Every nerve in my body, every impulse in my brain was racked with the searing pain that each link of each and every single silver chain was imprinting upon me. I grimaced and hissed as I could smell and hear the sizzling and burning flesh as Leo carefully draped my body with silver chains, wrapping them first around me and then the makeshift bed I had fashioned quickly in the basement of Eric's mansion. My coffin's lid had been ripped open by one flick of my hand in order to grant the human boy easier access to place across me the searing instruments of pain that could save me from a much greater agony, an anguish that my beloved Godric had felt not so long ago. Soon enough, I was held down by enough chains to hold down some sort of wild animal, a tiger or some other ferocious beast. But I was a vampire and far stronger than any living animal that had ever walked on this earth. Would these mere chains be enough?

'More,' I said through gritted teeth.

'Aurora,' Leo sighed, pained himself as he stared down at my scorched skin. 'You must be in so much pain.'

'It's nothing I cannot handle. Are there any more chains to spare?'

'Yeah, a couple more, but I – '

I shot him a look, trying to remove all traces of pain from my eyes. 'Leo, I know what this spell will do. This is truly powerful and dangerous magic. My body will fight against anything it comes across to get to the sun. I need as much as we can spare to keep me down and to keep you safe.'

'Me?'

'I could ... I could easily hurt you if I break free. I could kill you if the spell commanded.'

'But you wouldn't ... It would be the spell, it wouldn't be you, Aurora.'

'It doesn't matter,' I snapped. 'It would still be your blood on my hands. Now ... more chains.'

Leo heaved a heavy sigh and closed his eyes for a moment before reaching down to his feet and pulling up a much larger chain which he fastened to the surface underneath me. With a look of unreachable sadness in his eyes, he brought the heavy thing over me and it came into contact with my skin almost immediately, my flesh sticking to it instantly. Without restraint, I let out a sound of anguish that demonstrated that even though a vampire may live as long as I have, it made no differences when it came to our basic weaknesses, two of which I could come into contact with: silver and the sun's deadly rays.

'Do you feel secure?' he asked me in a soft voice.

I could do nothing but nod as I took a few minutes to combat the pain. This is nothing, I told myself. You've been through worse. By the end of this, you could be dust. Just think about that.

Leo then pulled up a chair next to me and reached out to take my hand, his eyes never leaving mine.

'When this ... spell begins, I'll start fighting against the chains. I could do or say anything to get you to release me but whatever happens, Leo, you must not listen to me. You stay safe. You stay as far away from me as you can, do you hear me?'

'Yes, my lady,' he said with a ghost of a grin on his youthful face.

I raised an eyebrow and smiled despite the situation. 'It's been a long while since someone has called me that.'

Leo's eyes sparkled and I fondly recalled that this was my treasured part of a human. The old generations were not wrong when they declared that eyes were the windows to the soul for they held so much life, so much promise.

'Now, if I break free and I ... '

'Attack me?'

I nodded. 'I want you to use whatever you can to ... stake me.'

Leo's face changed completely into an expression of astounded horror. 'Stake you? Aurora, what the hell are you talking about? I'm not going to stake you!'

'You should!' I barked. 'If your life is danger because of what I could do, you should defend yourself. And the sure way to end a vampire, even one as old and as strong as me, is eight inches of oak wood right between the ribs.'

Leo shook his head adamantly, his grip tightening around my hand. 'No, it's not going to come to that. I promise, you'll get through this. We both will.'

I knew that there was no use arguing with this stubborn human so I resorted to silence then, my vampire body clock reminding me that there were only a few hours to go until the sun rose and the spell would begin.

'You've never told me, you know.'

'Told you what, Leo?' I murmured.

'How you became a vampire. There has to be some sort of story. You must be full of stories, two thousand years' worth of seeing and feeling and ... living.'

I closed my eyes, allowing myself to be surrounded by the memories of so long ago. I was turned into a vampire over two millennia ago, several hundred lifetimes, but I could recall it within a few seconds. I turned my head back to face Leo whose face held the eagerness of a child ready to be enraptured by a tale of old.

