Who am I? As my eyelids rose, that was my first thought. My vision was hazy, and I couldn't hear anything over the howling of the cold wind. My entire body was covered in snow, so I had to shake it off with all of my remaining strength. When my eyes were able to focus on the details around me, I realized that this place did not look familiar at all. I was surrounded by bare pine trees, and their shadows shielded me from the hot sun. I wasn't sure how long I'd been there; my gloved hands were cold, and even sitting up was exhausting. It took a while for me to be able to move, but standing up was out of the question.

I crawled for a few minutes until I arrived at the horizon of the only visible path nearby. My hazel eyes stopped on the unexpected landscape as I peered over the curve of the road. Three massive mountains concealed a vast stretch of land from the outside world. The pines, like the rest of the vegetation, were more than alive. The colors of the flowers could be seen in the tidy bushes that flanked the end of the path I was crawling on. They were only a few hundred meters away from me, but I was drained and my throat tingled with thirst. A massive, gothic castle was carved into the ground in the center, with pointy towers and enormous stained glass windows forming stories humans had probably never heard. Even though it was difficult to tell from where I was, I assumed it was made of gray stone. 

Don't faint, you'll die. My body was at odds with my thoughts. I desperately wanted to sleep, but I knew I'd never wake up if I did. In the end, my body won, and my eyelids gradually collapsed onto my watery, warm irises. The last thing I saw was the massive castle towering over the elements of nature that gave it life. Then there was a trembling light from one of the smaller windows revealing an anthropomorphic silhouette.

We all take warmth for granted. I was used to being wrapped in a blanket while it snowed outside, but when I awoke after two days of being in and out of a comatose state, I realized it was the most precious feeling in the world. While I was asleep, my memories came to me in my dreams. I had learned my name – which was Clara – and fragments of what I was doing before I lost consciousness in the mountains. I was traveling through the Carpathian Mountains with Nicoară, my fiancée, and his family. We started in Poland and were almost in Romania when something must have gone wrong.

That's all I had. My eyes opened, still burning from the previous turbulent hours, of which I had no recollection. The soft, silky scarlet blanket hugged and protected my small, naked figure. I felt rain tap on the glass of a window, and once my gaze was stabilized, it was easy to become lost in the breathtaking scenery: the mountains I'd seen a few days prior, before fainting again, were suddenly closer and more intimidating, with their snowy peaks and flowery bottoms.

The fabric slid down my body as I sat up, exposing my small, pale breasts and a hint of my flat, hungry stomach. Above all, I desperately wanted to get out of bed and look out the window. I crawled out of the mattress and placed my bare feet flat on the red carpet. I ignored my nakedness and concentrated on getting to my destination without passing out. Whenever I was in danger of falling, my hands searched for any type of furniture. That's how shaky my legs were.

"What are you doing, miss?"

When someone spoke from the doorframe, a gasp got stuck in the back of my throat. I turned around, locking eyes with a man I'd never seen before. His gaze lingered on mine for a split second, but he couldn't help but wander down my naked body. My young, freshly rested face flushed with embarrassment, and I dashed to the bed as quickly as I could, trying to ignore the pain that had caused me to move so abruptly. I pulled the sheets to my body and covered as much as I could.

"W-who–" I couldn't form a sentence. Words kept dying in my mouth.

"I found you while horse riding." A small grin formed on his lips and I took time exploring his features with fright still tainting my expression. The first thing you'd notice about him was a big cut that ran from the left side of his lips to the edge of his jaw. But then his blue, narrow eyes would draw all the attention. His build was muscular and tall, and he was dressed in an outdated outfit reminiscent of what my grandfather would have worn in the second half of the eighteen hundreds. The paleness of his epidermis was almost ethereal, and it contrasted with his dark, yet grizzled, long hair, which was pulled back in a low ponytail.

"I am the owner of this castle." He spoke to me in slightly broken English with a heavy Romanian accent. I'll never know how he figured out I wasn't from there in the first place. "Count Vlad Dracula the Third."

Even though I kept a firm grip on the sheets, my muscles finally relaxed. "I am Clara." My voice came out as a trembling whisper. "I don't remember much more."

"You should rest." Even though it sounded like a suggestion, I could feel his demanding eyes suffocating me. As if he was saying 'or else'.

"I'm very thankful for your generosity, sir." I gulped, feeling my insides growl with hunger. "And I would hate to take advantage of your kindness, but..."

"Are you hungry?" He cocked his eyebrow and stared at me from above.

"I- I am, sir."

"Are you able to get dressed on your own?" The Count jerked his chin, pointing to a freshly laundered gown draped over a chair. I simply nodded in response.

"I'll be downstairs waiting for you, and I'll tell my cook to make you something." Vlad was about to leave the room when he paused and turned back to face me. "Don't go inside any of the rooms, just follow the stairs."

I knew better than to disobey.

Unexpectedly, he didn't dine with me. The count had left me a written message, telling me that he had something to attend to and that I should meet him in the garden after I'd finished eating. I took a seat by myself at one of those enormous rectangular tables you might find in a nobleman's mansion. A corpulent, lively woman smiled as she placed a plate in front of me. Even when I attempted to strike up a conversation, no one spoke to me, so I had given up on that. 

I only stood up when I was full, bowing and smiling softly at the woman from before. My green dress was also quite out of date, with its big, puffy skirt that didn't quite fit the Edwardian straight silhouettes. I stopped at a mirror to look at myself as I paced through the hallways looking for the entrance to the inner gardens. To be honest, I wasn't in great shape, but there were no visible scars on my body. As a woman in a patriarchal society, I would've been damned if I had gotten myself a big scar or mark. What man would've wanted to marry something like that?

