"Your brides?" Victoria's voice was terse as she looked at Vlad, her eyes wide as she stood on the other side of the bed to him. He stood across from her after having dismissed his brides with anger.

Victoria had stood up and looked at him with a face of thunder. Shaking back and forth, she struggled to keep calm as Vlad outstretched a hand, his face apologetic as he silently longed for her to come and walk back into his arms, but she made no movement. She remained stood where she was, her eyes narrowed and her face full of anguish.

"No, my love, you need to understand," he urged her and she shook her head. "I have been alone for decades…centuries…I did not know you would return to me. You have to see my point, Victoria."

"But there were three brides!" Victoria roared at him, pointing to the door where the brides had just appeared. "Three…not just one…"

"I know," Vlad told her, moving around the bed, his arms trying to pull her to him, but she pushed at them and backed away and moved around the room, her hands moving to her hair and pushing it back from her face as she remained confused.

"Three…" Victoria whispered again. "And have you fucked all of them?"

Frowning at her crude phrasing, Vlad did his best to keep his temper under control. She continued to pace in front of the fireplace and the Count leaned against the bedpost in the corner, his arms folded over his chest.

"They are my brides, Victoria," Dracula replied as though that was the answer to her question. And Victoria knew that it was.

She dropped her hands to her hips and turned to look at him. "And they are your brides. Am I to become one of them? You want me to be one of your whores?"

"No."

"Then what do you want?" Victoria demanded from him. "What do you want me to do? You want me to pretend that I am fine with you having three other lovers? I understand, Vlad. I understand how you might have found someone else…it has been centuries…but…but three other lovers at the same time is something that I do not understand…and for you to claim to love me as you do-"

"-You cannot doubt that," the Count said with haste and moved towards her, wrapping his hands around her upper arms and holding them tightly to stop her from moving away from him. She pressed her hands to his chest, but he did not move away from her. "My love for you is the only thing about me that is pure, Victoria. You need to understand that. My brides…I love them, I do not deny that, but not like I love you."

"How?" Victoria demanded from him. "How can you say that, Vlad? I will not be one of your brides."

"I will not throw them out, Victoria," he replied. "They have been with me for centuries. I will not cast them our, nor shall I cast you out."

Frowning, Victoria dropped her hands to her side as Vlad moved to press her against the wall by the fireplace, his hands moving to take hold of her wrists before his fingers ran up her arms and came to her neck, resting there and holding it tenderly.

"But you shall not be one of my brides," Vlad informed her.

"I will not," she agreed. "But what else would I be if not one of them? What is the difference between them and me?"

"You are my true love," the Count answered her honestly. "I love them, yet they are not you. Why can you not understand that?"

"Because it is difficult," Victoria said. "It is difficult to believe you when you tell me that you love them. How can you love me more than them? How is that possible?"

Vlad let his anger calm then as he dared to take hold of Victoria by the hands, his body pressing against hers as he noted the tears begin to pool down her eyes. He dared to move their hands up to his chest, holding them there as he bent down to look her in the eye.

"Believe me when I say that it is possible," he urged her. "I only want to be with you, Victoria, but I shall not cast them out. Please understand that."

Sniffing, she shook her head before daring to look him in the eye. "But you shall not call them your brides?" Victoria dared to ask of him. "You shall not treat them like your wives?"

It took a moment before he shook his head and dared to agree with her request. Keeping silent, Victoria watched him as he moved his hands to cup her waist and drag her closer to him, their bodies pressing against each other as Victoria felt his arousal press against her thigh and she let her eyes widen.

"You are the only one I shall bed," he whispered to her, not entirely sure if he was being truthful with her. "You're the only one who I want, Victoria. Can you not tell?"

Victoria did her best not to moan as he moved to kiss her chastely on the lips, chewing down on her bottom lip after a few moments. He felt her run her hands up his chest and reach for the clasp of his shirt. Arching a brow, he didn't complain as he slowly inched his hand down her side to her skirts, lifting them up slowly with his fingertips until it came to her mid thigh and his hand clasped the bottom of it, pulling it further up her legs.

"Promise me," Victoria demanded from him, her hand stopping his from moving her skirt any further upwards. "Tell me that I am the only one for you now."

Groaning, he couldn't help but chew down on his tongue as Victoria moved her hand up her leg along with his. She was toying with him and he knew it. She was using him to get her own way, but it was working. This was his Victoria. This was the woman he had died for and now she was here. How could he deny her?

"You are the only one for me," he informed her. "All these years I have waited for this moment and now it is here. You need to understand, Victoria."

"I do," Victoria promised him, allow his hand to move to the waistband of the underclothes she wore. "But you need to understand that I do not want to share you with them."

"As I do not want to share you," he replied, letting moving her underclothes from her waist to let his fingers slip into the waistband. "I want you all to myself."

"Then have me, just as I will have you," Victoria said, her voice low and seductive as she moved her mouth to his ear and nipped on the lobe.

His eyes fell back into his head as his fingers finally reached their destination. Her breath hitched as she collapsed back against the wall and her chest heaved as Vlad's fingers parted her slit, coating her in her own juices before the nub of his thumb pressed against her bundle of nerves. She groaned loudly, grounding her hips against his hand as his other hand moved to the laces at the back of her dress.

