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When she was there, she gazed at me for the first time with those pure red eyes.
When she first met me, she looked down on me, despite myself being of taller size than her.
When she walked away from me for the first time, her black coat swaying as the trees burned down all around me, I had never been as mesmerised as much as that moment.
Not at all a dissimilar feeling to when she had first bitten my neck.
When I was left alone in the night, there was nothing else I could do but think about her.
The long crimson hair that reached her legs, the bloodstains on her sword, her calm expression as she slaughtered her fellow kin.
For my sake.
"EMILY!"
I shouted after her, and ran.
But when I had finally run out of breath looking for her, she was gone.
Looking down at my hand, all I saw was a key on my palm.
From the moment I saw it, I knew - it was her way of saying a message.
'Meet me at your apartment. We have much to discuss.'
The woman I had known all this time turned out to be a vampire.
The Queen of Vampires.
***
With moonlight constantly lingering through the window, I stayed still as Emily did her work - as usual, she wound her arms around my arm, and with her sharp, needle-like fangs, she embedded her four vampire teeth into the veins on the opposite side of my arm as my elbow.
The familiar, sharply painful, but short-lived bite sucked out the couple hundred millilitres she needed, as I felt her long, silky hair all over my body.
“Hey. Liam.”
Adjusting the right side of her hair back, she gazed at me, and I could not help but be fixated only on the ruby red colour of her eyes.
My position on the bed, my breath, my vocal chords - all were frozen at the sight of her once again.
“Did you do what I asked you before?”
I could merely nod, more due to acknowledging her question than understanding the meaning of her words.
“Good. Not many of my kind enjoy the prospect of their own self-destruction. Their pride doesn’t allow it - but they haven’t lived as I have. They don’t know immortality like I do.” Emily slowly shifted off of my torso, sitting at the end of the bed, her eyes fixed on the moon. “Liam. Everything you do for me, for… For us. I appreciate it.”
Swallowing and holding back a breath, I nodded again - for what else was there that I could do?
“I don’t have all the answers. I don’t expect you to understand, fully. But I’m glad… I’m glad that I met you.”
Smiling, I pulled her in for an embrace, smelling the soft scent of her aroma, and clinging onto her body for warmth.
Finally, I uttered the words that had been stuck in my mouth for so, so long.
“Emily. I love you.”
She never flinched, she never even moved or did anything in response: she merely looked back at me solemnly, and held my hand.
“Liam, you know those feelings aren’t genuine. You know that you have no free will around vampires.”
“No… No, I’m mesmerised, sure, but - these feelings are real. You’re wrong. They’re the most real thing I have ever felt.”
Emily couldn’t help licking her lips, before pulling me into a tight embrace, and pressing her lips against mine.
“If you say so, my underling .”
Her teasing voice, yet again, enraptured me in her presence.
But it was not due to her qualities as a vampire. It was due to her qualities as a person . As Emily .
***
The rain poured down.
All along, she had used me. She had tricked me.
I knew this. I knew this all along, but I still loved her - I was still loyal, out of my own free will - I happily became a tool for my mistress. My master. But more importantly, for her.
But I never expected our symbiotic relationship to end.
I would never have wanted it to turn out like this.
Standing on the stage, with the gun in my hand, pointing at her forehead as she kneeled, the strings attached to my limbs as if I were a marionette, I cried.
I was willingly a puppet for her play. But for the ending to be… For the final pages of her writing to be like this…
How dare she play with my heart in such a way?
We did have a promise. We did agree that salvation for vampires and humans would require a scapegoat in order for both species to live in harmony, with a 'hero', a 'slayer of all demons', to end all the evils of the world, all hidden within the supreme monster, leaving behind only the 'pure' vampires.
We did all we could infiltrating politics and business and causing disasters around the world, blaming them on 'the devil.'
But now, in the final act of her narrative to society… where the devil was revealed… I had never agreed that the hero would be me, and the monster would be her.
For that plan would require the sacrifice of her own life.
I would uphold my loyalty to her.
No matter what.
Even if it goes against her wishes…
I have a duty to preserve her life.
Her chilling eyes, contrasting the chaos around her, her confident stride, her absurdly long, silky hair, her alluring aura, her kind desire for coexistence, for peace, for harmony. It all came flooding back into my mind in an instant.
Everything she had done against her own kind, for me .
The strings snapped.
I ran forward.
Her plan would fail.
But in its place…
I would be the King of Monsters.
And there would be no hero in this story.
No, humanity did not deserve anything they owned for making her suffer. Nothing.
As long as she would end up alive… I didn't care what I had to become.
Before she could kill herself instead, I threw away the gun and pressed my palm on her forehead.
Promptly, my vampiric, sharp fingers and nails thrusted into her brain. It was the only thing I could do, to prevent her plan from succeeding.
I had to physically obliterate her self-destructive impulses, her desire to end her own life. Altering her mind wouldn't come without consequences: she would become an empty husk, incapable of thought, incapable of movement on her own. But she would live. My Emily. My beautiful Emily would live.
I smiled.
Thrusting out my hand from her, blood spraying over the stage, her vampiric genes instantly healed her, but she fell to the floor. She shook, an unrecognisable demeanour, far gone from the usual confident, smart, assertive woman I had known. Yet, it was still her .
Reduced to a mere slave to her instincts with no trace of sapience, she crawled towards me before her body could become fully numb. Her hands shakily gripped my legs, her breathing heavy as she gazed up at me with crazed eyes.
My lady… So beautiful.
The kind lover I was, I fell to the floor, laying on my back so that it would be easier for her to do what she wanted with me. Immediately, she grabbed my torso and I felt her teeth penetrate my neck once again.
Only this time, I gently held her, stroking her hair. Everything had changed. As now she was the one dependent on my blood, and not the other way around, I was her Master, and she, my Servant.
I was the successor to the Queen of Vampires, and I had just ascended the throne.
Holding her in my arms, I had already decided my plan for human decimation. A long, deadly war that would kill all humans and plunge the planet into an eternal, cold winter - a haven for vampires. With the new technology for human DNA cloning, there was no need for originals. Humans could be reproduced in controlled factory farms, raised as the livestock they were, born to be slaughtered and drunk.
I smiled, for my revenge act was coming.
The sequel to this wonderful play.