The Vampire's Crimson Kiss (Editing)

Chapter 4/The reluctant Princess

I was trapped in my well-furnished prison cell. Mary used her stiletto knife to cut me free from the chair. The room lay locked in a shroud of silence, and I found myself isolated with Mistress Mary, and left with less than the biting chill to accompany me. I paced about my newfound prison, my eyes scouring the very chambers that would house me for the next five years of my life.

There was something about the terrible Duke that made it hard for me to stop replaying our meeting over and over again in my mind. My head echoed with every word, every gesture wearing me down. Even more sinister than having met him seemed to be my inability to shake his eerie, smoldering gaze. His manner was superior, infuriating, and utterly scandalous. I desperately wanted to forget about him, but with every effort, I could not.

So only in a sheet, I began to explore, my rooms. To my surprise, they proved more spacious than my first expectations had suggested.

The room itself bore the unmistakable marks of age and antiquity. The walls were adorned with faded tapestries that depicted long-forgotten scenes of grandeur and majesty, their colors muted by the passage of time. The wooden beams above sagged with the weight of centuries, and the floorboards creaked underfoot, each echo a ghostly whisper of the tower's storied past.

Among its features, I discovered a bedroom that I assumed was reserved exclusively for me, given that the vampires slumbered in their sarcophagi deep within the castle's basement. The bed itself was a grand, ornate structure, its canopy draped in tattered velvet that had once been a deep, regal crimson but now had faded to a dusky rose. The headboard bore intricate carvings that told tales of a bygone era, a time when the tower had been alive with nobility and opulence.

To my astonishment, next door, a diminutive chamber revealed itself, serving as an indoor outhouse, a curious convenience amidst the grandeur. It didn't have a chamber pot, but a porcelain chair of sorts, clean and untarnished, it sat unassumingly in one corner. Next to a basin with out a jug of water to fill it.

The vampires loved to hide doors merging them into the walls as invisibly as possible. A deeper exploration of the main room exposed Mary's chamber presence tucked away in a discreet set of concealed chambers adjacent to mine. Mary explained to me that these were vampire quarters, each bedroom suite accompanied by a servant's chamber.

The walls of these chambers bore the same faded grandeur, with peeling wallpaper that whispered secrets of ages long past and a lingering sense of melancholic nostalgia that clung to the very air itself.

As I wandered around, I found a wooden shutter which, with a little work, I was able to open and spy through a slit to the outside. I could see down to the docks, but it was night, and there was little to make out. This would have to be my view.

As I continued, there was a knock at the door. A young familiar walked in between the guards.

"This is an unspeakable," Mary began "that's the lowest rank of familiar. By tradition, she's not allowed to have a name or speak for nine months. She will respond to any name you want to give her. This one I call Cub."

Cub was a small mysterious figure cloaked in darkness. She moved with small steps, her lithe form draped in a flowing black dress that seemed to meld seamlessly with the shadows. The dress, made of rich, velvety fabric, cascaded to the floor in a graceful cascade, accentuating her slender frame.

What set Cub apart was her porcelain white half mask, an enigmatic visage that concealed her identity and rendered her silence even more haunting. The mask covered the upper portion of her face, leaving only her expressive eyes exposed. The mask was a delicate work of art, intricately adorned with subtle patterns and intricate details, a testament to the craftsmanship that had created it.