Vampires Will Never Hurt You

Prologue

Izzy ran to Simon's side when he dropped to the ground.

Despite being a vampire, he had never looked quite so lifeless. All of the color was drained from him, making his skin appear almost grey. She lifted his head in her lap, lightly hitting at his face to try to get him to wake up.

When the Seelie Queen informed her that Simon would need blood to survive, she immediately searched for something sharp. She took a blade from Meliorn, not even bothering to ask for permission. She didn't have a moment to spare; her friend was dying. With the blade, she drew blood from her own palm and then clasped her fingers around her hand and allowed the blood to drip into Simon's mouth. Nothing. No response.

"Simon, you have to come back to me. You have so much to live for," she said, as if talking to him in his state of unconsciousness would somehow coax him back to her.

A sigh of relief escaped her lips when she first saw Simon move, coughing slightly and attempting to turn his head away as to stop drinking her blood. Guilt.

"Keep drinking. You need your strength," Izzy said.

"He's going to need a lot more blood than that to survive," the Seelie Queen informed.

That was when the Shadowhunter was faced with a unique crisis. The only way to save Simon would be to relapse. She looked at Simon who was on the verge of death simply because he was willing to risk his own life to protect the people that he loved. He was selfless, so she had to be selfless too.

She rolled up her sleeve, exposing her bare wrist and moving it toward Simon's mouth.

"Simon, you have to bite me," she said, trying to mask the panic in her voice.

Simon shook his head in protest.

"No, the venom. I️ can't," he breathed through fangs.

Despite her own uncertainty, Isabelle assured the vampire that it was okay, urging him to drink. He still refused.

She moved her wrist closer, hoping that he would budge, but he inside turned his head away in resistance.

Desperate, she took Meliorn's blade and made a tiny cut in her wrist, just enough to draw blood in hopes of tempting Simon enough to give in. Simon clenched his jaw, closing his mouth. He was determined. Even when the nephilim blood was right against his lips he didn't drink. After seeing all that his mother had gone through with addiction, he couldn't do that Izzy. No one deserved that.

Instead, he allowed his eyes to shut, no longer resistant to the looming possibility of death. Before, his body had ached, but eventually he began to feel numb before peacefully drifting out of consciousness.

Izzy attempt to wake him up again, escalating from gentle words of encouragement to borderline screaming. She wasn't planning on giving up on him, which made it even more heartbreaking when he turned to dust in her arms.