BLOOD BOUNDED - THE MOONLIGHT - Eng - Castlevania Lords of Shadow (fanfic) PIII

Chapter 53

As time goes by, the heart has to move in many ways. Our inside feels like a piece of sky is manifesting in our chest, with every emotion that can overwhelm us.

So when Marie blinked awake, she wasn't surprised by the rain pattering on the window. Or the lightning that she rumbled in the distance.

She managed to sit up, to discover herself in the shadows of her room. She was wearing her nightgown, and her lace blanket covered her.

Another bolt of lightning made her look up from her. Over time, she had learned that this strange place responded directly to its master's heart, and it took her a moment to realize that she had never seen such rain there before.

"How is your wound?" The low growl that came from the shadows made her twitch.

As her vision adjusted, the towering silhouette grew sharper, though the crimson glow of those eyes was all she could make out.

She sat up to straighten her back, with a sudden gallop into her chest, and it was that she realized she wasn't in any pain.

"I think..." she cleared her throat, "I think it has been successfully healed."

"Very well, that's good."

An awkward silence settled, and she began to twist her hands on her belly, nervously.

"Gabriel..."

"Dracul," he corrected him quickly. "That's my name now. Make sure you remember it."

If he was minding to scare her, it wasn't going to work, not with her, not when she recognized that tone disguised as a threat.

"You will always be Gabriel to me, husband. Make sure you remember it."

The laughter she heard was bitter.

"As naive as always, woman" Heavy footsteps headed towards the curtains "The man you knew, the man you loved, long ago no longer exists" he stopped when the glow reflected behind the thick cloth framing him. "It's likely that...he never really had."

"That's not true" she was squeezing the flaps of the sheet tightly "the man who is capable of sacrificing everything, even his humanity, for all of us: that man is very real."

"You keep dreaming of the knight in shining armor, the one with a pure heart" his words spouted venom "The one who murdered you, who murdered your son, who turned God into his enemy and condemned his lineage and humanity" he turned towards her, with his eyes still blazing and his fangs flashing "IS THAT THE MAN YOU WANT?"

Lightning illuminated the ghoulish aspect of his, and she nearly fell back, curled up on the mattress.

But not anymore.

She met his gaze without blinking.

"Indeed" she turned to slowly put her feet on the ground and walk towards him. "I want the man who served the Lord all his life. I want the man who gave himself to me body and soul, with whom I was never afraid to share all of myself. That man who suffered my death and that of his son's, who were nothing more than tricks of those he trusted. The man who was unable to destroy any of his descendants, who came to annihilate him, and instead, he pretended to be destroyed by them, over and over again."

"I don't know what you're talking about, woman" she again recognized that tone that she intended to be intimidating.

She smiled, stopping in front of him.

"And I want the man who, even after a thousand years, expects his maiden to watch his deeds from the library window."

She knew she had surprised him when his shoulders spasmed slightly. And the way he looked away from her, the way he often does when she caught him red-handed, made her heart drop.