Chapter 12
Elizabeth
I found it impossible to pull my eyes away from the stranger, even for the briefest of moments. He laughed at all the right times and commented on the noblemen’s ribald tales with lecherous delight, but I could tell that he hated them all.
He picked at his food and barely partook of the wine, but no one seemed to notice. None of them seemed to care that he was an outsider, and when they spoke about him at the next feast, not one of the noblemen, my father included, knew who invited him. Ladislaus was little more than a wraith who seemed to blend into the shadows, but I saw him clearly, and by the time the evening came to an end, he finally saw me.
Bloated from too much food and wine, with a serving of cruelty for dessert, the men passed out one by one, long after their wives had retired for the evening. Ladislaus remained the last man standing, and I watched as he stepped over the broken bodies of the slaughtered servants, occasionally stooping to lap up a drop of blood.
He came to me and dropped down to his knee, removing that strangely tall hat and bowing before me. Up close, he looked ill. His skin was so pale as to be translucent, and his eyes held a yellow tinge that spoke of disease and impending death. His breath was sour and reeked of decay, but it held sweet notes that were somehow appealing. He frightened me, but I wanted to kiss him.
As though reading my thoughts, he leaned in and gently placed his lips on my neck, his tongue flicking out to ever so softly caress my flesh. I looked at Ferenc, my husband to be, who was passed out on the dining room floor, naked from the waist down, the severed head of a servant sitting face down in his lap.
Ladislaus traced his tongue along the vein in my neck that led to my ear. He nipped at the lobe and whispered to me, telling me that blood is life and that he could make me live forever. He said that all I had to do was beg, which I did. I begged for life as he pressed me down and slid inside me, prayed for eternity as he spilled his seed inside.
I swear I felt life begin inside the womb the moment he pulled out and disappeared into the night forever. My neck felt warm, and when I touched it, my fingers came away wet with blood, yet I felt no wound.
My belly quickly swelled, the child inside me growing at an unnatural rate. When I could no longer hide it, Ferenc and my father demanded to know who had taken my virginity. I blamed some random peasant boy, accusing him of rape, which was good enough for the men in my life.
They brought him to the castle on the day my child was born. I was stripped bare and made to lie on the cold stone floor. The young man screamed as they tore him open, his blood spraying my naked body, getting in my eyes and mouth. My baby was next, his blood mingling with his supposed father’s.
They left me then, sending a couple of women to bathe me, but I ordered them to leave me alone for a moment. My skin tingled beneath the blood, and I felt more alive than ever before. I eventually allowed them to clean me, but I killed one of them as soon as they were done. I smeared her blood over my body, and while it soothed me, it did not feel the same as the first time. I killed the other servant and repeated the process, feeling that I had perhaps become numb to the original feeling. In the years that followed, many more shed their blood as I chased that sensation. I never found it, and I fear it was the blood from my child that was the true elixir.