I walked past the mirror after adjusting my dark brown hair into an improvised hairstyle in order to avoid having to keep it down. The garden's entrance was fairly obvious: it was an intricate black metal gate preceded by a sign with "gardens" written in cursive on it. When I pushed the grate, it creaked, drawing the Count's attention to me. He was standing in the middle of a lavish garden, dressed in a less formal manner. A white blouse barely covered his strong bust, as three buttons were undone. I could see the hairs twirled on his defined chest. The blouse scandalously hovered his tubed trousers and his feet were bare.

I shouldn't have been staring at someone in such a private attire, but I couldn't stop myself. There was something about him...

He also returned my gaze without breaking the uncomfortable silence for what seemed like eternity. My lips parted and my breath was short from the tension between us. I reflexively looked down at my hands and noticed I was wearing my engagement ring. I couldn't see it, but I could feel him doing the same.

"Will he come back to look for you?" Finally, the Count asked with his naturally gruff attitude.

I looked puzzled as I brought my pupils back to his face. "Mh?" Then I understood what he was talking about. "Oh. I don't know. I don't remember what happened to him."

"You should stay here, until someone does."

"Is there no way back to the city, my lord?"

"There is none until spring, Clara." The way he said my name made me shiver. This was bad. I was a good woman, I shouldn't have felt that attracted to a man that wasn't my fiancée.

"I do not wish to take advantage of your kindness, Count Dracula." I blushed, as if I was flirting, and he had noticed because his expression had changed into a predatorial one. I was scared.

"You have no choice, do you?"

"How may I reciprocate?"

"Come here." Vlad held out his palm to me and waited. I hesitated, but it was best for me to do as he wished. I didn't want to anger him because he was the only one who could protect me. The first thing I noted when I took his hand was how cold it felt against mine. The Count pulled me towards him, and I instantly regretted asking.

"Stay still."

My heart was racing and my mind had gone silent. That kind of closeness, I'd never experienced with any man before. "If you don't want to die, stay in your room at night." He curved his back so that my neck was at the same level as his nose.

"But- it's night right now, my lord."

"I'll make an exception this time. But, Clara, I'm easily tempted."

"I don't understand..."

"You don't want to understand, believe me."

He pushed me away, and all I could see was a change in his face for a split second. I saw it. It was horrifying. He'd turned around and walked away before I could say anything, and I would barely see him for the rest of the month.

I would spend my time in my room reading and caring for his garden. Questions about what I saw on his face haunted me, but I tried to ask as few as possible. The servants would never answer, anyways. But I was certain I had seen it. The black veins around his blue eyes, as well as the way his neck turned blood-red. His entire appearance had shifted, and I wondered if he was one of those werewolves that my mother used to threaten me with before bed.

I'd left my book in the garden that night, and since there was silence in the castle, I assumed he wasn't home. I could smell his presence as soon as I walked in because he always had that ferrous blood fragrance on him. A shiver ran down my spine, and I immediately backed up. A gust of wind messed up my improvised bun, and instead of the open gate, I ran into something else. When I looked up, the Count's face had morphed into a monstrous expression, but he was eerily calm. I gasped, horrified, and ran towards the center of the garden, where the fountain was.

A second gust of wind passed me, and he was in front of me in an instant. There was no way out. My chest inflated and contracted in an anxious rhythm as he looked at me with his veiny gaze and opened his mouth, making him look like a wild beast I'd only seen in books. I was frightened. But still, it was hard to look away.

"I warned you, Clara." His voice was doubled, as if there was another entity inside of him.

"What are you...?"

No reply. Then I remembered. I had it all back in a split second. That man was not my savior. That February first, when I reached the castle, I was running from him. He had murdered Nicoară and his family, leaving me alive.

I had attempted to flee the monster that day but had collapsed in the middle of the mountains, not able to move because of the cold. I remembered my future husband's blood tainting the snow with its red glow while the Count ate his mother out of her veins. Just half an hour before, Nicoară was telling us a story about how Vampires existed and that they'd haunt the Romanian Mountains.

My heart almost stopped when the Count jumped on me. I stumbled over my feet and instinctively reached for his shoulders, gripping them tightly to keep myself from falling into the fountain. "Are you going to kill me?" My question was a trembling whisper.

"I might."

"Why didn't you do it that night?"

When the tip of his nose brushed against my hot skin, the fear turned into something else. Or perhaps it was a combination of emotions.

"You called for me."

"How...?"

"And right now, I can feel your desire for me."

His tongue tasted my neck, rough and wet. My legs shivered and I was about to fall when a piercing ache jolted my entire body awake. His sharp canines ripped my skin, and blood slid down my collarbone into my neckline. It wasn't a typical bite. His tongue captured the scarlet drops, and whatever he was doing, pleasure mixed with pain.

"I won't be able to resist you, Clara."

Did I want him to resist? I had nothing to lose at that point. He showed no mercy as he drained my vital lymph. Even in my pain, I craved him. As I was about to faint, he stopped, taking me in his strong arms. He lifted me up as if I was a princess and led me through the garden. I could see pale, dead bodies of women on the floor, and he just walked right past them as if they were nothing.

They all resembled me.

The Times Newspaper wrote about me on the anniversary of my disappearance.I was bathing in blood, my husband was in front of me, and our dinner was right beside us.

"What are you reading, my darling?"

"The romantic beginning of our tale." 

THE END?