Guess what I did? I texted this: I want to see you tonight. Come over. Alone.

  Only I didn’t text that to Vance. I sent it to Silviu. I wouldn’t have been that direct and demanding with Vance. But with Silviu, a Cob?lcescu, I’m trying to act like an empress. Someone who needs to be obeyed. Or something like that.

  I should preface this by imparting that during the afternoon here, but near midnight in Bucharest, I had a FaceTime call with Viorica. I called her. She was surprised. Delighted. Eager to help me in any way she could. I made small talk and when that was over, I got to the point and asked her if over all her centuries she had turned all her mortal lovers or if she let any of them grow old and die. In her answer it was revealed that of those she did not turn none had ever grown old. If her feelings ever cooled, she ended the affair by killing them, at their request. Each abandoned lover openly welcomed the fatal bite as an assuagement to their despair and were gratified to sacrifice all they had left—their blood—to the mistress whom they would love til the end, enraptured even in her final embrace. Such is the passion and dependency inflicted upon mortals through the reception of vampiric love.

  All this talk prompted Viorica to ask if I had found a mortal lover. I felt a trace of astonishment in her voice as she asked. I answered that I had found a mortal interest. I was then vague even with the little I told her about Vance.

  With what felt like a passing comment, Viorica stated, “In my experience, lovers are better found amongst those already made vampires by someone else.” I asked her to explain. She said it may feel less thrilling, but with a lover who is already a vampire by someone else, things are typically more stable with less dependency. She likened this to attachment theory among humans (which I’d never heard of, of course) where the relationship between two ready made vampires is secure whereas one between vampire and mortal or newly made immortal tend to be anxious in nature. My mind immediately went to Yelena, wondering if there was any truth to this in her relationship with Marcel who had turned her.

  Viorica then asked what I sensed she was hesitant to ask earlier. “This mortal Vance, is he able to love or overlook your appearance as a child?”

  “Right now, I think he wants to more than he’s able to.”

  “I see. If you want my opinion, if doable at all, it would be easier for a vampire to manage. Especially a Cob?lcescu who already sees you as Imparateasa. And even if unmanageable, a Cob?lcescu who can’t love your appearance can be made to overlook it.”

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  “Made to overlook it? How?”

  “You are Imparateasa, Orly. In our bloodline, your will must be obeyed.”

  “Oh great. So you’re saying I can command someone to pretend to be in love with me?”

  “If it pleases you, Imparateasa.”

  “Ugh, that tiresome phrase.”

  I asked if Mirela had ever commanded someone to be her lover. Viorica said “command” probably wasn’t the right word. She simply had to make her desire known, and when she did none seemed even wanting to resist, or at least that is what Viorica was led to believe, as two such affairs occurred before her time, and before Mirela’s enduring relationship with Marcel Bousquet. But this had also been the case for Alexi Pavlovich, whom Mirela made consort, long after Marcel abandoned her for Yelena. Alexi Pavlovich who just happened to be a fledgling of Marcel’s. Whether it was mutual attraction or one-sided fear or something else entirely in the hearts of these not quite commanded lovers is difficult to say. But none had ever refused, or at least that was the common knowledge. I then remembered something I had seen before in Mirela’s scribble. It wasn’t what I was looking for at the time so I hadn’t given it much thought. Years after Mirela was spurned by Marcel, she surprised him with her sudden appearance in Rome, where he was traveling with Yelena. She had caught him alone in their hotel room and, sitting beside each other on a sofa in near darkness, she gently whispered her order that he return to her as her monogamous lover. It was well known that disobedience to Mirela meant death. Despite this, Marcel refused to sever himself from Yelena and agreed to die, but in the end, Mirela still loved him too much to kill him or even hurt him by killing Yelena.

  I don’t think anyone still alive knows this story other than me. Knowledge of it did not appear in any of my scribbles of Yelena which means Marcel never told her. I’d never seen it in any of the scribbles I’ve done amongst the Cob?lcescu either, but admittedly, I’ve stared at none deeply. But only Mirela and Marcel had been there and Mirela would never have revealed it because it showed weakness. Regardless, this means there is precedent for refusal of the amatory pleasures of the imparateasa. Mirela was far more beautiful than I will ever be, far more beautiful than anyone in her orbit, a breathtaking, awe-inspiring, spectacular woman, whereas I’m an unremarkable, unnoticeable child. If she could be refused…It’s certainly to my advantage that this precedent remain secret.

  You’d think Mirela would’ve experienced a second refusal, as I probably had the most reason to refuse her. She killed my mother. But even I didn’t refuse her. And even now I can feel her phantom caresses and I still long to bleed into her mouth.

  But enough of all that. Mirela’s dead. I’m imparateasa now. I rule the Cob?lcescu of which Silviu, who is already a vampire and was turned by someone else, is a part. So he and his secure attachment style better be on his way over as it is the command of his imparateasa.

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