Captive of the Crimson Countess, Chapter 9: The Witching Hour

Blair went to bed after the witching hour, but before dawn, in the coldest hours of the night. The dawn had not broken when a sound startled Blair. She sat up in her bed in Castle Wanderlust and looked around. Nothing in her room seemed out of place. But the window lay open. Blair rose from her bed to shut the window.

She reached the window. Beyond the window she saw something flying out among the Agarthan mountains. Agarthan mountains? Something was wrong with that, but Blair couldn’t think what it was. The thing flying out in the night looked too large to be a bird. Blair guessed that the thing was about the size of a person. She squinted. But as she did, the thing swooped and launched itself at the castle. Blair stepped back from the window. The dark shape flew in the window and landed before Blair. 

Blair recognized Nadia standing before her. Nadia stood, dressed in a black corset, black stockings, black opera gloves. And nothing else. The sight made Blair catch her breath. Nadia’s skin lay exposed, porcelain pale and smooth. Blair found herself staring at the soft curves of Nadia’s naked hips and thighs. Blair was so busy staring that she took far too long to notice the obvious. Nadia also now had enormous bat wings stretching from her shoulders. 

Nadia folded her wings behind her. She took two steps forward, bringing her to within a finger width of Blair’s face. The princess looked up into Blair’s eyes, and smirked. Blair noted fangs behind Nadia’s ruby lips. Then Nadia placed her hand on Blair’s shoulders. Blair should resist. She knew this, but she didn’t.

Nadia pushed Blair onto the bed and Blair found she couldn’t stop the smaller woman. Nadia pressed against Blair. Blair shuddered at the feeling of their bodies. She could feel their bodies rubbing against each other through her thin nightgown. Then Nadia reached down and tore Blair’s nightgown open at the front, exposing Blair. She gasped. And then Nadia dropped her face and sank her teeth into Blair’s breast. And Blair moaned. It should have hurt. It did hurt, but the pleasure overpowered the pain. And Blair arched her back in ecstasy. She could feel the blood pumping through her body. Her skin crackled as Nadia pressed against her. Blair found herself grasping Nadia by the shoulders. She found herself pulling the other woman tighter against her own body. 

Blair struggled to think, to get her head running as it should. Nadia had lied about not being an immortal. And Blair had to stop Nadia. But Blair didn’t want to stop Nadia. The princess removed her fangs from Blair and ran a teasing tongue across Blair’s naked breast. Blair quivered. She knew she should resist the temptations of an immortal. But she didn’t want to resist. Nadia threaded her hands under Blair’s open nightgown, hands caressing down Blair’s ribs and hips. And then something crashed behind Blair and the voice of the countess filled Blair’s room.

“I told you that this one is mine.” The countess thundered.

What was the countess doing in Castle Wanderlust? Blair’s mind spun. Something was wrong. Nadia shouldn’t be here. The countess shouldn’t be here. What was happening? 

Nadia cringed back from Blair, and huddled against the back wall of the room. Blair stood up and pulled her torn nightgown about her as best she could. She stepped between the looming countess and Nadia.

The countess laughed. “What can you do little hunter? You stand stripped bare and without your toys. You are harmless.”

Blair picked up one of a pair of silver hair sticks from her bedside table. She levelled it at the countess.

“I’m never without my toys.” Blair said. 

“So brave. So bold. So foolish.” The countess said. 

“Blair, run!” Nadia hissed from behind Blair. 

Blair shook her head. 

“I’m not leaving you.” Blair said. And then to the countess, she said, “You can’t have her.”

“Look at her. What are you babbling about? I already have her. She has been mine for months.”

“I don’t care. I won’t leave her.”

“Do you think you’re in love, little hunter?” The countess laughed, her hand covering her mouth as she did. “How sweet. And deluded.”

“I won’t leave her.”

“Nadia is my creature now. And you can’t free her. You can only join her in bondage.”

“I can die defending her.”

“You can die at her hands you mean. Kill her, Nadia.”

The countess gestured to Nadia. Blair spun around. The princess began to shake. But Nadia did not move. 

“Did you not hear me? Kill her.”

Nadia gritted her teeth. Blair could see blood, her blood, trickling down Nadia’s chin. But Nadia did not move.

“Kill her, now!”

“No.” Nadia whispered, and the countess stepped back as though struck. 

The countess’s face contorted into a snarl and she stepped forward. Blair jammed the hair stick into the countess’s belly. The silver sizzled and the countess pulled back with a shriek. She snarled at Blair and then struck her with a swinging backhand that knocked Blair onto her bed. The countess grabbed the silver hair ornament. And, her hands sizzling, she ripped the hair stick from her belly. That done, she threw the hair stick aside. Blair’s head was swirling from the blow she had taken. She tried to pull herself up, but failed. The countess advanced on Nadia, who cowered. Grabbing Nadia by the neck, the Countess reached out and tore Nadia’s wings from her back. The princess screamed. And then the Countess spun and threw Nadia out the window into the swirling snow and darkness. 

“No!” Blair found her voice and pushed herself to a sitting position. 

The countess turned and struck out like a viper, grasping Blair by the chin and pinning her to the bed. 

“You are mine, little hunter, do not forget that.”

Blair struggled, but the countess overpowered Blair with no effort. The countess leaned in, fangs bared. She pushed Blair’s head back, exposing her neck. Blair couldn’t stop her. Blair flailed and struggled, but the countess stood unmoved. The countess was going to feed. 

“You cannot escape. I had expected this to take longer. But it doesn't matter. There will be others.” 

Blair cast about and then saw the other silver hair stick on the bedside table. She grasped it and plunged the stick through the countess’s wrist. Blood sprayed and the countess howled, lurching backward. 

Blair scrambled upright in her bed in Castle Crimson as she woke from the nightmare. She looked around the darkened room. She wasn’t in Castle Wanderlust. She was alone. It hadn’t happened. Had it? 

She ran the nightmare back in her mind. Blair remembered Nadia’s bite and the pleasure it had brought. She shuddered again, the memory triggering another wave of pleasure. But the memory of the countess loomed in her mind as well. It did not feel like a simple dream. It felt like something more. 

The countess had accused Blair of being in love with Nadia. Blair shook her head, she knew the countess was wrong there. She felt an attraction to Nadia, yes, but not in love. Protecting others was what a monster hunter did. She would do the same for anybody. She would.

She stood and made her way to the wash basin at the wall. She splashed cold water on her face and looked at herself in the mirror. Her face lay shrouded by the darkness of the room. But then, looming behind her, Blair saw the vampire Nadia. Blair spun around, but there was nothing. Blair took several breaths to calm herself. And then realized that, as she spun, she had pulled the collar of her nightgown down to expose her throat. 

She shook her head. 

“It doesn’t mean anything,” she said to the empty room.