Whenever a Primus’ family was involved, rumors would spread like wildfire. That was how Erasmus got a whiff of what was happening. He was now a hundred and twenty-three years old. Like me, he just woke up one morning as a Vampire. He and I almost had the same tragic story. That was probably why he kept me with him. He said he was twenty-seven then. His entire family was killed by a wild animal, too, an animal which happened to be a Vampire. Now, I know that it was a Vampire who attacked my family as well.
And I vowed to make him pay one day.
Without Erasmus by my side, I would have killed myself a long time ago because I didn’t think I could handle things on my own. He was able to walk under the sun through a Sorceress’ blessing. And that was the person we had been trying to find this past decade. But we haven’t found one yet.
“Get straight to the point, mortal. What do you want?” I asked without looking at the mortal who kept following me.
“I know you, Ingram Wilson. I had researched about you. And I do have some important information that will make you turn me into a Vampire the moment you have heard about them.”
A corner of my mouth lifted when I heard the confidence in her voice.
“All right,” I said just as confidently. I was certain that she would not be able to catch my interest no matter what she says. “Let me hear that important information then.”
“Levana Holmes died two years after you left her. She killed herself.”
I was stunned.
“I went into her mother’s house a few days ago and stole Levana's diary in her mother’s room. I will give her diary to you if you will agree to turn me.”
In a blink of an eye, I was already standing in front of the mortal. I grabbed her shoulders and eyed her furiously. “You are lying!”
“I am not!” She shot back despite the fear in her eyes. “You can go back to Calhoun to prove it. Sullivan's soldiers are no longer there. They left with Sullivan after Levana's burial.”
My shoulders flopped. I opened my mouth but no words came from it. With just a piece of information, all my sacrifices and my agony became useless.

“WHERE were you? Where were you when we needed you the most?” Alvira yelled before slapping me the second she opened the door and saw me.
I couldn’t answer her. Would she believe me if I tell her that I became a Vampire to cure Levana? I wanted to make her understand my situation but I was not sure if she would believe my story. My eyes watered when I remembered the things I read in Levana’s diary. She wrote everything there including how the crops from the farm I inherited all burned one day.
Alvira got into an accident when she tried to find me. She was hit by a car and she needed an urgent operation. They did not have the money for it. That was when Sullivan came to the ‘rescue’ and offered to shoulder the hospital fee in exchange of marrying him. Even if Levana was against it, she agreed to marry him for her mother’s sake.
Sullivan was wicked. He manipulated everything to make Levana fall for his trap. She also wrote in the diary that she was never happy with Sullivan. Every day, she waited for me to come back and steal her from her husband. I shut my eyes at the thought. Sullivan was constantly mad and jealous to the men whom she would talk to even if they were her long-time friends and even if they were the people working at the farm to the point that he confined her in their house and forbid her from going outside.
Sullivan also tried using force to consummate their marriage but then he would stop just before they do it as if she had a virus and he was terrified to catch it. And then he would shower her with blasphemous words night and day. The two never had a peaceful marriage. During those times, I know that Sullivan was thinking about Acantha and Xenos’ betrayal.
I wanted to find Sullivan and kill him. But I would only be wasting time because I know that one of these days, he would come to me on his own for the ‘fight’ that he had mentioned before. Besides, what else could I do? I wouldn’t be able to avenge anyway. He was a thousand-year-old Vampire. I was only an inexperienced Vampire. How could someone like me fight the Primus’ son?

“Every day, we would talk. And Levana would say how much she misses you. She would often worry that you might have heard about her wedding with Sullivan and you would doubt her love for you. But she remained true to you, Ingram. When she couldn’t take the depression and the misery any longer, she stabbed herself!” Alvira wept. “She died with you in her mind, Ingram. But where were you? You suddenly went missing! How could you do that to her? How could you do that to us?”
“I didn't want to leave, Aunt,” I said in a low voice. I looked up and met her eyes. She left the house where we used to live and returned to her previous apartment. It was an old bungalow. “You and Levana are the only family I have left. Circumstances just gave me no choice-“
“And what circumstances were those?”
Again, I couldn’t speak. Alvira was like a second mother to me that’s why it pains me to see her this way, too. It had been years since Levana died. And I just reminded her of the agony she felt back then when I suddenly showed up at her doorstep tonight.
Alvira laughed bitterly. “You could not even tell me your reasons.”