I'm the Vampire Professor's Assistant, And He's Claiming Me As His Own

The lecture hall was stuffy, smelling of old paper and the damp wool of a hundred coats. Evie sat in the third row, her notebook open but her pen still. The guest speaker, Dr. Alaric Morgan, stood at the podium, a stark figure in the warm, dim light. He wasn't what she'd expected. The flyer had promised a visiting historian, an expert in medieval superstitions. She’d pictured a stooped, tweed-wearing academic.

Morgan was anything but. He was tall and unnaturally still, dressed in a dark, tailored suit that seemed more appropriate for a funeral than a university lecture. His face was a study in sharp angles—high cheekbones, a severe jawline—and his skin was so pale it looked like polished bone under the spotlights. But it was his eyes that held her. They were dark, almost black, and they didn't just scan the room; they seemed to pierce through the gloom and pin each student to their seat.

His voice was a low, resonant baritone, each word articulated with a precision that felt ancient. He spoke of strigoi, of the Nachzehrer, of the draugr, not as forgotten myths but as tangible fears that had shaped the very psyche of medieval Europe. He didn't use slides or notes, simply stood there, his hands resting lightly on the podium, weaving a narrative that was both academic and deeply unsettling. He glided over the material with an intimacy that felt less like study and more like memory.

"The fear," he said, his gaze sweeping over the audience before it snagged on Evie’s, "was not simply of death. It was of a perversion of life. An existence outside of God's grace, outside of the warmth of the sun, driven by a singular, insatiable thirst."

The air in Evie’s lungs felt thin. He was looking right at her, as if he’d plucked the half-formed question from her mind. Her heart hammered against her ribs, a frantic, stupid rhythm. Before she could stop herself, her hand was in the air.

Morgan’s lips curved in a smile that held no warmth. "Yes, Miss...?"

"Evie," she managed, her voice feeling small. "Evie Rowe. You speak of the thirst as a metaphor, but in the accounts... the folklore... it’s so literal. Was it the fear of being consumed that was the most potent? The loss of self, of blood, of life?"

He didn't look away. The intensity of his stare was a physical weight, pressing her into her chair. The rest of the lecture hall, the other students, her own professor nodding in the front row—it all faded into a dull, peripheral blur. There was only him.

"Fear of being consumed is elemental, Miss Rowe," he answered, his voice dropping, becoming a confidential murmur that seemed to cross the space between them in an instant. "But the true terror, the one that lingers in the quiet hours of the night, is not the fear of being prey. It is the secret, shameful longing to be the one who consumes. To have that power. To shed the frailty of your own flesh and blood and command the darkness, rather than hide from it." His eyes bore into hers, and she felt a hot, mortifying blush creep up her neck. It was as if he’d reached into her chest and exposed the most restless, hungry part of her soul. "Is it not?"

The spell broke. The overhead fluorescent lights flickered on, washing the lecture hall in a flat, sterile white. The murmur of students gathering their belongings filled the sudden silence. Evie blinked, feeling as though she’d surfaced from a deep dive. Her heart was still pounding a heavy, thick rhythm against her ribs. Morgan gave a slight, formal nod to the room and stepped away from the podium, melting into the shadows at the side of the stage as if he were made of them.

Professor Albright, a round, cheerful man whose tweed jacket was a familiar campus fixture, took his place. "A round of applause for Dr. Morgan, please!" he boomed, clapping enthusiastically. The applause was scattered, a bit dazed. "Now, before you all rush off," Albright continued, "Dr. Morgan has generously agreed to take on a student research assistant for the duration of his month-long residency. This is a rare opportunity."

Evie’s attention snapped back into focus.

"The work will be intensive," Albright warned, a twinkle in his eye. "We're talking late nights. Very late nights. Dr. Morgan's research requires access to the oldest collections in the Atherton Library archives—materials that can only be handled after hours. It's a paid position, of course. Anyone interested, please form a line here to my right to submit a brief application."

A current went through her, sharp and decisive. It wasn't a choice. It was a compulsion, a gravitational pull toward the dark figure still standing just out of the main light. She had to know more. She had to understand the unnerving resonance of his words, the feeling that he hadn't been lecturing about folklore, but delivering a confession she was meant to hear.

She grabbed a form from the stack Professor Albright held out and quickly filled in her details, her handwriting barely legible. A short line of other keen folklore majors had already formed, and Evie took her place at the end, her stomach twisting. She watched as Morgan spoke briefly to each student, his posture relaxed but radiating an aura of absolute authority. He took their papers, his gaze sweeping over them with an unnerving, evaluative intensity.

