Chapter Text
Her soulmark is not the only deciding factor in Lisa consenting to be Turned, but it certainly is a large part of it.
Vlad did not recognize his long lost lover when she stood before him and demanded to be taught medicine. Ever since Elisabetha had died, he avoided looking at his faded soulmark. It had not occurred to him that, with their souls bound together, she could not truly move on from this world so long as he remained.
Of course he notices similarities. Lisa looks very much like Elisabetha. She has the same mischievous grin, the same thick blonde hair that became unruly when unattended to. She takes to learning with the same enthusiasm.
However, he pushed these observations from his mind as quickly as they came. He thought it a disservice to both women; Lisa is not a replacement for Elisabetha. He loves her as her own person.
For it is obvious that they are different people. Where Elisabetha had been sheltered and trained to be a noble girl from birth, Lisa was raised in a middle-of-nowhere village by people who insisted that she was a boy. A significant amount of Elisabetha's optimistic belief in humans was innocent ignorance, but Lisa? Lisa has seen humanity at its worst. She traveled on her own with only her feet to carry her and a knife to protect her. She had to fight to realize and stay her true self. She had experienced all the cruelty that her society had to offer and only become more stubborn. Her compassion was not a privilege but a rebellion.
Where Vlad had dismissed humanity as a lost cause, Lisa refuses to give up on believing that they can be better. When he asked her why, she said, "humans are social animals, we learn how to treat each other based on how we're treated," while aggressively tapping the text on evolution for emphasis. "I wasn't born knowing how to be patient and kind any more than I knew how to speak or read. I had to learn how to be more than a scared and ignorant person. If I can teach that to more people, eventually society at large will change."
You are stronger than I can ever be, he thought, but out loud he said, "that will take more time and consistent influence than one human has. Do you intend to sacrifice your mortality for your cause?"
Lisa's breath hitched. Temptation for the power to see her goal to the end and the fear that this power would corrupt her as a person conflicted in her eyes. She eventually shook her head and laughed, "is this a test? I can't claim to be perfect, that I've never been cruel or selfish myself."
He raised an eyebrow at her. "I can hardly make that claim either," he said as he gestured at his scientific journals bound in human leather.
There must have been something humorous about his casual and deadpan tone, because she only laughed more at that.
So he pushed the wife of hundreds of years ago from his mind just as stubbornly as he ignored the growing soulmark on Lisa's shoulder. Because it could not possibly be growing for him, and he refused to let jealousy tarnish their relationship. Whoever she was seeing made her happy and that is what was important.
Until he tried to tell her this.
Even hidden under her anger, Lisa's hurt was evident in the slight shake in her voice and the shine in her eyes. "How can you be one of the greatest scientists of our age yet be so oblivious?" She grabbed his hand and pressed it to her mark in an intimate touch which he would never dare initiate.
To his astonishment, the blooming flowers of her mark shifted towards his fingers as though turning to face the sun. It was faint in the well lit library, but he could see the whole image glowing.
Beneath his many layers of clothing, he could feel his own mark heat in response for the first time in centuries.
"... oh," was all he could manage.
"YOU'RE my soulmate," she said, just in case he still hadn't caught on.
"Yes."
"But I'm not yours, am I?" She did not bother to hide her sadness at this. "Or this wouldn't be so surprising."
"I…" Vlad struggled to explain himself, "I need a mirror to see my mark."
"It's on your back?"
"... lower."
Which is how he found himself bent over a table, presenting his bare rear to Lisa before he had the chance to properly court her.
Days later, Death confirmed the only explanation they could come up with as to how his dead mark had reawakened; "Your Lady's soul is the same, Master."
"It's not that outlandish that it took me so many lives to find you again," Lisa said, "you're a hermit living in a moving castle."
"I am not a hermit," Vlad protested.
"When was the last time you went outside, just to talk to people?"
"..."
"That's what I thought."
Decades pass. They marry. They use a combination of magic and science to combine their genetics in a petri dish and grow a child in an incubator. They plan on having more, until they realize how much energy and attention a dhampir child requires, and decide that their firstborn will have to wait for siblings. Becoming Vlad's feeder slows Lisa's aging to a crawl while their son ages so quickly that he can barely eat and drink enough to keep up with his growth spurts. By the time Adrian is fifteen people start mistaking him for her younger brother rather than her son.
All the while, Vlad's point about changing the world within her lifespan hangs in the back of Lisa's mind. Her dreams have only grown grander over time. She wants to spread the knowledge Vlad gave her to the people. She wants to open schools, hospitals. She wants to give people the resources they need to live so that they don't have to fight each other and work themselves to exhaustion. But even with her life extended by her husband's venom, she is still only human. Just balancing her time between her small clinic and her family can be strenuous.
Another factor she had not considered is that being a doctor and Dracula's wife has made her enemies among humans and vampires alike. It seems there is always someone who wants her dead.
Lisa wants the power to change the world and guarantee that she will always be there for her loved ones. Still, doubt nags at her. Is she really just power hungry and fooling herself? Would that power corrupt her, regardless of her good intentions?
Their soulbond is both a safety net and a complication in all this.
"What has this particular wet slide done to earn your wrath, my love?"
