After the Blood King Betrayed Me, I Vanished

It was the surest thing I'd said in over a month.

The witch pulled open a drawer and took out a register. "Name."

"Eve Hart."

The tip of her pen stopped short, and a few drops of ink bled into the paper, but she didn't seem to notice. Everyone in North America's vampire circles knew that name. Adrian Vane, the Blood King who ruled northern Greyport, had waited three years for a human woman and turned down every marriage alliance the clans proposed. Only after I survived a dangerous turning did we exchange blood in front of everyone and take the blood oath as mates. That human was me.

The night we took the oath, he kissed the fresh wound on my wrist and told me that even with an endless life ahead of him, the one thing he couldn't bear was a single day of it without me. Five years had passed, and that grand ceremony was still the whole city's idea of what love should be. The witch had clearly heard the story too. She looked at me quietly, as if waiting for me to laugh and admit I was only testing him on a whim.

I pulled the stopper, tipped my head back, and drank it down in one go.

The witch closed the register and didn't mention Adrian again. She warned me that the changes in my body would be barely noticeable for the first few days. The closer the deadline came, the thinner the bond would grow, and only then might he notice something was wrong. Not even the Blood King's power could overturn my choice. Taking the oath had required both of us to be willing, but ending it didn't need his permission. As I listened, relief I hadn't felt in a long time washed over me. At least one thing still belonged entirely to me.

The potion was more bitter than blood gone cold. As it sank down my throat, the old bond in my chest trembled faintly. I gripped the counter, rode out the dizziness, and didn't take the water she held out.

"You're frail as it is," she said in a low voice. "Keep drinking blood regularly over the next few days and stay out of the sun. Don't let your rush to escape cost you your life."

"I understand." I left the empty bottle on the counter. "I bought it to stay alive."

Before I left the shop, I booked a one-way international flight on my phone, leaving in 15 days. It was a night flight, and when it landed, a private car would take me straight to a completely lightproof home. The moment the booking confirmation popped up, a message from him flashed across the top of the screen.

"Darling, are you home? Wait for me tonight."

I stared at the screen for a moment and didn't reply. This time, a simple "wait for me" from Adrian would never be enough to keep me where I was.

When I pushed open the door of the witch's shop, an icy wind blew snow into my face. I pulled my scarf up over my lips and the bite mark on the side of my neck, which had faded until it was almost invisible.

Greyport's North District was bustling. The long street that usually fell silent after dark was strung with lights. Delivery trucks were parked along the road, and attendants in black coats hurried across the courtyards with case after case of wine. The pillars were wrapped in pine boughs, the lamps glowed warm gold, and even the fountain out front, dry for years, had been scrubbed until it looked brand-new.

To ordinary humans, it was just a wealthy family getting ready for a winter banquet. They had no way of knowing that many of the people hurrying about behind the curtains had lived for over a century, or that the crystal glasses being polished again and again held more than wine.

"Take that case inside, and don't break anything." Edmund, the steward, stood on the steps directing two young attendants. "The Blood King chose these himself. My lady prefers glasses with a thin rim."

When he saw me pass, Edmund immediately smoothed his expression and bowed. Before I could answer, he turned back to his work, preparing the celebration my husband was throwing, supposedly just to make me happy.

To one side of the courtyard, a newly turned girl stopped what she was doing and tugged at a companion's sleeve. Her face was pale, but her lips were flushed an unnatural red from feeding, and when she spoke, she hadn't yet learned to hide her sharp fangs.

"All this fuss. Is the Blood King taking a new mate?"

The attendant beside her whipped around and hissed at her to stop. "Watch your mouth. The Blood King took the blood oath with our lady five years ago. No one can replace her."

"Their anniversary is in 15 days," another attendant added with a smile. "The Blood King started planning weeks ago. He's even listened to every piece the band plans to play. You got here too late. You never saw what he was like when he was courting her."

The girl's eyes filled with longing. "He must love her so much."

"You'd understand if you saw the way he looks at her. He's lived for centuries, but around her, he acts like a man falling in love for the first time."

None of them noticed me standing in the shadows. Two attendants lifted a piano between them as easily as an empty crate. The girl went to hold the door open, and the string of lights looped around her wrist slipped free. She bent to pick it up, and her soft laughter scattered in the bitter wind.

