The simple gesture had her move forward, not because he told her to, but because she wanted to see HIM better. Blood on naked flesh did little to paint one’s profile in another person’s mind, and apart from the brief glance downwards, she hadn’t stared at anything else but his face. Victorian society, and the other nuns, especially, would have considered it an act of gross misconduct, but Adam and Eve had walked around naked before. Had Eve not taken a bite of the apple, they probably would all be naked now.
Dangerous philosophies, Mina, her father’s voice echoed in her head. Perhaps a stay in the nunnery would do you good.
Her grip on the stake tightened as she listened to him, her eyebrows raising as he correctlyassumed one of the reasons for her being there. Aside from having ‘radical’ thoughts and opinions, her taste in the opposite sex was one deemed indecent. She could have gone for someone her age. Instead, her father had found her in the arms of his associate, a Jonathan Harker, who was two years younger than he was.
He’d broken ties with Harker and insisted that she join the nunnery until she was cleansed, body and soul. He didn’t understand that she wasn’t limited by society’s standards. That she made her own.
The man’s erotic description was accurate, but deep down, a part of her liked feeling filthy. She should be ashamed for it, yes, but she wasn’t. She just didn’t speak of it, knowing it would add another reason for her to stay there for another year or so. There was the faintest of smiles, and she exhaled slowly. If he was listening carefully, he might hear the low moan that she made.
“Yet there are younger men who have more experience than a man in his forties. No, experience had nothing to do with it. He was…complicated.” She was standing almost within his reach now: all he had to do was lean just a little more, and his bloody fingers could reach for the front of her habit. “He saw what I really was like and he loved me for it.”
Mina wasn’t foolish enough to think that he could and would never harm her. It was obvious that he was dangerous. Very dangerous. It was for that reason that she took a step back, widening the gap between them even further.
“Ah… Have you been with those younger men?”
“Have you seen their experience or felt it? You see, you can always tell a person’s experience even from afar. There was a woman, long ago, who I slipped my cock into and just from the way she shuddered I knew she hadn’t been properly taken care of. I saw her husband a little later and I knew why… his interests didn’t lie in what was between her legs. He tried to fuck me, how ironic.”
Dracula’s eyes quietly scanned the space behind her and he became all the more aware of how alone she actually was. When she backed away from the gate, keeping an eye on him, the once illustrious Count set his unblinking gaze upon her and fixed it right there. Every move, every twitch, every little edge he could sense or see from her was stored away to be marvelled at later. He was dangerous—a cannibal, a certified lunatic with unholy habits—but he wasn’t intending to harm this one. Something else, actually.
“I’m sure he loved you but I highly doubt you returned the sentiment.”
He tilted his head, eyeing her with coal black eyes and bearing sharp teeth in a charming grin. The wolf, so to speak. “I don’t think he completely saw you, either. I believe he saw what you wanted him to see: a sweet, gentle girl with wit and air who absolutely dazzled the poor sod off his feet. You’re not completely that—may not even be that partially. You want to know how I know?”
He stepped away from the bars by only a couple of inches, shadows coating him and making his presence even more monstrous and frightening. He straightened himself to his full height as if he were shifting into a newer form.
“It’s because you’re looking at me like food.”
He chuckled, regarding her behaviours still with his ticking mind. He ran his hand along his neck, flicking away the fluids that had congealed along his body—blood, sweat, whatever else had managed to get stuck on him, who knows—and continued to speak.
“I’m not an unreasonable man and you seem to be of perfect sound and mind, my little habit. Let me in or come out here. You’re quite a charming thing… all blue and gold with that hair of yours. Let me touch you… let me taste you… I want to feel how wet you are…”
