Family Emotions Vampire 단편 소설 & 소설

My sister, Cecilia, discovered by chance that she shared an uncanny resemblance to the Vampire Prince’s human wife, Isabella. She had been crushing on Alistair since forever. She was eager to take Isabella’s place. It was no secret that Alistair only saved Cecilia back then because she looked so much like Isabella. I tried to talk some sense into Isabella. It was bad enough that she refused to take my advice, but she came up with a plan to lure Isabella out and hire men as vampire hunters to ambush her. She would play the heroine, swooping in to save Isabella and catching Alistair’s attention. Catching on to her scheme, I knocked her unconscious and stopped her before her mission was set in motion. I implored her, desperate to get through to her. Alistair wasn’t some fictional hero from the romance novels on her shelf. He was the Vampire Prince who had lived for half a millennium. Her little antics wouldn’t escape his eye. Once Alistair discovered what she had done, she and the rest of our family would pay dearly. Cecilia, her head down and her eyes teary, told me she understood. That night, she drugged me and threw me into a dungeon filled with feral blood servants before locking the door. These creatures that failed to turn swarmed me. Their fangs tore into my throat, draining every last drop of my blood. Before I breathed my last, I looked through the bars and saw the resentment burning in Cecilia’s eyes. “Since you destroyed my dream, don’t blame me for ruining you, Nora.” When I opened my eyes, I was back to the day Cecilia hired men to abduct Isabella. This time, I wasn’t going to get in her way.

My father had always been against my marriage to Ryan Kane, a vampire of noble birth. He believed that as a human, I had no place in the vampire world. He warned me that if Ryan ever changed his mind, without his protection, my half-blood child and I would be nothing more than walking blood bags in the eyes of vampires. But I believed in Ryan—and in our love. My husband had always been gentle and attentive. He had even defied everyone to make me, a human, his vampire bride. That was before Ryan's human ex-fiancée had her engagement called off and returned to the country seeking his help. I went to the hospital alone. While I was learning that my pregnancy was high-risk, Ryan was there attending her prenatal checkup, even introducing her to the doctor as his wife. All he had for me was one cold line: "Keep pushing me and I'll file for divorce." I pressed my hand against my stomach and dialed a number I hadn't called in years. "Dad, you were right... I want a divorce." Two weeks. That was all it would take for me to disappear from his life completely. But later—that same vampire who had discarded me like I was nothing showed up at my wedding to another man, trembling all over, calling my name in a broken voice.

The day before my wedding, I received a message from an unknown number asking me to meet in a hotel room. "I hear you're marrying the Prince's heir tomorrow. "I'll give you nine million dollars. All you have to do is give me the access crest and tell me his whereabouts." I said yes, and I went there that same night. But when I opened the door, I found my fiancé Adrian glaring at me, his triumphant vampire childhood sweetheart beside him. "Adrian, I told you a long time ago. Humans cannot be trusted. "She only pretends to love you. She was after your money all along." My fiancé glared at me, clamped a hand around my wrist, and gritted his teeth. "Why?" But I suddenly laughed. "Because I wanted to see how many more times the two of you were going to test me." When my mother was dying, I asked him for a loan. The sum was nothing to him, and he asked me whether money was the reason I was with him. I worked myself into the ground scraping together money for her treatment, and the strain cost me the baby. Then he decided I had only used the pregnancy to force him into marriage and had never wanted his child. After that the tests kept coming. I explained. I cried. I tried to prove myself. He never actually believed me. "That was the ninth time you and Seraphina tested my love for you. "I'm tired. Let's end this."

When I was eight months pregnant, I received an anonymous email. The attachment was a security camera recording. In a dimly lit VIP booth at a bar, my husband — a vampire who had lived for three hundred years — was holding a human woman in his arms, kissing her. At the end of the video, the woman smiled and asked him, "Adrian, do you really love me?" Adrian's voice was low. "Of course." "Even though you're human, I'll make you the happiest vampire bride in the world." He had said those exact words to me ten years ago. In that moment, my hand rested on my belly. The baby kicked once. As if reminding me. It was time to wake up.

