Erinna looked at herself in the antique mirror, hating that she looked so good and all for the benefit of the one person she hated the most in the world.

It had been a week since she had last seen Dracula when he had forced her to share a bed with him. He had not bothered her again since then and had overall stayed out of her path and sight. But he had sent a message that afternoon, informing her that he expected her presence at the dinner table. No, not asking....demanding.

Refusing seemed the natural option but she didn't want to drive him into using force. He was staying away from her and she wanted to believe if she didn't ripple the waters, the situation would remain that way and their current truce would hold.

Erinna sensed Alexander's presence before a knock came on the door. She quickly walked to the door and tried to open it but the heavy monstrosity did not even budge. She remembered Dracula opening it telekinetically.

"Step back little tiger, I will take care of this," Alexander said from the other side.

She did as he instructed and he opened the door, though he used his hands, unlike the Count.

"You know, I could look at you all day," he said looking at her as if in a trance.

A faint flush teased her cheeks at the genuine and flattering compliment.

"Don't say things like that," she reprimanded him mildly.

"Why not? It's true; you are the most beautiful woman that has ever walked this earth and me acknowledging it will not add or subtract anything from it."

"Alexander," she complained as she felt the flush deepen.

In the duration of the previous week, Erinna had found how easy it was to talk to Alexander. Nothing was forced and she did not need to watch every word she said in case it offended him.

"I'm serious, you look beautiful," he insisted.

She looked down at the deep emerald floor length gown. It had long sleeves and a deep neckline that she felt left her chest a little bit too exposed. But it was beautiful.

"Please stop, you're embarrassing me," she said uncomfortable and unused to the compliments raining fast and furiously on her.

"I'll stop if you just take the compliment and accept that your beauty is so-"

"Thank you," she blurted, interrupting him before he could go any further.

He beamed generously, "You're welcome Ty."

"Ty?" she queried, glad for the diversion.

"Tiger," he explained.

"Why do you even call me that?"

"Because you're a fighter, you were the first person to ever stand up to Dracula and lived to tell the tale. That was very brave."

"Brave? Do you have any idea of how much he terrifies me?"

"Yet you have managed to hold to your sanity and self. Thank you for knocking some sense into my friend and letting him know he cannot always have what he wants," Alexander said, "but I should probably escort you to him now before he decides that dinner be me."

"Don't joke like that," she said, fighting the grisly images from her mind.

"Sorry, come on let's go." He put his hand on the small of her back and escorted her down the hallway.

Erinna felt a sense of foreboding with every step they took closer to their destination.

"Is he angry?" Erinna inquired as they took a left turn into a darker hallway filled with antique paintings from earlier eras when art was valued and appreciated more.

Besides mouthing off to Dracula the time they had shared his bed, she knew he was still bitter about her forcing him not to kill Angelica and the others.

"No, he's usually calm after throwing a tantrum," Alexander answered.

"Tantrum?"

Dracula did not strike her as someone in the habit of throwing tantrums. Just the idea of him stomping his feet and pouting his lips made her want to laugh. It was too hilarious and unreal for words.

"Yeah, he always does something reckless if he doesn't get his way, though that doesn't happen often. I've never seen anyone stand up to him like you did that day. It was admirable the way you defended those girls."

"He had it coming," she said.

"I did and Alexander if you don't move your hand right now you are going to have it coming."

Erinna turned to find Dracula behind them looking as unbelievably handsome as ever.

He was clad in black leather from the tunic that stretched over defined muscles and broad shoulders to the pants that encased powerful lithe thighs and finally the merciless boot that looked like it could crush anything in its way to mere pulp.

His hair dripped droplets of water that she couldn't resist following with her eyes as they fell down his face and disappeared into his tunic. He looked like the very embodiment of shadows and deep, dark desire.

"Come on, a bit of thanks would be appreciated. I paved your way here," Alexander complained.

Erinna was shocked at his courage, considering the murderous expression on Dracula's face.

"Alexander," Dracula growled in warning, black eyes bleeding over until they were red.

"Fine, got it. No need to get bloody about it," Alexander said, holding up his hands and showing he was no threat.

"You can go and finish up in the dungeons," Dracula instructed.

Alexander, insolent fool that he was, winked at Erinna before leaving at vampire speed, making Dracula growl.

He spent half a minute looking in the direction Alexander had disappeared in as if deciding whether to follow him or not.

When he finally fixed the full intensity of his gaze on her, Erinna began wishing he hadn't.

His appreciative gaze luxuriously raked over every feature, lingering suggestively, as if committing every detail to memory. His perusal felt like a physical touch and Erinna failed to disguise her shudder.

When his eyes finally came back to her face they were blazing with emotions she couldn't decipher, yet their intensity took her breath away.

"This is really unfair," he finally said, his deep voice low and raspy that had she not been an Elf she wouldn't have heard him.

She frowned.

He did not like the dress? Alexander had seemed to appreciate it. Well if he didn't like it that was for the best, she did not want to encourage him. So why did she feel slightly disappointed? Erinna had never been vain.

