Cerita Pendek Melodramatic Vampire & Novel Regret

My friend and I married into the Castellar family together. I married the older brother, who worked in high finance. My best friend married the younger, a senior fire officer. They didn’t tell us the truth until we were both pregnant. They were vampires. We were furious. But in the end, we forgave them because we still loved them. Until that night. We were staying at a vacation cabin when the fire started after midnight. The front door sealed itself shut, locked by a spell, trapping me inside. My best friend had gone out for a walk and escaped the fire by sheer luck. A car passed by on the forest road. She ran into the headlights, begging the driver to ram the door and save me. The man said coldly, “Pay first.” Inside the cabin, blood ran down my legs and soaked the floor. I tried to transfer the money, but my account was frozen. I called my husband. He hung up three times before the call finally went through. But the voice that answered wasn’t his. It was a woman’s. Vicky sounded calm, almost amused. She said he was busy. Then she added lightly that he’d been helping her set up a subcard and had accidentally disabled mine. My best friend called her husband next. She was crying. She told him there was a fire and I was trapped. He snapped back at her. “Stop lying. I hate people who make false emergency calls. I’m with Vicky checking fire hazards in her new place. Don’t bother me.” She didn’t hesitate again. She shoved the driver out, and drove straight into the cabin. The door shattered. She dragged me out with her bare hands. We lost our babies on the way to the hospital. When I woke up,we looked at each other for a long time. “I’m getting divorced,” she said. “So am I.”

As the only daughter of the Hawthorne family, I entered an arranged marriage with Adrian, the heir to the vampire ancient clan. Adrian was attentive, gentle, and deeply devoted to me. Until that day. His childhood sweetheart, Elara, became pregnant after getting involved with a lower-class vampire and turned to him for help. To protect her baby from being rejected by the ruthless vampire families, Adrian publicly claimed that Elara’s baby was his. As for me and the child I was carrying, Adrian told us to wait. At least until Elara could give birth safely, he said, he couldn’t acknowledge me or our child. His parents accused me of infidelity, saying I had disgraced the vampire bloodline and dishonored the Hawthorne name. They forced me to terminate my pregnancy. Meanwhile, Adrian was on the other side of the world, caring for Elara. By the time he finally returned, I had already disappeared from his world.

For ten years, I was Vincent's blood bag and his sharpest blade. I offered my rare blood to sustain his ancient power. I offered my loyalty to secure his throne as the Vampire Lord of this territory. I thought my devotion might earn me the eternal embrace of the turning. Instead, I received the announcement of his marriage to Lilith. A princess from a powerful European vampire clan. He said it was a necessary alliance. He said my blood was still precious. But when the sanctified silver tearing through the car,he used my body as a shield, to ensure his bride remained unblemished. That's when I knew. I was never his lover. I was just a consumable resource, a blood bag to be used and discarded. So, when I was ordered to become his blood servant under the title of his fiancée, I made a call to my father. “In seven days,” I said, my voice clear and final in the dark, “make the name Elena Rossi disappear from this city. From vampire’s world. Forever.” In seven days, when Vincent finds his precious living blood bank gone, he went insane. And this decade-long game of predator and prey… will have a new set of rules.

I’m about to enter a blood bond with another vampire lord. But my partner of a century, Kaelan, has no idea. He’s too busy getting cozy with his new human assistant, Sylvia. They spend entire nights in his office, under the guise of “researching synthetic blood.” He even turned our centennial anniversary into her birthday party. In front of everyone, Kaelan presented her with a Black Forest cake decorated with Silver Bells. They laughed, smearing frosting on each other. They forgot the flowers are a deadly poison to me. My power shattered. Agony ripped through me as shadows lashed out, uncontrollable. My family’s guards had to drag my convulsing body away. And while I recovered alone in the cold, dark vault, Kaelan was still at the party, bathing in the cheers for him and Sylvia. The blood in my veins turned to ice. A century of love and hope burned to ash. In that moment, I agreed to my family's arrangement. Without hesitation. A union with the lord of the Obsidian Throne—a vampire they say is power incarnate.

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.

