After Death Vampire Short Stories & Regret Novels

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.

The Clan Healer told me that without the vial of Progenitor's Blood, the Blood Blight afflicting me meant I had only seventy-two hours to live. But my husband, Miles, the new Duke of our world, gave the only vial of the precious cure to my adopted sister, Vivienne, the woman I had turned three years ago. "She's in agony from the rejection, Isolde. It's a pain you can't possibly understand." His tone was self-righteous, devoid of any concern for the patch of skin on my collarbone already turning to stone. I nodded, watching as the life-saving, dark red liquid slid down another woman's throat. I accomplished a great deal in the time I had left. As I signed the documents, the lawyer's hand trembled. "Are you certain you want to transfer everything, Your Grace? The territorial rights of a thousand-year-old clan..." I didn't hesitate. "Yes. To Vivienne." My adopted daughter, Lily, the girl I had risked everything to save, who was now forever frozen at the age of eight, cowered in Vivienne's arms, pointing at me and screaming, "Aunt Vivienne is my real mommy! You're the witch who turned us into monsters!" I offered no defense. "Yes, that's right. Be a good girl and listen to your new mother now." The Progenitor's Ring, the symbol of the clan's supreme authority, now rested on Vivienne's hand. "Oh, sister, you're too kind," she sobbed, her sobs a practiced performance. "I'll be sure to protect the family in your stead." I nodded. "You'll run things better than I ever did." I even signed away my control over the Elder Council, a council sustained by my own blood. For the first time in a century, a shadow of complex emotion crossed Miles's face. He stared at me,"Isolde, stop fighting. It's better this way. You need to rest." Yes. On my deathbed, I had finally become the perfect, submissive Isolde they always wanted. An Isolde who was about to turn to dust. The seventy-two-hour countdown had begun. I wondered, when I finally turned to ash,

After seven years of loving Kael, the Vampire Prince, he finally agreed to marry me as a human. But there was a condition—he wanted me to donate one of my kidneys to my younger sister, who was suffering from renal failure. I agreed without hesitation. Relieved, Kael handed me the marriage application and promised that once the surgery was complete, we would hold the wedding. What he didn't know… was that I only had twenty-four hours left to live.

It was at our engagement banquet that I finally learned the truth. I wasn't the true heiress of a noble human family. I wasn't the "fated bride" destined to bear a half-blood child for the vampires. I was just the wrong baby someone had brought home from the hospital. A fake. I'd thought that Alexander, the boy who'd risked his life to drag me out of a burning house, the boy I'd grown up beside, would love me the same as always. Instead, in front of everyone, he let go of my hand and looked down at me with cold eyes. "Without that bloodline, do you really think you deserve to stand beside me?" Then he reached out and slid the engagement ring off my finger himself. He turned, and led the true heiress up to the high platform. Everyone laughed at me. The fake heiress, delusional enough to think she could marry the vampire heir. I was thrown out of the only home I'd ever known. The only kindness left to me was Alexander's, a scrap of charity that let me stay at his side as the lowest thing a vampire could keep. A blood slave. And then, later, I died in an explosion. Saving him. Alexander knelt in the blood and lost his mind, screaming at everyone around him to save me. But there was something he didn't know. I hadn't died. Later still, at a vampire banquet, he saw me again at last. I walked past him on another man's arm, smiling. And this time, it was his turn to lose his mind begging me to look back at him.

My adopted sister, Clara, framed me. She claimed I forced beast blood down her throat. The terror, she said, gave her a heart attack. So my three beloved vampire brothers sealed me away. They trapped me in the observatory in the highest tower, bound by a blood curse. I pounded on the door, helpless, explaining and begging them to let me out. Damien, my eldest brother, the head of our family, pierced me with a look of cold disappointment. Then he turned his back on me. "There's a limit to your selfishness, Lilith. Clara is a fragile human. She has a heart condition! Did you force that filth on her? Were you trying to kill her? I don't want to see this cruel side of you again. Stay in here and think about what you've done." Ethan, the rock star, and Julian, the gothic architect, couldn't even look at me. Their voices were tight with anger and exhaustion. "We put up with your tantrums, but not so you could hurt our family! You've let us down, Lilith. Stay in there and figure out what you did wrong." Then they carefully lifted the "unconscious" Clara and disappeared down the hall. But they didn't know. The observatory was only meant to open at night. But it malfunctioned. When morning came, the dome didn't close. Deadly sunlight streamed straight in. My power evaporated. My screams turned to silence. I burned to ash. Three days later, my brothers returned with a "recovered" Clara. Only then did they remember me. They had no idea the sun had already executed me.

After a century of war, the three races finally reached a fragile peace. The human kingdom, the vampire noble houses, and the wolf clans signed the Covenant of Three Realms. The Royal Court would stand above the races, and only a mixed-blood royal heir would rule all three realms. When my turn came,I chose Owen, Alpha of the Bloodmoon Pack. Our marriage ceremony took place on the Night of the Full Moon Oath. Owen’s foster sister, Nora, fled the Bloodmoon territory after the rite. She crossed beyond the pack’s borders and ran straight into a hunter’s silver trap laid in the forest. The silver tore through her wolf spirit. She died there before anyone could reach her. When Owen arrived, he did not rage. He simply carried her body back to the pack lands and performed the ancient wolf burial rites with his own hands. After that night, he continued to play the role of the perfect mate. But the night I gave birth to our hybrid child, he drove a blade through my throat, his eyes filled with hatred. His voice was filled with cold hatred. “If your bloodline weren’t the only one capable of producing a ruler for the three realms, I would never have married you.” “Nora would never have fled the pack lands. She would never have died in a hunter’s trap. My first child would still be alive.” Pain swallowed everything. When I opened my eyes again. I had returned to the day the king ordered me to choose between the vampire houses and the wolf clans.

I was human once. Three years ago, Count Dorian Draven turned me into a vampire and took me as his wife. Back then, I believed he truly loved me. But he would often get lost staring at an oil painting that hung in the tower. I knew it was a portrait of Lenore Blackwell, his dead lover. Then, one night at midnight, I saw it with my own eyes. Dorian's soul slipped into the painting, where he wrapped his arms around a completely naked Lenore. Dorian's voice was lazy and husky. "By tomorrow, you'll be fully alive again. Then you'll take Alyona's place as Countess." Lenore laughed softly. "Dorian, I knew there was no vampire more powerful than you. To think you actually found a way to use necromancy to resurrect my soul in her body." I stood outside the door, my face expressionless. So he'd never loved me. He'd only turned me to bring his lover back to life. I didn't storm in and confront him. Instead, while they were lost in each other, I ripped down the blackout curtain and draped it over the painting, covering it completely. Then I fastened the curtain securely to the frame with the Holy Silver Lock. Now that his soul was inside the painting, the frame would be his prison forever. I sold the painting to the Blood Pit, the most depraved underground nightclub in the city. It was a haven for every kind of vice, and I made sure the painting hung right at the center of it all. For a single copper coin, anyone could humiliate the pair however they pleased. I used my power to reverse the necromancy spell, trapping their souls in an endless loop along the edges of the painting. No matter how far they went, they'd never find a way out. Once so proud and untouchable, Dorian was now trapped inside the painting, humiliated again and again until he finally snapped.