Moonlit Surrender
Chapter Twenty-Nine

Doris took slow, deliberate steps into the room, her icy stare never flinching.

"I-I thought Lerexus said you were gone on business," Lucy stuttered.

"Well I'm back," she raised her hands up as if performing a magic trick. "And here you are, still living it up in the master suite, not a care in the world."

Lucy scrunched her nose in silent protest.

Not a care? This woman is fucking nuts.

Doris looked as though she had truly snapped at long last. There was a wild and dangerous gleam in her washed-out eyes. "You stumble onto campus late in the game of life, all your peers having already moved on to universities to complete their studies, and stupidly walk into the wrong classroom only to steal what I had been cultivating for years. You thief! You leech!" She flipped a decorative end table across the sitting room, watching it explode into splinters against the wall. "You don't deserve any of this. You didn't work for any of it. You shouldn't even know about vampires! You're just a walking, talking, massive accident!" Her shiny black pump shot out from beneath her flowing skirt and kicked the couch a few feet back as she passed it.

Lucy pulled the covers up to her chin as if they would protect her from the unhinged woman.

"I see no queen before me. What do you even know of the world you happened upon? It should be me! I will spend eternity puzzled over why the hell they bicker over you. You've stolen not one, but two opportunities from me, Lucy Beckett. I will not go quietly into the night while you sit in your tower manipulating those stupid men to do your bidding while I am cast out in the cold." She dramatically pulled out a knife tucked away between her small breasts in the bodice of her new dress. "You know," she laughed sardonically, "if this were any other point in history, one might have accused you of witchcraft. It's little sluts like you who have caused such atrocities in the world like the bloody witch trials. You feed off of the stupidity of men and twist their weak minds and spread your evil will."

Lucy laughed openly. "So I'm a witch now?"

"Hardly, girl. I see nothing magical about you, just a masterful grip of the art of deceit."

"This is fucking hilarious since it's you who is only after power and position. Why do you want to be a vampire queen so badly, Doris? Are you so madly in love with that frightful white-haired beast?" she mocked. "Were you so enamored with John? Is that why you hung around him so desperately? Who is the true manipulator here?"

Doris stomped her heeled foot in frustration like a spoiled child. "Shut your mouth, lying whore. Maybe they eat up your bullshit, but I see right through it!" With that, she lunged for the bed with the knife in the air.

Lucy screamed and tried to duck out of the bed, but knew she was too slow to outmaneuver a vampire. Her eyes squinted closed in terror and her arms flew up in useless defense as she waited for the bite of the blade, but it never came. She heard Doris grunt and when Lucy opened her eyes, the woman was nowhere near her. Instead, she found John wrestling her to the floor, still bound and with a clear disadvantage, but somehow succeeding.

Lucy rose from the bed with the sheet wrapped about her and stared helplessly at their superhuman struggle on the floor. There was no one to scream to for help, no one coming to their rescue, no key that would magically appear to uncuff John so it would be a fair fight, no helpful action she could take against the madwoman.

The knife at last fell from Doris' hand and slid across the room to a halt at Lucy's feet. John wrapped his opponent in his clasped arms and rose to his full height so her feet could no longer replace the traction of the floor beneath them. Doris wailed and screamed like a banshee, kicking and throwing her body back and forth in a vain attempt to break free of his hold.

"You're lucky I'm handcuffed, fledgling," John sneered at her.

John may have been the more experienced vampire, more powerful from the many years he had already spent undead, but the silver around his wrists seemed to weaken him as well as bind him. How long could he hold her? What would happen when he'd tire and she'd finally break free?"

Lucy bent down and picked up the slender knife and lunged for the restrained woman.

Doris laughed condescendingly. "You missed! You're even stupider than I thought!"

"I wasn't aiming for you," Lucy sneered coldly as she looked down at where the blade was wedged in one of the silver links of John's handcuffs. With both hands, she twisted until the shiny metal gave way and warped under the pressure. With a mighty bellow, John ripped his wrists apart, snapping the weakened link to free himself.

