A Twist in the Tale

Time to write!

Paranormal romance is all the rage. Girls everywhere are falling in love with vampires and werewolves and dragons. Even zombies are being romanticized. We've had females swooning over ghosts for ages, which has been exceedingly complicated, due to the whole intangible thing. However, the female population have proved themselves loyal fangirls time and time again, as they've overcome fangs, claws, fur, and who knows what else, in order to stay committed to their, in many cases, undead lover.

Well I think vampires are kind of cute myself. Maybe that's because I was in love with one once. He loved me too, and we were very happy for a long time. Of course, that was almost one hundred and fifty years ago, and the rest of the clan is telling me to move on. But things aren't easy for female vampires, because no one falls in love with us.

***

Alexei and I were the epitome of the gothic romance. He was a vampire, crazed with bloodlust, and I was an unsuspecting, completely sensible English young woman. Despite the stories and the unexplained disappearances, I did not believe there were really vampires in London. I told myself there had to be a more logical explanation right up till that night I was walking home from a social at Lady Marian's. Normally, for such a walk, I would've had an escort, but I had ditched mine, finding his company rather unfavorable. I had been not a block from the inn where I rented my rooms, a respectable establishment, though not the most posh place on the street, when he had swooped down, literally, from the rooftops above me.

Running, especially given the shoes and the skirt which were popular during that time period, was futile. He overtook me in a moment. I got one quick look at his deep black eyes and his marble white skin before his lips were on my neck, his teeth piercing the skin just above my collar.

After my transformation Alexei never left my side. Neither he nor I were able to truly come to a conclusion, as to why he stayed with me. It isn't the way vampires typically treat their victims. To be sure, we took thousands of humans together for years afterwards, but none of them, even those who made it all the way to transformation, ever stayed with us. The best we could conclude was that we were supposed to be together, or Alexei wouldn't have waited in the street while I changed. He had leaned over me, letting his black cape conceal my shuddering, changing form. The first sight I glimpsed as I opened my newly changed eyes, now a midnight black and with much keener vision than I'd previously known, was his face. His hand was resting on my cheek and the expression he wore was not that of the hunter I had looked at just moments ago. Instead he looked excited and tender, all at once.

Alexei and I were happy. True, we were soulless, careless killers, preying on the innocent and the not-so-innocent with no care for which was which. True, we lived on the run, attacking a city until the inhabitants were ready to hire an expert or chase us out with stakes themselves. It was not a "good" life, but it was exciting and we were always together. That is, we were always together until the purge. That's the day Alexei, our entire clan, and even our child were destroyed, and I was given the worst gift a vampire can be given: a conscious.