Ice In My Veins: Vampire Cohorts Universe Book One

"None of us really changes over time. We only become more fully what we are."

- The Vampire Lestat, 1985

- Anne Rice

What is the nature of change? As a vampire, I should know. I changed in ways most cannot even imagine. I started out as one thing; a creature of daylight, of aging, of hopes, and dreams that I would fill my fleeting existence with copious joy, so that when I found myself on the other side, I could say I lived well. Authentically, as myself. Then I became something else; a creature of darkness, of agelessness, of seduction and bloodlust, and an eternity where everything changed but me, in which I lost myself entirely.

Is there an irony to that? That I went through the biggest transition possible, and in the aftermath, I lost my ability to change at all. Was that an ending or a beginning?

In truth, it was neither.

Perhaps for others it is. Perhaps that first bite - the bite of a sire into their progeny's throat, or the bite of the progeny at their sire's wrist - maybe that is both an ending and a beginning. The catalyst that erases every plan that came before and opens the door to a different world; a world of shadow, hunger, strength, and predatory drives. Maybe for most, that moment is pivotal; the cornerstone of a convert's fate. Whether they choose to become vampire or have their humanity stolen against their will, it doesn't matter. Those moments of feeding and being fed are still defining... for anyone but me.

You see, my pivotal moment came nine months before my transition, on a cold December morning in fourteen eighty-four... The events of that day left me unable to walk, in a time before accessibility. My father tried to give me back my life, using forces he didn't understand. He condemned me to this eternity, unable to do any of the things I loved. Those first few centuries were unbearable, but even in the modern world isn't easy to navigate the night as a disabled immortal, especially when vampires with magic start turning up dead.