My Vampire King Husband Died on Our Wedding Night? novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: Don't Say Yes
Imogen is about to accept a ring on a crowded terrace when messages warn that her husband is only dormant; she slaps the suitor and sees the duke's message on her best friend's phone.
Bryson Straker went down on one knee in the middle of a crowded rooftop restaurant, and every table turned to watch.
My best friend, Pippa, stood three feet away with her phone raised to film it.
"Say yes, Imogen," she called. "Everyone's waiting."
I was holding out my left hand for the ring when words slid across the air in front of my eyes.
[DON'T SAY YES! Edmund isn't dead. He's dormant!]
I blinked, and they were still there, in pale letters over Bryson's bent head.
[When a vampire feels too much, his body shuts down. It looks exactly like dying. Say yes to this man and he wakes up knowing.]
My husband, Edmund Brabazon, king of the vampires, had died in our bed on our wedding night.
I was twenty-seven.
The dukes and ministers had pronounced him dead, and I had stood at the altar while they laid him in a glass coffin in the crypt chapel.
I was queen of a court that hated me, with a royal fortune and nobody to share it with.
Everyone had told me to take the money and find another husband.
Pippa had found me one.
Bryson was human, thirty, warm and attentive, and he had never once asked me about the money.
I had liked him.
I had not loved him, and I had never said I did.
[She told you he was the safe choice. She picked him. They're together. Look at her hand.]
Pippa's free hand was resting on her stomach.
She was not looking at me.
She was looking at Bryson, and her whole face was soft.
I had known her ten years, and I had never seen her look at me like that.
[Edmund's soul has been beside you every minute. He's seen every dinner you ate with this man.]
My arms went cold from the shoulders down.
[He wakes in three days. Betray him and you're the first person he kills.]
Bryson's smile wobbled.
"Imogen? Your hand?"
I looked at the ring in the velvet box.
It was a big square diamond on a thin band, and it was beautiful.
I thought, if this is a joke, it's a very strange one.
Then I thought, if it isn't, I am about to slide my death onto my own finger.
So I did the only thing I could think of that couldn't be undone.
I slapped him.
The sound cracked across the terrace, and a fork dropped somewhere behind me.
Bryson's head turned with it.
When he looked back, his face had gone ugly and red, and his voice rose.
"What the hell is wrong with you? I'm proposing! In front of everyone!"
A woman at the next table gasped.
Pippa lowered her phone.
"Imogen," she said, in the gentle voice she used when I cried. "Sweetheart. You've been telling me for weeks you wanted this."
"I told you I liked dinner with him," I said.
"You said you wanted to marry him."
"When?"
Her mouth opened and closed.
I had never heard her say that to me before.
I realized she had said it to someone else, and said it so many times that she believed I had said it first.
[Look at the ring. It's her size, not yours. He'll say he was nervous.]
I snatched the box out of Bryson's hand.
The ring was too big for my knuckle by a full size.
I took Pippa's left hand, and before she could pull away I pushed it onto her ring finger.
It slid down and stopped, snug against the base.
A perfect fit.
Somebody at the next table laughed out loud.
Bryson's face went through three expressions in one second.
"I've never bought a ring before," he said. "I was nervous. I got the size wrong."
It was the exact excuse the letters had promised, almost word for word.
My heart was pounding so hard I could hear it.
I had only ever trusted two things since the funeral: my own good sense, and Pippa.
One of them had just failed a test in front of sixty strangers.
I thought about the glass coffin and the pale face behind it.
I thought, what if it's true?
Then I thought about Edmund finding out I had said yes.
I put my hand flat on the table so no one would see it shake.
"You've both misunderstood me," I said.
My voice came out colder than I felt.
"I never loved Bryson, and I'm not going to marry him."
Pippa took the ring off slowly and set it in the box as if she were setting down something that might bite.
Her phone buzzed against her palm.
She glanced down at it, and for half a second I saw the screen light up before she turned it over.
A name, one letter, and a short line.
R: Did she say yes?
[R is Duke Rooke. He wants the crown. Pippa's been feeding him everything.]
I looked at my best friend, and she was already smiling again.
Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend