What the Prince had wanted from the very first—and only—sip of the Slayer's blood, was to have her inside him. To have her mouth on his wrist and drink freely. On reflection, with all his energies turned to tugging his body through the curtain of death, I should have drunk her down.
A panic crept over the Prince. The energy of the spell was dissipating. The bright blue halo that tied him to the mortal coil, wrought by gypsy kin centuries ago for good service rendered to the clan, had dimmed so that only his keen vampiric sight could discern its angelic glow in the darkness of the vaulted banquet room. The power of the counter-spell had been depleted by two failed re-corporealizations. One more failure, and it could be decades before he gathered enough energies to re-manifest. He cursed his arrogance. Revealing himself to his target like some moony-eyed starlet, he had been completely assured of his mastery on these shores.
Even as far east as Romania, word of the masterless Hellmouth spread like wildfire through the remote villages of the Carpathians. When the news finally dribbled in to the ancestral chateau, he had wasted no time installing a trusted gypsy family in the estate to hold it against encroachers. His tour of Sunnydale had been, yes, partly to meet the world-renowned Slayer. A Slayer who'd, against odds, beaten back no less than six apocalypses. But his thirst was deeper. He thirsted for a domain free of the entrenched animosities of the vampire clans, unclaimed by the mewling remnants of the Aurelian Line- a new conquest, empty, untamed. And a Hellmouth made for quite the impressive holding. The loss of the Cleveland property in the Republic Steel Corp mergers seventy years ago still stung. He the silent owner and taxingly incommunicato at the renewal deadline- on account of being more dead than usual.
History must not be repeated, Dracula thought urgently. The Hellmouth had seen fit to humble him, so be it. Now it was his turn to demonstrate the power of a true Master Vampire.
He struggled to pull the bones and sinew of his new body out of the dust. It was imperative to be together before one of the Slayer's merry misfits returned to torch the castle. Or before a bored bride kicked his head away from his materializing limbs, vindictive for a petty quarrel.
Barring his teeth, he worked a hand out of the pile of burnt carbon. An arm, shoulder, and neck slowly followed. Half an upper torso, almost. He thanked a handful of dark deities by name that the Slayer couldn't see him lain this low.
Her room had been soft and girlish, white and pink predominant in the linens. The mark on her neck he understood. She'd been tasted before, but never tasted in reciprocal fashion. Hadn't he opened a vein for her like a gentleman? Hadn't she chosen of her own free will to drink from his wrist, hungering to be taught what she was? She had taken two or three pulls on the slit vein. And then something in his blood had turned her down-soft eyes into flint.
The Slayer had been savvy enough to stake him twice after his resurrection fires had worked their magic. It was pathetic. It was a mistake. It was he who had been taught: do not mix demon nature with demon nature. Vampires and Slayers had nothing to offer each other but death, he mulled. But this mistake could be rectified. The Prince was not a stupid creature.
Dracula bit through his lip as he pulled his other hand from the ashy floor. He panted as the bonds that tied him to this world screamed to the point of breaking. He would not break. He would rise again. He would take care of the Slayer.