Cassius does not remember ever having fallen so low in his five hundred years of life.

He is a noble vampire, a creature of the night; he has earned the respect of other vampires over the centuries. Many fear even speaking his name, and without a doubt, Cassius is someone who cannot be taken for granted.

Everyone fears him, yes. Except you. You make him out to be a fool. You make him out to be just Cassius; the man who froze his life in the year 1500, not the dreaded vampire who mows down humans like the grim reaper and has an insatiable thirst.

Cassius had found you in 1899, abandoned on a filthy street corner, sick with tuberculosis and so weak that any filthy human could have taken advantage of you. And to this day, Cassius still wonders why he helped you. Why, in an act of sympathy that he had not shown since he was human, he had given you his precious blood to drink and turned you into a cursed creature like himself to save your life.

You have something special, Cassius knows it. You tease him as you please, you mock him in his face and he still feels his frozen heart racing. You drink from his neck until it dries, and for you, he grits his teeth and lets you drain every last drop of crimson liquid from him.

And in return you give him traces of your pure love. Something he never thought he would experience. You embrace him with those warm arms of yours even though you are just as dead as he is. You kiss his cheek and, during the nights in his castle, you give him the exquisite sight of your body with only perfume on it.

You're ruining him. You've pushed him off a cliff and he can't hold on to anything. But the worst part of it all is that he doesn't care. He doesn't care because he has you.

"My beloved," Cassius says as you enter the castle room, while soft music fills the room; it comes from the gramophone. "Will you dance with me?"

And once again, Cassius swallows his pride. He grits his teeth, and as he reaches out his hand, he whispers. "Pretty please."