Chapter 51

• ROMANIA 1780
• Weeks went by and an unholy relationship was born between the foreign prince and the vampire Countess. He treated her as she had always wanted. Mamuwalde made her feel human. What started out as an attraction borne from conflicting agendas resulted in love and one stolen night, Mamuwalde told his love to flee with him to Africa. Although flattered, Wilhelmina knew a happy ending was nothing but futility for them. Dracula was used to having his way and the Countess knew the moment her husband realized he had been received, he would come for them both. So she rejected Mamuwalde's offer of a happily ever after. But the foreigner, like many of his kind, was a fierce lover. He put a musket in his lover's small hands and instructed that she kill her husband when he was most susceptible. He was certain his plan was foolproof and perhaps it was but later that night, when Wilhelmina withdrew the musket to end her monstrosity of a husband, she couldn't find it within her cold lifeless heart to pull the trigger. She feared his weapon would fail to do its job. Her heart couldn't bear to know what would become of Mamuwalde when Vlad Dracula heard her secret. The impaler could never hurt her physically for in his own twisted way, he loved her but that would put the human prince she loved in grave danger so summoning the greatest courage she could muster, Wilhelmina put on a hood and fled the palace walls. She proceeded to find Mamuwalde at the secret spot he had instructed they meet after she had finished Dracula off. Tears flooded her eyes when she made it. She could not help it knowing that she had made the decision to break both her heart and the one of the man she loved. The heart ached that plagued Wilhelmina's heart immediately vanished and was replaced by a sense of dread as her nostrils picked up the pungent smell of blood. Human blood to be precise. Her walk slowed and her heartbeat quickened as she walked directly into the mangled body of a human male. His head was decapitated, his hands had been twisted and turned to places they did not belong and his heart, it rested next to his removed head.
• Wilhelmina reached for the head and upon realizing whom they belonged to, she collapsed to the ground. "W...Walde..." She had sobbed. What monster could have done this, she cried.