Lucy grinned and quickly backed away, loosing John's full fury on the lanky, bitter woman who had done nothing but hound her since she had met her. The broken handcuffs still remained on both of his wrists, but with a full range of motion and most of his strength, he subdued her into an uncomfortable pin on the floor quickly. She wondered if he would kill her. Lucy had suffered under her constant gaslighting and name calling, but John had been tormented by her for years. Before he was able to do anything beyond incapacitating her, the threesome was interrupted by Lerexus' voice filling the room angrily, "What's going on here?"

"They attacked me, Master!" Doris lied in fake distress. "They were trying to escape and I stopped them!"

Lucy let out a derisive snort. "Yes, quite the plan I had, escaping in nothing but a bed sheet."

"Don't listen to her lies, Master!" Doris cried out. "She's done nothing but take advantage of you and your generosity since she got here. Why else would Wright be hiding out in her room at twilight? They were planning to leave! I swear it! I caught them before they could make their grand escape."

His pink eyes narrowed suspiciously as they settled on John, then Lucy. "Tell me then, mouse, why is he here, here in this room fit for royalty that I put you in? After all I've given you, after everything I've promised to you, you would still sneak around with this traitor?"

Is it worse to admit to sleeping with John or go along with Doris' accusations of plotting an escape?

There is a modicum of trust between him and me, so small, but it's there.

Exploit it.

"It's true," Lucy admitted with a show of shame. "He sneaked into my room in a last attempt to win me back, jealous of what I've found with you, my Lord."

His look softened as he listened, but was it because it was believable or simply what he wanted to believe?

"We argued through the day as I spurned his advances. Doris found us, but only because she barged in to hurt me. John stopped her, as you can see. That is what happened here."

Lerexus made his way across the room to her, standing a breath away and ducking his head down to stare her square in the face. "I believe you."

She sighed inwardly in relief.

"I believe Doris has lost her sense of purpose and place in my house," he stated harshly to the woman, still held down by John. "I believe she was here to harm you."

Lucy held out the knife. "She tried to attack me with this. I think she wanted to kill me."

Lerexus took the blade and turned it over in his hand a couple times and without looking, ordered John to release her, then stated coldly, "Get out."

Doris looked shocked. "W-What?"

"Get out of my house. Get away from my family. I've given you plenty of chances and you have proven yourself unworthy at every turn. Perhaps it was a hasty decision to gift you ascension, but it is already done. Go. Make your bed elsewhere. You are no child of mine."

"What?" Doris asked again in complete shock. "You're kicking me out? Over her? She isn't even a vampire! All she's done is use you! She's making a fool of you, can't you see?"

John let her go and she stumbled forward on her knees to Lerexus.

"Please, Master, don't do this. You don't mean it. I've done nothing but serve you loyally."

"You've disobeyed me at every turn! It is not your place to choose whom I bring into the fold. You presume to call me the fool when it is you that cannot set aside the petty squabbles of your mortal life? Be gone!" He waited for her to move, but she clung to the hem of his robe begging and weeping crimson tears on his feet. "Get out!" he shouted coldly again, kicking her away, then called for his brutish guard to remove her, her wailing and screams echoing through the castle's halls as he dragged her away.

Lerexus turned back to Lucy and John waiting unsurely. Without another word, he snatched her arm roughly in his fist and pulled her quickly from the bedroom and the safety of the sheet she cowered beneath. "What are you doing?" John asked alarmed as he chased after them.

He did not answer, but tugged her through the sitting room and into the dark and drafty hallway, his steps almost too quick for her to keep up with as she lunged after her smarting arm bent awkwardly in his uncaring claws. "Lerexus!" John shouted behind them, demanding a response.

"I am nobody's fool!" He bit through gritted teeth, leading them down the many flights of stairs and winding hallways past rooms and walkways Lucy had no idea existed. The castle was a veritable labyrinth it seemed only its master knew how to navigate. "I won't suffer this nonsense any longer." He snapped his fingers loudly and there was a sudden burst of air from lightning fast movement as his guard appeared. "You know what to do," he instructed cryptically.