I married my vampire husband ten years ago and gave him a half-blood heir, abandoning my career as a painter to become a full-time mother. Fortunately, my son inherited my talent. At just six years old, he held his first solo art exhibition, inspired by the theme "My Mother." But he never let me attend, and he never let me see his paintings. My husband said my presence would make Luke nervous---that I should stay home and do the housework as a good wife and mother, and wait for them to come back. I told myself he was just young and didn't know better, that he was only pushing back against my discipline, not truly rejecting me. Until the day I snuck into the gallery wearing a surgical mask pulled low. In the center of the crowd, my husband held our son's hand while tenderly pulling a woman in a red dress into his arms. He turned to the guests and announced: "This is Luke's mother---my wife." The three of them stood together, beaming with perfect happiness. And I---the one who'd stayed up all night setting up this exhibition---stood before the paintings while not a single person recognized me. That was when I finally understood. My seemingly gentle, caring vampire husband had long ago given our son a replacement mother. And I was nothing more than the human nanny who'd served her purpose by producing an heir.

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.

Three days before my blood oath ceremony, someone planted a silver crucifix in the bridal shop and set it ablaze while I was inside trying on my ceremonial gown. My fiancé — Vampire Lord Damien — had the arsonist thrown into the silver prison, sentencing them to the harshest punishment our laws allowed. I lay in the healing chamber, my body covered in severe burns, refusing to wake fully as the reality of my disfigurement sank in. In my semi-conscious state, I heard Damien speaking with the coven's apothecary. "My Lord, we can still heal her completely with the ancient blood rites. If we wait any longer, Serena will bear these scars for life! You just want Miss Vivienne to be your Consort at the blood oath ceremony. This is cruel beyond measure!" "Let her keep the scars. I'll provide for her for the rest of her life, but if she's healed, she'll definitely cause trouble at the ceremony." "I promised Vivienne that her child would be welcomed into the coven with full honors. Only when Serena is completely disfigured will she be grateful enough to raise Vivienne's child as her own. The scars are necessary - at least this way, she won't dare mistreat the boy." In the corner of the room, where no one was watching, a tear slid down my burned cheek. So this was the truth. The blood oath ceremony I'd dreamed of was nothing but a lie. The blood bond I longed for would be my death sentence. If that's how it had to be, I would give him what he wanted.

My sister Isolde and I used to be human. The twin vampire princes, Caelum and Dorian, turned us and married us. The entire vampire world celebrated. Two human sisters, personally turned by the Crown Princes? It was the highest honor a mortal could receive. We believed we were loved. We were fools. Five months into my pregnancy, I was attacked by a group of exiled vampires in the forest beyond our territory. I called Caelum nine times. He didn’t pick up. The exiles circled me, cutting into my arms and legs with blades that burned. Pain tore through my body. I called a tenth time. This time, Caelum’s cold voice came through: “Haven’t you had enough? Vivienne is being tracked by hunters. Stop bothering me.” Vivienne was the human girl that both princes truly loved. The one who had refused to be turned. With nothing to stop them now, the exiles closed in. Their leader drove a blade into my stomach. I watched the light leave my body from the inside out, and felt my unborn child die. When I was close to death, my sister Isolde found me and fought the exiles off. But there were too many. Isolde was badly wounded. She called her husband Dorian for help. All she got was: “Looking for Vivienne. Don’t bother me.” Isolde carried me and ran. A storm hit and we were caught in the open at dawn—deadly for wounded vampires. The border patrol found us just in time. We barely survived. When I woke up in the infirmary, my first thought was simple: Sever the bond.

I was a human, but my husband Damien was one of the noblest vampires. When I was two months pregnant, I was kidnapped by a traitorous vampire whom Damien had banished, and tortured to death. But my husband Damien, was with his first love Vivienne, accompanying her for her Blood Withering treatment. This is an extremely rare vampire disease that requires human blood of a rare blood type for treatment. Three days ago, he demanded I give my blood to Vivienne. When I refused, telling him I was two months pregnant with our child, his eyes had turned cold. "Stop lying," he had snarled. "You're just being selfish, trying to let Vivienne die." He drove me to the edge of the territory and left me there — a human, alone in the wilds after dark. "Find your own way back since you're so heartless." I stood there in the darkness and was taken by Silas — a rogue vampire Damien had once condemned to punishment. He cut off my limbs. With cruel satisfaction, he called my husband. But Damien simply didn't believe it. His response was brief and cold: "Whatever it is, Vivienne's treatment is more important. She needs me right now." Silas let out a dark laugh. "Well, well... Seems like the great Enforcer values his ex over his own wife." When Damien arrived at the crime scene hours later, he was horrified by the brutality inflicted on the corpse. He raged at the killer for being so savage to a pregnant woman. But he didn't recognize that the mutilated body before him was his own wife — me.