'The night I became a vampire was my wedding night. A night that had began with so much joy and promise ended in a bloodbath that would stain the high born society of Rome, the name of my prestigious family for many years to follow. The night I died and became a creature of the night.'

The beautiful girl in the wedding gown could not possibly be my reflection. She was too beautiful, too perfect. Now there she stood, perfectly frozen in the mirror in all her ethereal glory. Most of her hair tumbled down in gentle and faultless waves, fixed with dainty flowers woven into the strands of golden brown locks, whilst the rest was fastened up, adorned with a crown-like accessory adorned with golden leaves. Her veil was a bright colour, as was the custom, the honoured tradition for a noble bride. Her wedding gown was a simple white tunic secure with a rope, the thing she absently minded stroked with a feeling of nervousness. This was the rope that her fiancé, later to be her husband, would untie, to show that she was his.

I blinked once and was forced back into reality, my own reality where I was not the poor girl trapped in the mirror. I longed to be her, to be free of what would follow me today. For the last week or so, since I had recovered from my attempt at escape, I had become a shadow of my former self. I was assigned to my fate – married off to a man who I did not know by my uncaring and unyielding father. I was numb and hollow inside.

My attendants had finished their work in completing my transformation into the ideal bride and stepped aside as though to allow me to bask in the glory of my beauty. If this had been different circumstances, I would have graciously thanked them for all their efforts and complimented them on their skilled craftsmanship that had turned me into some sort of goddess. But things were just the same and a very different me simply stared into the mirror, cold to the touch, hollow inside.

'Sweet sister mine,' Lucretia announced her presence as she glided into the room. The attendants bowed their heads and took her arrival as their cue to leave. I couldn't help but notice their expressions as they left the room in order to be given another task to make this the wedding of the year. They pitied me, it was clear in their eyes. They knew that this was not my choice. No part of this celebration was my choice.

Lucretia walked round to face me so that she was between me and the mirror, forcing me to make eye contact with my sister. I loved her with all my heart but part of me, the smallest part of my heart, blamed her for going along with this, for her continued enthusiasm at this marriage when my true beloved was dead.

'You look beautiful,' she mused, fixing a few stray strands of hair that had managed to escape being confined into the tight mass of curls. 'Do you know who you look like? Even more than you already do.'

'Who?' I murmured softly.

'Mother. She would have been so proud of you, Aurora. I know that she is watching over us right now with that beautiful smile I wish you could have known.'

Lucretia's hand stroked down my arm until her soft fingertips brushed against the bracelet that had once belonged to Cassius. She brought my arm to look at it in closer detail.

'You should remove this, Aurora, just for today. It does not bode well to enter a marriage, a union of happiness, with such a reminder of grief.'

I retracted myself from her grip and my gaze turned icy cold. 'No. It was Cassius'. This belonged to him. I shall wear this until I go to my grave. Although, that grave would be a welcome reprieve from this hell.'

'Do not utter such things. Father has set up this marriage in order to give you a life. You can be free, Aurora.'

'As long as I play the dutiful wife, just as I have always played the dutiful daughter and sister.'

Lucretia looked away then, despairingly. 'Aurora, what hope do we have if we do not marry well? Our world was not built upon the idea of marrying for love.'

'Because it was built on the concept of selling your daughters off to soldiers and men of high regard like prized cattle whilst the true love is ... murdered in cold blood.'

'Godric is gone, Aurora,' Lucretia said firmly. 'He is gone. You cannot bring him back. This flame you carry for him in your heart will extinguish once you have discovered how wonderful Marcus Aurelius will be in time.'

I laughed with a sound that was not like anything that had ever passed my lips. 'Then, you truly know nothing of love.'

'I love my children. I love the father of my children. That is love. It is not the true love you might have believed you had, but it is love nonetheless. When you bear Marcus Aurelius children, you will feel such love in your heart that you will feel ashamed that you ever doubted it.'

