Van Helsing's Sister, Dracula's Bride

"They're not my friends; I was just traveling with them," I lie, building a wall in my head when the tingling starts up again.

"You are not completely human?"

"No, I'm a Dhampir."

"A half-vampire, half-human," he asks, eyes alighting with something that made me uncomfortable—it wasn't the lust I'd seen earlier, this is something else entirely and it wasn't good.

"That's generally what it means." He unchains me and picks me up in his arms, his grip tightening every time I attempted to struggle.

"Go! All of you, to castle Frankenstein!" With his brides reconnected to him and me in his arms he teleports us to castle Frankenstein; the castle is covered in cobwebs, dust, and parts of machinery. It looked abandoned—like it has been for some time too. I wonder what happened here.

"You should fire your staff," I say, jumping out of his arms and nearly landing on my back instead of my feet. He chuckles and shakes his head. "What?"

"You are the only person who is brave enough to act like that around me without fearing for their lives." Oh, I'm scared for my life; I just do not want you to know that.

"I'm sure if that princess was here she'd treat you the same way." He nods in agreement and sends his brides to bed.

"Come with me."

"Why?"

"To sleep of course, I have a bed near my coffin."

"Is the dungeons full?" He growls and backhands me. The last coherent thought in my head was about my brother and Carl's safety.

~Sunset…

I wake up in a lavish bed. Looking down I see I'm in some Gypsy pants and top, the colors are white and gold. "Well that's just great," I mutter, sitting up.

"The colors suit you." I look at the door and see the remaining two brides.

"What are your names?"

"I am Verona," says the black-haired one," And this is Aleera." I nod and stand up, then jump back onto the bed.

"Cold, cold, cold!" Verona laughs and hands me some white flats with gold trim. I put them on quickly and stand back up. Looking in the mirror, I see my top, if you could call it that, is just barely covering my chest and the pants have one hole on each side that was purposely put there; the complete opposite of the dresses I'd brought with me. "So, why am I here?"

"I thought our master would wish to meet the girl who killed Nadira, he's decided that you will take her place," explained Aleera, a red-headed beauty that looked as though she wished to put my head on a pike.

"Well, aren't I special?"

"Consider yourself rather lucky that you are beautiful," says the count in his thick Romanian accent.

"Count Chocula, a pleasure as always (I had to keep that one in there)." His eyebrows furrow and a look of utter confusion crosses his face.

"What does that mean?" I just shake my head and walk past him. He grabs my arm and pulls me to him, immediately hypnotizing me. He asks me some questions and my answers sound mumbled, like I was under water. He nods and kisses my cheek, I feel the need to fight but haven't the strength. All I can do is what he asks of me. Oh, this is so not good. Okay, I can still think, just don't have control over my body…nope still not good! "Come," he commands, dragging me with him; he leads me over to a werewolf. "Go find out who the strangers are." The wolf takes off through a crack in the wall. He throws me to his brides. "Take her around the castle; show her where the library is."

"Yes master," they both answer like robots. The thing that annoyed me was I said it too in the exact same tone. Van Helsing, where are you when I need you?