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

Chapter 4

No big deal.

None of this was even a big deal.

I took out those kidnappers in, like, two seconds flat.

The real problem was: what the hell was I gonna do next?

Jaxsen was definitely not gonna keep providing for me anymore.

And to be fair, I'd more than paid him back for everything he'd done for me. I'd just saved his beloved crush, after all.

From that point on, I'd be a sad, homeless little vampire with no one to take care of me again.

Wait, maybe I could just go find another rich guy to mooch off of?

I was right in the middle of that pleasant daydream when a silver knife whizzed right past my side, sharp wind nipping my skin.

A man with a silver sword slung over his back stepped out of the nearby bushes. He frowned slightly, staring straight at me. "Vampire?"

My blood ran ice cold the second I laid eyes on him.

A vampire hunter!

Oh my god! What was a vampire hunter doing out in the middle of nowhere like this?

I scrambled back a few steps, but another silver knife came flying at me, this time grazing right past my neck.

The thing gleamed so bright I could barely look at it. If it had actually cut me, I would've turned into a pile of vampire dust on the spot.

I immediately burst into sniffling sobs, holding both my hands up in surrender. "Spare me! I've never hurt anyone on purpose, I swear!"

He stared at my pathetic, trembling form for a second, then glanced at the pile of kidnappers scattered across the ground, his voice sharp with suspicion.

"Then what about these guys?"

My shoulders hunched, and I stared hard at the dirt at my feet, guilty as sin. "I... I did that..."

"Of course! All you vampires are nothing but lying, bloodthirsty monsters!"

When I saw him reach for the gun at his waist, I lunged at him without thinking, wrapping both arms tightly around his leg. "No, no, no! Wait, just let me explain! They attacked me first, okay?"

I rambled through the whole story as fast as I could. He hauled me over to the still-recording camera by the scruff of my neck to check the footage, and finally believed what I'd said.

"Fine, since your story checks out, I'll cut you some slack this time. But this is a society ruled by law. Even if you're a vampire, you can't just go around killing people. Come with me."

My brain short-circuited, completely confused. "Go where? You're not gonna kidnap me and lock me in a metal tank to put on display, are you?"

He looked downright annoyed. "What's even interesting about a vampire to put on display? We're going back to do your registration. Any vampire living in human society has to file a record at the Paranormal Affairs Bureau. Did no other vampire ever tell you that?"

He stared at me like I was some kind of backwater hick who'd never seen a car before, pure confusion written all over his face.

I dug through every single memory I had of living in the human world. "Uh... I guess my mom never actually mentioned that."

His face darkened for a split second. "Great. So both you and your mom are unregistered off-the-grid residents. Go get her too."

My mom got roped into this whole mess totally out of the blue.

The Paranormal Affairs Bureau was huge. My mom thought I'd just scored a new sugar daddy.

She leaned in, whispering in my ear, "Honey, this place looks way fancier than that villa you used to stay at. You didn't dump Jaxsen just for money, did you?"

I leaned right back, keeping my voice just as low. "Jaxsen dumped me, actually. As for what's going on right now? You'll figure it out when you meet the guy in a second."

The second Marnie spotted the vampire hunter, her red eyes and sharp fangs popped out before she could even stop them.

I had to dart forward and wrap my arms around her, muttering in her ear nonstop. "Mom, mom! This is their headquarters! We don't stand a chance against them, okay?"

Marnie was fuming, yanking me behind her in one sharp motion. "What's the big idea here? Ganging up on a pair of widowed women and her kid. You want us to fight back?"

Silas Hale pulled out a booklet calmly. "Didn't your daughter tell you why we're here?"

He flipped the pages with a crisp rustle. "It's just registration. Sign the forms, and you can leave right after."

Marnie froze on the spot, stunned. She'd never met a vampire hunter this reasonable in her entire life.

Oh, right, they weren't called hunters anymore. They were vampire administrators now.

Once we signed the papers, the two of us finally weren't unregistered anymore.

Marnie stared off into space, muttering, "The world's really gotten so peaceful now, huh? Even vampire hunters are this easy to talk to. Sigh, it's only been a few hundred years, you wouldn't know what it was like back in my day..."

She'd spent centuries hiding out in the mountains with me, of course she had no clue about all the policy shifts out in the human world.

I was over the moon, though.

No more panicking about my vampire identity getting out and getting killed by a hunter whenever my cover blew.

Marnie headed home not long after.

But they made me stay behind.

Silas said he was gonna teach me properly. I wasn't allowed to leave until I figured out how to handle problems the human way.

I hated the idea, but I knew I couldn't take him in a fight.

So I just holed up at Silas's place and shoveled food into my mouth nonstop.