After Death Short Stories & Vampire Marriage Novels

My best friend Seraphine had not one drop of blood left in her body when they found her. Her skin was translucent. There were two dried trails of blood from the corners of her mouth, like she had wept herself empty long before the end. She left one note. One sentence: "Vera saw his face." From that day forward, I became the Covenant's greatest sinner. Because I knew who did it. But I said nothing. For ten years, I said nothing. Then Lucian came back. He was the one who had turned us, raised us, given us the only home we had ever known. He set the Soul Prism in front of me. "Tonight," he said, "you give me the killer." His eyes hadn't changed. That was the worst part. After ten years of exile, of stones and fire and nights that never got warmer, I looked at him and he was still exactly who he had always been to me. "Or you disappear from this world along with him." He didn't know. The reason I had chosen exile and starvation and a Blood Oath that had been eating my soul core alive for a decade — was him. All of it, always, had been for him.

I was the only human at the vampire banquet, and the fiancée of the Prince's heir, Lucien. As a child, I once saved Lucien from vampire hunters, and the Prince and his wife chose me for him, sealing our engagement. Everyone envied me. I was merely the daughter of a human nobleman, yet I had the fortune to marry above my station into the Prince's family. To be worthy of him, I worked to make everything perfect. But among vampires, I always seemed slow and clumsy. They moved faster than me, heard far more than I could, and even the simplest vampire customs took me longer to memorize. Every time I reacted a step too slow, Lucien would remind me with a frown. "How are you ever going to be a proper wife like this?" He always said that compared to the girl he grew up with, his former fiancée, I still fell far short. Every single time, I was laughed at without mercy. Lucien would never let anyone hurt me, but he never once defended my dignity. Eventually, I broke off the engagement and decided to marry someone else. Lucien's face darkened. "You're really going to marry this human?" "Yes. Because he has never once called me stupid." Lucien scoffed. "That's your reason?" I nodded. "That's my reason."

On the day of our wedding, my vampire husband confessed that he had a severe emotional disorder. He could barely understand other people's feelings and had no idea how to respond to them. Because I had already fallen in love with him, I chose to accept it. I believed that if I gave him enough time, he would eventually learn how to love me. The day the vampire hunters attacked, I threw myself in front of a bullet meant for him. A bullet struck my arm, and the pain nearly brought me to my knees. Adrian Blackwood only glanced down at the carpet. "Go get that wound taken care of." He frowned. "Don't get blood everywhere." Every vampire in our circles knew my husband didn't love me. I had become the punchline everyone whispered about. But I never blamed him. I truly believed he simply wasn't capable of loving anyone. Until I finally got pregnant and went to surprise him with the news, only to hear his human blood servant laughing on the other side of his office door. "She actually believes you have an emotional disorder?" To my shock, Adrian laughed too. His voice was so gentle I hardly recognized it. "She loves me that much. Of course she believes it." "If it weren't for an heir, I never would have married her." I stood outside the door and looked down at my arm. The scar from the silver bullet was still there, jagged and ugly. There was no point in sharing this surprise anymore. I would take my baby and disappear from his world for good.