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The guard fell behind their parade through the castle, following closely on John's heels as he chased after the shivering, naked girl stumbling weakly behind the ancient vampire lord who stormed ahead of them. Lerexus halted at a massive set of wooden double doors that stretched well above their heads, decorated in tarnished gold plating and worn-down carvings of swirling designs and crosses. With one mighty push of his free hand, he sent the heavy doors groaning open to reveal a badly decaying cathedral, overgrown by weeds sprouting from the cracks in the stone floor and winding their way up the tall walls and cold iron sconces. Where once pews sat neatly aligned was wild flora wrapping its way around the rotted carcasses of wood and the huge iron chandelier that had collapsed in the center of the room ages ago. The room was lit only by a few scattered braziers and the moon and stars flooding in through the massive gaps in the crumbling arched ceiling above them where patches of religious murals still remained, faded and peeling away as the weather and exposure erased their memory from this haunted place. Beyond the overgrown chandelier and vine-wrapped rotting pews rose a dais with a crumbling marble altar on it.

Lucy was dragged through the underbrush sprouting from the exposed earth between the gaps in the slabs of rock, around the overgrown chandelier and up the crumbling steps to the dais where Lerexus halted behind the altar. "Restrain him at all costs, make him watch every second of me spoiling his most prized possession, just as he has spoilt my every endeavor! Watch closely, Johnathan! Watch me ruin this precious, pure thing you hold so dear! Watch me drag her into the long night with the rest of us! She will be my queen, with or without her consent. You will remember your place in this house and I will grow my brood tenfold, until not even those damned Venatores can hold us back!" He threw Lucy onto the stone slab and leaned in closer, just for her to hear, "And it all starts with you, little mouse. Welcome to godhood."

"No!" she fought weakly, unable to pry herself from his preternatural strength. "No! I don't want to! I don't want this!" she cried frantically.

This is all you ever dreamed of as an angst-ridden teen.

Not like this. Not him.

"Please!" she begged, tears beginning to stream down her cheeks.

"Don't worry, sugar, it'll only hurt for a moment, then you'll die."

"I don't want to die," she sobbed fearfully.

"Hush now, child. I will guide you through your deep sleep and when you awaken from your slumber, you will be a goddess, the most powerful vampires in the world, seated at my right hand where we'll usher in a new era, one where the vampire will no longer cower in the shadows. I'll hear no more of your protests or nonsense about Wright. You're mine now, do you understand?" he growled with his fangs bared in the moonlight. "There's no stopping it now." Still she fought his steel fists pinning her down to the cold marble, confident John would think of something here in the final hour of all of their fears coming to realization. It wasn't supposed to happen like this. They were going to get out of here, run away together somewhere far, far away from everything that plagued them. She wasn't supposed to become a vampire, or at least not at Lerexus' hands. That should've been John's privilege to guide her into the unknown and fathomless waters of immortality. She should've been cradled in his tender embrace, dazzled by the starry night, and drifting slowly through the mysteries of death and eternity by his careful hand.

Lerexus drank greedily at the wound he had ripped open at her neck on the very spot John had once suckled at as they had made love. His slurps and gulps were sickening and the longer they drew on, the weaker she grew as he raped her of her humanity, forcing this dark change on her unwillingly. Beyond his frantic feeding, she could hear John's heartbreaking weeping and protests. He was held back helplessly, still weakened by the silver around his wrists and the brute that kept him in place. She turned her head to focus on his face, as broken and pitiful as it was with bloody streams of tears staining his pale cheeks and gray speckled stubble.

"You are a monument to life, Lucy. You are the daylight in my darkness. You bring warmth and life into the cold shadows in which I reside."

His words rang sweetly in her mind, distracting her from the gruesome act befalling her. Her eyes drifted closed, thinking on better times in which she had stared up into those otherworldly gray eyes, feeling the seduction of his invitation to surrender, reveling in the warmth and safety she felt under their gaze, losing herself in the heat they could so easily stir in her. It was a strange time to realize she had perhaps never truly loved until him. She wanted to tell him it would all be okay, she understood now the peace he had come to when he thought he had lost her to his sire, the completeness he had felt at the two of them having simply loved one another despite how short their time together may have been. It was enough to know she had never loved one so deeply as she loved him and to know he had loved her back. Whatever would come next, whatever horrors she might face, she could wrap herself in that truth like a warm blanket, like a beautiful dream of home when the world grew too cold. He had given her more than surrender or passion, he had given her a memory.

