If he and Jane survived this night, he would swear by the heavens and stars that, in love, he would never go hungry again. "Jane, forgive me," he uttered, lifting his head and staring into her beautiful eyes.
"I do."
Oh, how the mighty had fallen. He had been waiting forever, it seemed. Waiting in the darkness for light. Jane was that: his glowing joy, his reason to get up and rise out of his coffin each night. She would be a companion for his youth and his old age, a woman of remarkable character and generosity of both spirit and nature. And he was the lucky man she'd married. They could have a wonderful future together of watching birds and the starts of sunrises, sleeping like the dead and watching the changing of the guards, art, music, literature, inventions and customs—everything as the centuries passed by. A world of words, spectacular surprises, ships perhaps sailing underwater, men flying and not as bats. If only he could remain alive beyond this one night, with Jane as his eternal bride, wedded in undead matrimony…
"Jane will be a replacement for the bride you murdered," Dracul stated with fiendish delight. "After all, I have always said that revenge is a dish best served at body temperature."
"I had no choice, and you know it. Yvette was killing children," Asher cried, his body wracked with pain. The skin near the silver chains on him was starting to char and blacken.
Dracul shrugged. "As if I care about that. Their lives meant nothing. Small, insignificant mortal children—they are nothing before us. You sacrificed someone I cared for because of mere human weaklings," he sneered. He was clearly enraged, his clenched jaws seemingly cut from marble. "To destroy one of us, for a mortal. Us! We are like gods. Vampirekind is the superior race. Mortals are mere food. To be toyed with, tortured, used, abused, discarded and drained."
Asher shook his head, hearing some of his own words coming back to haunt him. He knew humans were weaker, but hearing the base count spew such biased filth, he felt ashamed. His wife was human, as was Clair Frankenstein Huntsley, and both women were as remarkable as people could be.
"I enjoyed Yvette's body and mind," Dracul continued. "She always envisioned the best tortures. And you destroyed her!" Dracul spat, pointing a long, elegant finger at Asher. "For humans, who are mere insects to be squashed beneath our feet!"
Asher winced, feeling trickles of blood running down his back. They had struck him with thin, silver-barbed whips. His wrists were raw and swollen where his chains slowly ate into his flesh.
"No. They are more than that," he replied, shaking his head. He had once believed fiercely in the superiority of his race. Humans had meant little to him besides sex and food. They fought and died for greed, lust, revenge and power, killing each other much faster than his own race could cause their extinction. Yet… "I have met men of honor and truth. I have known both good men and bad, just as there are good and bad of our own kind. Man is as complex and as special as our own race. What gives you the right to judge? Nothing. Only a fading belief in your own omnipotence."
Asher caught Dracul's look of utter disgust and disbelief. He added, "I didn't realize it before. Not until Jane came into my life." His wife was like a breath of fresh air, stirring the dankness crypt's cold, musty air. He lifted his eyes and looked at her, love filling his eyes.
The count cursed, the ferocity of his rage revealing his profound evil. "You are a fool, Asher! Man is but a breath of shadow, while we are lords of all things. Mankind is a doomed species, and we are its rightful rulers. We shall be here long after their race is dust in the wind. It is our purpose to make them so."
"That's blind, Dracul." Asher shook his head. "Without food, how will we survive? Your vision is shortsighted at best."
The count glowered at him and motioned Rudolph to secure Asher's hands above him, to attach him to a long iron hook suspended from the ceiling beams. "You're a fool, Asher!" he snarled. "A sentimental, human-loving fool. A disgrace to our kind."
Asher struggled in vain, his strength rapidly draining. His arms were lifted high above his head, and he had to stretch out fully so that they did not bear the whole weight of his body. His back arched from the uncomfortable position.
Once he was in place, Dracul approached him, pulling Jane alongside. For one moment Asher thought he might pass out from pain and loss of blood, but gallantly he managed to shove the encroaching darkness away.
"You shall watch me make her mine," Dracul jeered, pulling Jane into his arms. "You shall go to your grave forever, knowing your wife is now my consort." He encircled her from behind, his arms locking hers as he caressed her breasts. Lady Veronique clapped her hands, smiling.
Asher growled, forgetting his chains in his anger. Unable to watch such a creature of evil touch his wife, he tried to launch himself at Dracul.
The attempt caused Asher to lose his balance. He barely managed to keep his feet beneath him as fresh blood leaked from his numerous wounds, adding to the stains already on his white shirt. He hated being helpless. He hated seeing the fear in his wife's eyes. He should be protecting her, not chained to this bloody hook.
Dracul watched with nefarious enjoyment. "Such lovely, lush breasts—and they shall be mine to suckle from this night forth," the count prodded ruthlessly. Leaning back to study Jane's profile, he added, "But no great beauty like Yvette was."
He was wrong, Asher thought. Jane was the first stirring of breath in his body when he woke from the sleep of the dead. She was the melodic music of the night wind, and the twinkling stars at deep midnight. His wife might be a calamity, but she was his calamity. She might own a great big bird that ran amok in his household, but not every earl had a real ostrich in residence who could save his wife's life. His wife's family might be the cursed Van Helsings, but at least they were successful at what they did, and she loved him despite that.
"You are quite mistaken," Asher said, gazing adoringly upon his wife. "Jane is the most beautiful woman in the world, and quite extraordinary." How could anyone alive not see that? How had he missed it for so long?
Stunned, Jane raised her eyes to meet Asher's. What she saw there made her heart sing. Her husband thought she was beautiful. He thought she was extraordinary. Jane felt something break inside her, slowly cracking open to reveal the heart of the woman she really was. Never again would she feel unattractive, for the ugly duckling had at last realized she was a swan.
She felt tears filling her eyes, and at the same time she had an insane urge to laugh. For once in her life, in this miserable, frightening struggle, she felt truly radiant.
"How droll. She must be an acquired taste," Dracul mocked, his voice laced with condescension. "Perhaps, she will be at least be tasty—a fine vintage from the age-old keg of Van Helsing."
"You wish you knew," Asher muttered, his blood heating to the boiling point, the point of explosion, as Dracul's hand's roamed over his wife's voluptuous form. He would break the count's fingers one by one. No vampire touched what was his and lived to tell the tale.
Lady Veronique retorted smugly, "I bet she won't taste as sweet as I did, Count."
Dracul laughed again. "Oh, but she will. Revenge is the sweetest taste of all."
Lady Veronique frowned at her lord and master as Jane struggled against her foe's humiliating hold, trying to break free, her hands outstretched to touch her husband. In this stronghold of fear, Asher was her protection against Dracul's dark obsessions and dangerous liaison.