"He Traded Me for His First Love, Not Knowing I'm a Vampire "

Chapter 2

He hadn't even finished speaking, but his face suddenly struck me as unbearably charming.

I scrubbed at my mouth repeatedly, but I caved and agreed before I could stop myself.

Starting that day, I moved out of my dorm and into the villa Jaxsen had arranged for me.

He'd even hired a full five-star chef team that whipped up new, fancy dishes for me every single day.

Fumbling a little with my fork, I prodded at the medium-rare steak on my plate while video-calling my mom.

"Mom! Look at this huge villa, and this five-star meal! My boyfriend got all of this for me! He said he'll pay for literally anything I want to eat from now on!"

Marnie, shocked out of her mind, forgot to retract her fangs for a split second.

"Yeya, you didn't get scammed, did you? One of those human traffickers they keep talking about on the news?"

I stuffed the piece of steak I'd finally managed to cut off into my mouth, chewed a couple of times, dumbfounded.

"That can't be, right? Why would a scammer waste this much money on me? Jaxsen covers all my food and housing, plus he gives me a hundred thousand allowance every month! That's more than both our salaries combined for two whole months!"

Marnie bared her fangs at me. "Hardworking vampires are the hottest, you know that right? This isn't something you can measure with money. Just be careful, okay? What if he's a wolf in sheep's clothing?"

"Relax! Even if I can't fight him, I can outrun him easy."

Seeing how worried she was, I wiggled my hands like I was flapping bat wings.

The diamond bracelet on my wrist sparkled like crazy under the light, almost as bright as a lightbulb right in her line of sight.

She spotted it right away, froze for a good few seconds, then asked.

"Did he buy that bracelet too?"

I nodded, still savoring the taste of the steak I'd just eaten.

She let out a little huff, like she'd just put all the pieces together. "Yeya, you're being sugar babied! I knew no one would be this generous this early in a relationship."

"Sugar babied?"

I prodded the steak on my plate again, thinking back to how casual Jaxsen had looked when he said taking care of me would be easy, like he was talking about getting a little cat or dog as a pet.

It clicked for me all at once. Us vampires can shapeshift into bats. Bats are basically small animals too.

"Oh right! He's keeping me as a pet."

I only half got it, honestly.

Jaxsen dating a vampire sounded super weird on paper, but him keeping a little bat as a pet? That made total sense.

Marnie piped up.

"Who cares if it's being a sugar baby or a kept pet? He's giving you one hundred thousand a month, so send me one thousand, yeah? I found this super cute streamer lately, guy's got eight-pack abs. I wanna send him gifts."

You had to hand it to her, a centuries-old vampire still keeping up with all the latest trends was no small feat.

I pulled up my banking app on my phone and zapped her forty thousand straight away.

"Go wild! But just don't go biting random people for blood, okay, mom?"

Her eyes immediately welled up.

"Oh, you're the most successful kid our family's ever had!"

That's how my mom and I lived it up for four whole years, all on Jaxsen's dime.

There was all kinds of gossip floating around campus, but once Jaxsen officially announced I was his girlfriend, all those whispers died down pretty quick.

I never forgot all the nice things he did for me, and I always figured I'd pay him back a hundred times over when I got the chance.

Two years back, the Grant family's business rivals kidn*pped Jaxsen.

I bared my fangs and tore through their entire hideout to yank him to safety.

One of the kidnappers made a last-ditch move and stabbed Jaxsen. He was bleeding so heavily he slipped into shock.

To save him, I fought back every instinct screaming at me to drink his blood and licked his wounds closed instead.

When I saw the bleeding had stopped, I let out a huge sigh of relief.

Luckily, Jaxsen was out cold the whole time. He never saw my vampire form.

If he had, he definitely would've fainted a second time from shock.

I curled up into a tight little ball, my already unfocused mind drifting off to all kinds of memories of Jaxsen.

Not too long ago, he'd taken me to a gathering with his friends, saying he wanted to introduce me to everyone he knew.

But the thing I couldn't shake was the teasing, amused grins all of them wore when we walked into the private room.

They didn't even bother to sugarcoat their words right in front of me.

"Told you, our Young Master Grant still can't get over his long-lost crush, huh? Hahaha."

"Look at that face. Even Ziya herself would do a double-take if she saw her. But she's just a knockoff, after all. She'll never have Ziya's class."

"Hey, Jaxsen, Ziya said she's coming back next month. When are you gonna ditch this fake?"

I had no clue what they were going on about, but their sharp, unmistakable hostility was impossible to miss.

Jaxsen's face turned icy cold. He slammed his glass down on the table with a sharp clink, so hard the liquid sloshed over the rim. "I brought Yeya here today to introduce her to all of you, not to let you be rude and give her attitude right to her face. One more out-of-line comment out of any of you, and you'll regret it."

His words hung heavy in the air, and everyone present finally realized he was dead serious.

They looked sheepish, awkwardly fumbling to switch to an entirely new topic.

Even after they dropped the subject, though, I could feel sharp, prying eyes prickling all over me from every corner of the private room, raking up and down my whole body like they were picking apart every little thing about me.

Later, a few people tried to pressure me into drinking, but Jaxsen blocked every single one of those attempts for me.

When I headed to the bathroom, a pretty, expensively dressed girl stepped right in front of me to block my way.

"You think copying Ziya's look lets you steal the man that belongs to her? You're nothing but a cheap imposter. I'd advise you to get as far away from Jaxsen as you can, as soon as possible. When Ziya comes back, your little fake act won't hold up for a second."