TAMING THE HEARTLESS VAMPIRE (ENGLISH)

Vale From the summit of the monolith, the city looked small. The sprawling metropolis below resembled a network of glowing veins—arteries of light pulsing with the frantic, shallow heartbeat of millions. The streets were choked with cars crawling like metallic beetles, while people hurried along the pavements with no real destination. They moved in a daze, entirely unaware that something far older, far colder than their fragile civilization was perched above them, dissecting their very souls. Humans. Fragile. Temporary. Forgettable. A gale screamed against the concrete edges of the rooftop, but it did not move me. The cold wind brushed against my heavy coat, making the dark fabric ripple behind me like a shadow given physical form. To any human looking up, I would be nothing more than a trick of the light—a gargoyle carved from the midnight sky. Beside me stood Damien. He was a silhouette of stillness: silent, patient, and utterly loyal. Two hundred years he had stood at my side—two hundred years of unquestioned devotion in a world where betrayal was the only true currency. Among our Kindred, such loyalty was not just rare. It was a miracle of blood and iron. Below us, the city continued breathing like a restless, diseased organism. But my eyes were no longer scanning the horizon. They had locked onto a single point of failure. A woman. She was walking slowly along the crowded sidewalk of the main artery, each step a monumental effort, as if the very air around her had turned to lead. She carried the weight of the world on her shoulders—a burden no human frame was built to bear for long. The crowd was a mindless tide. People bumped into her, their shoulders jarring her thin frame. Some cursed under their breath as they swerved to avoid her; others simply looked through her, treating her as though she were already a ghost. She did not flinch. She did not apologize. She barely reacted at all. Her aura was a dull, flickering gray—the color of ash before the wind scatters it. Barely alive. "Perfect," I whispered. My golden eyes narrowed, the vertical pupils adjusting to the heat signatures below. I studied the way she held herself—or rather, the way she was letting go. "Is she the one?" I asked. My voice remained calm, detached, carrying the resonance of a cello played in an empty hall. Damien stepped closer to the precipice, his coat snapping in the wind as he followed my gaze. "Yes, Milord," he replied, his voice a gravelly contrast to mine. "I have already examined her background. I have tracked her for three nights." He paused before continuing. He adjusted his leather gloves, his eyes never leaving the target. "She has cancer. Late stage. According to the hospital records I intercepted, she will live only a few months more." A quiet, jagged scoff escaped my lips. "Pathetic. To be eaten from the inside out by one's own cells. A truly human way to exit." Below, the woman continued walking. She was a glitch in the system—a slow-moving tragedy in a fast-moving world. Mid-twenties, perhaps twenty-five. She might have been beautiful once, before exhaustion carved those deep lines into her features. Life had left its marks on her face in a way no amount of youth could hide. Dark brown hair framed her pale, gaunt face. Her eyes looked sharp—intelligent, perhaps—but they were profoundly tired. There was a depth to her gaze, a weight that suggested she had seen the bottom of the abyss and found it empty. It was clear she hadn't slept in days, maybe weeks. She wore simple clothes: a worn jacket and jeans that hung loosely on her thinning frame. Nothing luxurious. Nothing that suggested she had anything left to lose. And yet, beneath the fabric, the outline of a body that had once been strong and capable—a vessel of potential, currently rotting from the inside out. "She is the perfect thrall for you, Master," Damien urged, sensing my hesitation. "You have waited for this opportunity for a long time. The alignment of her blood type and her proximity to death—it is what the ritual requires." I rubbed my chin, watching her stop at a red light. She didn't look at the cars. She looked at the asphalt. "Do you think she's enough?" I asked, more to myself than to him. Damien turned his head slightly, his brow furrowing. "Why, Master?" he asked carefully. "Do you want me to find someone else? The hospitals are overflowing with the desperate." I didn't answer immediately. Below us, the woman was bumped by a man in a sharp suit—a businessman in a hurry to get nowhere. The impact nearly knocked her off her feet. She stumbled, her hand grazing a cold streetlamp to steady herself. But she didn't get angry. She didn't shout. She didn't even look at the man who had nearly trampled her. She simply righted herself and continued, her gaze fixed on a point far beyond the horizon. She had already detached her soul from her body. She was a vessel waiting to be filled—or shattered. Interesting. "Hmm." A predatory curiosity sparked in my chest. "Let's test this woman first. Let's see if her will survives the breaking of her body." Damien's posture stiffened. "Your father has already given you a warning, Master," he reminded me, his voice dropping an octave. "The Lord expects results, not experiments. The High Council is watching your every move." "Yes. I am well aware of the Lord's impatience." I stepped back from the rooftop's edge, the gravel crunching