Dark Love

Shade Everdeep walked along the darkened streets trying desperately to overcome the depression that had risen within her once more. She twisted the worn handkerchief with her slender, pale fingers and stared up at the moon in bitter resentment.

Despite her longing for company, her longing for laughter and joy, Shade was doomed to traverse the world alone. She’d had boyfriends aplenty but her hunger always overwhelmed her and they died within her arms.

Shade slowed to a halt and looked down at the cobblestones beneath her feet. She had been a vampire for three centuries and had been alone for two of them. Her creator had died at the hand of a hunter and Shade had sought other vampires since.

She realized, at long last, that there were no other vampires, that she was the only one. That disturbed her greatly. The ability to create vampires had died with her master, though she begged him to teach her. He insisted that he didn’t want her creating lovers when she belonged to him. Now, due to his selfish actions, she was completely alone.

Shade listened to the breathing through the walls surrounding her, the heartbeats echoing in her skull. She knew she should feed, she needed to, in fact, since she hadn’t fed for days, but she clung tightly to the handkerchief and willed herself to die.

A deep chuckle to her left caused Shade to start and turn, her gray eyes finding the slender man leaning against a wall, his right foot at the level of his left knee, his long black hair dancing in the breeze. Shade narrowed her eyes, wondering how he had managed to sneak upon her since the street had been vacant moments before.

“You’re standing in the center of the street thinking,” the man murmured as his piercing green eyes found hers. “Not wise.”

“I daresay that you have no inkling as to what is wise and what is not,” Shade hissed.

“If a car were to come along…” he straightened off the wall and stood to his full height, easily towering over Shade, his trench coat falling about him in thick, black folds. “I think it would hurt to be hit by a car.”

“Have you ever been hit by a car?” Shade asked angrily.

“No,” the man tilted his head and smiled softly. “I tend to avoid standing in streets thinking.”

“I have no intention of humoring you any longer, sir,” Shade snapped as she turned away.

“Why don’t you attack me? What is the matter with you? I could be food, you know, or a hunter.” Shade froze in her movements and faced the man once more. “I could be your worst enemy.”

“Sunlight is my worst enemy,” Shade growled but she looked at the man more closely. “So, are you a hunter?”

“I was,”

“And now?”

“Well,” he ran his fingers through his hair and winked. “I’ve changed sides, I guess you could say.”

“You’re a vampire?”

“Indeed,”

“But I thought…”

“That you were the last one,” the man moved ever closer and soon they were face to face, the moonlight giving their pale flesh a luminescent hue.

Shade swallowed. “Are there more?”

“Not that I’ve found,” the man said as he ran his finger along her jaw. “But I can create more.”

“Then why haven’t you?”

“I enjoy the solitude,” he said with a shrug.

“Then why did you seek me out?”

“Solitude has its downside, as well,” he took hold of Shade’s arm and walked her to the sidewalk. “Although I’ve never contemplated suicide, I’m pretty sure a car wouldn’t kill you.”

“I wasn’t contemplating suicide,” Shade growled. She could feel, deep inside, that he was lying to her. She couldn't understand why and the lonely part of her didn't truly care.

“I will take you home with me, I think,” he smiled at her, his hand still guiding her, his grip firm. “To end the solitude for both of us.”

“Will you teach me to create vampires?” Shade asked anxiously.

He looked at her, his green eyes seeming to pierce her soul. “No, I don’t think I will,”

Shade frowned. “Who are you?”

“Dracula,”

:: :: ::

Shade twisted in the coffin but Dracula held her close, his arm around her waist, her breasts against his chest. Shade longed to escape the confines but Dracula, much like her original master, craved nearness. Shade shut her eyes.

Her thoughts leapt through her mind, leading her down wide paths toward damnation. She opened her eyes. Dracula stared at her with infuriating calm.

“Sleep,” he commanded and Shade looked away. Her master had never been able to control her with his voice, his mind link or his will. Shade was a rarity in that sense.

“I cannot sleep in such a small space,” Shade lied.

“You mean that you cannot sleep with me,” Dracula moved closer, his nose against her ear. "Passion wears me out.”

“I fear that our arrangement needs to be changed,” Shade stated.

“Tomorrow,” Dracula whispered as he entered her once more.

