The Cursed Vampire's Ruin

Prologue

Basilia

Clutching my paintbrush, I gaze out across the cliffs of Grayhaven where the restless ocean below shifts endlessly with the seasons, echoing my imprisonment in this wretched mansion. This room I stand in, though beautiful, is still just a prison.

One I’ll never escape from if I don’t exact my revenge.

Behind me are several paintings of the view I’ve come to know so well. Some are completed, others are mere swathes of colour, not yet fully formed. Now they never will be.

There are other discarded paintings, portraits that are more precise and detailed.

Yet, despite my attempts, I have failed to capture my jailor’s image.

Dozens of canvases are scattered around the room.

Every single one of them is just a fleeting resemblance to my husband, a man I once loved but now loathe with such deep hatred it has turned my heart into something barbed, something cold and brutal.

A familiar rage settles within my chest, adding another layer of ice around my heart. My rage is quiet, hidden beneath a carefully constructed facade of obedience, infatuation and love.

I laugh bitterly.

Love shouldn’t be abused, taken for granted, or wilfully manipulated. Love should be nurtured, allowed to blossom like the well-tended garden below me.

Instead, my love has become a weapon wielded against me by a self-centred, cruel man who has no thought or care for anyone but himself and his selfish desires.

The sudden sound of laughter fills the air, and my attention is caught by Dorian, my husband, stepping out from beneath the pergola in the garden below. His shirt hangs open, hair tousled, lips curled up in a sensual smile as he charms yet another woman he’s brought to our marital home.

She’s beautiful, of course, youthful in a way I haven’t been in a long time. Not because I’m much older than her, but because she’s yet to be tarnished by disappointment and pain.

Her name, I believe, is Sybil Vaine.

Dorian draws her close, cradling her cheek. She melts into his arms, already succumbing to his charms. But she’ll soon realise, like the countless women before her, like me, that he is nothing but a handsome mirage, a fraud. His kisses and his words of affection are nothing but lies.

Dorian isn’t capable of loving anyone but himself.

And I intend on breaking his heart as thoroughly as he broke mine.

Grabbing a blank canvas, I place it on my easel, taking a seat before it.

Then I gently ease back my shirt sleeve, the white cotton brushing over the countless scars scattered up my arm.

Some are old, silverly, healed by time. Others are pink and puckered, and a few more recent ones are crusted with dried blood.

Using the sharpened handle of my paintbrush, I place it against my wrist and press hard.

Blood quickly blooms as I open up my skin, a scarlet droplet forming.

For a moment, I’m mesmerised by it, by the power it holds.

My heart thumps as I mutter an incantation under my breath.

It is the same incantation I murmured last night as I filled Dorian’s glass with red wine, adding my blood to it from a vial I’d tucked beneath the waistband of my skirt.

I’d watched him drink it with a smile on my face, knowing the first part of my curse would slowly poison his veins and his wicked heart.

Now I watch the crimson trail wind down my arm as I breathe life into the curse, directing it at the man who drained every ounce of goodness from my soul.

I am not a witch, at least not like my mother was and her mother before her.

Both healed with herbs and tinctures, imbuing their kindness into every potion.

My mother was good. Pure. At one point, I thought I could be like her.

I wanted to be like her. But now I am nothing more than a woman broken by the man who had vowed to love her.

My mother once told me that the power of love is stronger than rage, pain and hatred.

She was wrong.

Carefully, I drag the sharpened handle across the entirety of my wrist, opening up a wound I won’t survive. Then, dipping the soft bristles of my paintbrush into my blood, I begin to paint.

Dorian wanted to be immortalised forever, and that’s what I will give him, but beneath his beautiful image I will paint the true form of his moral corruption, capturing it within the blood of his very first victim.

As the minutes pass, every beat of my heart, every stroke of my paintbrush, and every whispered word form a curse he will never escape from.

As Dorian’s true image takes form, I hear Sybil scream, and a calmness settles over me knowing the sun he once worshipped is now his greatest enemy.

He will be condemned to eternal darkness, just like I have endured a marriage stripped of light and love.

He will look upon the mask of his beautiful face every day, and be forced to live with the monster he truly is.

He will hunger for blood, and he will live for eternity with the need for it humming beneath his skin.

Every drop he steals will be a reminder of what he took from me, because whilst he may not have cut my skin, his actions were the cause of all my scars.

But most of all, if he ever falls in love, it will break his heart forever, killing him in the process.

Just like my love for him killed me.

This hidden curse will be my final, ultimate revenge.

Aware I have very little time left, I paint over the monster, hiding it behind the handsome mask he presents to the world. A mask that will fade with every year that passes, slowly revealing his true face beneath the lie I’ve painted.

Summoning the last of my strength, I walk towards the window, blood dripping from my fingers and leaving a slick, scarlet trail behind me.

With a smile on my face, I witness the carnage I’ve created, knowing I can slip quietly into the gentle embrace of the afterlife as he burns up in the fires of my vengeance.