camillapirinetti
"A sudden, violent desire cut through me: that everyone in the court should be blind to her. That no other man could see the light that shone behind her eyes, now dimmed by the horror I myself had inflicted. It was possession. A dangerous, dark possession. I did not merely want to touch her. I wanted to surround her, to isolate her from the world, until her universe shrank to this room and my presence, no matter how much she feared and hated me."
I was sent to his court as a guest. That was the lie. I was sent as a hostage.
While kingdoms plotted, merchants rebelled, and empires prepared for war, I was delivered to the most feared man in Europe, Vlad III of Wallachia. The Impaler. The monster.
At least, that's what everyone called him.
But monsters are supposed to be easy to recognize. They aren't supposed to be intelligent and patient. And they certainly aren't supposed to make you question everything you've ever believed.
As I become trapped within his world of political games, betrayal, violence, and carefully crafted terror, I watch a legend being born in real time.
A legend built on blood. A legend built on fear. A legend the world will one day call Dracula.
But before he became a myth, he was a man. And before I understood him, I hated him.
A slow-burn dark historical romance inspired by real events.
Power, obsession, war, and the terrifying cost of understanding someone the world has already condemned.