Page 3 of Prince with a Chance of Darkness

As Vlad continued movingthrough the trees, his thoughts returned to the young woman from Harker’s visions. The one with the ponytail. The one who was frozen in Vlad’s mind. There was something about her. Something he couldn’t put his finger on.

The blue in her eyes ran from light to dark, leaving them looking like jewels. She had a faint dusting of freckles on her nose and cheeks, so light he wondered if others even noticed them.

Vlad’s first wife had freckles that were similar. He’d always enjoyed counting each of them, making her laugh as he did so with his tongue more often than not. He wanted to say she had been the love of his life, but he knew that wasn’t true. He had cared greatly for her. And in his own way, he even loved her, but her passing did not break him. It didn’t even harden him. He’d accepted it as part of life and carried on with what had to be done.

Years later, Vlad remarried, albeit briefly. The woman had been thrust upon him in a deal he could not refuse—such was the way of things back then. He’d seen to it that she was cared for and had all she could desire, but he did not bed her, despite what the history books wrote of him. And the history books were also wrong when they spoke of Vlad being a father. That was not something he’d had the gift of becoming when he’d been mortal, and in death, it was something that would never come to be.

Not unless he suddenly found his mate. The other half of his immortal soul—if legends were to be believed. He’d seen many a supernatural mating in his years and knew it could happen, he simply did not believe it could happen to him. He had hundreds of years under his belt. If he had a mate, he’d have crossed paths with her by now. He’d be mated.

He would be as he saw other supernatural males being when it came to their mates—obsessed and consumed by desire and the need to protect. Unable and unwilling to seek pleasures from the bed of others.

Unlike when he had been married for a second time. When he’d filled his nights with noble women and village maidens. It had been for the best. His second wife could not grow attached to that which she did not have, and within a year, he had gone from being a man to being a monster.

Had he cared anything for her, he might have gone looking for her after his conversion. Vlad might have found her, and he would not have had the control over his demon that he had now. He’d have been her end.

In a way, his indifference to her saved her life.

He took solace in that fact for the past six hundred years, finding a measure of comfort from the knowledge that if he did not love, he did not hurt when that love was torn from him. And if he did not love, then he could not be the one to destroy it when what lived within him was free.

That’s why Vlad made a point of never getting too close toanywoman.

He made no promises to the women that he bedded beyond giving them pleasure, the likes of which they’d never seen before. And he held up his end of the bargain. They got mind-blowing orgasms, and he got sex and blood.

Perfect.

He had very few friends who were women. That was by design. They were a weakness he could not afford. History claimed he was the cruelest to women—that he’d single them out and do horrific things to them in his living years as payback for sins like adultery or the like.

Lies.

Fiction spun forth by his enemies, both domestic and foreign. Words written by those who could not best him on the battlefield, sword to sword, so they chose to wield a pen. They wrote lies and partial truths, painting him as a monster far before he truly became one.

If anything, Vlad had always had a weakness for the opposite sex, putting their well-being before that of himself or the men he’d commanded. No one ever spoke of that in history lessons dedicated to his life. He’d know, he’d attended many universities over the years, listening in as a guest or even posing as a student. He knew what they thought of him.

The truths they held in high regard were as fictional as the novel penned partially in his honor long after he’d shed his mortal coil, becoming one with the darkness.

At least Stoker had made no bones about his work being fiction. What Stoker did not tell the masses was that the story had been born out of fact—not fiction. That it held grains of truth.

We do not have hairy palms, his demon’s thoughts merged into his own.

For the demon, that had been a sticking point—one of many—when they’d read the novel upon its release. The demon had wanted to seek out Stoker, hold him from his toes, and drain him dry of all his blood.

Vlad had found Stoker’s account of what had transpired amusing, having long ago gotten used to seeing himself portrayed inaccurately in text. Did he love being made out to be old and decrepit, with hairy palms, and barely getting by in his isolated castle high in the mountains of Transylvania? Not particularly, but in all honesty, it was better than being thought of for centuries as the Impaler.

As a brutal leader.

As a man who made countless victims out of anyone and everyone he could, women and children alike. The irony of his final act as a mortal man had been throwing himself in front of a young maiden whose name he had not even known. All he had known of her was she was innocent and expecting a child. The history books did not speak of it because they did not know.

Let us not forget…history was written by the victors, said his demon.

It knew the truth for it had been introduced to him shortly thereafter. It had been a part of him when the incident had been fresh in Vlad’s mind. The demon had started the conversion process when Vlad was there, on a stone floor, lying in a pool of his own blood, desperately trying to stop those who had betrayed him from harming others.

It had been no use. The conversion had taken everything he had and when it was over, Vlad was left fighting for control of his own body, finding it was no longer his and his alone. He had been weak. Too weak to stand against the introduction of a demon into his body. Too weak to protect his people and his country.

Do not fool yourself, Vlad, the demon said, its tone sharp.You were not, nor have you ever been weak. Need I remind you, yours is not the first body I have been tethered to? It matters not what history says of you. We know the truth.

The demon’s words were true but that did not lessen the dislike Vlad experienced knowing what was said about him. The part he hated most was that he supposedly was fine with harming children.

Never.

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