under my boots. "I will not show up at the solstice without a thrall. Otherwise, he will refuse my request to form my own troupe. He will keep me under his thumb for another century." Damien was quiet a moment. He looked at the woman, then back at me. He had been with me through the wars, through the purges, through the long, starving winters of our history. "Master... the Nightborn Clan is already the most powerful in the triad," he said, his confusion finally bleeding through. "Why do you want your own troupe? Why go through the trouble of creating a new lineage?" The wind seemed to die down between us, leaving a heavy, suffocating silence. In my mind, a name flickered like a dying candle—burning with a cold, blue flame. Elara. Two hundred years of blood and dust. Yet the memory of her death remained as vivid as a fresh wound. I could still smell the copper of her blood on white marble. I could still feel the phantom heat of her skin as it turned to ash in my arms. Someone had killed her. Someone within our own circles. Someone powerful enough to hide their scent for centuries, weaving themselves into the fabric of our politics. "I need my own alliance," I replied, my voice turning to shards of ice. "My own followers who owe nothing to the Lord. My own eyes in the dark." But deep inside, beyond the political maneuvering and the thirst for status, there was only one truth. I didn't want a troupe. I wanted a weapon. I would find the ones responsible for her death. I would peel back the layers of this city and the world beneath it until I found the coward who had taken her from me. And when I did—I would make sure they regretted ever having existed. I would teach them that there are fates far worse than the true death. Below, the woman changed direction. She had reached the end of the commercial district. Instead of heading toward the residential blocks or the subway, she turned onto a service road—a quieter, darker path that led toward the industrial outskirts. I watched her silhouette move beneath the flickering orange glow of the sodium lamps until I saw her destination. The bridge. The bridge spanned the black throat of the river—a rusted iron giant that connected the living city to the abandoned docks. "She's going to jump," Damien said quietly, his voice devoid of pity. It was a mere observation of fact. Of course she was. The despair radiating from her was nearly suffocating now, even from this distance. It was a thick, cloying scent—like lilies left to rot in a vase. Humans often came to bridges when they wanted their suffering to end, believing that the water would wash away the pain the world had inflicted on them. They believed in the mercy of the fall. They were wrong. There is no mercy in the dark. "Well then," I said softly, a dark smile tugging at the corner of my lips. "Let's see how desperate she really is. Let's see if she's willing to trade her soul for a second chance at a nightmare." Without another word, I moved. I didn't use the stairs. I didn't use the fire escape. I simply leaped from the rooftop and felt the rush of gravity for a split second before pushing off the air itself. The city blurred around me—a kaleidoscope of steel, glass, and neon—as I landed silently on the roof of the next building. Then another. Then another. I moved so quickly I was nothing but wind passing between buildings. I was a shadow flickering across the moon, a predator closing the gap. My boots barely made a sound on the gravel and tin. Within seconds, I reached the height of a warehouse overlooking the center of the bridge. I crouched at the rusted edge and looked down. The woman had reached the middle. She was standing perfectly still now. The river below was a churning abyss of ink—deep and quiet. To her, it probably looked like peace. Like a hungry god waiting for its next sacrifice. She was crying. The sound was thin and ragged, breaking against the roar of the wind. Her shoulders trembled violently as she covered her face with her hands. Even from the top of the building, I could hear her gasping for air, her sobs echoing the emptiness of her life. But I felt nothing. No pity, no empathy, no urge to comfort. Three hundred years. I had seen kingdoms rise and fall. I had watched cities burn to the ground and be rebuilt over the bones of the dead. In those three centuries, my heart had long since turned to stone. The human parts of me had been cauterized by time and blood. The only emotion that remained was anger—cold, relentless, and unending—the fire that kept me moving through the decades. Then, she moved. She climbed onto the railing with shaking limbs, her hands gripping the cold iron, her knuckles white. Her body swayed slightly with the wind, a leaf caught in a storm. She looked down at the water one last time, searching for something—perhaps a sign, perhaps just the courage to let go. She took a final, shuddering breath. The air in her lungs was the last thing she truly owned. Then she jumped. Her body fell through the darkness like a fragile shadow, gravity finally claiming what the world had rejected. She didn't scream. She just fell. I smiled. It wasn't a kind smile. It was the smile of a man who had found a new instrument in the wreckage of a life—filled with quiet, predatory amusement. "Welcome to my world," I whispered, the words lost to the wind. "My thrall." Then I leaned forward and jumped after her, cutting through the night like a blade.