I didn't interrupt them.

Everyone loved telling this story. The king who ruled the vampires of the North, willing to bow his head for a fragile human. It was romantic, and rare enough to be worth repeating. Everyone remembered every time he'd given in for me, as if the love he'd truly felt in the past could guarantee he'd feel the same forever. Once, I'd believed that too.

Two years ago, someone sold my whereabouts to vampire hunters. I was ambushed on the way home, and they fired bullets laced with silver dust. The bullet was removed, but tiny silver fragments stayed in my flesh. The wound kept splitting open and bleeding, and I could barely swallow even the blood held to my lips. For a strong vampire, a gunshot hurt for only a moment. But for me, frail ever since my turning, those fragments could have kept me bedridden forever.

Adrian held me tight, his hand pressed over my wound. It was the first time I'd ever seen him lose his composure in front of others. He called my name over and over and ordered the physicians to do everything they could, until, at the end, his voice sank so low it was almost begging. The only medicine that could neutralize silver poisoning was locked away in the hunters' underground vault. They kept things like that to hold the vampires in check, and they'd never hand over the antidote willingly.

Just before dawn, he broke into the hunters' vault alone.

I still remember what he looked like when he came back. His coat was riddled with burn holes. Scorch marks on his shoulder hadn't healed yet, and a broken silver blade was still lodged in his arm. He didn't tend to his own wounds first. He just knelt beside the bed, eased my mouth open, and fed me the medicine he'd risked his life to bring back, one drop at a time.

"Look at me, Eve." His hands wouldn't stop shaking, but he fought to keep his voice steady. "You're going to be fine. I told you I'd never leave you alone in the dark."

Pain had me in its grip, and I couldn't answer. All I could do was use the last of my strength to touch his fingertips. He grabbed my hand at once and bent to kiss my forehead, like a man who'd just recovered a treasure he'd almost lost for good. "If it means keeping you, I'd give up anything."

Back then, I believed every word. His injuries were every bit as serious as mine, but he deliberately kept them out of my sight. It wasn't until a nurse changed his dressings that I saw the holy water burns all over his back. Even bending slightly sent searing pain through him. The hunters used that antidote to keep their prisoners alive so they could squeeze information out of vampires. In his hands, it became my chance to live.

After I recovered, I asked him if he'd been afraid. He was fastening my cuff at the time, and when he heard the question, he paused for just a moment. "Of course I was. I was afraid I wouldn't make it back, that the antidote would come too late, that I'd open the door and never hear you call my name again."

I remember holding his hand and promising to be twice as careful from then on, so he'd never have to go through that again. But he frowned and told me not to blame myself for what other people had done to me.

Those words protected me for a long time. Only later did I realize that the man who said them could also be the one to make me doubt myself, to wonder whether I deserved all this because I wasn't good enough.

It wasn't the first time he'd given me false hope. Before I met him, I was just an ordinary human. When the Hart family found out I was involved with a vampire, they packed up my things and threw them out the door. They were afraid of what vampires were, and they blamed me for putting the whole family in danger. They said that if I wouldn't leave him, I should never come home again.

I was standing in the pouring rain with a cardboard box in my arms when he showed up and held an umbrella over me. I asked him if that meant I had no home anymore. He didn't make pretty, empty promises. He just took the box from my arms, took my hand, and walked me to the car.

"Wherever I am, that's your home. You can always come back."

Back then, my body couldn't survive a full turning. The physician's verdict was blunt. If they gave me a full transfusion of vampire blood too soon, I'd probably die before the turning was complete. After hearing that, Adrian put away the ring and the oath documents he'd already prepared and waited beside me for three years.

But the great vampire clans had no patience. They wanted a proper lady of the house who could attend the night banquets with him and maintain bloodlines and alliances. In their eyes, a human who was always sick, who would grow old, who got winded climbing a few flights of stairs was good for nothing but a passing diversion.

Once, several clan representatives proposed to his face that a pureblood young lady move into the Vane estate. They dressed it up in fine words, as if they were thinking only of me, and promised me a house of my own and a generous allowance.

"You can still take care of your lady," one of them said. "But the North needs a true lady of the house."

