I watched as the three uncertain soldiers rode up to the front gate. They were decked out in black armor, as if that would hide them from the full moon. Or from me.

“Show time,” I muttered, turning from the window and heading toward the balcony. I climbed onto the rail. Shrugging my cloak off, I jumped, diving headfirst towards the courtyard. I turned into a dragon mid-flight, a silent, black, leathery creature that breathes lightning.

I swooped over the men and growled. The horses reared, throwing their riders and running away. Good. I didn’t like hurting the horses.

I circled away while the soldiers scrambled to their feet, shouting and gesturing towards me. I landed in front of my gate and shifted back to human.

“This is your only warning. Turn back from my home,” I said, my voice cutting through the night.

“Demon-spawn!” one of the soldiers yelled, charging at me with a spear.

“Real original,” I muttered, grabbing the shaft of the spear and yanking it out of his hand. Breaking it in half, I grabbed him by the straps of his armor and threw him back toward the forest. He sailed over his friends and hit a tree with a crunch.

The other two approached me slowly, and I shifted back into a dragon.

“Come on, you guys. I don’t drink blood from unwillings. Give me a break,” I whined, leaping into the air, my haunches flexing.

“You are a creature from hell, and deserve to die!” yelled the one on the right, who was burlier than his friend.

“You sound brainwashed, so I don’t know who the bad creature is, but it ain’t me,” I said dryly, diving and grabbing both spears with my front paws.

They gasped as their spears were yanked out of their hands, and watched dumbly as they sailed into the forest. I hovered above them, waiting for a response. I didn’t like killing people, but damn it, they left me no choice.

Both the soldiers got smart and ran towards the forest, where they would find their spears, horses, and their fallen comrade.

I wheeled away and went back to my balcony, landing as my humanoid form and picking my cloak off of the ground.

“Savages,” I muttered, slinging the cloak back around my shoulders. Going back inside, I took the spiral staircase down to the ground floor, and then headed towards the kitchen, to get something to eat.

I ignored the cabinets and went straight for the meat room, where all of my food was. When I opened the door, the smell of dead deer flesh greeted my nostrils. I wrinkled my nose, but pulled the knife out of my pocket and cut off a long slice. After wiping the knife on the towel I kept by the door, I started munching on the meat, praying that my canines wouldn’t make an appearance while I was chewing.

I finished the piece, full, but unsatisfied. Thus was the price of being a decent vampire. That, and soldiers and knights that thought it would be great fun to kill the only vampire left in existence.

It had been a long time since I drank human blood, probably close to a hundred and fifty years, give or take a decade. Our kind had made a pact to subsist off of animals, as the humans did, so they wouldn’t need to fear us. Boy, did that backfire.

My fiance, my family, my friends. Dead. Because the humans were afraid of a little blood.

I wandered through the hallways, and up and down staircases, like I always did. Truth be told, I liked having the soldiers come now. Relieved the boredom. I would invite them in for dinner if I didn’t think they’d run screaming.

When I came to the artwork room on the third floor, where I always wound up before going to bed, I sat on one of the settees and admired the paintings. Our family had been extremely artistic, mainly made up of painters, although we had a couple of sculptors and a weaver.

There were portraits of our ancestors in all of their vampiric glory, side by side with their families. Sometimes the family was all vampires. Others, vampires and humans. The really awkward ones were when the parents were both vampiric and one of the kids had the look of a human. Talk about tense family reunions.

Others were natural landscapes, pictures of our land before it had been overrun with darkness and despair. Sunlit meadows, glimmering lakes, proud mountaintops. The little cove where all of the lovers went in “secret.”

In the middle of the wall, opposite the door, was the largest painting of them all. It was my one and only work that was hung on these walls. It took me five months and pounds of paint to complete. There was one week toward the end where I didn’t sleep at all.

In the end, when everyone asked who the inspiration was, I didn’t know. The idea had come to my dreams one day, so vivid and detailed that I began sketching that instant.

The woman in the painting was the very definition of beauty and desire. She sat gracefully on a lounge chair, her curves barely concealed by the silk gown she wore, one that complimented her figure so well it was as if it had molded to her skin. And oh, her skin, like rich toffee, smooth and strong. Her hair, the color of black tourmaline, flowing over her shoulders like the Moon River. A shy smile, but sad, gray eyes that told of wisdom earned through pain.

Ever since I had painted her, I had fallen in love with her. Her look of pain made me want to kiss all of her worries away. However, I knew that it wasn’t possible for her to exist in real life. After all, she was just a dream.