Chapter 9

Anna wandered into the room where Isabel still slept peacefully. She looked down at her new progeny with apprehension and fear. The girl's pale gold hair spilled like a waterfall across the satin pillows. Anna laid down next to her and clutched at the girl's hand. "Forgive me…." she whispered, and cried herself silently to sleep.

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Isabel woke warm and content, lying on the softest bed she had ever experienced. She found the master at her back and her mother at her front, safely cocooned between them. The master seemed to realize she was awake immediately, for his grip on her waist tightened and he trailed soft kisses down her neck. His quiet movements stirred mother though and she awoke with a start, propelling herself off the bed to land in an undignified heap on the ground. Thoughtlessly, Isabel felt a giggle escape her at the sight.

"Dear Anna is always overly worried about being caught in a compromising position." the master purred in her ear with amusement.

Anna stood up with a scowl at him. "Isabel..." she held out her hand. "Come here. You don't have to stay there."

Isabel just looked confused. "Why?"

"Yes, Anna, why?" Dracula mocked and ran his tongue along Isabel's neck. "Come back to bed. We'll have some fun together."

Anna flung him a look of disgust, and tried again. "Isabel… where did he find you? Do you remember anything?"

Isabel's eyes widened slightly, so apparently she did remember something of her previous life, but it didn't cause her to spring away from Dracula in horror like Anna had hoped it would.

"You're vampires…." she whispered in awe.

"Yes, my love, and so are you." Dracula nuzzled her.

Anna lost hope as she watched Isabel remain completely unresistant to Dracula's overtures.

"Darling Anna likes to watch. Shall we give her a show?" his tone turning mischievous.

Isabel laughed innocently at the idea. "If it pleases her, master, if it pleases her."

"It does NOT please me." Anna spoke waspishly, and strode dramatically out of the room, as Isabel's face fell.

"Don't take it personally, Isabel." Dracula snickered. "Anna is a big liar."

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At first, Dracula kept Isabel fed with bottles of blood too. She seemed more eager to please Dracula and less concerned by what had happened to her. She seemed eager to please Anna too, but Anna kept her distance from the both of them. She wandered the dark corners of the castle alone, only catching glimpses of Dracula and Isabel here and there.

Dracula slowly thinned the mental barrier between himself and Anna in stages over the course of a few more months. He was sick of constantly maintaining it, and Anna was so unreactive to the thinning of the barrier, that he figured it must not bother her much anymore.

More and more of her emotions flickered around the edges of his mind. Most of them were a depressing loneliness and mind-numbing sadness. She seemed to have lost all purpose in life without the constant desire to kill him. He could understand it. This is what she had been raised for, trained for, her entire life. Without it, there was no task left for her to complete. So she wallowed in despair and doubt. It was hard not to reach out and simply sooth her mind into submission. He could do it, if he wanted to. But he had a feeling it would only enrage her against him again.

When the barrier was at last completely gone, it felt like an alien sensation at first. Like bandages suddenly removed from an old wound.

But Anna began to slowly reach out and touch his mind at various intervals, as if to assure herself he still existed, which bewildered him. He finally got a sense that HE was her purpose in life. Whether she killed him or lived with him, his existence had always been the center of her universe, even when she had been full of hatred and hell-bent on destroying him.

So she continued to check on him with her mind. Wondering if it would help with her existential crisis, he began to reach out with his mind periodically too and brush against hers. She shied away the first time, as if unsure of his intentions, but then settled down when nothing more happened.

Those gentle and periodic mind touches eventually gave way to reluctant conversations over time.

Anna could also feel Isabel's mind completely. Anna had turned her, so Isabel could not block or hide her mind from Anna even if she tried. Anna tried her best to stay out of the girl's head, but the desire to possess her and mold her according to Anna's own desires was so strong. She could also feel when Dracula reached through Anna's mind to reach Isabel's. Anna was like a bridge between them. Dracula could control Isabel too, but it all had to be done through Anna' s mind. Which left Anna privy to every single thought passed back and forth between the two. The worst time was when Dracula took Isabel hunting for the first time. Anna experienced the entire bloody event from both their thoughts. She was sure Isabel wasn't doing it on purpose, but Dracula definitely was.
The reason for this soon became very clear.

Dracula stopped supplying her with bottles of blood on the idea that she was, in his words, "no longer a baby and should feed herself."

Unable to return to animal blood after such an extended period of time on human blood, she took to feeding off the criminals in jail cells and bandits found along her path. The local villagers didn't dare interfere with this diet plan and had started calling her "The Merciful Angel of Death".

The locals were bewildered in that they knew Dracula was still alive and Anna Valerious seemed to be his bride, but they kept to themselves. They didn't hunt together. They were never spotted together. Dracula continued to hunt and kill at random as usual. Anna hunted only those society had already condemned for evil acts.

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"Anna Dracula, I presume?" a male voice cut through her mindless bliss.

Anna hissed and dropped the male bandit she had been vigorously feeding from. "What did you just call me?!"

A fit young man twirled his revolver in his hand. "That's your name, isn't it? Or have I been misinformed about your husband's name?"

"We are not married!" Anna shrieked at him, eyes glowing blue, fangs bared at him.

"Ah, boyfriend then?" He smirked, teasing her further, but cocking and aiming his gun at her heart.

"Actually we are just really strong acquaintances." Dracula purred suddenly from behind him. The man whipped around and shot Dracula in the chest.

"Hmmm, not bad aim. But terrible instincts to turn your back on…. my girlfriend." Dracula mocked him, as Anna pounced from behind and sank her fangs into his neck.

Watching Anna murder a vampire hunter right in front of him? The exquisite irony was not lost on Dracula. So much so that he couldn't resist eventually ripping her from her latest prey and snogging her senseless to get a taste of the blood in her mouth. Of course, a few minutes into that she punched him in the face and walked away with a rigid back as he laughed at her.

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So in vampire society being "sired" is automatic "marriage" in any vampire's eyes. Anna just doesn't agree with that policy.
It's kinda hilarious, because that means Isabel is really "married" to Anna and not so much Dracula. Anna is the last and only Bride of Dracula. Anyone else is a Bride of Anna, technically.

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