The room around her sounded like it was plunged into water, muffled and far away, but suddenly she heard voices. There was shouting, screaming, and the faint smell of smoke. Panic filled the air so thick even Lucy in her dazed state could sense it. Lerexus' mouth pulled away suddenly, leaving his job unfinished. Lucy strained to open her eyes, but they felt impossibly heavy and what she saw came in incoherent flashes of lucidity.

Lerexus was over her, shouting. Dark figures repelled in on long ropes through the gaps in the ceiling high above his white hair. Shadows moved about her periphery holding glittering longsword that sparkled like the silver of John's broken handcuffs.

Other shouts joined the dancing shadows, the vampires of the castle joining together to stave off the sudden attack.

"Someone get these damned handcuffs off me!" John shouted beyond her vision, hidden in the throng of violence that was unfolding below the dais.

Lerexus screamed angrily above her still, this time his words cutting through the chaos so even she could make them out. "I swear to all the gods living and dead, the next time I see you, Johnathan Wright, I will kill you!" Then he was gone, lost in the clash below as he fought his way past the darkly clad figures.

John stood over her suddenly and she was propped up in his arms and cradled to his chest. "We have to go now, sweetheart," he informed her as calmly as he could given the cacophony of fighting behind him. "Everything is okay now," he reassured, "but we need to hurry." He scooped her up in his arms, in command of his full strength now that he was no longer trapped in silver. They moved in a flash, ducking and dodging the nightmarish scene filling the cathedral. Lucy was sure she was dreaming, watching strange beasts with leathery wings taller than any man fighting off these foreign shadows with thick yellow talons and mouths full of frightening fangs. Some of the sword-wielding invaders fought off great black wolves that howled eerily and growled with a viciousness she had never witnessed before in any animal. The rest were well dressed vampires and vampires ses hissing as they were cut down by the shiny silver blades. As John carried her quickly back to the doorway along the perimeter of the fighting, she saw Lerexus hissing violently as one of the shadows kicked over an iron brazier and set him aflame. The albino vampire lord screeched horribly and lunged at his attacker, tackling him into the fray where she lost sight of him once he had extinguished himself.

John was stopped just outside the massive decorated doors of the cathedral by one of the shadows. It pulled away its hood to reveal a beautiful woman with golden hair tied back in a tight bun and eyes as blue and clear as the summer sky. "I've cleared a path to the west ballroom," she informed John. "You're to rendezvous there. You'll replace my second waiting for you." She pointed down the hallway behind her, "It's that way. Make no delays."

He nodded and she pushed her way into the thick of the fighting, leaving the two of them to replace their way.

His vampire hunter contact. That must be Despina.

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He really did have a plan.

John turned and went the opposite direction as instructed.

Her head lolled back as his pace quickened to a speed that made her feel sick, lying like a limp rag doll in his arms. He adjusted and held her close against his body as he dodged the panicked vampires that seemed to have manifested out of thin air to fight Lerexus' battle. They darted past them in disorganized terror to replace escape as it was becoming clearer that the whole castle was overtaken by the Venatores and burning.

"They promised me you would not be harmed," he muttered to her as he took her through the maze of connecting hallways and antechambers. "She swore it to me. It was the only reason I promised them my full cooperation. They have failed to hold up their end of the bargain." He huffed as he flattened himself against a wall to let another shrieking fledgling of Lerexus fly past them. "So I will not honor my end of the bargain. I told them I'd surrender myself freely to their order, for study and spying. They wish to use me against the rest of my kind."

He turned through a doorway and Lucy recognized the dining hall. He was taking them to the front gate.

"She promised they would ensure your safe departure from this place. She fucking swore it," he lamented over and again to himself.

Lucy recognized the marble floor of the foyer she had so diligently scrubbed, now caked in dirt and mud from so many boots trampling it in the chaos. John stopped at the rounded doors of the entryway, unwatched now by the guard who was probably already dead. With no opposition, he boldly pushed the heavy doors open and took them into the warm night air. She almost laughed as she realized the castle was built on a cliff, fully connected to the earth that surrounded the great lake that lapped at the rocks below. There was no bridge. There was a portcullis, but it was rusted in place only a third of the way closed, well above their heads for easy clearance. Beyond, though worn and faded, there was a clear driveway that circled a broken fountain, its dirt path disappearing through the forest beyond. If she had made her way out, she could have followed it easily.

