Lahat ng Kabanata ng Reborn to Love: A Vampire's Fate: Kabanata 1 - Kabanata 10

I turn to the thrall, and he lowers his head, expectant. ‘Your master,’ I say, “where is he?” He steps back, gesturing to the door closest to him. ‘It’s unlocked,’ a pleasant tenor calls from within. A smile comes unbidden to my lips. I adjust my dress, slightly self-conscious of the glamour I’ve put over myself, then walk through the door. It opens onto a minimalist bedroom done in soft greys and deep reds, lit only by the light of the city filtering in through the balcony doors. I don’t pay the room much mind, however, as my entire being is focused upon the man sitting in an armchair, reading in the near-darkness. He looks to be in his late twenties, though that is of course a meaningless measure for us vampires. He bears a strong resemblance to my Sire in his features—sharp-boned and well-proportioned. He has a slightly more masculine air, however, as he is of a more powerful build. His colouring, too, differs from Canus in a crucial way—his hair is more fair, a honey blond ins

‘STOP!’ yells a voice that I don’t remember ever hearing so panicked. I freeze, but then I realise that Canus’s command wasn't directed at me. Scintilla, meanwhile, has gone lax, eyes wide with fright and despair. I turn my head. Canus had widened the hole in the wall where I’d broken through when I tackled Chryseus off of him, staring through the opening at Scintilla and I with the strangest expression on his face. His cold eyes are bright in the dim light of the room, reflecting the diffuse light of dawn spilling inside through dingy egress windows that hadn’t been properly boarded up. He looks afraid, I realise with a start, but I don’t know why he’s afraid. The emotion makes him approachable in a way that I’ve never felt before. I want to comfort him, tell him that everything is fine, that he has nothing to fear. I struggle again, and Scintilla lifts easily off of me. I don’t glance at her face; I can’t bear it. I can’t stand knowing that she loves me still, but chose to betray

The problem isn’t that I should be dead—completely dead, that is, not just undead. No; the problem is that I’m (as far as I can see) in a coffin and (judging by the feel of the air) also stuck under quite a bit of earth. I remember how much I panicked over three decades ago on my first night as an immortal, when I’d woken up to this same situation. I had so few memories of my human life that even the knowledge I’d retained was minimal. I understood that I was a vampire, and I knew that my final test would be to emerge from my grave, but I barely remembered my own name, let alone how to get out. At the time, my clearest memory was of transformation, a grotesque and painful experience that had left me mentally exhausted as well as physically weak. Now, however, though my latest memory is of literally burning to ashes, I’m slowly beginning to feel a growing sense of mental clarity. Maybe it’s just because I’ve been through so many dangerous situations that I’m now used to it, or perhaps

My rooms aren’t very complicated. There’s a receiving room of sorts, furnished with plush seating, a small coffee table, and a television screen mounted on the wall. To the right is a bedroom with a balcony, which in turn leads to an ensuite bathroom and a dressing room that has yet to be converted to a walk-in closet. To the left is a door leading to a small but well-ventilated room that would serve as my study. I’ll need to arrange for a desk and bookshelves later. And a computer. I’m more or less dry, Canus having used sorcery to clean me when we first came inside, but I’ve trodden barefoot through half the house, and I’m clad in a ratty white vest and a stiff pair of sleeping boxers. As such, very desperately needing a proper bath, I head directly for the bathroom and the antique bathtub within. The soap and shampoo aren’t made from my preferred recipe. In fact, I don’t think my preferred recipe will be discovered by Scintilla for another three years at least, which is a shame. I

As a newborn, I always looked around at all the more practised vampires around me and assumed that they were all so much more controlled than I was because they didn’t feel the thirst as much. It wasn’t until months later that I realised how wrong I’d been. The thirst never goes away. We all just get better at dealing with it. It might be callous to use the word mistake, but that’s what we usually call it when vampires feed so much that they start killing people. Not all immortals are as kind as we are—most of them just call humans cattle. It’s not even necessarily against vampire law to kill mortals, not unless the human authorities begin to notice. Most of the time the only consequence that might result is hunters starting to put a bounty on your head. (We don’t bother hunters unless they start culling vampires who don’t kill, and hunters in turn tend not to bother vampires unless they do kill. It’s not a perfect system, but it works.) Canus has always been especially fastidious ab