Lost Without You

~25~

"Explain. Please." I told Stoker once he led me into a large sitting room situated at the back of the house. Apparently he wasn't using the front rooms, which faced the street.

Standing by the door, I watched him switch on a couple of tall lamps placed on both sides of a long sofa lining the wall on my right, then walk across the room to light a fire in a large fireplace. Once the lounge was well lit by its lively and warm flames, I chose an armchair which stood closest to the hearth, removed my coat and sat down.

Stoker took it from me and laid it on top of a tall, ancient looking chest of drawers placed on the right side of the fireplace, not far from an enormous writing desk standing by a floor to ceiling French window, which overlooked, most probably, the back garden. All I could see behind its long, white curtains now was perfect darkness.

"Well, we all know about your husband." He said, sitting down on the sofa across from me. "He is not one of the most ancient vampires, but he's definitely one of the most famous, or should I say notorious ones. A celebrity."

His casually uttered words made my temper rise immediately, reminding me why I did not like him. "That's your fault, Mr. Stoker. You, by writing that silly book of yours, made him look like a monster!" I called. He was definitely the most unbearable vampire I had ever met.

Lucas chuckled somewhere behind me. "This shall be fun," he said, depositing a large tray laden with a teapot, cups, biscuits and even sandwiches on the low table separating me from Stoker who was seated on the sofa.

Sitting down in an armchair at my side, Lucas poured a tea for me in one of the cups, then placed one of the other two, apparently already full, in front of his uncle.

"Your husband already had an interesting reputation when I met him, even before I used him in my book." Stoker said, raising his hands in mock surrender. "But let's talk about that later, if we must. As I have said before, we all know about the cruel Prince Vlad's love for his first wife, whose identity remains unclear-- all we know is her first name. Samara. A woman whom he loved so much that when she died, he resolved to let himself be slayed on a battlefield. Saved at the last moment he was changed, and thus became one of us. But instead of enjoying his new, eternal life throughout centuries, he let himself be trapped in a sort of a cursed... time loop, created by a powerful witch. That was supposed to be the price to pay for the hope of ever being reunited with his lost love again. Because if he stayed, the witch promised, his beloved would find her way back to him once her soul was reborn in a distant future, and set him free..."

"But... wouldn't she find him if he left that cursed place?" I asked, so enthralled by the story that I did not realise I was talking about myself.

Stoker smiled. "No. Apparently, his accepting that life as a punishment for letting her die, was part of the... deal. Only once he had served his sentence, she would come back."

"But it's not fair. Her death was not his fault..." I muttered. "And the witch? Who was she?"

"The Princess' old nurse, of course." Stoker announced matter-of-factly.

Suddenly, the room seemed to start spinning around me. I grabbed Lucas' arm with my left hand and closed my eyes, bringing my other hand to the side of my head, pressing my cold fingers against my throbbing temple. It couldn't be true.

"That's nonsense." I said, trying to persuade myself as I looked at Stoker again.

"If you say so, Princess Samara." He smiled infuriatingly.

"But it can't be true." I insisted stubbornly. "It's impossible."

"I'd except this kind of reaction of anybody else but you, Samara. You speak as if you haven't just come back from there. From the place and the man about whom every vampire in the world talks, but no one exept you and me knows that they really exist."