I Sold the Painting Hiding His Affair

Soft, breathy moans drifted out of the dark room.

I was still holding the glass of warm blood I'd brought him.

After Dorian turned me, I thought becoming a vampire would finally bring us closer. But he still wouldn't touch me. He claimed my blood was too tempting—that if he got too close, he'd lose control and drain me dry.

He was always locking himself away in the tower, where no daylight could reach him. There, he endured his hunger alone.

But as he grew paler by the day, I couldn't bear to watch. So while he slept, I'd secretly cut my wrist and feed him my blood.

Tonight, I'd come to tell Dorian that he'd grown used to my blood. He didn't have to worry about losing control anymore.

The door opened a crack.

At the center of the room hung an oil painting that shimmered with an eerie light.

It showed a dark, lavish Gothic bedchamber with two figures on the bed.

Dorian lay on the shadowy bed, pale-faced and red-eyed, entwined with an alluring spirit.

The woman was Lenore, Dorian's vampire lover who had died three years ago.

Gone was the coldness Dorian had always shown me. Inside the painting, he was completely lost in pleasure.

At the sight of it, something in my head snapped, and pain tore through my skull.

Lenore hooked her pale arms around Dorian's waist.

She sounded a little impatient.

"Dorian, she used to be human. Turning her didn't get rid of that nauseating mongrel stink in her blood. I'm so tired of drinking it."

Lenore pouted. "How much longer until your necromancy works? I can't wait to come back to life. Once I do, the first thing I'll do is wash every trace of that filthy human scent off her body."

Dorian stroked her cheek. I'd never seen such tenderness in his eyes.

He said slowly, "Soon. Tomorrow, at my father's birthday banquet, she dies. That stupid human woman still hasn't figured out I lied about being afraid I'd lose control and drain her dry."

Dorian bent to kiss her, then murmured in her ear, "Once her heart stops and she's bled out completely, you'll be back in my arms, in her body."

Lenore giggled. "What an idiot. She really thinks you're madly in love with her. Imagine how furious she'd be if she knew the blood she secretly gives you every night goes straight from your mouth into mine."

Dorian scoffed. "If I didn't need her to bring you back, I wouldn't even lie beside her. And drink her blood? I'd never let something that filthy inside me."

Lenore burst out laughing at Dorian's disgust for me.

They became intimate again, their moans turning my stomach.

Dorian's real body lay pale and stiff on the bed in the room.

So this was the truth. Three years ago, I'd defied my adoptive father and begged Dorian to turn me, all because I loved him. But to the husband I'd loved with all my heart, I'd only ever been a vessel for Lenore.

I'd actually believed his lies. I'd mistaken his refusal to touch me for love, thinking he was afraid he'd lose control and hurt me.

Everything I had done for him was one big joke.

How ironic.

I fought back the tears threatening to spill. Crying wouldn't change anything now.

I kept my eyes fixed on the painting.

Dorian, you love your dead lover so much that you'd rather lose yourself in a painted world that isn't even real.

Fine. Stay in that painting with her forever.