Adrian picked up the proposal from the table and slowly tore it in half. "The lady of this house is standing right in front of you." He didn't raise his voice, but the whole room went dead silent. "Whether Eve chooses to be turned is her decision. However long I wait, you don't get to decide."

The man still wanted to argue. Adrian stood and opened the door himself, without even the patience to tell Edmund to show them out. "Take your proposal and leave. Next time you come here, learn some respect for her before you talk to me."

Word of it spread across the North. Some said a human had bewitched him and swore he'd grow tired of me sooner or later. He just held my hand and quietly asked whether I'd been hurt by what they'd said.

I shook my head, but the tears came anyway. He wiped them away with a faint smile. "Don't worry about them. They can live with it."

After the guests had gone, I picked up the torn pieces. The paper laid out the ports, trade routes, and blood supplies the alliance would bring. The benefits were obvious. I'd worried about him giving all that up for me, afraid that one day, in some crisis, he'd regret not choosing a more useful mate.

He took the scraps from my hand and threw them into the fire. "I need a mate, not a deal. Don't question your worth. I've never compared you to anyone."

After that, I tried hard to hold my head up. At banquets, I no longer left early because of whispers behind my back. When I didn't understand some vampire custom, I asked. Adrian was delighted to see it, thinking I'd finally come to trust that his choice would never waver.

It was the confidence he'd given me that made each secret I uncovered later so much harder to bear.

For three years, beautiful women never stopped circling him. Some wore gowns that made me painfully self-conscious, some talked openly about a past only vampires knew, and some bared their fangs on purpose and invited him to share fresh blood. But he never took them up on it. Every time, he turned to me and asked whether I was cold, whether I wanted to go home early.

Under that gaze, I gradually stopped feeling like an intruder who didn't belong. That third winter, the physician finally gave permission, and I chose to be turned.

When I woke, the curtains were drawn tight against the daylight. I heard an attendant set down a tray in the hallway and logs crackle in the fireplace, and I caught the scent of blood running from his wrist. A newborn hunger seized me. I covered my mouth, afraid to let him see the fangs I'd just grown.

He took my wrist and kissed my fingertips. "You don't have to hide. Whatever you look like, I love you."

My turning hadn't gone smoothly, and my recovery afterward was slow. The power other vampires used without a thought could flicker out of me at any moment, like a dying lamp. I couldn't safely feed from the living. I could only drink small amounts of treated plasma as the physician instructed. Then the silver-bullet attack wrecked my body all over again, just as it had finally started to stabilize.

Adrian never once complained in front of me. The kitchen always kept a blood warmer ready for me. He kept track of every follow-up appointment himself, and at the night banquets, he shielded me from all kinds of prying looks.

"She's my mate," he always said. "She doesn't have to prove to anyone that she's strong enough."

Once my health had steadied a little, we held the blood oath ceremony. He gathered every member of his clan, cut his wrist in front of the witnesses, and exchanged blood with me. The oath didn't let either of us control the other. It only let us sense each other in the dark, so that two lonely lives could finally belong somewhere together.

He was as solemn as a young man on his wedding day, cupping my face, his fingers slightly tense.

"Eve, you're my only mate. For all the long years ahead, there will only ever be you."

Applause filled my ears. When he bent to kiss me, his eyes shone with a joy he couldn't hide. If all that devotion had been an act, then it had been an awfully long and convincing one. Even now, I don't want to deny that he truly loved me once.

But loving me once didn't mean he wasn't betraying me now.

I first noticed something was wrong a little over a month ago. An attendant who patrolled the outer city mentioned in passing that he'd seen Adrian's car near the old logging camp. At first I didn't think much of it, until one night when he pulled me into his arms and the scent of white roses that wasn't mine drifted from his collar. He'd given me countless perfumes, but he'd never liked scent on himself. He said it kept him from recognizing mine.

I looked at his closed eyes and couldn't help wondering whose scent he was really breathing in as he pressed against my neck.

Later, I went to the old logging camp alone.

Among the trees stood a newly renovated cabin. The curtains were drawn, and tires had cut deep ruts in the snow at the door. I hid in the shadow of the trees for a long time and watched him open the door for a woman and bend to kiss her. She wrapped her arms around his neck, her smile familiar and intimate. She didn't have to rise on her toes to reach him. He bent down on his own, brushed the loose hair from her cheek, and kissed her again before he closed the door.

