Page 23 of Bitten Vampire

I’m now so far down, I will never see the light.

Chapter Ten

I ping awake.Not the slow drift into morning. No, one moment I’m dreaming, the next I’m wide-eyed. Sunlight spills across the duvet; dust motes and stray tufts of fur cartwheel in the air, stirred by my breathing.

My breathing.

I am breathing!

And my heart is beating, pulse at my temples, a throb at the base of my throat that quickens as panic rises. I’m awake in daylight, not daytime dead. Did I dream it all?

What the heck is going on?

I tumble out of bed and stare into the dressing-table mirror. White scar tissue puckers my neck, proof the bite was real.

A vampire tore my throat open. I died?—

No, none of that, Doris.I rename my innervoice as recommended on my last podcast. Unless I want to be completely useless, rocking in the corner, I shove her dramatic monologue somewhere I can deal with later.

In my head, the version of myself I picture has always been twenty-something. I never imagine myself getting older, so sometimes seeing the ageing woman looking back from the mirror is a little bit of a shock. Now, however, the shock is greater still, because I look less like myself than I ever have.

My skin glows, and the face staring back is more refined. This is me, restored to my biological prime. Holiday glow—features sharpened yet somehow softened. Cheekbones defined. Pores erased. I prod my teeth with my tongue. I no longer look like myself, yet my teeth remain stubbornly human, and my body feels leaner, stronger.

I look like the best version of me.

I look like a vampire.

And I don’t know how to feel about that.

Ageing is part of life. It’s not always easy. As a woman, you see the fine lines creeping in, the small shifts in your body that don’t reverse themselves. Still, at forty, I told myself I looked reasonably young. I think I did. Though I’m sure some teenager would glance my way and peg me as ancient.

But I didn’t feel ancient. I felt like… me. A version of me who had grown into herself.

Age had not worn me down yet. Maybe that’s confidence, or maybe it’s survival. After Jay, I’ve had to rebuild. If nothing else, I’m grateful to be free of that. No more living under the weight of someone else’s expectations.

But now I’ll never age.

Not naturally. Not gradually. Not at all.

And in this world, that’s not a blessing, it’s a loss. Ageing is a gift not everyone gets. It means you are alive. Still changing. Still alive.

And I suppose… a part of me is grieving that.

I’m trying not to care what people think. I’m learning how to stand my ground. To stop being the victim in other people’s stories and start being the lead in my own. And this—this… this frozen version of myself—is just another thing I need to learn how to carry.

I can do it. I just need to be brave. Again.

Yet the question remains—why am I breathing? Vampires are supposed to be corpses by day, so why am I buzzing with life? Is this what happens to them?

No. The proud creatures would trumpet a trick like this, not keep it secret. Whatever this is, it ties back to my turning. Or to something else having interfered, something like magic.

My knees go watery. Dizzy, I plop onto the bed.

“House?” my voice rasps. “Did your magic make me human?”

Floorboards creak, a breeze stirs, and then—static-thin, like a half-tuned radio—a soft, feminine voice.

I gape. “I can hear you!” I strain to catch every syllable. “You are quiet, but… did you say you gave me back my life? Does this mean I’m not a vampire any more?”