Bound by Night

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Authors: Amanda Ashley

BOOK: Bound by Night
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A CHILL RAN DOWN HER SPINE . . .
 
. . . with the realization that she was looking at an empty coffin.
Was it for her? Were there other coffins in there? Final resting places for naïve women who had wandered into Wolfram Castle, never to be seen or heard from again?
A sob rose in her throat as the door of her hiding place opened and Drake stepped into the room.
“Elena. Elena!” He stroked her hair, hoping to calm her. “You are safe now.”
She stared up at him, wide-eyed and fearful. “Is it . . . is it . . . for me?”
“What? No, of course not.”
“Then . . . why?”
He ran a hand through his hair, wondering how to explain.
When he didn’t immediately reply, her brow furrowed. “You’re not sick, are you?”
He laughed softly as he sat down beside her. “No, I am not sick.”
“Then why . . . ?”
“It has been in there for centuries. Are you not curious about what those men wanted?”
“I know what they wanted.” She wrapped her arms around her middle. “Me.”
Books by Amanda Ashley
 
BOUND BY BLOOD
 
BOUND BY NIGHT
 
DEAD PERFECT
 
DEAD SEXY
 
DESIRE AFTER DARK
 
EVERLASTING DESIRE
 
EVERLASTING KISS
 
IMMORTAL SINS
 
NIGHT’S KISS
 
NIGHT’S MASTER
 
NIGHT’S PLEASURE
 
NIGHT’S TOUCH
 
A WHISPER OF ETERNITY
 
 
Published by Kensington Publishing Corporation
Bound By Night
 
AMANDA ASHLEY
 
 
ZEBRA BOOKS
KENSINGTON PUBLISHING CORP.
 
All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.
To Kathy Jund
First, a reader
Now, a friend
“In Dreams”
 
When the cold of winter comes
starless night will cover day
In the veiling of the sun
we will walk
in bitter rain
 
But in dreams
I hear your name
And in dreams
we will meet
again
 
When the sea and mountains fall
and we come to end of days
in the dark I hear a call
I will go there
and back
again.
 
—C
ORY
M
ELONI
Prologue
 
His favorite lair was in the remains of a castle that had been built only a few years before he had been turned. He came back every thirty years or so, whenever the noise and the smell and the busyness of modern life became more than he could bear. He much preferred the life he had once known, before the advent of cell phones and iPods, a time when life had been slower, simpler. There had been a beauty to those days long gone, a grace that was missing now. An innocence that could not be restored, and was sorely missed.
But Wolfram Castle remained, exactly the same as it had always been. It was an impressive structure, rectangular with round turrets at three corners and a high, arched entrance. Battlements edged the flat roof. A barbican surrounded the building. The single entrance, flanked by two towers, faced the rising sun. Stone steps, many of them broken, led to the imposing entrance. The outbuildings, save for a large stable in sore need of a new roof, had been destroyed long since.
The ground floor of the castle housed the kitchen and storerooms; the main hall occupied the first floor, along with several smaller rooms, including a garderobe and a bathing chamber, as well as quarters in the rear that had once housed the servants. The chambers on the upper floor had been used exclusively by the Wolfram family.
Drake had purchased the castle and the surrounding acreage from Thomas Wolfram, the last of the Wolfram line, over four hundred years ago. In this day of malls and superstores and housing tracts, holding on to the land had been no easy task, but a good lawyer, and a bit of supernatural magic, had ensured that the castle, the ground it sat on, and the meadow below, would be his as long as he lived.
Standing in the pouring rain, Drake ran his hand over one of the ancient walls. Even though the castle was inanimate, he felt a kinship with it, for they had both endured much in the course of their long existence.
He had survived angry villagers eager to burn him alive; the king’s guards, who had desired his head on a pike; pious minions of the Church who had hoped to redeem his soul before they drove a sharp wooden stake through his heart; mercenaries who wanted to sell vials of his blood to the highest bidder.
The castle had been ravaged by fire and flood, pummeled by rain and hail, struck by lightning, buried in an avalanche, and yet both he and the castle remained, still strong and nearly indestructible.
On rare occasions, he had thought of tearing the place down and building something more contemporary, but it had been a favorite retreat of his for centuries. Destroying the castle would be like destroying a part of himself.
He grunted softly. Maybe ending his existence wouldn’t be such a bad idea. Perhaps he would find peace in true death. He might even find forgiveness. At the least, he would find an end to his hellish thirst, to the loneliness that could never be assuaged by brief encounters with nameless women. An end to watching the rest of the world change and develop while he remained forever the same. Best of all, it would put an end to what was expected of him.
He shook all thought of self-destruction away. Suicide was a cowardly thing to do. Perhaps it was time to go to ground, to rest for a hundred years or so. When he awoke, the times would have changed. There would be new things to see, to learn, a whole new world to explore.
He gazed into the distance. Dark clouds hovered low in the sky, spitting rain and lightning. There was little to see in this part of the country save for the castle, and a small township at the foot of the mountain. A movie company had used the town as the backdrop for a horror film that had, to everyone’s surprise, become a worldwide phenomenon. Since then, tourists had come from all over the world to take pictures and buy souvenirs and pretend, for a day or two, that they were part of that fictional world.
He shook his head. He had little interest in movies, but the tourists who wandered throughout Romania looking for Dracula made for easy pickings. The rain would keep most of them inside on a night like this, but there were always an adventurous few who were willing to brave the elements in search of excitement.
He smiled inwardly as the hunger rose up within him, and with it, the urge to hunt. Any tourists out looking for a thrill tonight would find more than they bargained for.

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