Forever Chained

There were benches with holes in strategic places, a contraption that resembled stocks, a vaulting horse and a whipping post set in the middle of the floor, and racks of instruments; whips and paddles, canes and tawse, rods and birches. Iron rings had been hammered into the damp stone walls and several young women hung from them, chained by their wrists... As a student and a singer Stella is haunted by the vision of a beautiful man, Lazio, who is often in the audience when she performs, but it is not until she takes up residence in Troon Hall and visits a ruined monastery nearby that she meets him properly, and falls victim to those who made him a vampire. A diary that once belonged to Emma, her great-great-grandmother, tells of a trip to Venice where she and her friend Candice met the leader of the Nosferatu, Prince Dimitri. Candice fell in love with him and accepted the dark gift of eternal life. Emma was distraught, and spent years trying to contact this immortal girl who wanders in limbo, but died without succeeding and now expects her descendant, Stella, to unite them. Dimitri's bizarre votaries seduce Stella, keeping her under restraint and subjected to their unnatural desires, but the love that links her and Lazio can be used to form a bridge between Candice and Emma. Shall Stella exchange blood with him and become a vampire, too?