Page 8 of Stolen By the Demon

A wave of dizziness and nausea overcame me when Devon introduced me. Lady Blanche Montford. The familiar words called up good and bad times, leaving my head spinning like everything that reminded me of my past seemed to do.

I plastered a smile on my face. “It is a pleasure to meet you, Master Maddox.”

“Come, let me show you the castle. You will probably want a bath, some clothes, maybe rest?” Devon offered. The thought of food didn’t entice me even though I figured I should have been starving by now.

“This is… amazing,” I praised as I followed Devon to the edge of the battlements.

One side overlooked a steep drop down a sheer cliff with large pines and a river at the bottom. The other side offered a view of a courtyard I would have expected to find teeming with life. The utter absence of anything—people and horses—left me baffled, especially since the sun was about to rise.

Servants should have been bustling. But there was nothing.

Questioningly, I turned toward Devon, who gave me a proud smile. “What do you think?”

I bit down the questions burning on my tongue and smiled back at him. “It's magnificent.”

I wasn't lying. It truly was. It was only the absence of servants and animals that unsettled me, so I gave it a voice. “Where is everyone?”

“This isn’t a working castle any longer, Blanche,” he answered carefully.

“Any more?” I latched on, realizing again, that I must have slept for a long time. I was about to ask how long exactly when one of the first rays of the sun broke through and landed on my arm. With a cry, I drew back and stared, confused, at my smoking flesh. It looked as if a fire had been lit on it and burned like it, too.

“Shit,” Devon cursed, then he put me protectively under his arms and pulled me to the same door from which Maddox had emerged.

As soon as we reached the coolness of the tower, my arm stopped hurting, and the burned skin mended itself.

“Devon?” I cried.

“I’ll explain later,” he said through clenched teeth, directing me down the winding stairs. Torches hung in regular intervals along the spiraling walls but looked entirely different from the ones I was used to—again, a slight spell of dizziness overcame me as a memory of torches with licking flames and smoke seared through me—but no smoke swirled from these; no heat emanated. They flickered like fire, yet those were not real flames rising up and spinning.

When we reached the ground floor, he led me, keeping to the shadows, through a familiar courtyard toward the main building, and even before we entered it, I knew where we were. So many questions churned inside my head. It was dizzying—a state that was slowly becoming my new norm.

With sudden clarity, I saw myself as a child growing up in this very castle. I knew it deep inside my gut, yet the surroundings were entirely different. My castle had stood overseeing the ocean. Fields had stretched on the other side as far as the eye could see. Cottages had dotted the landscape, some by the edges of the fields. To the east had been a small town. What kind of magic had not only transported me here, but my home as well?

It had been weeks since I visited Castle Lleauwen. This little project of mine had cost me over a billion dollars, but I didn't mind. The money came easy. Ironically, it seemed harder to spend it than to make it. I had never denied myself anything. I owned the most expensive yachts, jets, helicopters, estates, and toys imaginable without experiencing much pleasure over them. This castle, however, was different.

As technology finally caught up with my dream of owning Castle Lleauwen, I spared no expense to make it mine and have it transported from Wales to here, rock by rock.

I purchased it a hundred years ago, right after my father pardoned and freed me. I spent a fortune to have it restored to the way I remembered it.

Once a year, I visited for a week to remind myself of Blanche and what I had lost. Now that the castle was here, in the States, I visited it more frequently.

On good days, I imagined seeing her ghost wandering the endless hallways or climbing into the saddle of her horse—she had been the best rider I had ever seen. The first time I ever laid eyes on her was while she was riding—when she fled from me. Then, I caught and imprisoned her.

And now she was here. My hand rested on the swell of her hips, which swayed slightly with every step she took. She was a vision. My vision. I would burn this entire planet down before I would allow anybody to take her away from me again. I would start a war with my father if I had to. And hers.

“Would you like to rest?” I asked her.

“I think so.” She nodded, taking in the great hall we had entered, which had been redecorated the way I remembered when I first stepped inside it a few hundred years ago to confront her father.

“Let me show you to your chamber.” I tried to lead her to the staircase, but she turned in my arm.

“If you don’t mind. I don’t want to be alone.”

Her request was understandable. Dottie, my housekeeper, like always, kept a fire burning in the large fireplace. Before it stood an array of couches—modern-day concessions. Back then, there had been a few hard chairs where the women would sit doing needlework. I led her toward them and pulled a warm blanket around her while she lay down. She didn’t need sleep—not anymore—but I suspected she didn’t know that, just like she didn’t know what she had become. The thought of her having been turned into a vampire still sat ill with me, turned my stomach, and rose a rage the likes I had only ever known once, the hour she was taken from me four hundred years ago.

My failure to protect her then still burned hotly. Did it happen that day? Was it that day they turned her into a vampire? It had to have been.

I suspected that they put her under a sleeping spell afterward, which would explain her memory losss.

---