"The dress is not to your liking?" she asked tentatively, beginning to feel self-conscious under his relentless gaze.

"The dress is fine," he said with an uncaring shrug still drinking her in with his gaze.

"Good, because I wouldn't have changed it."

She certainly did not dress to impress him.

"Withdraw your claws angel. What I mean to say is, it's not fair that you should look this good and expect me to be decent, assume I'll be a gentleman. I don't have it me," he said and Erinna looked down to hide the blush that must have turned her face scarlet.

Her heart raced and if there had been butterflies in her stomach before, there was now an army of demons practising summersaults.

"You blush from me paying you a well deserved compliment, what if I told you all the things I want to do to you?"

Erinna was out of sorts. Angry, annoying and domineering Dracula she could deal with but this intense, attentive, gentle and seductive stranger she knew not how to deal with.

His index finger came under her chin, lifting her face up, "Look at me Erinna. You can't be shy with me, not when we are to get married. "

Her irritation came back and she was glad because it chased the embarrassing blush off her cheeks.

"You keep assuming, I never and will never agree to marry you."

"This is probably the longest conversation we've had that you were not fighting with me. Have I no hope of it transcending into an evening?" he asked quietly, his alluring voice caressing her bristled feathers and making her want to agree to everything he said.

His request was a peace offering she realised, sent out cautiously and carefully. It was meant to stop further missiles from coming his way.

"I don't owe you anything," she found the power to say.

He had said he didn't have it in him to be a gentleman with her, Erinna didn't know if she had it in her to be civil with him either. The man infuriated her beyond reason.

"You ask me not to threaten you yet when I give you a choice and ask you nicely, you still manage to spit it in my face."

"That's because you can't always get what you want."

"At least show me positive results can come from being civilised."

She thought about it. This was the first time he had given her a choice. She wanted to show him he could get his way without using force and she did owe him for sparing Angelica's life and for not forcing carnal matters on her.

"Fine," she agreed yet it was not because of her empathy for him.

She did not want to plunge Angelica and those girls back into the fire by angering him when he was so unstable an individual. She knew he could easily go back on his word and there would be nothing she could do about it. He wasn't a man of it and didn't care that he was not.

He was a man who lived by his own rules, his own king. He went through life doing and getting what he wanted not caring who got hurt in the process.

He was not someone to trifle with. Especially with lives concerned, lives he did not care about; meaning Angelica and the ten maids' lives were in her hands all over again. And she could not by the life of her, let them die because of her pride.

No.

She was their leader and would come through for them like a true leader.

For the first time he truly smiled as her agreement hung in the air between them. The quick movement transformed his face, a deep dimple popping on his cheek and making him seem almost human, boyish and even more handsome if that was possible. It also made her very, very nervous.

He held out his hand for her to take. Seconds passed as she debated on the right move. In those seconds his smile wavered and faltered like flickering lights. He tried to mask it with his usual calm facade but she saw right through it, saw his fear.

He was afraid.

Fear and uncertainty played in his dark smouldering eyes and she could not come up with anything in the whole wide world that could make Dracula afraid until it hit her.

He was afraid of her.

Of her rejection.

The knowledge unsettled her. She knew she was powerful and destined to kill him but did he honestly think she was going to burn him to the ground right there and then when she did not even know what powers she had or how to use them?

No, this wasn't about her destiny, it was about his insecurity in her feelings regarding him.

Erinna did not want to do it; she wanted to stay clear of him. Every cell in her brain was screaming at her not to dance with the devil for crying out loud. Her instincts told her a smiling Dracula was more lethal than a brooding one. It was no real effort to resist his advances when he was being cruel.

When he was being kind and looking as vulnerable as a new born however...

Against her better judgement, she put her delicate small hand in his large calloused one but immediately withdrew it as electric shocks she had never felt before jerked through her, momentarily paralyzing her.

They spread through her like molten lava, leaving a buzzing heated path in their wake. Her heartbeat stopped for ten full seconds before resuming to an unsteady, disturbed and rather hurried tempo.

She felt two fingers under her chin as Dracula gently lifted her head to look at him but she refused to meet his eyes. She felt like collapsing, her legs felt like jelly and her whole face heated up.

How did he do that with just one touch?

"Love, look at me," he pleaded anxiously.

She finally summoned the courage to raise her eyes up to his. Her stomach clenched hard and her toes curled in her sandals as she came face to face with the fire in his beautiful eyes. It mirrored the one in hers.

"What was that?" she asked in a throaty voice, still in confusion over what had happened.

She raised her hand to look at it, to make sure it had not been scorched.

"Oh my word!" She gasped in shock as she saw the markings on her hand in dark ink she had no idea came from whence.

Dracula raised his hand to take hers so he could inspect it, but the same markings were on his hand too, on the same position, in the space above his thumb and index finger.

The words were written in beautiful calligraphy and the words themselves curled into an infinity symbol enclosed by the half of a heart.

The expression on Dracula's face was incongruous to the shocked one on her own. He had a happy euphoric smile that sparked her ire.

"Did you do this? What form of witchcraft is this?"

