Tainted Love

Deep in the protection of the dark forest, I hide from my death wrapped in the arms of my love. Standing in silence, we wait for the veil of darkness to cover the skies above. As he whispers in my ear, “I love you,” I can’t help but smile and hope that my heart is forever his, that I never again have to mend a broken heart. I look away with tears in my eyes, the images of the ashes still burn in my mind, I remember all the pain. The tears. The hatred. All of my memories have been wrapped in pain, opening them would just reopen the scars…but I cant hide the pain forever, can I?

I guess if you want to know what happened, I have to start from the beginning, where my life took its first change for the worst. I must have been only five years old at the time. My family was very rich and my dad was head of his company. We lived in Paris at the time on top of a hill looking over the city. It was beautiful.

One day, I remember playing in my room with my doll when my nanny came in. Her whole face was red and she was wiping tears away with her apron. She bent over, took my hand in hers and gave me a smile,
“Kassia, your mother wants t-to talk to you downstairs in the sitting room.” Unable to control her tears anymore, they began to flow down her face.
“What’s wrong nanny? Don’t cry… Everything will be fine.”
She gave me another smile, but her tears gave her away. Something bad had happened and I knew it was going to be even worse for me. She took me in her arms and started down the spiral staircase. As we got to the bottom there were about a hundred people in the front lobby, gathered around each other talking in hush voices. We turned and started down the hall. The great hall had been decorated with the finest pieces of art shipped in from all different countries to complete my mother’s ideal style.

At the end of the hall my nanny put me down and took my hand as she opened the door, inside I saw a woman sitting, staring down at the floor, and she didn’t look anything like my mother. My mother was a beautiful woman, who had her long blonde hair tightly braided and wrapped into a bun. Her dress was always perfectly ironed and her smiles could light up a room, but this woman had none of that. Her hair was escaping from her bun. There were strands everywhere. Her eyes were red from crying her makeup smeared down her face and she was slowly rocking herself with her hands placed in one another in her lap. The nanny dropped my hand, went over to my mother and put her arm around her trying to comfort her, but my mother did not respond. I ran over to her and jumped into her lap, I looked into the blue eyes that were glistening with tears,
“Mama what’s wrong, why is everyone crying?”
She slowly looked up at me and took me in her arms, “Kassia… Oh my Kassia…you’re all that’s left of this…all that’s left.” She looked down at me her tears were falling on my face, “Sweet heart, I want you too come with me, we are going to go outside.”


My mother took me outside, and told the nanny to leave us. We walked for about 5 minutes until we reached the place where another cliff came over our house. She turned around and placed me on the grass below her, “Kassia, remember what I told you about angels?”
I looked up at her with worry, there has to be something wrong.
“Yes mama, they are from heaven and they have wings.”
“That’s right sweetheart. Did mommy ever tell you that I am an angel, and I am going to go be with daddy now?”
“Daddy will be home at five, mama.” I wasn’t really sure what she meant then. “Will you come back mama?”
She gave me a weak smile and replied,
“Yes I’ll only be a couple of minutes.” With that, my mother walked away from me, leaving me just sitting there on the grass.

A few minutes after she left, I saw my mother again, at the very top of the cliff and I saw her look down at me. Her blonde hair was completely down and it was flowing in the wind. I then saw her take her last breath…then she stepped off and began falling. I didn’t move. I just watched her fall repeating in my head, open your wings, open your wings, open your wings…and fly away. I started to get angry with her when she wasn’t, so I started to say it aloud, “Open your wings, open your wings, open your wings…” Then I started to scream out at her, “OPEN YOUR WINGS.” It was too late. She fell to her death and I couldn’t help her…no one could. I ran over to where she fell, she was lying still and streams of her blood were escaping and mixing in with the river beside her. Swirls of her blood were carried away, until I couldn’t see them anymore.

I slowly walked up to my mother’s body, I knelt down beside her, and even though she was dead and mangled, she still looked beautiful. I placed my hands on her face, embracing her beauty once more; I was trying to wipe away the blood and the strands of hair. I went in closer and I whispered,
“You are no angel, you don’t know how to use your wings, you have no wings, you lied to me… how could you?” with that I got up and I walked away, covered in my mother’s blood, I did not cry for her, because she had left me and was never coming back.
When my nanny found me and the police came, I had found out that my father had been murdered and that my mom had freaked out and lost it. Everyone inside the mansion were fired and I never saw my house again, for a long time. I was taken away to my relative’s, they lived in Germany but I had never heard my parents speak of them.

