Mircea Basarab

Mircea Basarab is a fictional character in both The Cassandra Palmer series and the Dorina Basarab series written by Karen Chance. Based on Mircea II of Wallachia, he was a noble, along the lines of a prince, in Romania before a gypsy cursed him with vampirism around 500 years ago.

The eldest of three sons, Mircea has two younger brothers, Radu the Handsome and Vlad Dracula, both of whom are vampires themselves and feature in the novels. His mother was a devout Catholic and Mircea credits his own religious devotion to her. He fell in love with a peasant girl, Elena/Helen (both are correct), who worked at the family's castle. When he initially propositioned her, believing himself to be quite good at attracting the opposite sex, she slapped him and he was smitten. Romanian women of the time were expected to be demure and submissive to the extreme compared to modern standards and Mircea enjoyed the challenge. They secretly married and Mircea set up a home for her in a nearby village. Due to her lower social status and the enormous political unrest, Mircea was reluctant to make their marriage publicly known. Elena later gave birth to Dorina, a dhampir, with whom Mircea has a strained relationship.

Due to political unrest in the region, Mircea and his father were eventually attacked by nobles from Târgoviște. His father was scalped, tortured, and killed while Mircea was blinded by hot pokers and then buried alive. As he had recently been cursed with vampirism he was able to dig his way out of the grave. After about a week of noticing things had been different (almost attacking a serving girl), he could no longer deny he was a vampire. In his fear, he arranged for Elena to be left a large sum of money and for her to receive the news of his "death". He then travelled to Venice where he could operate relatively independently as a masterless vampire with no vampire family to protect him. After a few years, he returned to Romania in hopes of reuniting with Elena, but he discovered she had been murdered in his absence. He also learned of Dorina's existence but could not find her for she had been given to Gypsies shortly after her birth. Dorina, however, later found Mircea by coincidence when she was still rather young and Mircea recognized Elena in her features. He later took Dorina out of Romania to raise her.

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