I knew those intimate gestures far too well. Too well to lie to myself and pretend they were just discussing business that required standing close.

That night, he told me there'd been sudden unrest in the south and he didn't know when he'd be back. I sat up by the lamp, rewarming the blood sent up to me again and again, and in the end put away the two glasses that had never been filled. After that, every time he mentioned urgent business, the cabin door would come to mind. Sometimes his car never even went to the office. Sometimes he came home before dawn with a little gift to make it up to me, smiling as he asked if I liked it.

I gave him chances to explain.

At first, I even made up excuses for him. Maybe that woman needed his help. Maybe I'd misread what I saw through a snowy window. Maybe whatever was between them had long since ended, and he'd only kept it from me because he didn't want me to be hurt. I clung to every one of those far-fetched excuses. Then his car went to the logging camp again, and during one phone call, I heard that woman laughing in the background, not bothering to hide it.

I heard him step aside and ask, as if nothing were wrong, whether I'd had my blood on time that night.

I gripped the phone, on the verge of asking who she was. But the next second, he said, "I've still got work. Get some rest," and hung up.

In that moment, I finally understood. The chance I'd given him to come clean was, to him, a routine check-in to end as quickly as possible. So I stopped making excuses for his lies.

One night, with the lights off, I sat on the edge of the bed and asked, "Adrian, is there anything you should be telling me?"

He came over and went down on one knee in front of me, pressing my hand to his lips. He was as patient and tender as he'd been when coaxing me to take my medicine. "Of course there is." He paused on purpose, waiting for me to look up at him. "The plans for our anniversary. I just can't tell you yet. I want it to be a surprise."

I looked at him quietly and swallowed every question on the tip of my tongue. Maybe he'd noticed my silence long ago and chosen not to ask why. As long as I was still waiting right where he'd left me, everything was as it had always been.

Because my body had been so frail since my turning, my sense of him through the blood oath had always been faint and blurry. It couldn't read his thoughts, and it couldn't tell me whom he was holding. I used to regret that. Now I realized that limit let him lie so freely. He was sure I'd never find out the truth.

Laughter rose in the courtyard again and pulled me out of the tangle of memories. The attendants were testing new lamps, and the light ran along the pillars to the main house, as dazzling as the future we'd once promised each other. I walked slowly back to the bedroom, shut the door, and took the separation agreement I'd prepared long ago from the very back of a drawer. The pages rustled in my hands. I smoothed them flat, checked every page, and signed my name on the signature line, one careful stroke at a time.

A civil marriage and a vampire blood oath were two different things. These papers could let a lawyer handle property, status, and residence, but they couldn't cut the bond we'd sealed by drinking each other's blood. That was why I'd gone to the witch's shop. I didn't want to leave and still be pulled by his feelings every night. I certainly didn't want him to notice one day that I was gone, track me down through the blood oath, and order me back to his side.

At first, my lawyer, Daniel Price, asked if I wanted to fight for better terms. Under our existing marriage agreement, I was fully entitled to ask for compensation and a division of joint property. I read through every clause and kept only what I needed to stay safe.

"Are you sure you don't want to wait a little longer?" Daniel asked over the phone.

I looked at the chair by the window that was so often empty and answered, "I've waited long enough."

He didn't try to talk me into forgiving Adrian. He only said he'd handle everything as I wished, and that all contact would go only through the channels I chose. When I heard the words "as you wish," I couldn't speak for a long time. For so long, everyone had put Adrian's wishes first. I'd all but forgotten that ending a relationship didn't require me to prove my pain down to the last detail.

As my pen made the last stroke, my fingertips wouldn't stop trembling. He used to mouth my name to himself, and he'd written it again and again on the cards that came with his gifts, as if it were the most precious thing in the world.

And now, I was using it to put an end to us.

Footsteps sounded outside the door. The familiar rhythm made my body tense before my mind caught up. Before I could put the papers back in the drawer, the door was already open. Adrian wrapped his arms around me from behind, his breath at my ear. His body was faintly warm from feeding, and his hand covered mine, tender and lingering, as if there had never been a crack between us.

"What are you writing, darling?"

I covered the papers with a magazine. "Just some personal business."

He felt me tremble and held me tighter. "Cold again? Why didn't you have the attendants build up the fire?"

"It's warm enough."

