Page 45 of Married to the Vampire Prince

I didn’t want this ugly divide between us to happen. I didn’t want to push Silas away.

Yet, I had to do it. I had to protect myself at all costs, even if doing so meant breaking my heart.

Silas was a vampire. I was human. The two of us were too different.

He was a powerful, strong man; the Prince of a country, a King of the future. He lived by a different set of rules than I did. To him, killing was commonplace. If he needed to murder someone to achieve his goal, he would do so and think nothing of his actions afterwards. The cold-blooded, ruthless killer, the war hero – the Silas of history and the media.

That person was his true self.

He was also way too old for me. Maybe I couldn’t understand his way of thinking partly because of the hundred year age difference between us. That gap in our perspectives was not something either of us could change unfortunately.

I was a human woman who came from a poor family that didn’t matter one bit in the politics of Estone. Therefore I had not received societal education. I didn’t know about the country’s history or courtly etiquette, I didn’t know how to sing or to play instruments, I had no idea how to embroider or dance. I wasn’t fit to be a Princess, much less a Queen later on. I didn’t even know how to talk to vampire nobles correctly.

For some reason, Silas had chosen me to be his wife. He had told me it was because he liked the way I looked. With my long black hair and petite face though, I was cute but definitely not a real beauty.

I didn’t understand Silas’ way of thinking at all.

Either way, his logic didn’t matter at this point. I had ruby blood which my husband needed to drink to ward off insanity. The special blood in my veins marked my only true value.

So from now on our relationship would be a pure business transaction; a simple exchange of blood.

My heart ached. I felt like I had lost something precious and beautiful.

I had to stay safe and live in reality though, I reminded myself. I could live through a little bit of pain.

I got up and started cleaning the disturbing blood off of my body.

Chapter Eighteen

Silas

Over the next two weeks, Grace and I barely ever talked. I had requested that a separate tent be erected for me so that we wouldn’t have to sleep in the same bedroll, which meant I barely saw her anymore. I assigned guards to watch over her, people I trusted, though the thought of not protecting her myself bothered me.

She didn’t want to see me, though. She made that preference very clear with how she looked away from me each time we passed by each other in camp.

She had called me a monster.

That insult was the most painful blow she could have dealt me. After all, it was true – I was a monster, a disgusting vampire who was capable of brutally killing others. I’d had to become that person to protect Estone, to ensure our victory in the previous war. I was still disgusted with myself, but I couldn’t escape that part of who I was.

Every time I killed, it pained me to feel like I was becoming more and more of a monster. I remembered every death I caused. Each of them haunted me while I meditated at night. As a vampire I didn’t dream, so at least I didn’t have nightmares. Yet, my mind still had to process my actions, and the killings pained me severely.

My conscience made me feel somewhat human… I at least knew I should feel guilty about killing others. If not for that awareness, I knew I would have turned into a completely unfeeling war machine. I didn’t want that life. I wanted to be a man, a person – to be loved.

I loved Grace. I longed to embrace Grace, to feel her warmth, to see her smile and to comfort her when she was feeling down. I wanted to embrace my humanity next to her so that we could walk through life together, meeting both the good and the bad side by side.

She had been right to remind me that she owed me no such future, though. Our marriage was just a formality to secure her ruby blood which I needed. I didn’t have the right to demand that she care for me or give me her body, her warmth, her love.

The time when I needed to feed again drew closer, but I kept avoiding Grace. Truthfully, if I hadn’t needed her blood, I would have continued to give her space. Yet as shadows began to appear at the edges of my vision, I realized I could no longer avoid my need to drink the ruby blood. I didn’t want to go mad. I couldn’t go mad, not when the whole war effort depended on me. I had to be responsible and approach my wife.

For the past two weeks, more attacks had come from Rosworth. We continued battling them on the plains at the border and thankfully repelled each and every assault. We still hadn’t secured a serious victory, but we knew our odds would be better once we launched an attack together with Athalis. For now, we were content to have our people regaining experience in how to fight while we also learned more about our enemy’s tactics through combat.

Only when the shadows at the edges of my vision started morphing into smiling people, signaling my impending descent into insanity, did I finally visit Grace’s tent.

She was sitting on the bedroll, reading a book. She raised her head and gave me a surprised look before her expression turned blank.

“It’s time, isn’t it?” She said in her soft, beautiful voice.

I nodded. “May I?” I asked the loaded question. May I approach you? May I come closer to you? May I drink your blood?

---