Now everything else in my life has been, well different but the thing that changed me the most was on the day of my eighteenth birthday. I had been living with my relatives ever since my parents died. My uncle however was very abusive and used to beat me everyday, sometimes even if there was no reason. He also abused my aunt, she was very paranoid. She used to jump at anything that made a sound. No one else ever knew how my uncle was because we always had to cover it up. His reputation could never be destroyed, especially by a woman he used to say to me. He worked in the streets as a gambler and made lots of money, but that one day on my eighteenth birthday one of his clients got even. He used to scam a lot of them to get their money and then leave town so they could never find him again, but this one did.

He was walking with me down the streets; around 12:30 at night, we had just come from the pub where he had another one of his card games.
“Kassia, you’re old enough to get a job and go back to Paris or wherever…you have one week to find a job and then whether you have one or not I am kicking you out.”
“What? I need more time than that!” but then again I had been trying to get out of that house for almost 13 years now.
“No you don’t. There are plenty of jobs, I have an idea why don’t you be a prostitute, and you’ll be good at that!” He gave me a sickening smile and turned away, I felt like killing him right there.

Then something from out of the shadows appeared, and took hold of my uncle and threw him against the wall.
“Did you think you could get away from me, old man?”
“Who are you!? Let go of me this instant!”
“You’re not going anywhere. I don’t think you remember me but this should give you a clue.” He opened his mouth and did something I could not see from the angle that I was at.
My uncle squirmed in the man’s arms,
“I remember, I remember.” He screamed, “How did you find me Damien?”
“That doesn’t matter right now, I want my money back.”
“Your money, I-I don’t have your money.”
“LIAR.” Damien yelled as he threw him into another wall behind them. I was too scared to move, I didn’t know what to do,
“I don’t have your money. Someone outside the bar that night jumped me and took all of my money. I swear to God.”
“Well then, you’re just going to have to pay me back another way.” He then opened his mouth again and was about to bite his neck. I gasped, and he looked over at me and for the first time I saw what my uncle had seen. Two fangs that were not human, I tried to run away but my legs just wouldn’t move. I was frozen with fear. This can’t be real. He can’t be a …vampire.
My uncle then said,
“Take the girl, Take the girl!”
Damien then looked over to my uncle and sank his teeth into him. I heard my uncle’s scream and then saw him go limp in Damien’s arms.

I finally took over my body and I started to run down the street, trying to lose him through the alleys. As soon as I thought he was gone, he had jumped right in front of me and I saw his fangs once more. Unfortunately I ran right into him and he grabbed a hold of me.
“Please don’t kill me.” I looked up into his eyes. He looked down at me and held me in front of him,
“You look kind of familiar.” Squinting at me he goes in closer, “It must be your eyes” He paused and I saw his eyes widen, “I remember now.” He stopped and he dropped me. I fell to the ground and I saw him looking at me, “you can go.”
“I have nowhere to go.” I looked down at the ground on the verge of tears, what was going on here, everything was happening so fast. If he left, I had nowhere to go, I couldn’t go home now. I was starting to think that he should have killed me.
“I’ve changed my mind, I don’t want to live, do what you have to do.” I just wanted everything to end.
“I’m not going to kill you…But if you want to come with me you have to pay a price.”
“Which is?”
“You will never again see the sun, ever. But you will see stuff like you have never seen before, experience things you humans can never imagine…and besides I can’t just leave you here…like this.” He looked me up and down one more time and smirked at me. I slowly stood up, the overwhelming feeling of dread came over me, but I gave in to my thoughts,
“I’ll do it.” He then took me into his arms again and bared his fangs and sank them deep into my neck. It felt more like a desired pain. I felt the blood leaving my body as I was becoming weak and I started to close my eyes when I felt him pull out of my neck. I felt something warm pushed into my lips; it was trickling in and giving me my strength back. I opened my eyes, I saw his wrist on my mouth and I was drinking from it. I was horrified, how could I ever do such a thing! I stopped and looked up at him and he was smiling at me.
“Don’t worry it will only hurt for…maybe a couple of hours.”
I didn’t know what he was talking about until there was a searing pain in my veins. It felt like it was about to burn through my skin. It felt like my heart and my soul were on fire. As I dropped to the floor holding my side, crying in pain I realized what I have just
done. I have surrendered to the darkness.

