Total pages in book: 101
Estimated words: 97229 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 486(@200wpm)___ 389(@250wpm)___ 324(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 97229 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 486(@200wpm)___ 389(@250wpm)___ 324(@300wpm)
I also knew they were persecuted by the royals across the empire and destroyed for their sins.
“Fake sins,” Hans interjected. “There was very little truth in any of it, they just wanted us dead and buried.”
He cleared his throat and continued. “I was thirty-two years old when I became a vampire. The experience most definitely wasn’t one I’d been expecting.”
“Don’t worry, I’m sure I wouldn’t have either.” I laughed, and took a sip of wine. “I may have watched almost every vampire movie ever made, but I didn’t believe they existed. Not for real.”
My vampire lover looked at me with a glint in his eyes.
“Ah, yes, Katherine, but the world exists very differently now. It wasn’t so much that I didn’t believe in vampires, but that I didn’t believe a vampire would come for me. We were a lot more alive with myths and legends. We had no internet to distract us, it was all about tales around a campfire, whispered through the generations.”
“So, what happened?” I asked him. “Who made you a vampire?”
“A friend. Someone I knew closely and had done for years, or so I thought. I had no idea that he was a vampire, even after all that time. He kept it very well hidden.” He laughed. “We’ve become an awful lot closer since.”
My mind whirred, remembering the people comment about the blood houses. Was the he a friend, or a friend? The idea was a surprisingly hot one.
Hans smiled. “He was purely a friend at that point. I had no experience of being bisexual at that time. Lord Neville was just a gentleman I knew through the Church, and talked through the gospels with. I’d spent many evenings at his manor, enjoying his company. Evenings, of course. It never occurred to me that I’d never once seen him in the day.”
Purely a friend at that point. I wondered if that was still the case now.
“I’ve had sex with Edwin, yes,” Hans answered. “We’ve shared some blood games, and had some fun times biting and chasing. Quite a different friendship than the one we started with, but nothing less genuine or valid.”
My mind was spinning at the thought of seven hundred years of religion and philosophy, and Hans being turned into a vampire by a Lord named Edwin. The sensation gave me a sense of doom, somehow. It reminded me of my mum and grandma preaching to me about being a good girl at the cost of everything else. Praying to God every single weekend without fail, but judging and scorning everyone around them.
Hans swirled the wine in his wine glass.
“Don’t judge anything by them. They aren’t an accurate representation.”
I didn’t want to delve into Mum and Grandma, so took a sip of wine and turned the topic back to him.
“What happened to you?”
“A lot of the Knights Templar were tortured, little one. Me included. The royals and their minions tried to force a confession of fake sins from me, but even until the very end, I wouldn’t give in.”
His words gave me a vile shudder. He nodded his head at my thoughts.
“Yes. I was beaten, and whipped, and stretched on a rack. Starved and lashed and burnt.”
I despised the idea of people hurting him.
“And your friend saved you?” I whispered. “Thank God for that.”
“Yes,” Hans said. “Quite literally. I was crucified in the church grounds and left for dead. Edwin appeared at midnight and cut me free.”
I let out a breath, not knowing quite what to say. Hans kept on talking.
“He bit my neck and drank from me, and then he slashed his wrist and offered it to me. Drink his blood and live, or refuse and die. My choice, he said. So, I drank from him. I wasn’t ready to leave this world behind.”
It was like a thousand scratches on my skin when he said that. My whole body was alive with the sensation.
“Did it hurt?”
“Yes, but not as much as being tortured, I can assure you of that.” He was grinning, even though the memory still clearly hurt. “My body died, and that was a horrific experience, being fully conscious all the way through as your flesh gives up, but bizarrely it was quite liberating. A once in an immortal lifetime’s experience.”
Hans smiled, as though the story was done. Just like that.
“So, yes,” he said. “In answer to your earlier question, I was tortured as a religious knight, crucified in the church grounds for being a sinner, and Lord Edwin Neville, the vampire, came along and saved me.”
I tried to digest it. “When did this happen?”
“1309.”
“Wow, ok. And where?”
There was a quizzical look on his face, as though I was asking the obvious.
“Garway church,” he said, and my stomach dropped to the pit of me.
“Garway? Honestly?”
“Yes, but you already know the exact spot, don’t you? You’ve spent a great many times sitting in that place, listening to the hymns from the chapel with your mother and grandmother inside.”