:: :: ::

Shade crossed the large ballroom in the tattered white gown Dracula had given her. She felt like a fallen princess, a virgin destroyed the night before her wedding. The gown had been worn before, Dracula had told her, by his first love, the one woman he could not hold.

Shade sat upon the cold floor and licked the blood from her lips. Dracula had brought her supper, again, not allowing her to leave and hunt. And she had tried, many times, to leave the large palace she was forced to linger in. She attempted to refuse blood but Dracula would look at her with the fiery green eyes he possessed and Shade dared not refuse him twice.

Now, in solitude, she waited for him to finish feeding and come to her, lust and blood in the air. She didn’t want to be the slave she was to her master, the slave she had been when first changed. She had enjoyed her freedom far too greatly.

The doors opened and Shade looked up at Dracula whose blood red shirt hid the stains of his feast. He crossed the room quickly as Shade stood to her feet, tattered gown clinging to her form.

“I have a surprise for you,” Dracula said, his gaze locked upon her face.

“What is it?” she asked, her voice cold, devoid of emotion.

“I have found a woman that will fulfill my passionate needs,” Dracula’s fingers danced upon Shade’s slender neck. “All I need is your allowance of her.”

“You can do as you please,” Shade whispered, though she longed to beg him to take the new woman and let Shade go free.”

“You will not be jealous of her?”

“Jealousy is not in me,” Shade answered honestly.

“Then, come with me,” Dracula took her arm and led her to the back of the hall, to the great doors that opened up to a great, walled garden. On the marble steps outside the french doors lay a lovely woman garbed in white. Shade smiled.

“She is beautiful,” Shade said and Dracula released her.

“Do you envy her?” Dracula asked, his eyes burning into hers.

“No,” Shade answered truthfully, her eyes roving the young girl. “I do envy her dress though.”

Dracula remained silent, his eyes never leaving Shade’s. She maintained her composure despite the unease that was slowly filling her. “I will change her,”

Shade nodded softly. She could watch, she could learn, and then, one day, when she was free, she could create her own faithful friend.

Dracula closed his hand around Shade’s neck and held her against the wall. “Do you know who I am?” he growled.

Shade shook her head, welcoming death if it would come to her, refusing to recoil beneath his gaze.

“I am the one! I am the first vampire, beloved! What an honor to share my bed! An honor!” he tossed her across the room and Shade hit the wall on the far side. She shut her eyes, hearing Death whisper in her ear.

“Yes,” she murmured in answer. “Yes.”

“No!” Dracula took hold of her once more. “Do you think I would let you die? I, Dracula, who killed all the children of my curse, let the one he chose die? I chose you for your beauty, Shade, for your hunger and your passion. Who is this creature before me, begging death?”

“Two centuries-“

“Nothing! Nothing! Time is nothing to the immortals, Shade!” Dracula dropped Shade to the floor and she crumbled among torn fabric to the cold floor. “I killed them all and searched for you!”

“You shouldn’t have killed them all,” Shade growled as she rubbed her neck and stood. “I have been alone for far too long.”

“Would you have been mine otherwise? How many vampires would you have taken within you had there been many to choose from?”

“I am not a whore, Dracula!” Shade screamed and then backed away, her eyes wide. “I am not a whore…” she whispered.

“Then why did you sleep with him?”

“The same reason I sleep with you, Dracula,” Shade said softly. “I have no choice.”

“Choice? Choice! Honor and gratitude should bring you willingly to my bed!”

“That is what he said to me,”

Dracula snarled and turned, his weightless feet making no sound as he crossed the room once more, leaving Shade alone in the moonlit ballroom, a dead woman on the steps.

:: :: ::

The five vampire women held onto Dracula as though they were drowning. Shade played the piano, her fingers creating a haunting melody as they danced across the ivory. She could feel Dracula’s eyes upon her though the women he had changed longed to be his focus, longed to be the chosen, if only for a short time.

“Play something else, Shade,” Dracula commanded and Shade complied, her shift automatic.

Dracula leaned down as if to caress the nearest woman but silently killed her. He did so with each brazen woman, leaving dead bodies around the chair when he stood and strode to the piano.

“To possess you, Shade, what must I do?” he asked, his voice thick with emotion.

“I must love you, Dracula,”

“Love?”

“Has it been so long since you’ve been human, master? Do you not understand love any longer?”

“I love you,”

“But I do not love you,” Shade stopped playing and studied her hands. “Not yet.”

“Then, tell me what I must do?”

