Ashes to Ashes, Dust to Dust by Jessica Dalton (7 ebook reader txt) 📖

with that he threw me off the bed so quickly that I didn’t even see it coming in his mind.

As I fly through the air toward the far wall with such force and speed that an aeroplane would be jealous, I spin and fall to the ground in a cat like crouch before I can take out the wall to my bathroom. A low dangerous growl erupts from deep down in my chest as I look back over my shoulder at Dimitri and launch myself at him.

Landing on his chest I feel the bed beneath us quiver with the force I put into the punch that I land square on his jaw. I jump back off the bed just as he is about to knock me off his chest. Suddenly he is in front of me and we are circling one another. I notice his hand coming up so I dance out of his way quick enough that his fist only brushes the material covering my shoulder. I jump back again as he kicks his leg out so that his foot only skims my bare thigh.

Getting tired of avoiding his attacks I run at him pushing him to the floor at the foot of the bed. I land on top of him only to be thrown off again. This time I can’t avoid colliding with anything. My back hits my head board and I grunt in pain as I slide down onto my pillows.

Consumed by anger and rage, I look at Dimitri who is standing at the foot of my bed, waiting for my next move. Even while wearing only jeans he glows with power, I wonder why it took as long as it did to realise that he was the King.

“are you finished?” I ask Dimitri in a raspy voice.

“Are you?” he throws back at me.

Slowly I nod and let out a long sigh. I am still exhausted, it is as though I didn’t get any sleep.

“good, now shower and get dressed, I‘ll meet you in the hallway, we need to talk.” he says.

His eyes move over me, his eyes flash a deeper gold colour and I pull the sheets over my legs as I self concisely realise I am only wearing a shirt.

Dimiti brings his gaze back to mine and holds it there before flitting out of my room.

It’s only when I’m getting in the shower that I realise that I was unable to read his thoughts.

********

I was sitting in Dimitri’s study, waiting for him to get off the phone,

“….I don‘t want to hear excuses Slone I want answers, find out what happened and fix it!”

Slammig the phone down with a grunt, Dimitri turns his golden eyes on me.

‘whats wrong?’ I asked with a frown.

‘Rogues.’ growled Dimitri. ‘the rogues in the city are growing in numbers. At this rate I am going to have a full out war outside my door before we know it.’

‘who‘s Slone?’ I asked nodding my head towards the phone he had just slammed back into its cradle.

‘He’s one of my vampires. He is also a detective for the Ontario Provenance Police.’ Dimitri explained. ‘he lets me know when there has been a rogue murder and he makes sure that anyone who even starts to guess the truth can never guess it again.’

“he kills them?” even to my ears my voice sounds shrill and shocked.

Dimitri rolls his eyes at me, yes he actually just rolled his eyes.

“No Ashes he doesn‘t kill them. Slone has the pleasure of having a special gift that he seems to have inherited from his sire - he is one of the rare vampires who can read anyone‘s mind, take control of the mind and wipe memories away.”

“ahhh,” was my smart reply. “so what did you want to talk to me about your majesty?” I ask with a smirk.

While Dimitri rolls his eyes again I let my eyes roam around, taking in my surroundings. Dimitri is sitting at an old antique looking desk, it’s a dark mahogany wood with images carved into the wood of the legs. Taking a closer look I realise that at the bottom of each table leg, just below the other carvings is a huge dragon breathing fire.

The rest of the room was done in similar antique furniture, the walls were painted a deep red. I looked up at the ceiling only to loose my breath. It was beautiful, better than anything Michelangelo could have ever done.

The painting was of the sun rising up over the horizon, sun beams licked ripples of the ocean that reached like fingers towards a Caravel sailing ship which sat in the a part of the ocean that the sun had not reached yet. The most beautiful thing about the picture was that the painter was able to capture the moment brilliantly. Half the ocean was sitting in the daylight and the other half was still in the night.

On the deck of the ship stood dark figures, their faces showed pure fascination and awe. One of the faces caught my attention, it was Dimitri.

As my gaze took in the picture I saw a huge dragon hovering just behind the ship. It was rearing back as though the sight of the beautiful sun rise horrified it.

I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the painting, not even when Dimitri spoke.

“it‘s exquisite is it not?” he asked.

