Captain Dracula

Chapter 24 - My kill

The horses galloped along the mud-swamped path that ran through the quaint village, leaving the villagers poised like statues behind us.

We soon came to what the Captain had been sailing away from his whole life.

The doors opened like they were a carnivorous beasts’ jaw, ready to devour us.

We halted before the threshold and we watched as the guards swiftly dismounted their horses. The Captain slid off the saddle and turned to me.

His expression was waiting, his facial muscles tensed into an almost grimace.

I gripped tightly on to the saddle as I let my legs fumble off the steady horse, and then let myself drop to the floor.

“What’s going to happen to us?” I asked the Captain as I faced him and before he could give me another sour session of wordless eye contact, the guards surrounded us.

Their movements were quick and precise and before I had time to collect my rattled thoughts their skilled hands were everywhere; holding my wrists, restricting my neck, I even felt an unpardonably cold hand cover my mouth.

I panicked instantly and began to scream and yell, I snapped at the hand covering my mouth as tears began to well up in my eyes. I never wanted this. My life was fine. Dad was a stern man but I’d love nothing more than to run into his over –protective arms and for him to tell me he will fix everything.

I struggled and thrashed my body side to side, I don’t want any of these pigs anywhere near me!

They scooped me up like I weighed less than a bag of wheat and carried me through the grand doors. The wood was dark and ornamented with thick bars of steel-like looking material. It looked cold, the way the design was dark and somehow carved to resemble… Blood; dripping, leaking from open wounds in the craftsmanship, pouring down in opaque, crimson droplets.

My heart was racing, or at least that’s what it felt like, I could feel my temperature rising and my mouth drying up.

They carried me further inside to what I assumed to be some sort of grand hall. The marble floors were laced with wirings of gold, huge, velvet curtains fell from the vast cathedral windows that let in blisteringly yellow sunlight. It was a sight to behold; the beauty in just one room was breath taking.

In the midst of being forced to my knees in front of the positioned throne, elevated by a small platform, plastered in cream silk over polished marble steps, my imagination went wild, plotting ghostly figures dancing in gorgeous ball gowns, each crafted with unique styles and different, exotic materials, shipped in from all over the world. I could see the gentlemen dressed up in their finest suits, asking their fixations for a single dance.

I snapped back into reality and fear struck me like a penetrating knife into my chest as I lurched and gasped on the floor.

I’m scared, I hate to admit it, but I’m terrified. I was terrified when the Captain took me, I was terrified when I lost Mike, and I’m terrified now!

“All hail the King, your Majesty, Monarch Lawrence III.” He was introduced so grandly and he appeared from large, creaking doors to the side of the magnificent ballroom.

He was stunning, a being of pure visual ecstasy.

His golden locks cascaded down to his broad shoulders, his armoured chest fitted tightly to his sturdy-looking chest. His face look like it was chiselled out of ivory and his eyes flickered like the flame from a burning stake.

The falsetto tapping of heeled shoes followed him.

I watched as knee-high, leather boots entered the ballroom, spouting silky, maroon cloth that wrapped tightly around a pair of smooth, toned thighs.