'If that is truly the life to which I am destined,' I whispered, 'then I am dead already. I would rather be in heaven with my Godric and buried together in a grave than warm in Marcus Aurelius' bed.'

Lucretia had had enough of me then and walked off towards the door. 'Do this for me, Aurora. I want you to be happy. Marcus Aurelius can make you happy. He can give you the life you truly deserve, a life away from Father. He's a good man.'

'I do not doubt that for one moment, but I do not love him. How many times do I have to say those words before someone listens to me?'

'Words can be regretted, little sister. Like a seed that becomes the rose, you can grow to love him. And when he cherishes you and makes you the queen of his idolatry, you will think again on those words of yours.'

'My lady Aurora,' a serving girl timidly said as she approached the doorway, 'it is time.'

Lucretia nodded as the girl hurried off, having delivered her message. 'Father will be along shortly to escort you to – '

'No.'

'Aurora,' she sighed.

'Tell Father that if this is to be my wedding day, I am to walk down the aisle to meet Marcus Aurelius. I will not be escorted like a prisoner on his way to the gallows, led to await his death.'

Lucretia said no more but swiftly left in order to take her place. I thought again about my words as the terms 'prisoner' and 'gallows' rung hauntingly in my head. It was an apt metaphor for what today would become.

'So your dad was just going to marry you off? Sell you to this general guy? What the hell ... '

'It was a different time, Leo. Different millennia even. When I was human, at my age, most of my friends were already the epitome of the good wife and mother. I was lagging behind in Roman views.'

Leo snorted. 'You are – I mean, you were a kid. You had your whole life ahead of you and these men wanted to take it from you and hand you a baby and a copy of 'Good Housekeeping'?'

I smirked at his attempt of a joke despite the circumstances of my being chained up in silver, awaiting the magic spell cast by a vampire-hating coven of witches. 'No such thing, young man. That was the way. In many societies today, that is still the way. Young girls are forced into these unions with men with whom they have barely had a conversation, condemned to a constant cycle of – '

And then all hell broke loose.

The force was truly indescribable. No words could actually paint any sort of picture of what force overcame my senses and my body in that very moment. It was as though some dark force was pulling me upwards like a magnet but the chains restrained me from doing so. I screamed and shook, trying to break free of the chains, desperately trying to reach the sun I knew was just outside of the doors of Fangtasia.

'Aurora,' Leo murmured hesitantly.

'Release me!' I said, my voice distorted by my newly-extended fangs, my words harsh and like nothing I had ever heard. 'Release me from these chains! Now!'

Leo looked beyond terrified as he watched me writhe and scream against my confinement. 'Aurora, you know I can't. It's the spell talking, don't give in – '

'What part of 'release me' is so hard for you to understand?' I roared at him, now the monster I had kept hidden from the world – and myself – for so long. 'Release me, boy, or I will rip your head from your neck and drink from you like a fountain!'

'You have to fight this, Aurora,' he said, his voice shaky now. 'Fight it. Fight against the spell. This isn't you.'

'The sun!' I screeched amidst my screams of anguish. 'The sun! Let me go!'

'No!' he yelled back, coming closer to me. He then laid his hands on my shoulders and held me down with every ounce of his human strength.

'The sun! The sun! Release me and let me see it! Let me die like him!'

'Like him? Who died, Aurora? Who died going into the sun? Talk to me, Aurora, keep talking!'

Leo's strategy of keeping me distracted when I was talking in my spell-induced haze seemed to work for a little as my words became intermingled with what the spell commanded and my pained memories.

'The sun! It took him! My Godric! The sun released him! I have to meet it! I have to see it! The sun! Please release me from these chains! I can't bear it!'

'Yes, you can,' Leo yelled. 'You can do this, Aurora! I believe in you! You can do this! Fight it!'

Instead of screaming for the sun that would reduce me to a pile of ashes, I then found myself crying out for my beloved. I needed him then more than I ever had.

