Page 52 of A Vow for the Vamp
After college, I got a job in finance and moved to New York City. I lost touch with all my college friends and struggled to make new ones. I worked too many hours, and my only entertainment was going to bars with coworkers and bringing home random hookups.
I haven’t lived, and I’m hoping Millie will be the one to show me what living can really be like.
“You know how to cook?”
She walks over and wraps her arms around me. I lean in to kiss her. She sighs against my mouth, and I try to deepen the kiss, but she pulls away.
“Did you forget I was human once? I had a family to take care of. I’d make them breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Desserts were my specialty, though. Puddings, trifles, pies…” She drags me over to a chair and sits me down. “Plus, after I was turned, I got a job as a baker for a lord in London.”
She hands me a fork and pushes the plate toward me. It has scrambled eggs slathered in cheese with a side of maple sugar bacon and toast with jam.
“You worked? I wouldn’t think vampires need to work.”
“Not necessarily but for me, charming people for the things I wanted was the easy way out. And to avoid losing my mind of boredom, I worked. Of course, being nocturnal meant I had to use compulsion to assure working between sundown and sunrise wouldn’t be an issue.
“I held every job imaginable. At least ones women were allowed to do. My first job was the baking position I mentioned. The lord employed a cook, so my sole focus was on pastries and other desserts, all which I baked overnight. I once cleaned a castle for royals in Denmark, my vampire speed allowing eight hours’ worth of cleaning to be done in a fraction of the time while everyone was sleeping throughthe night. I was also a seamstress for a high society woman in Spain. She didn’t care what hours I sewed, as long as I had her dresses done before the ball or the dinner or the play. And I was an au pair for a vampire family in Paris with two undead toddlers.”
I choke on my sip of coffee. “There are child vampires?”
“Turning children is now illegal, but back then, vampires had few rules. Most humans under the age of sixteen who were turned had to be killed. They’re harder to teach control. They left too many bodies to be discovered.”
I shiver at the disturbing picture Millie paints and distract my thoughts with the food she made. I stab at the cheese covered eggs and groan at the first bite.
“Good?”
“Fantastic!”
She chuckles, and not that I’m counting, but I’ve now made her laugh at least two dozen times since meeting her. I’m counting her smiles too. I’ve managed to catch more of those.
“Tell me about your family,” I say, taking advantage of this rare moment where she’s sharing her life with me.
She sighs as her memories resurface.
“I was never meant to be an obedient housewife,” she says and sits down across from me with a glass of wine. “But that was the life women were dealt back then. Ialways loved the arts. My dream was to learn an instrument and play on stage at a concert hall in London. Then my father arranged me to marry the son of a farmer in the town over in exchange for farmland. I was very lucky that my husband, George, was kind. I was sixteen, and he was twenty-one when we were forced to marry.”
She pauses and frowns. I don’t say a word, waiting until she’s comfortable. I know how difficult it must be for her to return to this part of her life.
“I struggled to bear a child. I feared my impotence would anger George, but he was surprisingly supportive. Finally, at age twenty, I gave birth. Our son, George Junior. Then five years later, Mary. We had planned for more. I had many failed pregnancies after Mary. But George never pressured me. He never lashed out at me. Over time, I do believe he loved me as I did him. I became the dutiful wife and mother, forgetting all about my artistic dreams. Don’t get me wrong, I loved my family with all my heart. I…”
Her voice catches and she looks away. I reach out for her hand, taking it in mine.
“Then Henry found us. He would have tortured them. He would have prolonged their deaths with agonizing pain. He gave me the choice. A quick death by my hands or a long one by his.”
I squeeze her hand.
“I’m sorry, Millie.”
“Yes, well, it was a long time ago, so…”
“Grief doesn’t care about time. You are allowed to mourn them however long you need.”
She releases my hand and points at my plate. I abide her silent order and continue eating.
“Four hundred and seventy years later, and I don’t know if losing them has ever gotten easier. I never got to properly grieve them. Not right away, at least. When Henry turned me, he compelled me to forget them. I got my memories back after the sire bond was broken, but I wish I hadn’t. I didn’t want to remember that night and how I murdered my own family.”
She pauses and looks down at her hands as she wrings them anxiously. I set my fork down, no longer hungry. My stomach aches for Millie’s tortured past.
“Did Henry ever force you to...”
