Okay here's my next chapter, I hope you all enjoy it! It's a bit longer than the last chapter but I got a lot of good ideas on her background. Again, I don't own these characters I merely tell my own tale about them!

Dracula's Brides

Chapter 2: Charming Verona

Verona woke up to the sound of skittering rats. She lifted herself off of her broken down bed and walked outside. It had been a month since the mysterious man had appeared before her and she had begun to think she really was mistaken. Her brother didn't believe her when she told him about the man the day after, and she hadn't told anyone else. Her father had begun to bother her about marrying, but she had secretly been wishing that the stranger would return. That afternoon, she was walking down the road thinking about the stranger when she heard footsteps behind her. Her heart began to pound and she quickened her pace. The footsteps then drifted away, and she turned around. Her brother was right there, startling her. He had been following her the entire time, he explained.

"Mother needs you quickly, Verona. Father fell ill all of a sudden." With that, Verona ran back to her home dropping her shawl on the floor. Her father was lying on the floor gasping for air; his eyes were wide open and helpless.

"I fear the worst for your father, Verona." Her mother choked through her tears, "call the coroner; he will not make it through the day." Verona's eyes filled with tears as she forced herself out of the house once again and into the light. As her legs moved forward, her heart went back to her father, her only companion in the world. They had shared so many triumphs through their hardships, and as Verona was a woman, he had hoped to see her married before he died.

"Father... I will not let your hopes go unfulfilled" she whispered to herself as she entered the graveyard and beckoned the coroner. That night her father was buried under a dying tree. Its limbs hung limply to the ground to touch where his head would be. Verona was standing by her mother and brother who both were crying into their coats. She stared at her father's headstone and wept in her heart for what she had lost. That night, Verona lagged behind her mother and brother as they walked back to their house. She walked over to the well and sat on the edge, thinking about the man. For so long she had hoped he would return for her and they would be married. It was a girlish thought from someone she had never spoken to, but she knew if her father had met him he would have approved. The time had come for her to make a decision for her future, in her heart she was still a child full of fear and was not ready to have a family of her own- not right after her father left her. Lowering her head to look into the well she began to hear a beating sound, the very same beating she had heard exactly one month before. From behind her as she gently moved her head towards the sound she saw a dark figure approaching cautiously. "Who are you?" She questioned in a soft voice. The figure stopped at the sound of her voice but continued when she stopped. "Please, sir. Tell me who you are!" Pleading, she advanced towards him as well, he entered into the moonlight and in his eyes she saw a sorrow like no other she had seen before. He was the same man she thought of every night in her bed, and the same man she dreamt of marrying. Verona held out her hand to him and pleaded gently once more, "tell me your name, and I will tell you mine." He reached his hand out to hers but withdrew it quickly shaking his head.

"I am known as Vladislaus." He pronounced boldly, his accent was thick but she understood him clearly, "I have watched you from the day of our first meeting and I saw you weep for your father tonight." She jerked her head down to the ground as she felt tears swell in her eyes. "I have yearned to touch your hand for so long, but I fear if I do-" he stopped himself quickly and glanced at her face. "Please, tell me your name my dearl" at that moment he drew his hand to her face and lifted her chin up to meet his eyes, they seemed to pierce her very soul and her heart stopped beating as she said,

"My name is, Verona, and I have thought of you since we first met. Please tell me why you have never made yourself known to my family. My father-" she stopped as well, she needed to remember her place. She did not know this man; he had been stalking her for a month and had just now come to introduce himself to her- right after her fathers' death! He dropped his hand from her face and stepped back.

"My life is empty, and watching you has filled me with what I believe is joy. My entire life has been filled with sorrow I cannot feel the simple pleasures in life! If only you knew how I felt! Only then my dear would you come to love me and yet fear me as well." Verona's heart pounded as he told her this, the raw emotion in his voice brought her to tears and she ran to him.

"Vladislaus! In your words I feel your pain; I have not felt the simple pleasures in life for a very long time as well, no joy in life or happiness in every day things. My life has been filled with sorrow and poverty for more than half my life! If only you had made yourself known to my father, then we could have married!" She gasped as she realized what she had said, at the same time she felt his arms glide around her back and stop at the word 'married'. His arms seemed to tense and become more powerful, yet gentler to her body.

"Would you really want to be...my bride?" He asked gently into her ear, she could feel his icy cold breath on her neck and drew herself closer to him as she shuddered. "You would have to give up so much of your life here. I'm afraid you could never return to your mother and brother once you marry me." Her family was her life, but with him did she only feel completely safe. It was something about his presence and his arms around her that night that made her give up everything she had, for someone she had only met twice.

"I will give it all up for you, Vladislaus," she whispered back into his ear. "Take me to your world my love," already she became familiar with him, the curves in his back the icy touch his hands held, and the sorrowful heart he held. It never occurred to her that the sorrow he held was for himself and not for what he lost. He wept because he could not feel anything at all, no love for this woman before him. He saw her beauty and would have loved her very deeply if he could, but in his heart there was nothing, in fact, where his heart should be held a useless organ which had stopped beating many centuries ago. As he bent her head backwards she moved her hands up his chest and around his neck making him get excited.

"In a few moments you will be like me my dear, and Verona, you and I will come together and make the world fear us. A brief moment of pain and we shall be together... forever!" Vladislaus said as he leaned down to her and opened his mouth. He touched his lips on hers gently and went towards her neck. In a single moment Verona lost all memories and fell into darkness.

The last thought she had was of his body coming down on her, he was whispering something to her, then she felt sweet bliss.