His Vampire Heart Never Beat for Me novel · Chapter 1 of 12
Chapter 1: The Altar
I went to the cathedral early, the day before my wedding, to learn the path to the altar.
I liked to arrive before everyone else at the places where I was going to be happy.
It was six in the evening on a Tuesday in February, and the sky over Cusco was heavy with black clouds.
In the Plaza de Armas, the rain was starting to fall in fat drops, and tourists were running to take shelter under the arcades.
I pushed open the cathedral's side door with my shoulder.
It was dark, cold, and empty.
It smelled of wax and wet stone.
I walked down the central nave in my cotton dress, my bag slung over my shoulder.
I looked at the golden altarpieces, the painting of the Lord of the Earthquakes, and the carved wooden choir.
I had a knot of nerves and excitement in my stomach.
Tomorrow at this hour, I'd be married to Reinaldo Ayala.
Thirty years old, an engineer, with a salesman's smile.
We'd been together for four years.
My stepmother used to say it was "a stroke of luck" that a man like him had chosen me.
I was almost at the altar when I heard the noise.
A gasp.
A stifled giggle.
The rustle of fabric.
I stopped.
I thought of tourists, of a clumsy couple.
I kept walking, without thinking.
I turned the corner of a column.
And I saw them.
On the high altar, on the white cloth embroidered with gold that I myself had helped restore last year, was my fiancé.
His pants were around his ankles.
Beneath him, her legs wrapped around his waist and her dress hiked up to her chest, was my stepsister.
Luciana.
Twenty-seven years old, loose chestnut hair, her face buried in his shoulder.
She was moaning his name in a low voice.
Reinaldo, not mine.
My bag slipped from my hands.
The noise echoed through the empty nave.
They both froze.
Luciana turned her head.
She looked me in the eyes with a slow smile, without a shred of shame.
She said nothing.
Reinaldo pulled away from her with a grunt of annoyance.
He pulled up his pants, unhurried.
"Abril."
"What is this?"
"It's not what it looks like."
"It's exactly what it looks like."
I said it in a voice I didn't recognize.
Luciana climbed down from the altar and straightened her dress calmly, smoothing it with her palms.
"Sister," she said, with a sugary sweetness. "Don't get upset."
"Shut up."
"It was a moment of impulse. The emotions of the day before..."
"Shut up!"
My scream bounced off the vaulted ceilings.
Reinaldo took a step toward me.
"Don't make a scene, Abril. We're in a church."
"You were on the altar!"
"Yeah, well." He shrugged. "It's done."
"It's done?"
"I'm not going to apologize."
I stared at him.
I thought I'd misheard.
"What?"
"I'm not going to apologize. And I'm not going to pretend I'm sorry."
He ran a hand through his hair with a bored gesture.
"You're a good person, Abril, and very hardworking. But you're boring."
"Luciana knows what she wants."
Luciana rested her head on his arm.
"You were always the smarter one," she whispered.
I felt something inside me break.
It wasn't pain.
It was a sound, like a beam crashing down.
"The wedding is off," I said.
"No."
"What do you mean, no?"
"The wedding happens tomorrow, as planned. With her by my side, in your place."
Reinaldo spoke so matter-of-factly that it took me a moment to understand.
"The venue is booked. The guests already bought their tickets. I'm not losing forty thousand soles over a tantrum."
"Reinaldo..."
"If you want to come, you come as a bridesmaid. If not, don't come."
Luciana smiled.
"It would be nice if you were there."
I don't remember how I got out.
I remember the heavy wooden door, and Reinaldo's hands on my back pushing me out.
I remember him saying "don't come back until you've calmed down" and the door slamming shut.
I remember the black sky and the storm breaking.
A bolt of lightning crossed the plaza.
The rain fell like a curtain.
I stood on the sidewalk, soaked within three seconds, no umbrella, my cotton dress clinging to my body.
I walked.
I don't know where.
My shoes filled with mud.
When I reached the arch on Calle Triunfo, my legs gave out.
I let myself fall onto the cobblestones, against a stone wall, my head between my knees.
And I cried.
I cried for four years.
I cried for the white dress hanging in my closet.
I cried for my mother, dead ten years, who had told me to never accept less than I deserved.
The rain pounded my back.
Someone stopped in front of me.
I saw black shoes, immaculate, that weren't getting wet.
A long, pale hand reached toward my face.
"Miss."
I looked up.
A tall man in a long, dark coat was looking down at me.
He had black hair, very pale skin, and eyes of an amber almost gold, strange, glowing in the dimness.
The rain fell around him, but it didn't touch his clothes.
"I've been searching for you for centuries," he said.
His voice was deep and soft.
He crouched down, lifted me into his arms as if I weighed nothing, and held me against his chest.
He was cold, but his embrace was firm.
"You don't have to walk alone anymore, Abril."
I hadn't told him my name.
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