Shade was silent.

:: :: ::

Shade danced upon the softly lit floor of the ballroom, Dracula’s strong arms supporting her as they danced among the living invited to a ball in the honor of Shade. She felt like a queen, felt as if she was finally beautiful. Dracula had promised her a ball, Shade had refused to hope, refused to believe and yet, here she was, dancing with the living, playing at being alive again.

She knew that there had to be some darker reason for Dracula to allow this to occur but she truly didn’t care. She just wanted to dance and laugh, to be surrounded by people and dream of days long since past and never to be regained.

To those that watched the host and hostess, one would think they were effortlessly in love, in perfect harmony, drifting together through life without a care. Dracula was dressed in a black suit that seemed to absorb the light, a red silk shirt showing beneath the lapels. Shade wore a blood red gown of velvet, long, flowing and definitely heavy but she moved about easily, turning about the floor in Dracula’s strong arms.

“Are you enjoying yourself, love?” Dracula asked Shade as midnight drew neigh.

“Of course,”

“It is time to feed,” Dracula spoke in the low menacing tone Shade knew all too well.

“Surely you don’t intend to feed on our guests!”

“That, my dear, is exactly what I intend! Look at them, ignorant hussies and fools, but you and I are above them, Shade, we are gods.”

“Gods? I would never view us as gods, Dracula.” Shade didn’t attempt to leave the circle of his arms as they twirled about the floor leaving the viewers breathless. “So that is why you allowed this.”

“I killed the vampires and now I would create new ones,”

“Just so you can kill them as well? No,” Shade shook her head gently. “I will not feed on the people here. It would be slaughter, nothing more, as you pick and chose those you kill and those you change.”

“Redemption is selective, my dear,”

“Since when?”

“Always,”

“I’m sorry, sir, but I do not share your point of view on the subject!”

“Do not be cold with me, Shade!” Dracula led her to the winding staircase that led to the second level that snaked around the four walls of the ballroom, a place for the weary and the wallflowers to sit undisturbed and unnoticed. “I did this for you!”

“For me? Is this what you thought I wanted? A bloodbath? Never!”

“You didn’t want to be alone any longer!” Dracula hissed, his eyes flaring in frustration. “I am exhausted from living up to your expectations.”

“Expectations? What have I demanded of you?” Shade hissed.

“Demanded? Nothing! But I have longed for your love, for your affection! I have burned for your touch, your kisses, and you leave me cold!”

“You, sir, are already cold!”

“You bemoaned your solitude and I offered you company. The company of the king, me, my dear, and you scorn it.”

“I do not wish to be alone but I also do not wish to be evil, as you plainly are.”

Dracula glared at her, his hands tight upon her arms. Suddenly, he spun about and shouted above the soft laughter and loud music, “Get out!”

The command surged with power and control and none of the guests hesitated a second before gathering up their cloaks and leaving, their minds telling them that they had politely said goodnight to their host and hostess and left at varying times.

Dracula and Shade remained standing on the second level, anger radiating off their bodies, giving heat where there wasn’t any.

“You do not understand love,” Shade murmured at last.

“Don’t I? What do you call my feelings for you?”

“Obsession…lust…but not love,” Shade sat on the velvet lined chair and crossed her arms. “I do not understand love, either, so I cannot help you.”

“If you don’t understand love then how can you claim that I do not love you?”

“Love shouldn’t be like this,”

“Solitude has burned your soul, made it black,” Dracula kneeled before her. “I do love you, my sweet, and I am sorry for the pain I brought to you. I suffered while alone as well, thinking that I had killed you among the hordes, thinking that I was completely alone. And yet, despite my solitude, I didn’t desire to change others. No…all I wanted was you.”

“Tonight-“

“Was a mistake, beloved, and I shall never allow it to happen again. I am so use to being surrounded by evil, my own evil, yes, but evil just the same. Now, today, I understand at last that you and I were meant to be together and slowly, slowly, we will enter the panes of light and discover love.”

“Sweet murmurs on a spring breeze do naught for me,”

“But promises bound in blood, my love, are unbreakable.”

Shade looked into his eyes and smiled softly. It was understood that the sacrifice of love would be made once more, with promise of blood and whispers on breezes. At long last, the self-imposed solitude of Dracula would end, the long loneliness of Shade would vanish, and together, king and queen, god and goddess, they would rebuild their world.