Vampires only ever took one mate in their lifetime. And yet, my vampire husband refused to acknowledge me—his human wife, bound to him through an arranged marriage. On the night of our tenth wedding anniversary, Jason brought another woman into my bed. She was wearing my nightgown. She was carrying his child. And in my hand, I held a pregnancy test I'd just had confirmed. "Be reasonable, Elena. Jessica just conceived my child. She needs me." "Go sleep in the guest room. I'm sorry for the inconvenience." My husband shielded the other woman, his smile polished and gentlemanly, though his eyes held the same icy indifference they always did. When he saw me frozen in the doorway, Jason assumed I was going to do what I always did. Scream. Cry. Demand to know why he kept doing this to me. But he didn't know—this time was different. The ten-year contract had come due, and I was finally leaving him for good.

The Nightshade Clan and the Slinter Clan were ancient enemies. Yet Augustine and I, the Prince and Princess of our rival clans, fell in love. We were Mates. Our love was a firestorm, defying all who stood against us. On the day we sealed our blood pact, Augustine held my hand and, with his own blood, made a solemn vow. "If I should ever betray you, may I suffer the agony of a thousand silver daggers to the heart. And may all the power of the Slinter Clan be yours." I looked at him then, my smile so full of happiness it felt like it could light up the night. On our 500th anniversary, Augustine filled an entire city with blood-red roses for me. But all I got was a photo from his human blood slave. In it, she was naked, her skin covered in the marks of a long night of sex. And the hand wrapped around her waist… I knew it instantly. My name was tattooed on the wrist. 【The Prince says he only feels true pleasure when he's fucking me.】 【He took me five times tonight. I'm afraid he won't have anything left for you. Sorry, Princess.】 I didn’t reply. I just quietly took out the blood pact. In seven days, I would hold him to his vow.

I was born into the noble Valerie family, gifted by blood with the rare ability to bond with vampires and bear them powerful hybrid children. Since I was a child, I had been secretly in love with James, the vampire noble I was betrothed to. Everyone knew his heart belonged to one person only — his childhood companion, Vicky. But she was engaged to James's older brother. The night of their engagement banquet, James accepted my confession. He said we could try. I nodded and told him I didn't mind. I was willing to wait until he let her go. Then he gave the wedding I had designed with my own hands to Vicky. He stood in the groom's place, holding her hand through the rehearsal. And I stood below the stage, the laughingstock of the entire room. That night, he got drunk. He held me and said he loved me. I thought he had finally laid down his obsession, so once again I forgave him and let go of my pride. Until he called out Vicky’s name. In that moment, I finally understood. The one James loved would never be me. I had stored up enough disappointment. The next day, I disappeared from his world for good. Five years later, I ran into him by chance, a hybrid boy in my arms. He came rushing toward me like a man gone mad, eyes red, begging me to come back.

I'd been married to my vampire husband for three years, and he had always cherished me like a treasure. He held me close every night before I went to sleep. He never let go of my hand when we went out. He worried, always, that I might get hurt. A common cold was enough to make him cancel everything and stay up all night beside me. James told me no one in the world mattered more to him than I did. Everyone said he loved me to pieces. I believed it too. Until the day of the ceremony — the night he was supposed to turn me into a vampire. A woman who should have been dead walked back into his life. She had my face, tear-streaked, calling his name in a small voice. That was when I understood. I'd only ever been the stand-in for the woman he couldn't let go of. My stubbornness, my refusal to give up — all of it broke under the disappointment that kept piling up. So I gave up on him for good. I decided to keep our child to myself, and disappear from his world without a word. But later, he came back. Down on his knees, again and again, begging me to come home.