''Come closer and I will scream!'' His prey whimpered.
''Scream. I dare you.'' He growled.
Twenty-three-year-old Ilona Bukowski has always been fascinated by the supernatural, even when she shouldn't. This fascination takes her to Romania, where she...
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Breakfast went by without a hitch, which would not even have been possible since Vlad and Ilona had spent it in complete silence. She ate. He watched. She did not dare ask why he would not touch the delicious food spread out in front of him, for Vlad sat in his chair all wired up. His knuckles had become white somewhere mid-breakfast and his pupils dilated each time Ilona gulped down some orange juice. This man was strange with a capital S.
Afterwards two servants had come and cleared the table. Ilona had still been wondering how this man was able to afford so many people when a man approached her, his skin was a rich brown with a light sheen of sweat, his dark hair was long and tied back in his neck and he was tall and muscled underneath his black suit. But his eyes, his eyes were vacant and empty, similar to the young girl. And come to think of it, similar to all the other servants present. He handed Ilona a notebook and a pen.
''Thank you,'' she said and looked him in the eye. The servants' hands faltered, and his eyes grew wide. The man looked at Vlad, but he only stared at Ilona with that same hungry look he had had since breakfast.
''Leave us.'' Vlad's voice was laced with command and the man's spine became ramrod straight before bowing at the hips and leaving the room. For a while it was only the crackling hearth, Vlad, and Ilona. Silence, once again, stretched before Vlad pulled back his chair and stood. Ilona watched from her chair, unsure of what was expected of her. When Vlad strode towards another door and pushed it open, Ilona stood as well and followed him out the room. They were back in the hallway littered with portraits and Vlad strode towards a small side door that, when one gave the hall a fleeting look, was barely noticeable. Without a word Ilona followed Vlad through the doorway and into a small seating area. The only things that stood inside this room were two leather seats, a large mahogany desk littered with papers and a chair behind it, and two floor to ceiling bookshelves that made the room even smaller than it was. Candles lit the room in a warm glow and Ilona wondered if this castle had never seen electricity.
''Please, take a seat Miss Bukowski, or may I have permission to call you Ilona?'' Vlad asked while he beckoned to one of the comfortable leather seats and he himself took place on the Chesterfield placed behind the desk and casually smoothing out his black suit.
''Ilona is perfectly fine.'' She replied whilst taking a seat and clutching her notebook and pen in her hand. Tension was thick in the small room, almost like a cloud swirling around her and trying to suffocate her. Vlad looked at her intensely, his lips pursed, and his eyes focussed. He scanned every surface of her face and finally he spoke.
''Ilona.'' Almost like he was testing her name on his lips, and never in her twenty-three years had her name sounded so sinful yet so right. A shuddering breath left her lips and to avoid staring into his piercing eyes, she glanced down at her notebook and opened it up to the first page.
It was currently blank, nothing was written yet, but Ilona could already smell the fresh ink that would grace its pages within moments, writing down a story that might change her life forever. Or not. She was still not sure if this man truly was the legend behind Dracula, but then again, it was not in her nature to outright ask for proof. She would have to patiently wait and abide her time, like a deer crouching behind a bush waiting for the wolf to lose her trail. And currently, that wolf was very much still on her trail.