"You're beautiful like this," he whispered to her as the dress loosened around her frame and finally fell down to her waist, leaving her in just her underclothes. "Wet and needy."

"I'm yours," Victoria whispered to him. "Always."

Chuckling, he bent down to pull her underclothes down too, letting them peel down to her waist and baring her milky white breasts. She let out a sharp breath as he looked to her form as his fingers continued to work on her. Shaking slightly, Victoria chewed down on her lip as she tried not to moan too loudly as the Count bent down to take a breast into her mouth.

"Vlad," she groaned his name.

Chewing down on her nipple, he couldn't stop himself from trailing wet kisses all along the mound as one of her hands wrapped into his hair to keep him pressed there. She moved her other hand to her other breast, cupping it in her fingertips and squeezing it slowly as her other hand went down to his arousal, palming it through his breeches.

He startled then and left her breast to move and look her in the eye.

"I want to taste you," he whispered, moving to run his tongue down her neck and over her breast before he knelt before her on the floor and she pressed her hands flat against the wall as he pushed his head underneath her skirts at her waist.

"So sweet," he whispered and Victoria wrapped her fingers into his hair.

Before the Count could even move any further he heard a sudden noise from outside Victoria's bedchamber. A loud yell echoed throughout the corridor and the Count stood with haste as Victoria grabbed hold of her underclothes, pushing them back onto her body to cover herself before she saw the door burst open.

Chuckling darkly, the Count laughed at the sight he saw, unable to believe that the Valerious family had this amount of nerve.

"You truly think that you can stop me?" the Count asked. "Has she not told you that she does not remember who you are? Her memory is lost."

Boris stood in front of his son as the Cardinal stood behind Velkan. The entirety of Boris' guard had launched an attack on Dracula's home and it was all to bring Victoria back home. The guards were busy in the main hall, attempting to fight off Dracula's three brides as the Count remained with Victoria who had her arms wrapped one of his arm, refusing to let him go.

He said nothing as she held onto him and watched the three men, his mouth growing larger as he bared his fangs and a growl erupted from his throat.

"Cardinal," Velkan spoke and the man of God instantly began to hold a cross up and whisper prayers, clearly aiming to bring Victoria's memories back to her.

But the Count was quicker. Rushing forwards, he grabbed hold of the Cardinal and threw the man against the wall, silencing him and his pleas. Velkan made his move then, rushing to grab hold of Victoria as she remained in nothing but her underclothes.

"Get off from me!" Victoria yelled, attracting the Count's attention as he turned back to her.

In a moment he had the Valerious boy by his neck and had flung him to the side, taking hold of Victoria by the waist.

"She will remember," Velkan grunted out.

"Not if I kill you," Dracula spoke.

"No." Victoria said the word before the Count could move any further, her grip on his arm weak and pathetic as she stopped him from moving away. She kept hold of him and he turned to look to her.

"Do not kill him. He does not deserve to die," Victoria said.

The Cardinal continued to pray before Dracula grabbed hold of him again and forced him against the wall, his mouth opening wide as Victoria watched on in horror, her hands covering her mouth as the holy man screamed out his last few words.

"I ask you God, help this child, deliver her from evil. Deliver her away from the grips of the demon. Save her!"

Cardinal Rallow went limp as Dracula sank his fangs into his neck, silencing him in a second with a sight that did nothing but horrify those privy to it, Turning away, Victoria smelt the stench of blood enter her nostrils as the Count dropped the body and looked to Velkan and Boris.

"You're a monster," Boris whispered.

"Perhaps," Vlad responded. "Or perhaps I merely do what needs to be done to protect the woman I love."

"From the truth," Velkan clarified. "But she has seen no. She has seen what kind of demon you truly are."

Victoria didn't know what to do. She had no memory of this Velkan, but she knew that the man in front of her was not the man she had fallen in love with. He had killed a man in cold blood. He had destroyed the man without a second thought. Victoria stepped back until her back hit the wall with the window and her hands shook by her sides. Shaking her head, she refused to believe what she had seen, but she knew it would be pointless. Her eyes did not deceive her.

"What I do is for her," the Count spoke. "He would have taken her away from me."

"But you murdered him," Victoria spoke and all eyes turned to her, no one bothering to comment on how indecent she looked with her mussed up hair and lack of clothing.

"I did what I had to do," the Count responded. "You cannot understand."

"Perhaps I do not wish to," Victoria said. "Your brides…the murder…perhaps I do not wish to understand who you are. This is not the man I fell in love with."

"No," the Count agreed, advancing towards her and taking hold of her by the chin. "The man you loved died when he made a deal with the devil. Everything I do is for you, Victoria, yet you stand there and deny me. You deny who I am."

"Because I do not know who you are!" Victoria yelled at him. "I do not understand any of this!"

"You will. Over time, you will understand."

"You do not have to," Velkan promised her, his voice loud as Victoria looked to him, trying to concentrate on him. Could she recognise him? He claimed to be her husband, yet she had no idea. "Come back with me, Victoria. Let me keep you safe-"

"-No," the Count snapped. "She will go nowhere with you."

"Perhaps not," Victoria snapped, pushing past the Count with her shoulder as he grabbed her arm to stop her from moving. "But I shall not stay here with you."

…

A/N: Let me know what you think!