On the day my twin sister and I came of age, everyone gathered around Seraphina to plan her future. My brother, Adrian, handed her the transfer papers for a casino. "Budapest is where you belong, Seraphina. I have a hotel there, so I can help you get started." Julian smiled as he offered a different proposal. "Don't listen to him. Come to Tokaj and run the winery with me. Within two years, I'll make sure every vampire noble knows Vardi blood wine." The argument got heated. Mom and Dad only laughed. "Seraphina, with both of them looking after you, we have nothing to worry about. The future of the Vardi family is in your hands." And me? I was the eldest daughter of the Vardi family, yet I stood at the very edge of the crowd, almost invisible. No one seemed to remember that I had come of age, too. I was supposed to receive a share of the family business as well. Julian finally remembered I existed. He reached over and ruffled my hair. "Don't be impatient, Vivian. Once Seraphina settles in, you can come work for us." Adrian spared me a glance, as though doing so was a favor. "She doesn't even need to do that. She can find something to keep herself busy. The family business isn't her concern." My eyes burned. My nails dug into my palms. Again. It was always the same. Ever since we were children, the sweetest, freshest deer blood had gone to Seraphina first. Adrian carried it to her. Julian practically held the glass to her lips. I stood at the corner of the table, staring at the empty glasses they left behind. I never got so much as a drop. I should have stopped caring years ago. But after tonight, I had no patience left. If none of them cared about me, why should I keep playing my part in their picture-perfect family? I closed my hand around the enchanted daylight ring in my pocket. Then I booked a flight to the sunniest town at the southern end of Crete. Starting today, I was done being a Vardi.

My blood-bonded vampire mate left me while I was pregnant to be with his "first love" in the human world. When danger struck, he abandoned our son to protect her human child, who was not in any danger. While our son was struggling with lethal UV burns and calling for his father through a high fever, he was celebrating under citywide fireworks with that human boy, who only had a common cold. He even took the life-saving serum I had prepared for our son, just to use it for the boy’s "pre-transformation conditioning." He coldly stated, "Vampires are resilient; he’ll endure it. Human children are too fragile." After four years of raising our son alone, I finally decided to leave. I officially cut our blood ties and moved away with our son. Only then did he find out that his "first love" had been lying to him all along. After learning the truth, the arrogant vampire prince wept and begged for us to come back.

When I was three years old, my twin brothers, Silas and Julian, nearly died in an explosion while trying to save me. The Vampire King happened to pass by and turned them into high-ranking vampires. He had wanted to turn me too, so our family could stay together forever, but they refused. The King's power was too overwhelming, they said-the transformation would be agonizing. So they promised to turn me themselves when I turned eighteen. They spent every last penny they had on an impossibly rare serum-a blood-calming agent that would ensure I survived the transformation safely. But six months ago, they brought home a fifteen-year-old human orphan named Elena. Silas snatched my serum and handed it to Elena, his voice cold as ice. "You're strong enough to endure the transformation on your own. Elena is far more fragile than you-she needs this more." Julian's face twisted with undisguised contempt. He pointed at the door and snarled, "Get out! Don't come back until you learn to share!" I didn't say a word. I picked up the suitcase I'd already packed and disappeared into the rainy night. They assumed I was just throwing a tantrum. They figured I'd come crawling back in a few days. To celebrate ridding themselves of their "burden," they took the orphan on a vacation to the Caribbean coast-the trip I'd been dreaming about for years. But when they returned to the castle two weeks later, they were stunned to discover that I had undergone the Vampire King's transformation personally. Not only that-I had voluntarily signed a hundred-year agreement to join a classified isolation research project studying resistance to holy silver and crucifixes. A century of solitary confinement. I was never coming back. That day, they completely fell apart.

"Are you sure you want this?" The witch slid the vial across the table. "Once I cast the unbinding spell, your Fated Mate connection will dissolve over ten days. On the tenth day, it's permanent. No reversals." I didn't hesitate. "Your name?" She picked up her pen. "Mara Voss." Her hand froze. Everyone in New York's vampire community knew that name. Conrad Levin — the Prince of the New York Dominion, an eight-hundred-year-old monster who had never shown a flicker of attachment to anything — had three years ago announced to the entire supernatural world that he'd found his Fated Mate. A human girl carrying the rarest blood type in existence. Golden blood. Her name was Mara Voss. I held out my wrist. The witch began her work. I opened my phone and booked a one-way ticket to Prague. Departing in exactly ten days. This time, Conrad would never find me.