A Dowry of Blood

Content Warning: This section of the guide contains discussions of abusive relationships.

The protagonist of A Dowry of Blood addresses her unnamed lover. She was his wife, though the two had two other lovers as well. She attempts to justify her decision to murder him. She hopes that he will be proud of her “determination to persist” but chides herself for continuing to seek his approval (12). She clarifies that she did not always want to kill him. 

She first meets her lover when raiders ransack her small Romanian village. Her attackers leave her to die, but a vampire finds her and is impressed by her beauty and her will to live. He gives her the name “Constanta” and offers to help her. Constanta agrees, and he bites her and drains her blood. The process is excruciating. He gives her his blood in return. Constanta transforms into a vampire and is immediately filled with hunger for blood. The man wants to give Constanta vengeance. He takes her to the camp of the men who destroyed her village and killed her family and tells her to take her revenge. 

In an aside, Constanta confesses that she does not think that her lover ever saw her as an equal.