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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Vlad Dracule
A wave of heat buffeted her, seducing her with its promise of comfort and refuge. Yet, stepping in to the room, she couldn't account for the warmth, for the room was vast, and sparsely furnished. A long banqueting table, bare of food, and a few empty chairs arranged down the center of a woven carpet of intricate design, breathed an air of abandonment. Silk velvet hangings of dusty green and copper floated over the walls, thin as moths' wings brushing stone.
Deep in the silence, she sensed his presence.
Wary as a cat before a stranger, she moved into the room. There, to her right, was a blazing fireplace, and close to the hearth, was a large wing chair. Sitting in its red velvet depth, was a man of dark countenance. He leaned forward into the firelight, and Analise saw the face that had looked down at her when she woke in the tomb: the rose-bearer.
His striking face, with its high cheekbones and smooth brow, was set off in a frame of thick black hair; his eyes were large and dark and seemed to dance with fires of their own. He stroked his chin, gazing at her as if she'd evoked some deep stream of thought, or a memory, within him. He was tall and slim, yet powerful about the shoulders. He shifted his long legs, stretching one of them out as if to display his calf in its long riding boot. His eyes never left her face.
Never had Analise felt such a mixture of attraction and fear. Here was the one who had come to her in the mirror, yet she'd never seen him like this before. Under his gaze, she grew hot, melting like the candles that towered around the room in gilded candelabra, fire infusing air with the scent of honey. No words passed between them. They had no need of them, for each one, the hunter and the hunted, knew what the other wanted. Yet, despite this inner battle, the space between them pulsated with desire.
The room seemed to whirl. Heat gathered in Analise's belly and swept through to the ends of her hair. Though she knew what this creature before her was, there was something about him...a power he had...to bewitch her.
But she was in love with Stefan.
She turned her head away and swayed toward the door, instinctively grasping the silver Crucifix that hung around her neck. Dracule stirred, as if to leap for her, then, as if an invisible force barred the way, he leaned back, nonchalantly, in his chair. His eyes lingered on her face, drawing her gaze back to him sitting in the depths of the armchair that framed his shoulders like the wings of a dark angel. She froze, watching with fascination, as his eyes moved slowly over her body. Then, in one sinuous motion, he stood.
"Won't you come in?" His voice was deep and soft, issuing more a command than a question.
Analise had begun to back away. She stopped herself, then dropped a small curtsey. "If I may...I...seem to have gotten lost."
He smiled. His teeth were even and bright in his shadowy face. No fangs. Perhaps he'd never had any. Perhaps she'd imagined it, after all.
"That is most unfortunate, though I must wonder what a beautiful lady, such as you are, would be doing out on a winter's night wearing only a thin negligee."
