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

Chapter 5

Silas's mom called to tell him to come home for his mom's younger sister's birthday banquet.

He hired an entire styling team to come to the house to do my hair and makeup, insisted I tag along with him.

The second his mom saw me walking in arm-in-arm with Silas, her face lit up like a kid on Christmas morning, and she reached right out to take my hand.

"Oh my, you are absolutely stunning! You must be Silas's girlfriend, right? Gosh, this is the first time he's ever brought a girl home! What's your name, dear?"

Her overwhelming warmth made me want to bolt on the spot. I stammered out a reply, "Yeya."

"Then I'll call you Yeya, okay? C'mon over here, Yeya, take a seat next to me."

I fidgeted awkwardly, picking nervously at the hem of my outfit, and was just about to explain that I wasn't actually Silas's girlfriend when he walked over.

He'd gotten a call saying his cousin needed him to handle some personal business. Before he left, he slipped a jade bangle onto my wrist—one that could suppress a vampire's powers—and murmured to me, "Sit tight here, okay? I've got something I need to take care of."

I got his unspoken hint right away. Don't lash out or use my powers while he was gone.

His mom, though, got the completely wrong idea. After Silas left, she couldn't stop grinning from ear to ear. "Our Silas has never cared about any girl this much before. I can tell he's totally smitten with you, honey."

I didn't have the energy to argue with her. I slipped away to the dessert table, found an empty corner to sit in, and picked up a plate to nibble on a slice of cake.

Suddenly, a shaky male voice came from behind me. "Yeya?"

I turned around, and there was Jaxsen. His eyes were bloodshot, and he practically sprinted over to grab my shoulders hard. His voice cracked like he was about to cry. "It really is you! After I got Ziya to the hospital that day, I searched for you like a madman. It's been an entire month—I almost thought you were gone."

Ziya glided over to his side, plastering on that soft, innocent smile of hers. "Yeya, I really owe you my thanks for taking my place in that dangerous situation. Those kidnappers were vicious monsters. If Jaxsen hadn't saved me, I would have been in real trouble. You were left there all alone—you must have had such a rough time of it."

Jaxsen ground his teeth and snarled, "Those beasts! I'll make them pay for what they did, no matter what."

I kept chewing my cake and mumbled around a mouthful of the sweet treat, "I didn't suffer even a little bit. I'm fine."

But the two of them exchanged a look, both assuming I was just putting on a tough front.

Ziya picked up a glass of red wine and held it out to me, her voice soft as silk. "Let me toast you. This is my little way of saying thank you."

I lifted my hand to push the glass away, but she suddenly let out a high, sharp little yelp. "Oops!"

Crimson wine sloshed all over her pure white evening gown. Her eyes flooded with red instantly, she clamped her fingers tight around the wine glass, and looked up at Jaxsen with a face full of hurt. "I really did want to thank Yeya. Even if she has a problem with me, she didn't have to do this to make things hard for me, right?"

I frowned and tried to explain, "I didn't even touch you. You just didn't hold the glass steady."

Ziya didn't even glance back. She ran off sobbing to change her clothes.

Jaxsen's face darkened like a storm cloud, his tone sharp with blame. "Yeya, if you're mad, take it out on me. Why go after Ziya? She just went through a k********g, she's still shaken up. Come with me and apologize to her."

I shook my head, eyes dropping back to the rest of the dessert on my plate as I kept eating. "I'm not going. It wasn't my fault."

Jaxsen stared at my stubborn face, huffed a sigh, his face twisted with disappointment. "When did you get so childish and unreasonable?"

With that, he turned and chased after Ziya, who was still wiping tears as she ran off.

I watched his back disappear, and there wasn't a single twinge of hurt in my chest. The second he didn't hesitate to hand me over to the kidnappers, I'd cut him out of my heart completely.

No hard feelings, no lingering regret. Besides, he'd given me the tiny kindness of taking me in when I had nowhere to go, and I'd already repaid that debt a thousandfold when I saved Ziya. We were even.

Once I finished the last bite of cake, I stepped outside to get some fresh air and walk off the sugar. All of a sudden, a figure came lunging out of the shadows. It was Luvy Reed, that girl who'd cornered me in the bathroom before.

She spat through gritted teeth, "I'll teach you a lesson for bullying Ziya!"

She slammed her full weight straight at me, trying to knock me right into the swimming pool.

As a vampire, I was lightning-quick on my feet. I shifted my body out of the way with barely any effort, and Luvy couldn't stop her own momentum. Plop! She went straight into the swimming pool.

Soaking wet, she hauled herself up the edge of the pool, hair plastered all over her face, and wailed at the top of her lungs right there and then. "It's Yeya! She pushed me into the water on purpose! Just because I spoke up for Ziya before, she wanted to humiliate me in front of everyone!"

Jaxsen and Ziya came rushing over as soon as they heard the commotion, and in the blink of an eye, a whole crowd of curious guests had circled around to gawk.

Ziya took a towel the waiter handed her and wrapped it around Luvy, her voice tight with barely restrained hurt. "Yeya, even if you're mad at me, you shouldn't take it out on innocent Luvy."

The onlooking guests murmured among themselves, every quiet jab was directed at me.

Jaxsen's face burned with embarrassment under all the whispers. He stared daggers at me, his voice thick with regret. "I was stupid enough to think you were sweet and naive once, even thought I could set Ziya aside to marry you. Now I see the truth, you're totally trashy."

Someone nearby quietly asked where I was from, and Jaxsen frowned immediately, snapped at me. "Did you sneak into this banquet just to see me?"

The words were barely out of his mouth before he clamped down hard on my wrist, yanking me roughly toward the exit. "Come with me. Stop making a fool of yourself here."

I was just about to yank my arm free when a familiar, steady voice cut through the noise from behind me. "I brought her here."