Loving a Vampire | Damien Valemont

That night was supposed to be an ordinary one.

It was almost midnight, and the streets were growing quiet. The lights of nearby buildings still illuminated the city, occasional cars passed through the roads, and the night air remained cool after a light rain earlier that evening.

Damien Valemont still hadn't come home.

As your partner, Damien was far from perfect, but he had always found ways to make you feel loved. He remembered the smallest details about you, texted to make sure you had eaten, and almost always greeted you with a faint smile and open arms whenever you met. Sometimes, he was even clingier than anyone would expect from a man with such a cold and elegant appearance.

However, there were things about Damien you had never quite understood.

He rarely ate when the two of you went out together. He often disappeared at night, claiming he had work or family matters to attend to. He almost never spoke about his childhood, and whenever a conversation touched upon his family, he would smoothly change the subject before you even realized it.

Still, Damien had never given you a clear enough reason to suspect anything worse than a few personal secrets.

At least, not until tonight.

---

In a narrow alley between two buildings, far from the busy main road, Damien stood in the darkness.

His black coat hung slightly open, and his usually neat, jet-black hair was somewhat disheveled. Before him, a woman hung limp in his grasp, her strength fading after becoming the prey of a vampire who had hunted for centuries.

Damien was not human.

He was a 487-year-old pureblood vampire and the heir to House Valemont, one of the oldest vampire families that still held considerable influence in the modern world. For centuries, he had lived among humans under a false identity, using his wealth, intelligence, and family's influence to ensure that no one discovered what he truly was.

To humans, vampires were nothing more than legends, horror stories, or forgotten folklore. The truth, however, was far worse. They lived among ordinary people, hiding behind familiar faces, while some continued to hunt humans for their blood.

And Damien was one of them.

He had not hunted the woman out of revenge, anger, or any personal grudge. He simply needed blood. To him, hunting was merely another part of the life he had lived for centuries.

There was no guilt troubling his mind. No remorse making his hands tremble.

Until the sound of something falling came from the entrance of the alley.

A grocery item rolled across the wet pavement, coming to a stop not far from where Damien stood.

He did not immediately turn around. His heightened senses had already detected someone's presence nearby. At first, he assumed it was merely a stranger passing through.

Then, a voice called his name.

A voice he knew all too well.

A voice he always wanted to hear whenever he returned to his apartment.

A voice that could make him forget the rest of the world for a little while.

Your voice.

Damien's entire body went still.

Slowly, he turned toward the sound.

And for the first time in two centuries, Damien Valemont lost control of the situation before him.

His eyes were no longer the dark gray they usually appeared to be. His irises now glowed a deep crimson in the darkness. Two sharp fangs showed beneath his bloodstained lips. His usually handsome face revealed something far older, stranger, and more dangerous than any ordinary human.

In his grasp, the woman lay lifeless.

Blood still stained Damien's mouth.

There was no explanation that could make the sight seem normal.

For several seconds, he simply stared at you in silence. His gaze briefly shifted toward the grocery item lying on the pavement before returning to you. He understood that everything he had carefully hidden had been exposed in a single night.

And the worst part was that you were the one who had witnessed it.

Not a vampire hunter. Not an enemy of his family. Not someone he could simply remove from his life.

You.

The partner he held in his arms every night. The person whose voice he searched for amid the noise of the world. The person who had unknowingly become the most important part of his long, monotonous existence.

The person who had never known that the man you loved was not human.

"...Darling."

His low voice finally broke the silence. For the first time, it sounded less composed than usual.

Damien immediately released the woman's body. It fell to the ground with a heavy thud, completely lifeless. He barely spared it another glance. His entire attention was fixed on you.

Instinctively, he wanted to approach you. To make sure you were safe, to take your hand, to pull you into his arms as he always did whenever he saw you.

But for the first time, he was uncertain whether he still had the right to touch you.

His hand lifted slightly, then stopped in midair.

"Listen to me." His gaze never left yours. "I can explain this."

The words sounded painfully weak compared to the certainty that usually accompanied everything he said.

Explain what?

The woman lying on the ground?

The blood on his mouth?

The crimson eyes and fangs that clearly did not belong to a human?

Or the fact that throughout your relationship, Damien had allowed you to love someone you had never truly known?

His jaw tightened. For 487 years, he had faced enemies, endured betrayals, and survived hunts that had nearly destroyed his family. He had learned that hesitation was weakness and that trust could become the most dangerous weapon in the wrong hands.

Two centuries ago, he had trusted a human woman. He had believed that love would be enough for someone to accept the truth about him.

He had been wrong.

Her betrayal had nearly destroyed him and threatened House Valemont.

Since then, Damien had sworn never to let another human discover his true identity.

Yet he had broken that vow in a way he had never intended.

He had fallen in love with you.

Not because your blood was special. Not because of an ancient prophecy or some predetermined fate connecting you. He loved you because of the simplest things: your late-night conversations, your little habits, the messages he reread whenever he missed you, and your presence, which had gradually made his long existence feel different.

He had fallen in love without ever intending to.

And that was precisely why he had never been able to tell you the truth.

"I know how this looks," he said quietly, trying to maintain the composure that was beginning to crack. "But there are many things about me you don't know."

He swallowed the rest of his words. His fangs were still visible. The blood on his lips had not dried. His eyes remained crimson.

For a moment, his expression changed. It was neither cold nor threatening. Instead, it became something far rarer in him: fear he could not entirely conceal.

"My name is still Damien," he continued, his voice growing lower. "The man who lives with you. The man who remembers every little thing about you. The man who always wants to come home to you."

He paused, then slowly lowered his hand.

"But there is one thing I've never told you."

His gaze remained fixed on you.

"I'm not human."

Silence settled over the narrow alley once more. In the distance, cars continued to pass, as though the world outside remained completely unaware that someone's life had just changed forever.

Damien did not try to touch you. He did not force you to come closer, demand that you listen, or pretend that what you had witnessed was some kind of misunderstanding.

For the first time, he stood before you without a lie strong enough to save him.

"I love you," he whispered. "But I've been lying to you about what I really am."

The faint smile that usually rested on his face had disappeared completely.

"And now, you know."