Well now you know how this all started, I can finally tell you what happened now, I live with Damien and a lot of other vampires in my old home in Paris which we all call the sanctuary. I went back to it after I was turned and Damien and I brought other vampires along as we came back. I am now 165 years old, one of the youngest vampire’s in the sanctuary, Damien being the oldest almost 360 years old. Everything was fine in the sanctuary before things just took a turn for the worst, I have always loved Damien from the beginning I have never thought he would ever love me like I loved him because he had many women in the sanctuary, and he was their master. I gave up on him and the thoughts and dreams of us. There was however this other vampire. His name was Draco, I have always watched him since he came here about 3 years ago. I guess you could say he was my distraction from all this, even though I had my other interest I could never stop thinking about Damien. He was always there I was hopeless.

The day it all happened was probably one of the weirdest I have had in a long time. It was the time when I woke up to feed. I pushed open the coffin door and I stepped out onto something sharp. I grabbed my foot and started jumping around, attempting to keep myself balanced, I looked down at the floor to see a black rose. I stepped on the thorns. I sat on the bed placed beside my coffin. I only have a bed in my room because it reminds me when I used to be human. I was still rubbing my foot with one hand as I used my free hand to pick it up. It was so beautiful and so flawless, but how did it get here? I got off my bed and walked over to the door, I looked into the corridor and finding no one, I looked down at the rose once again and I smiled. I closed the door and put the rose in the middle of the bed. I was going to put the petals all over my room, but the rose was perfect the way it was. I then got dressed to go out to feed. As I walked down the corridor I was thinking about the rose and who could have put it there. I just felt happy for once and I started to sing,
“I have never felt inside so alone in my life as I wander through the darkness, I’ve been searching all my life for you to make me feel alive, as I wander through -.” A door opened to my right, as a bright blue-eyed vampire walked out. Her name was Meadow; she was so annoying to me and I hated her, even though we were blood bonded. Yes, she was my cousin, as I was coming to Paris I had met her and I had fed from her, but I had left her there for dead. Damien didn’t want to leave her, so he gave her life, I believed he had liked her from the first moment he saw her…I had wanted her dead ever since.

She gave me a weak smile and brushed me as she walked by. I stood in the empty hall, silently waiting for the bitch to fade down the stairs. I wouldn’t let anything ruin my night tonight. When I couldn’t see her anymore I started down the stairs, to hear all the voices down stairs talking, I could tell everyone was downstairs ready to go out to the city. I saw everyone in their own little groups gossiping among themselves, Astasia and Violet were leaning against the wall. Astasia was my best friend. She had gone to my school before I was turned. I had known her since I was 6; before I left to go back to Paris I asked Damien if I could bring her back with us. She had been with me every time I needed her, only she knew I loved Damien and Violet knew that I liked Draco. Violet was my cousin’s friend, but she wasn’t like Meadow whom I have known for about 100 years now. As I approached I heard Astasia talking about Draco, until she saw me,
“Oh my God, I can’t believe you like Draco.” Violet was looking at me with some kind of sadness, hopefully because she had told Astasia that I liked him.
“Shhhh…I don’t like him.” I whispered. Both Violet and Astasia giggled, I knew Violet had been friends with Draco because I have seen them together in the great hall and around the courtyard.

Suddenly a blonde short haired girl ran over to Astasia,
“Have you heard!?” Astasia rolled her eyes,
“Umm probably not, why don’t you just tell me?”
“Oh”, she laughed “Sorry, Meadow has been seen with Damien. I think that she’s his mate now.” Astasia looked over to me with her eyes wide open. I knew she knew what I was thinking. I couldn’t believe that he would do that, that she could even do that. I felt like someone had just stabbed me over and over again. I was desperately trying to hold in the tears. How dare her! I just wanted to go back upstairs and scream the pain out, I just wanted this night to end, but I knew I couldn’t. I had to go with them. I had to be strong this one time.