"It was quite a drive. He did a good job stealing you away to this forgotten place. That's the other reason it took me so long to get here," he told her. "I wanted a plan B to fall back on instead of relying on those damned hunters for transport. I hid my car just down the road." He paused and looked down at her, his brow lowering worriedly. "Stay with me, dear. It's all going to be okay."

It's going to be okay.

We're out.

It's okay now.

Okay.

She opened her eyes and found herself resting in his back seat, covered in an old blanket that had seen better days, probably taken from his trunk where it was stowed for emergencies. "Lucy," John called gently from the driver's seat, his arm twisted back between the seats to rest on her hip. "Sweetheart, I don't think we're going to make it to a hospital." The crunch of dirt and rock under the car's tires slowed as he pulled aside into the trees and shut off the ignition so they were hidden in the night. The driver's door slammed closed, and then the passenger one at her head opened and he gingerly removed her from the backseat and set her in the cool grass to rest on her back.

Her tired eyes focused on the star speckled sky hidden behind the black veil of the treetop stretching impossibly high up into the heavens. The moon was obstructed and the world around her all the darker for it, but she could feel John sitting down beside her and pulling her into his lap. He held her close, pressing soft kisses to her forehead and brushing her hair back from her face. "Forgive me," he whispered hoarsely, his voice cracking beneath his sorrow. "Forgive me for being too weak to let you go." He pressed his forehead to hers and spilled one last bloody tear that splashed onto her cheek.

She opened her mouth to speak, to reassure him, to tell him she loved him and harbored no anger or bitterness towards him anymore. She knew it was his mess she had been dragged into. She knew she suffered because of the sins of his past, and she knew she feared immortality almost as much as she feared death, but resting in his arms, cradled close to his silent chest, she knew without a doubt it had all been worth it. An undying life was daunting, frightful even, but suddenly didn't seem so scary if she was to face it next to him. She longed to give her permission, her encouragement, to welcome his decision, but her mouth and throat were dry and her words were stuffed down beneath what felt like a pillow of dry cotton on her tongue.

John held her steady and his mouth moved to her neck. He apologized once more for the pain as he reopened the raw wound Lerexus had been suckling at, then latched his own mouth to it to drain her of what was left of her lifeblood. Where Lerexus had taken and demanded, John was given freely, gladly by her. He moved gently and with great care, cradling her through the pain that deepened the closer she drew to death. The moment was excruciating, but intimate, and she felt herself enter into a whole new realm of surrender as she offered up her life to him.

As she dwindled on the cusp of oblivion, he pulled away and ripped open his wrist to bleed back into her, pressing it to her cold lips. "Drink," he urged softly.

She cringed as the metallic stuff filled her mouth. It spilled over her tongue in warm gushes and as she forced herself to swallow it. Its bitter taste began to sweeten gradually and she could not pinpoint the moment, but suddenly she wasn't forcing herself to drink any longer. She found the strength to grab hold of his downy forearm and sucked at the wound eagerly, a growing thirst burgeoning in her belly that she was unable to deny. With her strength slowly returning, she thought the process would leave her feeling rejuvenated, but as John tugged his wrist away with a soft wince and a weak smile, the blood she had swallowed felt like it was catching fire inside her. She screamed.

John held her close and rocked her. "I know, sweetheart. I know it hurts, but it will pass."

She felt his tainted blood boiling through her veins, spreading through her every artery and down each limb like the slow path of lava, burning out whatever humanity was left inside her. He pulled her face into his chest to muffle her screams of agony. She quaked violently and clawed at his wrinkled and singed shirt. Her own voice strangely foreign to her as she yelled for him to make it stop. Finally, the pain took her, and she was swallowed up in darkness.

Like their escape from the castle, the rest of the night came in brief flashes of lucidity. She found herself resting in the back of John's car again, could hear his reassurances, but this time there was no crunch of dirt beneath the car, but the low hum of paved highway. It felt like the whole night was driving, just her lying confused in his back seat as his gentle voice floated periodically to her over the white noise of the wind thundering outside the car, assuring her that everything would be all right and she would feel better soon.