He looked offended.

"Erinna, I told you I don't like being accused, have I ever denied it when I'm guilty?"

No, he had never; probably because like all deranged sadists and serial killers, he wanted people to know the extent of his depravity.

"Then what happened, what was that?" she asked desperately, trying not to go hysterical.

"That was nature acknowledging our union and establishing our bond. It's not a common tradition and has not happened in thousands of years. It's a gift reserved for the strongest mates. We have just been bound together Countess," he explained a complacent smile that grated on her very last nerve on his face.

"I am not your mate," she stated placidly, hoping he would get the message.

If she remained calm, she could talk him out of this nonsense.

"Nature seems to think differently."

"Nature would never bless what it cursed. There are no unions between vampires and elves," she reminded him.

"What we have is beyond explanation, reasoning or even tribal restrictions. I love and we got off to a bad start but I want to show you I can be different. For you."

She looked down at her hand before she drowned in his entrancingly dark eyes. But she could not hide from his deep, resonating voice.

"This is not one sided, we wouldn't have been marked otherwise," he stated with his usual confidence.

"I don't love you," she told him, deciding to be plain.

"Not yet. But you are drawn to me. That's a start."

It was no use denying her attraction; he had been around for so long, knew too much. He would see right through her.

"Start to what? Death? Curses? Doom? Eternal damnation?" she cried out, hoping to make him see the situation the way she saw it; the way it was: hopeless.

"Right now let it just be a start to dinner."

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Dracula could not find any day in his thousands of years better than this one. The day that nature had finally, finally blessed him.

He had suspected and picked some signals from her mind when she was asleep and when she reacted to his touch but having it confirmed by nature itself that his bride was as drawn to him as he was to her was a relief.

He could not shake off the feeling of elation and euphoria as they walked down the hallway. He could have teleported them to where they were going, but that would mean less time with Erinna and he intended to savour every moment.

His bride was still confused and not completely disarmed he could see, by the slight frown on her face and restlessness in her beautiful eyes.

The guards littering the hallways of his castle bowed as they approached or passed the. He nodded curtly and Erinna smiled.

Their eyes were nearly bugging out as they stared at his bride, shocked out of their minds at encountering her extravagant beauty. He growled lowly and they looked aside.

"Why were they all looking at me like that?" she whispered and he smiled; he should probably tell her his kind had been hearing and could pick up the lowest of sounds.

As she asked him the question, she subconsciously moved closer to him as if for protection.

He sent a mental warning to his people as he felt their eyes following them from behind, he would not have any of them looking at what was his like a blood whore.

Erinna didn't know it but she had the sort of bewitching beauty that no man could ever resist, even those who knew they would never get her couldn't resist looking and imagining.

He knew there was nothing he could do about that since he was also powerless in her hands but the thought of any man looking at her filled him with violent thoughts that he had no qualms about bringing to life.

"Because you're the only woman I've kept for more than one night and haven't offered a bloody violent death to. There's also the issue of your beauty and innocence; it gives a distinct rare irresistible quality to your blood," he explained.

He knew the only thing stopping them from tearing into her and savouring his bride's rare heady blood was his presence.

Erinna instantly froze up and Dracula realised his mistake. Erinna instantly froze up, every muscle tensing. The Count cursed at his slip of the tongue. The evening had been going well enough, albeit a few hitches on the way and he just had to ruin it.

But just because she was the only woman he was not inclined to violently abuse did not mean he had changed; and she had to understand that.

He was still a violent, heartless bastard and the sooner she knew that, the better for her sanity.

He wasn't a saint.

"Is that what you plan for me? A bloody violent death?"

He could see the fear and uncertainty in her eyes even as she hid it behind anger and it pained him immensely because he knew he had planted them there.

He turned to fully face her, not missing the acceleration of her heartbeat when he looked at her. He tenderly cupped her delicate jaw and looked directly into those bewitching emerald eyes.

Her heart stuttered and he found it hard to breath even though he had stopped breathing thousands of years back. Her scrumptiously soft lips taunted her.

Lord she was beautiful. And all his.

Her unguarded, honest reaction to him triggered an instant counter response in him. Her warm life-force racing through her veins whispered unholy suggestions to his canines.

He gritted his teeth and breathed in and out for thirty seconds to prevent himself from taking any drastic action he might regret later.

"Erinna, I love you; more than my life. Hitting you was the biggest mistake I've ever made," he whispered in his most sincere voice, trying to convey his genuine remorse to her.

"It didn't stop you from doing it the second time."

No, it hadn't. But how could he explain it to her; tell her that he had never loved anyone before? Make her understand how much she overwhelmed him; how much he was clueless on how to deal with his confusing emotions?

"And I'll spend my whole existence apologising and trying to make it up to you."

She looked aside, away from his eyes and the rejection nearly tore him asunder.

"The food is probably getting cold," was her closing statement to the subject he very much wanted to pursue until she reassured him she would not eternally hate him because of his careless mistakes; but was forced to shut up because even he knew pushing now would not get him anywhere but just alienate him further from his bride.

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