As everyone left to go to different parts of the city to hunt, Astasia, Violet and I left to go explore the darkest part of the city. As they both left to go down different streets, I ran down an ally to hide myself, to go cry some of the pain out, but my tears never stopped flowing. There were crimson stains down both my checks by the time my friends found me, both of them were absolutely glowing and I knew they had just fed.

Astasia tried to calm me down, as Violet went to go find someone for me to feed on. “I’m so sorry to hear about Damien and Meadow I know what you must be going through -.” She looked into my blurred eyes, “But you must have someone, or you will just lose your strength and hurt yourself again.” I knew she was right.

Violet however never returned, so Astasia and I slowly walked home, when we saw a drunk staggering down the street. I looked at him closely; I could tell he had no family, so I took his life fast, better him than someone else tonight. We got to the house; Violet was nowhere to be found. Astasia and I looked at each other with worry, “Maybe she’s just wondering around outside?” Astasia tried to reassure me, I just smiled and nodded.

I said goodnight to Astasia and I left for my room. I drew a hot bath I was in there for hours crying. Digging my nails into my flesh; bringing blood to the surface watching it drop into the water, as it was carried away in swirls, as it mixed in with the water. This sight just brought more tears to my eyes; my screams could never penetrate
these walls. Sometimes I wished Damien heard them. Knowing of my pain, I wanted him to come and save me.
When I got out, my wounds had already healed themselves, damn immortality, but I still felt weak. I saw streaks of light coming through the boarded up windows, so I got into my coffin and before closing the door I glanced over to see the rose still lying on the bed.
I closed the lid and closed my eyes, thinking how this could get any worse.


I awoke feeling drained and severely weak. I couldn’t even push the lid off of my coffin open, until someone else did.
I fell onto the floor; unknown hands picked me up and carried me to my bed. My blurred vision could not make out whom it was. I felt familiar warmth that had been pushed on my lips I could taste the blood falling into my mouth. I was regaining my strength and I opened my eyes to see a figure of two men. One who had been forced to his knees, I felt my head being pushed to his neck, and a man’s voice,
“Bite him.” And I obeyed
I felt the blood flowing through my veins, more and more I felt stronger. I slowly let the man fall to the floor as I still sat on the bed. I looked up to see Damien who was hovering over the man. He then bent over and picked up one of his arms and started to drag him out of the room. He stopped, “Don’t move, I need to talk to you.”
He returned a few minutes later,
“Thank you Damien.” He smiled and nodded, and then his smile faded away into a sigh.
“Kassia…you’ve been missing for about a week.”
“W-what, I couldn’t have been.”
“Well you were…I didn’t know what happened to you and I got scared.”
Yeah that must have been his first thought, while Meadow was in his arms, the thought of them together, just made me want to scream.
“Why do you want to talk to me?”
“Well I need to tell you some bad news…while you were here for almost a week…Astasia went out to find Violet…because she was missing for three days, she found her with Draco. Astasia and Violet got into a huge fight and Violet drained her… No one had seen Draco or Violet since the night you guys went out. We all thought you were dead… Astasia, however, didn’t die from being drained…the sun just came up too fast for her to recover.”

Hot tears came spilling from my eyes and stung as they felt like fire. Damien looked at me with sympathetic eyes.
“No, NO! I couldn’t have been in here that long… I could have saved her, I could have stopped Violet.” Then I remember what Damien had said she found her with Draco
I gasped now knowing the truth. They were mates. I pulled at my hair wanting somehow to relieve this pain by bringing more.
“Kassia I’m sorry.”
“NO, this can’t be happening. How could Violet do such a thing!?” How could she be with Draco. She was the only one I ever told! How could she? She was backstabbing everyone!
Damien reached out to try to comfort me, but I looked down at his hand and pulled away.
“You, YOU don’t even start with me.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Don’t be stupid. You know exactly what I’m talking about. You’re with my cousin? What other things have you done to ruin my life?”
“Kassia I’m not with you cousin.” I couldn’t help but let out a small sarcastic laugh, what a liar.
“Come on Kassia… don’t be like this.”
“Well answer my question!”

