His eyes look into mine, dull and losing their usual shine. The night breeze is already too cold for him, but he remains seated on the grassy ground, his back pressed against the trunk of the old Narra tree.

"Come with me." My eyes turn from blue to gold when I tell him those words--a command heavily powered by a vampire's ability of compulsion.

Still, he shakes his head. He smiles at me through his labored breathing. Too fast. He's trying hard to catch his breath.

Why won't it work on him? My power is the strongest among our kind. I am the leader of our coven and nobody has ever resisted my charms, but this man who I met a month before and who quickly made his way into my cold beating heart wouldn't fall to my crimson magic.

Just one bite and a drop of blood on his lips and he could live longer, away from the pains of mortality; and we could live together, side by side, through all of eternity.

He smiles wanly at me--faintly reminding me of his smile when we first met and he told me how beautiful I am. Me, a soulless creature of the night, treated by him as a common lady even without the influence of compulsion. I should've killed him by then, but I didn't.

He coughs. My chest aches for the first time in a hundred years. My pale bejeweled hands reach out to him and caress his beautiful face. "I'll take you to the castle. It is near. Let me turn you--"

"N-no." He gently holds my hand, trembling due to the illness that has been devouring him from within. "I need to stay here," he calmly says.

I feel the desire to lock him inside my arms and feel his remaining warmth. "Do not waste your life like this. You could live forever with me." I let my red lips touch his cheeks. My gown sprawls on the ground and over his ragged trousers. I let him inhale my scent, trying to enchant him. "Stay with me," I whisper in his ear.

I only hear a chuckle. It is tormenting, tearing me apart. He replies,"This is where I want to be."

Desperately, I caress him once more and stare into his eyes in a last attempt for a more powerful compulsion. It is of no use. I can only watch his skin lose its color and his pulse become weaker and weaker until he breathes his last breath.

Bloody tears flow from my eyes as his limp hand falls on top of the stone engraved with the name of his beloved.

Of course. I should have known that even the strongest magic cannot defeat love.

My heart is pierced with extreme jealousy towards that dead mortal who's loved by him.

Loved, eternally.

Ah.

I never longed for dawn this much.