Bittersweet Vampire Short Stories & Vampire Regret Novels

Before my parents died, they entrusted me to the most powerful vampire clan — the Vanderlooms. I married Jason, the heir, and spent ten years by his side — only to discover he'd gotten his vampire subordinate pregnant. He said I was just a human. That conceiving a vampire's child was nearly impossible for someone like me. That even if my parents died saving his life, it didn't mean I could hold on to the title of lady of the house forever. Vicky said she needed human blood for her pregnancy and demanded I serve as her blood thrall. Jason just watched with casual indifference. He didn't stop her. So I packed my bags and calmly handed him the divorce papers. He sneered. "That trick doesn't work anymore. You want to leave? Go ahead." "Give it a week. You'll come crawling back." But what he didn't know was that I'd already accepted another man's proposal. This time, I was done loving him for good.

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.

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.

In the seventieth year of my marriage to Adrian, the whole world still believed we were the most devoted vampire couple alive. In the documentary, he looked at me across old footage that spanned half a century and told everyone, "After I met my wife, I finally understood that even immortality can make you feel there isn't enough time." He confessed his love for me. He said he wanted every tomorrow I had. But that same night, I received a video. In a dim hotel corridor, my husband had a young human woman pinned against the wall, his head bent to bite the side of her neck. She asked him whether he was going home to me that night. Adrian kissed the blood from the corner of her lips and answered gently, "I'm yours until sunrise." Later he knelt in front of me and explained that the woman was only a brief diversion in his long life. She would age. She would die. And I was his only wife, the one he wanted to keep beside him forever. He thought that as long as eternity belonged to me, handing a few nights to someone else did not count as betrayal. But he had forgotten. On the day I agreed to marry him, I told him plainly, I could stand beside him through poverty, war, silver, and death. The one thing I could not accept was a third person entering our marriage. One betrayal, and there would never be a second chance. Adrian did not believe I would really go. He thought seventy years of knowing each other was enough to earn my forgiveness, and he thought we had endless time, enough to start over as many times as he liked. Until I left the divorce papers behind, took everything that was mine, and never looked back. Then a year passed. Ten years passed. A hundred years passed. I built a whole life that had nothing to do with him. And that vampire duke, who would not age and would not easily die, stayed alone in the long night. He could have everything. He would never have my love again.