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The halls of Hotel Transylvania were quiet, shadows pooling in corners like they were listening. Dracula moved through them effortlessly—graceful, predatory, impossible to ignore. His cape brushed the marble floors, and his eyes glinted, sharp as garnets.
He saw it again. Jonathan—his Jonathan—smiling too much, standing a little too close, laughing with Wayne by the fireplace. It looked ordinary, harmless even. But to Dracula, harmless didn’t exist. He saw more.
The boy laughed, and something in Dracula stirred—a rhythm in his chest he hadn’t realized he was keeping track of.
Why does he smile like that… for someone else? The thought lingered, curling like smoke. He didn’t notice how close he’d gotten until Wayne cleared his throat. “Uh… hey, Drac. We were just talking about the band playing in town. No biggie.”
“Not a big deal.” Dracula repeated, but his eyes never left Jonathan.
Later, when the halls were silent, Jonathan felt it—the weight in the air, the prickle at the back of his neck. “Drac?” he called softly, peeking out of his room.
Dracula was already there, still as the shadows themselves. “Tell me, Johnny,” his voice was low and smooth, velvet over stone.
“Do you laugh like that for everyone… or only for me, when you remember?” Jonathan chuckled nervously.
“Uh, dude, it was just a conversation. You’re acting—kinda intense.”
Dracula’s smile sharpened. “Intense? Maybe. Focused, certainly. You… distract me. Do you know how long it’s been since something stirred like this near me?”
Jonathan swallowed, the weight of centuries pressing in. “You’re… kinda scary, man.” Dracula stepped closer, the corridor seeming to shrink around them. His cape cast a shadow that swallowed the flickering candlelight.
“You do not understand yet.” Dracula murmured. “Immortality is long, empty… until something warm falls into it.”
Jonathan pressed back against the cool stone wall. “Drac, I didn’t mean to—”
“You did nothing wrong,” Dracula interrupted. His voice dropped to a purr. “You only exist. And that… is enough.”
Before Jonathan could answer, a hand cupped his jaw—cold, firm, almost possessive. Dracula’s breath brushed his ear, the air thick with an unspoken pull.
“I will not hurt you,” he whispered. “Only… savor.”
A fleeting touch grazed Jonathan’s neck, a whisper of heat and chill, sharp and intimate but not painful.
Jonathan shivered, caught between fear and something unexplainable. When Dracula pulled back, he leaned close, voice husky and quiet. “I do not want to frighten you. But I cannot let you slip away… not to Wayne, not to anyone.”
Jonathan’s heart raced against the press of Dracula’s chest. “You’re… really intense, man,” he admitted.
A slow, knowing smile curved Dracula’s lips. “And you… are mine.”