The silence was unbearable I could start to see the pain in his face as if it hurt him to speak of it. He started mumbling something for a minute before it became audible.
“I-I didn’t know. He owed me money and he tired to have me killed once. Well he did shoot me but…you know I can’t really die…” He started rambling on about something I didn’t even understand.
“What are you talking about…my uncle?”
“No not your uncle…your f-father.” I felt like a brick wall hit me, I couldn’t move. I couldn’t speak; I couldn’t believe what he had just said. I looked down to the silk sheets below me. There was a puddle of blood and I watched as more fell onto the sheets.
“How could you? HOW COULD YOU!.” I couldn’t bare to look him in the eyes, he filled me with disgust.
“I loved you.” I managed to whisper before I got up to run out of the room. He stopped me before I opened the door. I struggled to get him off me but he was just too strong. He pinned me to the wall, that’s when I saw his unshed tears.
“Please…please let me go.” I looked away. The sight of him just made me want to be sick.
He finally let me go and I ran down the corridor and down the spiral steps and I plunged into the darkness out in the courtyard once more. I saw the cliff behind the house that looked over part of the city, I started running towards it.

I was too blinded to see where I was going and I bumped into something, and from the annoying response, I knew it was meadow. She screamed something to me but I didn’t hear her I just kept running. When I was near the base of the cliff I fell into the river, I got up and looked in front of me and noticed it was the same spot my mother had been laying. Uncontrollable tears took over me again, as I fell to my knees and placed my
hands on the earth, taking in fistfuls of dirt. How could she have done that to me? Why did she? How could I be so heartless not to cry over her dead body? My tears rolled down my cheeks and dropped onto the ground. It reminded me too much of my mother’s blood. It took all my strength, both emotionally and physically too get up and continue up the cliff.

I finally got to the top, and I knew the sun was going to rise soon. I was just going to give up. Damien, my only love, was with my cousin, and one of my closest friends was with Draco and to make everything worse my best friend was killed by her. What is wrong with these people? Why does everyone feel the need to screw me over? What the hell did I do?


I didn’t want to jump because I knew it wouldn’t kill me, nothing would…except for the one thing I was waiting for. I haven’t seen the sun since I was 18, 143 years ago, and I wanted to feel the warmth one last time. I considered this the sweetest suicide and I knew no one could stop me this time.
I was always wrong of course though, as I heard someone come through the bushes behind me. I slowly turned around to see Damien panting,
“What are you doing here…haven’t you done enough?”

He held out a rose, a black one…the rose was dried up, he had probably taken it from my room when I left him there. He took out another one and this one even more beautiful then the last one I found on my floor.

I looked up at him; he still had tears in his eyes. I realized it was he who had left the rose there.
“I do love you…I always have.”
“Please Damien –“, I was cut off by a kiss, something for which I had longed for almost forever. It seemed like time was standing still, embracing that moment in time.
It stopped only too soon, when I was brought back to reality…Meadow was standing right behind us.
“What are you doing?”
I felt the hate rise in me once more,
“I told you to stop her from doing something stupid, not make out with her! Besides I found Violet and Draco, I told them to follow me they should be here any second.”
“What!! Do you even know what she did?” Damien was at the point of killing Meadow himself I could tell.
I finally did what I wanted to do for so long, “That’s IT!” I yelled as I ran over beside her and I sank my teeth into her. She was screaming and clawing at the back of my neck, then someone pulled me back and Meadow dropped to the floor.
“It’s not worth it.” Damien had told me.

Draco and Violet had emerged from the bushes. I had to put my hand on Damien’s chest to restrain him from doing anything stupid. Draco saw Meadow lying on the ground bleeding. He dropped to his knees and gathered her in his arms.
“Who did this?”
I found myself trying to hide behind Damien. He looked over to me and frowned.
“What is he going to do?” he whispered to me. I smiled and shrugged my
shoulders.
“Meadow, don’t die please, please don’t die.” He was on the verge of tears holding her close to his chest.
“Why do you care about her? Just let her die.” Violet shot back at him. Draco looked up and gave her a cold stare, “Why don’t you go kill another one of your friends?”
Violet looked at him with disgust and anger, “WHAT? You told me to kill her…How dare you!”

The two started to fight as I tuned them out. I looked behind me and remembered the sun. Our death was slowly rising. As I poked Damien and pointed to the sky, Damien looked behind and he saw the sun ready to rise. He quickly grabbed my arm and jumped into the thick forest and started to run as far from the edge as he could. I looked behind as he pulled me through the forest. I looked through the holes of the bushes and saw no one standing there. All three of them were gone. All I saw were ashes blowing through the wind.