After many months of getting beta reads and advice from my group, I think I have achieved a final version of this book. It starts and ends much differently than the first draft I posted on here. It is the second book in a series so you might want to...
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Four pillars, one on each corner of the bier, were decked with wild red hangings that had been worn to tatters by the wind. The walls had long ago gone damp and mossy, but under the green scum, the painted remains of flying dragons reared their once fiery heads. Their colors faded, they seemed like shadows from another age.
Dragons, Analise thought. A chill gripped her, and the associations came: Drag, Castle Drag, Dracule...
Of course she was here, in the Vampire's castle. The moment he looked back at her through the mirror, her fate was sealed. Her being here, despite her marriage vows to Stefan was all the proof she needed to know the Vampire had bound her to him, body and soul. She was lost and nothing could save her.
Soul... She tried to sense its presence, and found none. That holy feeling she'd had as a child, the sweetness of the divine, the mystery of love, had been snuffed out like the candles she was dreaming of before she woke.
If she prayed, would the angels hear her in this unhallowed grave?
She looked up at the dome. It was broken, and through the gap, trees lit by the moon and the stars rose into the cold night sky. Somewhere up there, so far away it was impossible to see it, was Heaven. She would never enter those glorious gates, for they were closed to her for eternity. The walls of Castle Drag, encompassing this place of life in death, were to be her abode, forever.
She stepped down several steps to the dirt-stained marble floor. What should she have expected? She'd been weak, unable to resist the hypnotic influence of the Vampire's eyes shining in the mirror. Why had she not struggled against him while she could?
If God willed it, Stefan would save her.
All around the walls were marble tombs and family crests. Several bore St. George Crosses that struck her with supernatural light, washing her with peace. She took this as a sign that a bit of Grace still remained to her. The honeycombed walls, their hollows filled with the beds of rotting corpses in decaying gowns, appeared mostly intact. Their empty eye sockets stared as if to say, You are one if us now. The moon shone down, bare trees wove over its face, and shadows flowed long across the bone-littered floor. There were no doors or windows, and the gap in the roof was exceedingly high. If only she could levitate, and float out like smoke back to cel Mare.
It was astonishing to know that, what must have been mere moments ago, she'd been cuddling in bed with her husband in a room warm with candlelight and hearth fire, her rich velvet hangings and soft coverlets scented with rare perfumes. They'd loved each other for hours. All of that was lost to her now. She gritted her teeth, almost breaking them with an upsurge of anger. The Vampire had taken her on her wedding night. Unforgivable! Well, he would not win. She would not be what he wanted her to be. She would find a way back to the mortal world. She knew by the strength she felt amongst the Crosses and angels on the tombs, that she was not yet a full-fledged vampire. She could escape. She would!
Analise stroked the folds of her nightgown with shaking hands to reassure herself that she was real. There was blood on the hem of her gown. She wondered if her bed linen was hanging from the window of her father's house now, granting the villagers proof of her virginity, and thus guaranteeing the fertility of the land. Would Stefan have gone through with it, to pacify the crowd? She thought of him sitting alone, his head bowed as if he were weeping. Poor Stefan. How she loved him!
I must go to him....
Rustling sounds drew her attention to the hole in the roof. Perhaps the rose-bearer was out there, walking in the dark.
"Hello! Is anyone there?"
The moon shone steadily, the bare twigs wove, the silence deepened.
Something was digging into the back of her neck. She shook her head, and it clattered to the floor. It was the comb Stefan had given her as a wedding gift. It had been in her hair all night. Stefan thought it looked like a crown, but to her it was an ugly, garish claw. Gold spattered with rubies, its long tines were now covered with blood. Her blood.
Her head went light; her body pulsed with apprehension. Had the penetration of the comb, drawing her blood, been the magical key that gave Dracule the power to claim her?
The atmosphere of the tomb grew close and stifling. There was no air! Analise panicked. If she were truly a Vampire, why did she need air? And why was she so unnerved by the staring skulls, and the bones, and the bats hanging upside down from the rafters? There was only one answer: she was still alive! She could get out!
Desperate now, she ran from corner to corner looking for a door. But it was no use. There were no exits from tombs. Except for the broken roof, every part of the crypt was entirely sealed.
The sound of hinges creaking startled her. She spun around to see a narrow door standing open on a dark room. Stepping inside, she found, hanging on the cobwebbed wall, the portrait of a young lady clothed only in her long, black hair, a necklace of red beads around her neck. Below the painting, was a table bearing a large brass key. The violet eyes of the lady in the painting seemed to see Analise, to compel her to pick up the key, and move aside a brocade drapery that was hanging near the portrait.
The key shook in Analise's hand. What would she find behind the curtain?
She looked at the lady in the painting once again, seeking for a hint of danger.
She looks like me...but evil.
The lady in the portrait seemed to command Analise to draw the curtain aside.
What did she have to lose?
Behind the curtain was another door. Its doorknob was cast in the shape of a hand reaching for hers, and the keyhole was just below. She turned the key, and the door swung open on a stone passageway that ended in fire.
