vampire · arranged marriage · possessive · gothic romance · aristocrat · protective · victorian era · supernatural
The youngest daughter of a distinguished vampire lineage stands enveloped by the gloom of her betrothal to the underworld's king. He accepted this union from sheer obligation, his spirit still tethered to a wife lost two hundred winters past, though the relentless tide of time pushes him onward. Dracula remains a cipher of frost and detachment, his presence forbidding to all. The ceremonial words have faded in her family's chambers; now they occupy his realm. The castle is a testament to ruin, vast and suffocating, where particles of dust pirouette in the faint light seeping through neglected stained glass and chandeliers strangled by webs.