1 It Was Worth It
Surrounded by happiness, Tatiana had the strong urge to get away. She was currently at a high society human party which was boring as usual. It was the same old routine that she had seen over the years— the rich coming together to celebrate the most insignificant of issues in the society.
There was nothing she benefited from these parties, but being a wealthy woman herself, she needed to maintain the social standards. She needed to ensure her place in the society stayed the same, and it wasn’t because she was obsessed with belonging to the high class.
She couldn’t care less about who was who in the society as long as she got what she wanted.
As a vampire, it wasn’t new to see humans live and die like roaches when they hit eighty. She wanted to cement her place in the wealthy community because only then would she get what she wanted— the chance to meet him.
She had been looking for him for years, and while she always failed to get his attention, she had promised never to give up. She had made herself understand that nothing was as crucial as finally being worthy in his eyes.
He was the reason she was holding on. Her life was slowly fading away. She was already on the brink of insanity, but Tatiana knew she had to fight to stay. She had lost so much over the years that she had been broken one too many times, but that didn't matter to her.
All she cared about was him. All she desired was the man who would never pay any attention to her. Maybe she was cursed to be this way, but perhaps she needed to play a different game, and that's why over the centuries, she had made it her mission to amass a fortune.
It was the only route to his heart that she knew. He was worth everything to her.
He was her light, and without him, Tatiana's life would spiral into the darkness again.
She had never thought of how their first meeting would go, but she was sure it wouldn't be so bad; after all, she had seen it all, right? She was wondering how she was supposed to pretend that she was okay. Sure she had mastered the art of pretense, but that never made it any better.
She would still be lonely when the day ended.
Here at this party, she knew she had to be on her best behavior, and one way to do that was to chat with the people who considered her friends. She was always the kind of woman who loved being alone, but appearances had to be kept, and she needed them to cement her place here anyway.
She had the strong urge to leave or even find a spot in the house that didn't have bodies brushing shamelessly against each other in the name of socialization. She hated this, but she would wait it out. She would watch and stay on high alert in case he showed up today.
Her patience was thinning and fast with every second she spent in this party, but would she leave?
Hell, no.
Tatiana would prove to herself that everything would be okay. She had to be okay. She had been hoping for years, so what was a night more, right?
None of this was easy on her, and her best friend, Zhuri, could see that. It had been her idea that Tatiana showed up to the party today to give her hope that somewhere along the way, destiny would stop being harsh and let her find him.
Having had enough of listening to her ‘friends’ chit-chat about nothing that was significant to her, she decided to walk away in the name of looking for the washroom. That excuse always worked so well, but tonight it seemed like it only got her from her annoying friends to one of the entitled humans at this party.
One look at the old hag standing before her, and Tatiana knew she wanted to strangle the life out of her. She looked like the Karens of human society, entitled and annoying, but Tatiana had to exercise patience. Zhuri had seen the woman and was about to come to take her friend away, but Tatiana told her not to.
She didn't have to worry about her all the time anyway. Zhuri had a life, and she didn’t have to spend it worrying about who Tatiana would kill next.
Even if she would kill, tonight was a hard pass for murders.
“Oh, young Tatiana, I haven’t seen you in a while; what have you been up to?” Karen said. It was clear she was faking it because if she knew Tatiana as she wanted to claim, then she would understand that Tatiana had been twenty-five years old for the past millennium.
Tatiana looked at the woman again, wondering what it would feel like listening to her take her final breaths or, better yet, what would happen if she compelled this ‘Karen’ to go and do a wild dance at the high table. That would be a lovely spectacle, but then it would also earn her an earful from Zhuri.
So technically, this annoying hag was safe because Tatiana cared so much about her best friend.
Oh hell.
“Waiting for days to pass by. I have been alive long enough that nothing excites me anymore,” Tatiana responded with all the courtesy and politeness she could muster.
She had to.
It was forced, but the woman in front of her looked stupid enough to believe her pretense. She didn't even have to try and compel this one—what a waste.
“Oh, that’s unfortunate. I have always known you as the girl who throws the wildest of parties. It’s a shame, my dear,”' the woman said as Tatiana internally sighed.
This was the problem with these older people who thought they knew everything.
She didn't know Tatiana.
She had heard the rumors that Tatiana had spread about herself. She had compelled the idea into the brainless humans, and apparently, it worked. If only she could compel them to take her to him. She would even worship that human. But well, we don't always get what we want, no?
“No, it really is okay. Life has to go on, either way. Cheers,” Tatiana said as she clinked her glass with the woman before downing the wine in one go.
She had had enough of the gathering, and these people here were not making her day any better. She took another look at the party then at her friend before deciding she needed to make a run for it. She could see there was no point in her showing up. She should have stayed in her ever so lonely house, and her life would have been better.
For a vampire who was so powerful, Tatiana looked like the frail humans who had thrown this party. She couldn't remember what a high society party had looked like in her days, but this right here was pathetic, not that she would be able to tell that to the host.
Of course, if she did try that, Zhuri would whine her ears off, and she wouldn't be happy. Happiness was a foreign concept for Tatiana, and it had been so for the past seven hundred years. She had watched her happiness elude her for a choice she couldn't take back.
She hoped that someday she would get the chance to make things right, but when would that ever be? Tatian knew so well that she had already lost, but she was a fighter, and no matter what happened, she would use her vampirism against time and wait for the person she was looking for to show up.
Her immortality had always been a curse, but ever since the night she met HIM, she had sworn she would be forever thankful to the bastard that turned her. She would find him, no matter how many obstacles popped in her way.
She had even forgotten she was supposed to be heading to the washroom, but it wasn’t like her friends would nag her. They knew how she was at these events, and they weren't worried about her.
As she made a beeline for the bar, she caught a whiff of a familiar scent. One that she would never forget, even in death. At first, she was skeptical, because typically, her desires never came true, but this time, it was different.
After all, the whole room was packed with humans. Only she and Zhuri were the vampires here, and they had masked their scents so well, no one would ever know who or what they indeed were: the creatures of the night that walked in the day.
The scent seemed more potent than the last few times in her life, and she itched to check it out.
The scent seemed to be coming from the garden outside, and while all the alarms in her head were warning her against going, she knew she had to see for herself. The people who hunted her wouldn't know who she truly was, so there wasn't a risk of going out.
The fresh scent of rain hit her nose even harder, intoxicating her and making her senses have an imbalance for a moment there. When she got to the garden, she saw the beta wolf and someone else, the source of the scent that was drugging her and taking away her senses.
They seemed to be having a conversation about the party. They looked like they were bored out of their minds and wanted to get out of this place, but they were still staying back for some reason.
Tatiana couldn't see the face of the man with the beta wolf, but she didn't need to be taught that the beta only bowed to the alpha. She knew that like the back of her hand, just like she knew the scent belonged to him.