'Godric!'

Only a few hours had passed and it seemed to me that my whole life had changed. The entire marriage ceremony itself was a blur and details of what actually happened barely held fast in my brain. I repeated words spoken at me as I apparently vowed to be faithful and loving to the man stood beside me, already the compliant girl as was expected. One thing I did recall, however, was the expression on Marcus Aurelius' face, the face of the man who was now my husband. He could not take his eyes off me, as though he was still coming to terms with the fact that I was his bride. His smile was glowing and no trace of trickery or falseness of any kind was evident in his eyes. When we kissed as man and wife, I could almost feel happiness seep through his lips at his joy. He was truly a good man, even if the circumstances were not in his favour.

The celebrations were to be the finest Rome had ever seen, my father had made sure. No other wedding, no other festivity in Roman history past or future, would compete with the one that began a mere second after we were married. The festivities were held at my father's house as his way of celebrating the prosperous marriage of his youngest child and of showing off to the wealthy of Rome who now gathered here. The feast was a rich opulent affair and my eyes drank in so much colour that at times, I had to close them for fear of dizziness. After a few hours, my head was throbbing and I just wanted this day to end.

'Are you well, dearest one?' Marcus asked softly. 'You seem ... somewhat dazed.'

I did my best to attempt a smile for his benefit. 'I am fine. It is just ... I wish my brother was here. This sort of celebration would have greatly amused him. He enjoyed any chance for a festivity.'

'Well then, I wish I could have known him. From what your father tells me, he was a great warrior and would have made a prosperous lord.'

'If my father says so, then it must be the truth.'

Marcus grinned and whispered, 'But I am sure that you knew him to be even greater. Twins have that special connection that not even a parent can understand. I should know, I had a twin also.'

I suddenly softened a little then as I heard those words. 'You are a twin, my lord?'

'I was, my lady wife. His name was Lucian. He died when we were twelve. The pox took him from me.'

'I am sorry for your loss,' I whispered. 'When my brother was taken from me, it was as though my world had ended, like a tie that held me to this earth had been severed.'

'I felt the same. The pain remains forever, but it does get better, my love. Trust in me.'

I nodded then and thought again about what my sister had said before I had become his wife. Maybe I could learn to love him, although admittedly not as much and as deeply as I had loved Godric. Maybe he would be the man who would protect me and love me for the rest of my life, even if his feelings were more one-sided.

'This feast is starting to make my head ache,' Marcus said after a little while just watching the people dance and be merry in front of where we had been placed. 'So much noise, and colour. Is it tiring you, dear one?'

'Yes, a little. It's been a long day.'

'So indeed it has. Let us make our excuses and leave, shall we?'

I returned his smile, not having to forge it as much this time. We rose then and, with him taking my hand, we made our way quickly through the throngs of people, the majority of whom I had never seen before in my life. We bypassed my family members on the way; my father was too busy enjoying himself with wine and questionable women to see me sneaking out. My sister, on the other hand, noticed me and sent me an encouraging smile before I lost her amongst the crowds. I did not know it then, but that was the last time I would lay eyes on her – human eyes, I should say.

Marcus Aurelius took me to his villa, only a short walk away from my family home. It was a beautiful place that I would be expected to rule over and command as the woman of the house, but I cast aside those thoughts as we entered the silent and deserted place, or at least that is what we thought. Soldiers were standing guard inside the building, awaiting their general's return, steely gazes even as they beheld their commander and his new bride.

'I am sorry, dear one,' he said softly. 'It is an occupational hazard, I am afraid. You will soon be accustomed to soldiers at the door frequently. You will have to deal with them too.'

'Am I going to war with you?' I chuckled.

'If you wish,' he answered before a steeliness overcame him as he addressed the ten soldiers present. 'You men. Outside. Now. We are not to be disturbed.'