He didn't hear the stiffness in my voice and dropped a light kiss on the side of my neck. "Sorry I'm late. There was a group of unruly exiles down south, and I had to deal with them myself."

His story sounded seamless. But just an hour earlier, the car bringing me home had passed the southern checkpoint, and the night patrol had even stopped to help change the tire of a truck stuck in the snow. No lockdown, no alarms, and certainly no sign of an emergency waiting for the Blood King to come to the rescue.

I didn't challenge his lie. I lowered my eyes to the hand resting on my shoulder. That hand could crush a hunter's weapon with ease, and it had once carefully bandaged a tiny cut of mine. I never doubted that if he wanted to, he could keep me safe from everything.

The problem had never been whether he was capable.

"Don't look so down." He took a hair clip from his coat pocket. "I saw it when I passed a jeweler's and thought it would suit you."

It was platinum, set with tiny diamonds. A vampire would never give silver, which burns the skin, to someone close. Even in little things like this, he was still so thoughtful. So thoughtful it made me want to laugh.

He came around in front of me and gathered up my loose hair. "Let me put it in for you, okay?"

I didn't answer. He took my silence as a yes, bent down, and slid his fingers through my hair. In that moment, the scent of white roses surged up again, so strong I couldn't escape it. I turned my face aside and saw, just under the collar of his shirt, a fresh bite mark, its dark red not yet faded.

For a vampire as powerful as he was, ordinary scratches healed in an instant. Only a wound deliberately left open after intimate feeding would last that long. That woman hadn't just held him and kissed him. She'd drunk his blood. And he'd let the mark stay, walked through the front door with it, and come to stand in front of me.

I wondered how many marks like it were hidden under his clothes.

In Greyport, white roses couldn't survive outdoors in winter. He'd built a heated greenhouse just so I could see white flowers blooming in the dead of winter. Now the same scent clung to another woman's hair and skin, and he carried it back to me.

I looked into the mirror, careful to avoid his eyes. I was afraid that if I met his gaze, I'd be unable to stop myself from asking why he couldn't even choose a different flower for someone else. Why he'd take everything that had once been mine alone, share it with someone else, and then hand it back to me as if nothing had happened.

"Don't move. Almost done." He rested his hand on my shoulder, focused on adjusting the clip. "You look beautiful like this."

The man in the mirror looked tender. There was nothing careless in what he did, and his smile was real. If anyone had walked in just then, they'd have thought I had the most attentive mate in the world. But my eyes were fixed on that bite mark.

The cruelest part of the pain wasn't knowing he'd touched someone else. It was that now I couldn't even trust my memories. The night he'd carried me through the rain, the nights he'd held me and refused to let go, the words "there will only ever be you." Since when had he been giving all that to another woman too?

When he kissed her, did he ever think of me? On the way home, had he ever seriously thought about telling me the truth?

I'd never get an answer, and I'd long since stopped wanting to beg for one.

"Eve?" He looked at me in the mirror. "Why are you so quiet?"

I raised my hand and covered his eyes. He laughed softly and stood still, letting me slide the papers out from under the magazine, fold them neatly, and put them into a gift box on the desk. "I have a gift for you too." I fought to keep my voice steady. "But you have to promise not to open it until 15 days from now."

"An anniversary present?" He moved my hand away and kissed my palm, his eyes bright with delight. "You know I can never stand it when you keep me in suspense."

"Do you promise?"

He didn't hesitate. "Anything you want, I promise."

I tied the ribbon on the box and put it into his arms myself. He held it steady, his other arm still around my waist, as if he were holding every hope I had for the future. "Put it in the study. Don't let anyone touch it," I told him.

"I'll keep it safe myself." He bent his head to kiss my lips.

I turned my head, and the kiss landed on my cheek. He thought I was still upset about him coming home late and promised quietly that tomorrow, no matter how much work there was, he'd clear the whole day to be with me. I didn't refuse. Outside the window, the attendants were hanging the last string of lights. Someone asked whether to change the flowers in the courtyard for the celebration, and he answered offhandedly that they should use only the best, because they couldn't let the lady of the house down.

I looked at his smiling profile and committed those words to memory, along with the bite mark on his neck.

15 more days.

This time, I was going to leave the life he'd planned for us for good, on my own terms.