His glowing red eyes were nearly as mesmerized in the moment as those of his intended prey.  The sound of her heart beating, rapid and full of life's vitality thumped in his ears like a drum.  A deathly cold gasp of wanton breath fled from his pale and parted lips at the sight of her exposed jugular.  In Strahd's blood red gaze it was as if the fountain of youth ran through the side of Ireena's neck and it beckoned to him to drink of it freely.<br/><br/>With unnatural grace and swiftness he was upon the damsel plastered in terror upon the bleak stucco wall of the dimly lit bedchamber.  Long arms that were draped in smooth dark cloth from centuries past closed in around the forested green gown that clung to the cold sweat of Ireena's pale flesh.  His embrace threatened to suck the warmth from her long before he tasted the succulent crimson nectar that rushed through that prominent artery.  Within in moments his agile arms held the limp form of Ireena with all the care that one would show towards a dying loved one.  His right hand shifted through her long locks of ripened corn colored hair and formed a pillow for the back of her head to sink against.  The other hand pressed along the dip of her spine along the back of the dainty women who seemed all but weightless in the ancient grasp of the devil of Barovia's hands.<br/><br/>The candles about the room splashed trickles of light across the vampire's back as he hunched over the dazed body of his helpless quarry.  Moonlit shade fell in around the pair as the shape of Strahd's shadow rose up along the wall and then sank in as if was going to join the feast as well.  The sound of Andrei at the door, frantically trying to gain entry through the locked doors at the entrance of her bed chamber seemed a distant sound to Strahd as he tilted his head back and opened his mouth wide.  Ivory fangs glistened in the unnatural moonlight floating about them as the moment seemed to freeze before Strahd struck.<br/><br/>Intense pain pierced just beneath her ear, high up along the side of Ireena's presented neck.  Welcomed rapture immediately followed, blowing away the short lived feeling of agony that left her breathless.  The taste of her was intensity in it's purest form and Strahd began to drink with equal fervor.  The sound in the back of his mind grew as the pending intrusion from the double doors of the ladies nightly sanctuary gave the creature reason to pause.  Someone was hacking through the door with frantic swings from an axe.  The last of the manors guards no doubt.  His mouth pulled away with a vengeful hiss even as the tint of his waxy skin warmed with the boldness of life.  Daggers of angered red stared perfectly through the darkness surrounding him towards the pair of doors that buckled at the head of the room.<br/><br/>His shadow showed his rage first as the doors burst open and Andrei stumbled through them into the room from the force of his efforts.  It's metamorphosis was a premonition as the shape of the black blotch smeared across the wall sprouted wings that bled out across the walls as a form most monstrous ascended up the wall and out across the ceiling.  As the shadow threatened to close in all around Andrei a shape that was no longer that of the vampire lord in all of his finery emerged with a deafening roar and caught the hurled axe in mid flight.  The axe was tossed aside, left to stick in the wall as the devil smirked with bared fangs upon the man before him.<br/><br/>The few trinkets of faith that adorned the room burst into flame as the creature hissed.  "Your - god - is no - longer - here!"  His voice sounded with a guttural gut wrenching boom as that regal creature was gone and something more befitting of the shadow surged forward.  It's skin was thick leather of a deep olive hue that glistened with a sheen in the light of the candles that now danced madly about the interior of the room.  Sinew and muscle formed the sculpture of the beast that rose up out of the shadows.  Footfalls which seemed to bear the weight of anvils struck upon floorboards that groaned under the weight of their impact.  Wings that belonged on a bat the size of a bull stretched across the room and scrapped against the rafters of the vaulted ceiling.  Red eyes that burned like they were twin gate ways to hell settled on Andrei, who's normally towering figure was diminished by the monsters presence.<br/><br/>"She - is - beyond saving - now!"  The monstrous face hissed as its features contorted with the fury it was about to unleash.  Thin nostrils of its ridged and flattened nose flared as its arm swept forward and swatted at Andrei with the force of a titan.  "As - are - you."  Moments before the blade of silver could come to the mans defense the swift blow cracked across Andrei's chest like a timber being swung through the air.  Like a sack of laundry tossed aside, Andrei flew backwards through the air and smashed into the wall besides the sundered doorway.  Strahd barely watched as the breath puffed out of the guards lips as he slumped to the floor, his dagger scattered to the far corner of the room.<br/><br/>With a risen fury he turned back upon the body of Ireena.  She laid there, sprawled across the wooden floor, lost in the rapture of his infectious bite.  As his thunderous step drew him closer he paused as he caught sight of a narrow mirror that hung askew upon the wall.  There was no reflection to be seen upon it's smooth surface, but Strahd knew the image it would of presented all the same as the mirror shattered in an explosion of glistening shards and fragments that fell to the floor.  They sounded like an ensemble of symbols that taunted at the heart strings of the beast as it turned it's head in shame and swept its arm across its face to cover its hideous visage from the blonde haired woman of the manor that laid before the curled talons of his feet.<br/><br/>"Not - like - this.  See me - not - like this."  He growled into the crease of his arm and with a bellowing cry that was equal parts despair and anger the creature fled out through the open balcony doors.  His form broke into a cluster of swirling ebony as a wave of bats took the place of the beast as it vanished into the moonlight foggy night beyond the balcony of the manor.  Outside the wolves howled in sorrow.