1:49 a.m.
We sat silently on his balcony. Two fresh victims lay on the floor between our chairs.
He lit a cigar and offered it to me. I took it.
I never liked these things, but after the transformation I longed for the feeling of air breezing inside of me.
A feeling I never thought I would miss.
I inhaled deeply and slowly exhaled a cloud of smoke.
And we sat there staring at the sky glowing with city lights.
I’ve been living in his penthouse since the day he took me from the parking lot.
“Why me?” I asked him that day. “Why did you change me?”
“It was your cat. She suggested you,” he replied as he showed me the place.
I couldn’t decide whether I hated or loved her for that.
I mean I was a vampire. I was a supernatural. I’ve always dreamed it.
But I never realized how annoying the logistics were.
He, Ahmad, the original vampire, had to modify my family’s memories so they’d think I was studying abroad.
I had to email a resignation letter to Jana and Ahmad had to sneak into her apartment, which he said was horribly messy, and compel her to accept my resignation without a question.
There were also the logistics of kidnapping and eating people. That was a headache.
But he was good at it. He had been doing it for more than a decade.
I stared at him. His sharp chiseled face. If this was a teen show, he would be the favorite mysterious vampire ready to be redeemed once he found his one true love.
This wasn’t a show. I wasn’t his true love and he wasn’t my favorite.
“Why do you even wear the suit?” I blurted. I was holding the question inside of me for days.
He raised an eyebrow and glanced down at his attire.
“It’s what vampires wear.” He simply said it.
“In the movies?”
“Yes.” He smiled, his cigar stuck between his teeth.
Yup, he was just another pertinacious douche.
I sighed and stood up. I moved closer to the railing.
“So, you only made me a vampire to be your companion?” I asked, leaning forward.
“Yes.” He puffed a cloud of smoke. “I’ve been like this for a very long time and I felt lonely.”
I hummed, scanning the city, the hundreds of thousand of hearts beating together in perfect harmony.
It was my favorite song.
“What if I didn’t want to just be that,” I said, slow and serious.
He got up and stood beside me, his back on the railing and his head leaning closer to mine.
“You don’t want this life? We’re free to just be.”
“No. I don’t want to just be. I want more,” I whispered, a plan forming in my head.
“And that is?” he chuckled in a douchey annoying way.
“I …” I stood up and licked my fangs. “I’m going to build me a kingdom.”
Kummam Al-Maadeed is an author from Qatar, who believes in magic and the existence of fairy worlds. She started writing in 2007 when she was attending Qatar University to study Mass Communications. She now works at Qatar University as a Section Head of Media & Publications, as she dreams about her next novel. The Lost Rose is her debut best-selling novel.