Mitzi woke with a scream.Darius, roused from his slumber, looked over at her sleepily. She was gasping for breath, obviously something in her sleep had greatly disturbed her.“Darius!” Her breath was a whisper, weak and frightened. “Help me!”
Darius reached over and flicked on the switch that would illuminate the red lights along the perimeter of the room. The glow was soft and comforting and his face was worried and gentle as he looked at his human wife. “Mitzi.Your are safe.Everything is ok.”
“No, it isn’t.” Her voice was just a squeak. “I saw him.”
“Who?” When Mitzi didn’t respond, Darius put his hands on her shoulders and gently shook her. “Who did you see?”But Mitzi seemed far away, her eyes looking at something that Darius could not see and this pained him. Mitzi’s violet eyes, dark in the red light, were wide and truly terrified. She was stiff under her fine silk nightgown, its rich lavender folds contrasting beautifully with her long, mahogany hair. Darius seemed helpless to comfort her and such a feeling he was not used to, being that he was one of the most powerful vampires in the empire.It pained him to see his gentle wife in all of her human frailty and to hold her he felt he would break her.
“In all the years…” Mitzi seemed to be in a world of her own, not really remembering things, it was more as if she were seeing these things, something that Darius could not see, something in her memory that was tormenting her, something that he could not protect her from.
“Mitzi?” Darius was fully awake now.He turned the small human toward him and looked into her eyes.What he saw there was fear, great fear, and when she looked into his eyes her tears began to flow as she sucked in small gasps of panic. “Mitzi?What is it?”
“…stronger than you, he has come back to hurt Zane, to get revenge on us…” Mitzi was terrified now.Darius grabbed her shoulders firmly and shook her violently to snap her out of her terrifying reverie.He was shocked at how easy it was to be rough with her, but it seemed to work.Her eyes focused on him finally. She just stared at him… her strong vampire husband, the father of her vampire children. Yet, she was visibly afraid. “Mitzi,” Darius cupped her chin in his hand, “What on earth was that all about?”
“I-I…. I’m sorry.” Mitzi more or less blundered. “I’m sorry for waking you.”
“Mitzi, now is not the time to be all submissive.Something happened to you just now.” Darius’s eyes softened. “What was it?” When she didn’t reply, he continued, worried. “Ever since we met, you have been the sweet, submissive human to me. But I am not going to hurt you ever again.I’ve kept my word for the last eighteen years, haven’t I?”When she didn’t reply, he went on. “Mitzi, what did you see?”
“I think it was a dream….”
“Or a vision.” The way Darius stated it put things in a serious mood. “Maybe you should tell me, please?”
Mitzi remained silent for some time, but when she finally spoke, it was a dreadful sound that escaped her, a dreadful thought that plagued her and a dreadful thing that infuriated Darius.Her eyes straight ahead, she muttered under her breath an angry sound, a name that had not been uttered by her lips in years… “Brady.”
Darius had not thought of that name in many years.Mitzi had told him about what Brady had done to her, but what she said did not even touch the depth of all that she had been through as a result of him. Darius knew it, though, by the feelings he drank up from her as she thought of Brady, by the way her blood infused him with human terrors he could otherwise not understand.“Mitzi,” Darius drew her close to him, “You are safe with me. This castle is a fortress. Besides, he is dead.Zane burned him, remember?”