Lisa blinks and looks up from the microscope she's been giving a nasty look while she thought. Vlad's amusement glimmers through their mental bond.
"I've been thinking," she starts, and he immediately sits down to listen. "About everything I want to accomplish. About how frustrating it is that there's already one life with you that I cannot remember. Of course I will always come back to you, but having to forget you each time, over and over… I don't want to put us through that."
"Do you wish for me to Turn you?" There is no judgement in his voice, but he is hiding something.
She ducks her head, though she knows her self doubt is unnecessary. "I haven't brought it up because some part of me was worried you might think I'm using you."
Relief breaks out across his face. "And I had not offered for fear that you might think I was disrespecting your independence, or insulting your pride in being human." He takes her hands in his and kisses her knuckles. "Lisa, my love, I could never deny nor judge your desires."
Her faces pinkens slightly, as the last time he had said something along those lines it was when she had suggested trying something a little different in their bedroom. Grinning, she climbs into his lap so that she can embrace her ridiculously tall husband properly. "Thank you, my love. I know this is no small thing to ask."
"Indeed. I could not trust anyone outside our family with such power." That is no exaggeration. A Sire had much influence over their fledglings but that connection was a two way street. He had purposely avoided being on either end of such a connection. Matthias Turned himself through alchemy and Vlad had yet to ever Turn his own fledgling.
(Vlad had told her of the only other person he had ever offered to share his immortality with, of how Leon had instead cursed him and sworn his Clan would bring down Dracula. He refused to acknowledge Leon as a second soulmate despite the partnership he had with him when he was still the human Matthias. The image of a small whip curled on his back over his heart was only a mark of that vengeful oath and nothing more. It was after all, positioned like a target for staking him in the back.)
But now he has a partner both worthy and willing to face eternity with him.
The priests truly do have the worst possible timing.
"I'll only need to rest for a few minutes," Adrian said. "You aren't expecting any more patients this evening," he said. "You know it's important that you feed before your thirst becomes too much," he said.
"Would you have told me to hold off on feeding for convenience sake when I was young?" her son asked her.
No, of course she wouldn't! When did he learn to out-argue her?
Which is how Adrian ended up on a cot in the back room, doped to hell and back on her venom to help him recover from giving her blood.
But those fifteen minutes or so that he's out cold is when the church investigators come knocking.
"It's rude to barge your way into someone's home," Lisa says when one of them tries to push past her. She stands firm in the doorway to block their entry with little effort. "I can help you, but you must be civil about it."
The men are clearly baffled at encountering a woman they cannot bully and shove about.
"You have no right to impede us-" the bishop fumes at her and she tunes out the rest of his rant to consider what to do with them. She would rather not use violence but they clearly won't leave until they are satisfied that she is a devout Christian who would never even think about science. If she doesn't give them an answer they will only come back with reinforcements.
"Ask nicely."
The bishop sputters, "Excuse me?"
"Say please, and I may let you in," she says with the same tone of voice she used with Adrian when he was a child throwing tantrums (and still uses with the vampire generals doing the same).
"I don't have to do anything of the sort -"
"May we please enter your home?" one of the goons grits out so that the Bishop doesn't have to.
Lisa smiles. "Well, at least one of you has some manners. Wipe your feet at the door and sit down at the table. I've still got some warm tea after my last patient." She steps aside just enough that they can enter one at a time.
The Bishop looks absolutely furious at having to act with any sort of basic human decency. Still, he just has to be the first to go through and does so in a slow, dignified manner. The rest of the clergymen can clearly sense that something is off about her, giving her uncomfortable glances as they pass.
When they have all filed through, Lisa isn't subtle about locking the door. They aren’t leaving until she knows they will leave for good.
"Spread out, you know what to look for."
She really shouldn't be surprised that the priests' method of searching involved dumping everything they found on the floor.
"If you're looking for something, you can simply ask. I'll gladly help you," she says with as much calm as she can muster. Even after feeding, she can feel her temper rising at the sight of strangers breaking and rifling through her things.
They continue emptying drawers and trying to open the locked door to the lab.
Breathing exercises are not enough to rein in her heightened temper. Her vision tinges red, a priest finally breaks down the door, and all she can think about is that they are getting ever closer to her defenseless son. Without making a conscious decision she speeds across the room and grabs the intruder's arm in a bone-crushing grip. The priest cries out in pain. Lisa tosses him back as though he weighs nothing.
"Stay out," she hisses.
"Witch! You would dare lay a hand on a man of G -" the Bishop cuts off when she turns and locks eyes with him.
The bloodlust she's been so desperately learning to control screams for her to keep going, to tear them all apart and drain them dry. The still rational part of her knows that the church will be even more suspicious if the priests they sent to collect her disappear.
"I am not a witch. You searched my entire clinic and found nothing. Return to those who sent you and tell them this."
Her attempt at a thrall is not enough. She's still too young a fledgling, still developing her powers.
"What …" he breaks eye contact and shakes his head to clear it. "Don't be absurd. Restrain her! We're taking Satan's bride to Targoviste before she can spread her evil any further."
The priests' hearts race in fear but they still rush at her and Lisa's control
Snaps.
The scent of their blood fills her head and she is lost to it.