsied once, an action Frankie returned in kind, and then she departed.
When she was gone, Frankie let out a small sigh.
"Were those white flags I just saw or did I dream that?" Jack called out teasingly.
"I do believe they were real," she replied with an amused grin as he handed her the page Niklaus had retrieved earlier. "So when are you going to tell them?"
"Tell them what?"
"About Vlad being best friends with my brother," and she sent him a pointed look. "Jack, your father is actively engaged with the alliance, which – need I remind you – associates with the werewolves on a regular basis. If he were to show up here all of a sudden and was to run into one of you…"
"That won't happen."
"You don't know that," she insisted. "Being in the city with Augustine having it out for you is bad enough. But all of this about a hex and you and your siblings risking true death by even being here in the first place… you should have told me the truth of it from the start."
"I knew you would have worried had I told you sooner, and you have enough on your plate as it is."
"I wish people would stop treating me like I can't handle bad news. First Tristan and now you!"
"He told you about the tail I had picked up the other day, didn't he?" Jack asked a little incredulously. "I told him not to."
"And don't even get me started on Niklaus breaking into the palace archives by himself…"
"He's a grown man. He can take care of himself."
"That's not the issue here. Augustine has it out for all of you. It's bad enough that I can't tell your father the truth – that you're all alive and well. He and I are just becoming friends again and already I have to deceive him. He deserves the truth, Jack."
"I know."
"And what if something happens to one of you? Am I just supposed to not say anything?"
"Nothing bad will happen to us," Jack assured her, taking her shoulders in his hands. "Besides, with the blood factory attack coming up, and the increased paranoia Uncle Marcus has towards the wolves, we all agreed to lay low for a while… which, if you must know, is going to kill Zeke, but it is what it is."
Frankie sighed.
"I know. I wish things were safer, but they're going to get a lot worse before they get any better."
"You're preaching to the choir, mother dear," he answered teasingly. "I'm Russian, remember? This isn't my first revolution." Frankie couldn't bring herself to chasten him, even after he pulled her into a much-needed hug. "You worry too much, Francesca," he pointed out after a moment or two of silence.
"Then do me a favor and give me one less thing to worry about," she answered. "Keep yourself and your siblings safe."
"I will. I promise."
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