Son of Dracula ||Book Two||

Serpens

After that night, our world changed entirely. Almost immediately after leaving our burning home with father, we headed away from Transylvania with hope for the future. I don't quite remember the walk to our new home, only that mother's frightful eyes had burned themselves into the back of my head. I couldn't escape it.

Even when we settled into a new country and father constructed a home that was a mix between a mansion and a castle, things refused to settle. It was nice being in a bigger home, but mother's death had left a hole blown open in all of our chests.

Though we lost our mother, we gained a guardian.

He was Caelum's namesake, though refused to use that name once we met him. He went by Aurelian. We were told very little about the mysterious man that had once been mother's best friend, but the older we grew the more we understood.

Aurelian had loved our mother and had wanted to marry her. The timing hadn't been right and father had gotten to her first. Though their jealously had once kept them apart, their grief over mother brought them together. He quickly became a reliable figure in our lives. He never replaced father but fell more into the role of an uncle or a Godfather.

I knew my mother had been deep in love with father, but sometimes I wondered what would have happened if she loved Aurelian instead. Obviously, my brothers and I wouldn't exist but beyond that, I just wondered if she had loved him.

As a child, I saw him as a mysterious man. His hair was golden and messy, but he always kept it tied at the base of his neck. Small strands fell away from the back and framed his hardened features and dark brown eyes. He was the only human that resided in our home, making him stick out obviously among us all.

I always longed to hear what he thought about, especially in the moments he thought no one was watching. We all dealt with mother's death very differently. My brothers and I lost ourselves in each other and in our own hobbies. Father would spend time by himself, allowing him the time to just stare blankly into nothingness. His silence often spoke loudly.

Aurelian, however, dealt with it in his own way. Bottles of alcohol littered his bedroom. He stumbled through the halls at night, mumbling to himself and whispering her name. Very rarely was he sober enough to hold a solid conversation.

Despite all of this, he was the first to recognize what was happening to me.

Alistair, Caelum, and my father all suffered that night, just as much as I had, but I had been the one to witness mother's death. I had been the one to watch the hunters deliver blow after blow and to see the blood splatter all around them. I had seen mother embrace the power that this life of hers offered.

My nightmares were unpleasant, but at least I could willingly escape those. As the years passed and my memory of that night strengthened, I found myself living through those moments while I was completely awake.

The first time it happened, I had been by myself on the roof. The stars were always the brightest from there. My eyes were lost in the constellations, when mother's gentle voice soothed my mind.

"Which constellation do you see, Leo?"

When I turned my head to see where the voice had come from, there was no one there. There was only smoke pouring out my bedroom window and flames reaching for the sky. I could hear the screams and the chants of the villagers and I could clearly see their figures lingering near our home.

My chest had tightened and my body completely froze. I no longer had control. I don't know how long it took for Aurelian to be able to get through to me, but he had greeted me with a hug once I had snapped out of it.