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“Then let me be damned,” he whispered. “For I would rather spend an eternity in darkness with you than live another day in the light without you.”
Béla’s words spoken to him long ago when he, Dracula, was a hot-headed fool eager to sign away his soul for victory. Béla was the only one he had informed of the deal, his plan to take him with him into what he thought was an eternal paradise.
Dracula stood frozen; he knew now, without a doubt, that Jonathan was his long-lost beloved. And now…when he was here, begging to be taken, he couldn’t bring himself to do it.
“This is no paradise. You do not know of what you ask!”
Like the wind bellowing through the ragged curtains, the Count was gone. Jonathan swiped the air, his lids heavy as darkness finally took him.
Chapter Sixteen
The first traces of dawn filtered through the shattered windows of Jonathan’s guest quarters, casting eerie shadows across the room. He stirred fitfully in his bed, caught in the throes of a nightmare he couldn’t quite grasp. In his dreams, he heard the Count’s voice, a ghostly whisper that made his blood run cold: “Forget, but remember that I am amonster.”
As consciousness slowly returned, he became aware of phantom pains in his shoulder and backside. He winced, his hand instinctively moving to the spots where he felt he had been bitten. But when his fingers probed the areas, they found only smooth, unbroken skin.
Confusion clouded his mind as he tried to piece together everything that happened the night before. Fragmented memories flashed before his eyes - passion, sweaty naked fleshagainst flesh, rough and animalistic lovemaking, the Count transforming into some kind of… beast. But surely, these were just dreams? Feverish imaginings brought on by the strange atmosphere of the castle?
He tried to recall how he ended up in his bed. He remembered drinking and wandering the maze, and then, and then…perhaps he had drunk too much and managed to stumble his way to his room by the grace of luck.
But why does his lips feel the impression of another? Why the sharp pains around his inner thighs? And his ass was still wrapped around the Count’s phantom cock.
Most importantly, why did he feel rejected, pushed away by the very object of his desire?
His head throbbed as he questioned his own sanity. Had the Count truly ravished him until he was destroyed? Or was his mind simply conjuring these fantastical scenarios to cope with his forbidden longings? Whatever the case, he couldn’t shake the growing sense of dread that told him he must flee this place before he lost himself completely.
But would losing himself be such a terrible outcome? He was beginning to feel at home here, even finding comfort in the howling of wolves at night. For the first time in his life, he had felt accepted amongst the strange and outcast beings of this inner world. He even wandered the grounds alone at night without fear.
But now, that sense of comfort had been shattered. Something terrible must have happened, something involving the Count, but the details eluded him. The more he tried to recall what happened the night before, the more they slipped away like wisps of smoke.
With growing certainty, Jonathan concluded that Dracula must be a devil, a creature of darkness sent to tempt and destroy him. The thought spurred him into action. He had toleaveTransylvania to escape this madness before it consumed him entirely! The more he thought about it, the more anxious he began to feel each second that he was not working toward that goal.
He attempted to rise from the bed. His movements were so sluggish he accidentally knocked over a glass on the bedside table. It shattered on the floor, scattering shards across the polished wood.
Startled by the noise, Jonathan scrambled from the bed, only to cry out in pain as a shard of glass sliced into his foot. The sharp sting triggered another flash of memory - a bed soaked with blood,hisblood. Fear gripped him as he pulled the glass free, his trembling hands leaving bloody smears on the sheets.
Ignoring the pain, he stumbled towards his luggage, leaving a trail of bloody footprints in his wake. His body protested with every movement, but the need to escape overrode all physical discomfort.
Catching a glimpse of himself in the mirror, Jonathan was taken aback by his own appearance. His reddening, puffy eyes werehollow, sunken into a face pale as death, and tear stains marked his cheeks. ‘What the hell is wrong with me? Am I dying?’
“An abomination...” he muttered under his trembling breath, echoing words he had heard in his dreams. The phrase, spoken in Dracula’s voice, shook him entirely. He had witnessed things utterly impossible, terrifying - if only he could fully remember!
One sensation suddenly stood out as vividly as if it were happening at that moment - the electrifying touch of Dracula’s lips against his own. A kiss that had sent him into an almost primal passion he never wanted to let go of.
“No!” Jonathan squeezed his brow. “The Count will kill me…I—I know it…I must leave here!”
He grabbed his clothes, stuffing them haphazardly into his luggage, his head pounding with each movement; he tried once more to piece together the dream. The smell of wine lingered in his nostrils. “That explains the headache,” he muttered, grasping at this small bit of rational explanation.
But even as he clung to this mundane justification, darker thoughts plagued him. What if Dracula truly was in league with the devil? What if Jonathan’s growing comfort in the castle, even his attraction to the Count, were signs of his own inherent evil? Perhaps the “curse” of homosexuality was proof that he, too, was born wicked.
He recalled his father’s booming voice as he declared, “You’re no son of mine! Leave this house and never return!”
For a moment, he was back in his childhood bedroom, packing up his clothes just as frantically as he was now. The rejection stung just as deeply. Back then, he was afraid because he had no place to go and no means to care for himself. Now, this fear was different. Deep inside, he felt as if these were not his true feelings, but he couldn’t help but be driven by them.
He finished packing and stood in the center of his guest room, luggage in hand, poised on the precipice of flight. Behind him lay broken glass, bloodstains, and the tattered remnants of his former self. Ahead, the unknown - a world he never felt he belonged to, but one he must return to nonetheless.
As the sun continued its inexorable rise over the Carpathian peaks, Castle Dracula seemed to exhale a collective breath, as if rousing from its own shroud of nightly secrets. The quiet was shattered by a booming rap at Jonathan’s chamber door.
“Master Harker? I must speak with you at once!” came the insistent voice of Vigo, the Count’s trusted manservant.