“beyond words.” was all I could say.

Finally I looked back at him only to see that he was staring at the sun rise.

“what is with the dragons?” I asked referring to the carved Dragon on his desk and the one in the painting.

A slow smile stretched Dimitri’s lips. “this painting is of one morning in the 15th century. We stood on that deck for as long as we dared before flitting below to our coffins at the very last moment.”

“coffins?” I asked, trying to disguise the horror in my voice.

“yes coffins - they were the only way to travel in those days. Some people still travel that way in case they get caught in the daylight if their plane is delayed or something.” the wistful smile reappeared on Dimitri’s face.

“that was the first and only time I have ever seen the sun. That was the best moment of my very very long life.”

“what about the dragons?” I prompted.

“oh yes, well at the time I was very good friends with a human male called Mircea Dracul. He was an honourable man and was Prince of Wallachia, Romania, but they were forever at war. Mircea‘s father - Vlad Dracul II - had to leave the kingdom for the Ottoman Court in 1442 and left Mircea as ruler. His fathers alliance with the Ottoman Empire made him an enemy of the Hungarian hero John Hunyadi and in 1443 he launched an attack on Wallachia. Hunyadi defeated both the Ottoman forces and those who were loyal to Mircea’s father. Which forced Vlad II to negotiate with the Ottoman court for support and caused Mircea to flee Wallachia. Mircea had always supported his father and as any eldest son should but he did not support Vlad’s alliance with the Ottomans. In return for the Ottomans help Vlad Dracul signed a treaty to say that he would pay the usual annual tribute as well as handing over his two other sons, Vlad Tepes and Radu the Handsome, to be held as captives.

“It was around this time that I met Mircea, after what his father had done he was determined to find his brothers and free them, but he still had to lead his people and the armies as they were still at war. Mircea‘s father believed that by doing everything the Ottomans said would keep his sons safe, but Mircea knew that his brothers must have been going through hell and couldn‘t stand to let their torture continue.

“I had been helping him find his brothers when he found out what I was, there was no way he could not have known, he had grown up in Romania and the gypsies were known to tell of the stories of the cursed monsters who would drink human blood and lived in the shadows because they were scared of the sun. He was not ignorant therefore I could not hide it from him. He was not afraid of me however, but he did ask me to turn him, I thought about it for a few weeks and he waited patiently for my answer. As I said before, he was a honourable man, who new how to lead his people and was very brave and had a heart that showed love which was very rare in Romania in those days, especially within the monarch.”

“a month after he had asked me to change him we were out searching for his brothers. We still didn’t know where the Ottomans had taken them, it could have been to any one of their prisons, or to one of their many dungeons that they used to torture and interrogate their prisoners of war. Or they could have easily have been held in one of the Ottomans great houses. We were in a dungeon that was full of prisoners, I had managed to get myself and Mircea in unseen, but I had foolishly gone without feeding for a while and was struck by the smell of blood in the dungeons. It was because of this that I didn’t hear the guard come up behind me, he had a torch and was about to strike me with it when Mircea spun around and killed him first. Mircea had known that if even a small flame of fire touched my skin or hair then I would go up in flames and die straight away. He had saved my life and so that night I had exchanged blood with him and then every night for a week but as you know, Mircea would have to die before the transition from homo-sapien to vampire was complete.

“a month later we still hadn’t found Radu or Vlad. I was called away on vampire business but I promised to come back straight away to help Mircea once again. I had had to travel to America, it was before it was discovered by Europe but as you know I am very old and in the 15th century there wasn’t anywhere on earth that I hadn’t yet seen. It was six months before I was able to return. I went to Wallachia to meet with Mircea only to find that both Mircea and his father had been killed and that the Ottoman had placed Mircea’s youngest brother Vlad III on the throne. After all that time that myself and Mircea had been searching for Vlad and Radu and there he was sitting on the throne like he owned it. Radu however was nowhere to be seen.”

I sat in avid silence listening to Dimitri tell me the story of a kingdom and of men who had ruled hundreds of years ago. I was fascinated.

“I asked to have an audience with King Vlad III.” Dimitri continued, “I was made to wait two weeks before a messenger was sent for me, I was to meet with the King straight away. Vlad was the complete opposite of Mircea, he was hard and cold and arrogant. He