The soldiers nodded in synchronisation and filed outside the villa. When we were alone, Marcus led me towards a room at the back of the villa, a room that merely contained a large bed and several hundreds of candles, illuminating the darkness in such a way that I was brought back to a memory I had cherished – the night Godric and I first had made love. Marcus Aurelius would soon find out that I was not the pure and virginal girl my father had painted me to be.

'Our first night together as husband and wife, joined souls in the eyes of the gods, should be one to be remembered. I want this to be special for you.'

'Thank you,' I murmured softly as he took my hands in his and gazed deep into my eyes sincerely.

'I know that you do not love me as I love you,' he said in a tender voice. 'I know that. But in time, you will grow fond of me and maybe as the years pass and we learn more of each other, you could grow to love me. Time is a powerful thing, my dear one.'

I closed my eyes and kissed his hands then. 'Maybe it could be so.'

He smiled then and leant forward to kiss me, but, clearly disregarding the earlier command from the general, one of the guards burst in, looking as though he had seen something truly monstrous from the way he was shaking and stumbling over his words.

'My lord? My lord?'

'What is it?' Marcus' commanding voice was back. 'I thought I had given you orders not – '

'You must come, my lord. Please ... there's something out there. My lord, it may threaten the safety of yourself and your bride.'

Marcus' hands tightened slightly around mine as the soldier departed. 'I will be back soon, my love. And then we shall ... continue this discussion. Stay inside, for your own safety, until I know what is going on.'

He planted a kiss quickly but keenly on my forehead and, drawing the sword that had been the staple of his outfit as a groom, he left me alone in the room where I was surrounded by shadows and the flickering lights of the candles. It was then that I heard voices, first spoken, then shouts ... and then came the screams.

Ignoring the instruction from my new husband, I raced outside where I found the most shocking sight that my human eyes would ever fall upon. The soldiers were strewn across the villa, in various sickening poses, covered in their own blood. Some still had their eyes open, the look of death only just painted upon their faces. Blood covered the floor and the walls, smeared with hands, splattered across the white walls, staining its purity. I stood there, transfixed by the sight, too frightened to move a single muscle. My mind told me several different things – run away, scream, go to help them. I shut out those voices in my head as my eyes went over every detail of this scene again and again until I felt as though my eyes would bleed like the poor men before me. What had happened here? What kind of monster would do something like this?'

'Aurora ... '

I snapped out of my terrified haze and followed the faint murmur of my name to my new husband who lay with his men, covered in blood just like them. I raced towards him and after a few seconds, I deduced that his injuries were severe but not life-threatening. He was, however, seconds away from unconsciousness, keeping himself awake only to look at me intensely and warn me.

'What happened? Marcus, tell me what happened here!'

'There's ... no time,' he choked. 'You ... have to ... run.'

'Run? From what? Marcus, who or what did this to you? Was it an animal? Tell me!'

He shook his head fiercely. 'It was neither. Neither a man ... nor an animal ... It was a ... monster.'

It was at that moment then that he lost consciousness and became a limp thing in my arms. I knew then that whatever had killed these able-bodied and trained soldiers would surely murder me, a defenceless and weak girl, twice as easily. I ran from these bodies, listening to my husband, but not before grabbing one of the disregarded swords. I decided that the best option was to barricade myself in the room as this monster could still be lurking outside. As I entered the room, all the candles all suddenly were extinguished as though some force had rushed into the room and the wind from this had taken out their flames. I held the sword out in front, my mind desperately running through all that Cassius and Godric had taught me about fighting in case the worst should happen.

'Who are you? Show yourself!' I commanded fearlessly.

I then turned to look into the moonlight as my only source of light and saw a shadowy figure emerge as if from the darkness. This figure then became illuminated, bathed in the silvery glow of the moonlight, outlining every single beautiful feature for me to behold. I could not believe my eyes. Surely they deceived me. My hands loosened their grip of the sword and it clanged to the floor as I beheld him.

It was Godric. My Godric. He was alive ... and he was covered in fresh blood.