I haven't always been a vampire. I was born a human so long ago and I still remember the sun, it's warm and the colorful shade it gives to this world. But my fate had been decided despise me, on the fatal day when my world collapsed.
I was a little girl in a Romanian village called Sighişoara. The village was ruled by vampires but they and we were living in harmony. They would come at night like shadows and ask for our blood tribute. They especially liked to feed on young girls. It seemed to make their imagination run high but when they needed more strength, they would chose a man. My father had an inn in the center of the village, like everyone else, he was afraid of the vampire but he knew he had to pay tribute and that some day they would come for me. They were faster, stronger and they could kill you with their bare hands, if they asked for something, there was no way to escape, no way to refuse except in death. I wasn't in age to be feed on yet but my parents still hide me front the vampires and only allowed me to go out of my room during the day, they were hoping for the vampires to forget about my existence even though they new it was unlikely.
But I felt in love with one of them. A lady had come to the inn with a wolf, people were scared of her. She was the only human living in the castle with the vampire, she seemed to have some magical power of some sort which had the priest thrown her away from the church. She could talk to wolf. She entered the room and sat at a table near me. My father made a sign for me to come close to him but the wolf was between him and me. My father looked scared, he always had the same twinkling on his cheek when he was scared and his left eye would narrow a bit because of it. It was the look he had at night when the vampires were coming. I knew that wolfs were supposed to be scary, they came out of the wood to kill the sheep sleeping peacefully around the village, sometimes, they even stole little kids who stayed out alone. I had never see a wolf before and this one didn't seem so scary to me. He lowered his head to the ground and brought it near me, his muzzle touching the stone floor. My mother put a hand on her mouth horrified to see it so close but I raised my hand slowly not it scare it and stroke it gently on the thick fur on the top of his head. It didn't move and let me do then lowered his body yawned and stay put next to me.
"I would like your daughter to be friend with my son", the lady said.
My parents didn't look please at first but they couldn't refuse. She was with the vampires and everything from the vampires needed to be accepted. I was happy. I never had friend before and I wanted to see the boy. But every day the lady would come with the wolf and I soon realized that he was the one she was calling her son. It didn't make sense to me at first but I was still happy to play with him.
As I was growing up however, I was becoming of age of becoming food for the vampires. They were coming to the inn more and more often and one day, one of them asked to see me. My father started to refuse, saying that I was too young, that I still have a year before the coming of age ceremony but the vampires started to shout and threaten him.I had never seen him so sad when he came to my room that night and took me down the stairs to meet them. There were three of them and just the look of them scared me. They were pale, their skin had the color of milk, with red eyes and very old black clothes, they were playing cards and interrupted them when I arrived. They started to shout again to ask me to come closer. I had never been so scared. One of them stood up and walked toward me.
"I won't feed on her", he said to my father who was still holding my arm so strongly that I could feel his fingers entering my muscle painfully.
My father released me against his heart.
"Let's go to the garden", the boy said.
He was smiling at me. I was too scared to smile back. I had never see the vampires before but I had heard stories about what they did to people in the village, I had heard of them killing people when they were too thirsty or just wanted to play with their victims. Every week at church the priest was telling us of the eternal damnation awaiting the vampires victims and the one being bitten by them. Girls were crying and praying for forgiveness with a scarf attached to their neck to dissimulate the trace of the vampires' fang. My imagination was running high about the possibility of what he might do to me and the pain of being bitten and my soul going to hell after I died. I really wanted to cry.
"Let's play on the see saw" he said inviting me to sit.
I shallow hard seeing him going behind me. It was even scarier not to see where the danger was coming from.
"I'm sorry I can't push you during the day", he said pushing the my back and letting the see-saw slightly balance.
I didn't answer, I was too afraid to speak, to say something that might have leaded him to bite me. I clung my fist around the see-saw's ropes and tried not to cry.
"Please tell me a story again", he said, "you know the one about the princess."
I still didn't answer, it was my story about the lady in the vampire castle. She was so nice that I had imagined that she was hold prisoner and that she could only come out during the day but a strange force was bringing her to the castle and the wolf was there to protect her of course.
My father was looking at us through the window. If the vampire was to bite me, I couldn't even think of what he would do. In an instant the vampire was in front of me. He stopped the see-saw high making his face just in front of mine.
"You know who I am, right?" he said.
He had picked up my curiosity. I looked at him deeply. He had the same eyes as my grey wolf. But it was impossible. I looked at him more and more unable to forget the initial though.
"My wolf", I finally said.
He smiled brightly and I was sure it was him. I threw myself in his arms, I was shaking like a leaf in the winter wind. He held me tight and turn around to show to my father that he wasn't feeding on me.
"The vampires don't know about it, that will be our little secret", he said. "Why are you trembling like that?"
"I was so scared that you were going to bite me", I said.
"Nobody will ever bite you, I will never let anyone bite you."
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