When it was her turn, the air grew thick. He turned his full attention to her, and the other students, the lecture hall, the entire world seemed to fall away again. There was only the silent space between them.

"Miss Rowe," he said. It wasn't a question.

"Dr. Morgan," she replied, her voice steady despite the tremor in her hands as she held out the application form.

He didn't look at the paper. His eyes, dark and depthless, held hers. He reached for the form, his movements economical and precise. As he took it, the tips of his long, pale fingers deliberately brushed against the back of her hand.

The contact was a shock. It wasn't just cool; it was a deep, penetrating cold, like touching a marble statue that had been left in the winter dark for a century. The coldness was absolute, devoid of any trace of human warmth. A jolt, sharp and electric, shot up her arm, making her gasp. It was over in a second. He had the paper, his fingers no longer touching hers, but the ghost of that impossible cold and the phantom current of that shock lingered on her skin, a brand she could feel sinking all the way to her bones.

He held her gaze for a moment longer, a flicker of something unreadable in the black depths of his eyes, before he gave a curt nod and turned to the next student. Evie walked away in a daze, the cold spot on her hand burning like a brand.

Two days later, she received the email. The position was hers. Her first night was to be that Friday, 10 p.m.

The Atherton Library was a tomb after hours. The great vaulted ceilings swallowed the sound of her footsteps, and the only light came from a few green-shaded lamps casting pools of lonely yellow onto the massive oak tables. Morgan was already there, standing in the entrance to the rare manuscripts archive, a section of the library Evie had only ever read about. He wasn't leaning against the iron gate or waiting; he was simply present, a statue carved from shadow and stillness.

"Miss Rowe," he greeted her, his voice the same low resonance that had captivated her in the lecture hall. He unlocked the gate with an ornate iron key, the sound of the tumblers echoing loudly in the silence.

The air inside was thick with the scent of decaying paper and leather. Metal shelves stretched up into the darkness, packed tight with forgotten knowledge. For the first two hours, they worked in near silence. He directed her to a specific codex, a 16th-century treatise on demonology, and she carefully carried it to a reading table. He never seemed to move in a conventional way. She would look down at her notes, and when she looked up, he would be in a different aisle, his back to her, examining a spine. There was no sound of footsteps, no rustle of clothing. He didn't glide; he simply ceased to be in one place and appeared in another. She'd brought a thermos of coffee and a bottle of water for herself, but he consumed nothing, waved away her offer with a dismissive, almost contemptuous flick of his fingers.

Her task was to find any cross-references to a specific Romanian clan name. It required her to use one of the tall, rolling ladders to access the upper shelves. The particular shelf Morgan had indicated was ancient and overburdened, the wood groaning softly even under its own weight. She found the section she needed, her fingers tracing the faded gilt on a heavy, leather-bound volume. As she tried to work it free from the tightly packed row, it resisted. She gave a firmer tug.

There was a sickening crack of splintering wood. The entire bookshelf, a towering monolith of oak and paper weighing hundreds of pounds, tilted away from the wall. Time seemed to warp, slowing to a crawl as she saw the top edge begin its inexorable arc downward, directly toward her. A scream caught in her throat, a useless, pathetic sound.

Morgan had been thirty feet away, across the main reading area, examining a manuscript under a desk lamp.

In the space between one frantic heartbeat and the next, he was there. Not a blur, not a rush of movement. He was simply in front of her, his back to her, one hand braced flat against the falling shelf. The immense weight met his palm with a deafening groan of stressed wood, and then silence. It stopped dead. The force should have pulped his arm, shattered every bone from his fingers to his shoulder. He didn't even grunt. He held the entire, massive structure with the casual ease of a man leaning against a wall.

Slowly, with immense control, he pushed it back into place. It settled with a final, shuddering thud.

The silence that followed was absolute, broken only by the frantic, panicked drumming of Evie’s own heart. She was clinging to the ladder, her knuckles white. She stared, breathless, at his back.

He turned, his face a mask of cold composure, though his eyes burned with a dark, dangerous light. "You should be more careful, Miss Rowe," he said, his voice a low, chilling whisper in the sudden stillness. "These old things are treacherous." He looked at her wide, terrified eyes, the way her chest heaved. A ghost of a smile touched his lips. "Adrenaline is a remarkable chemical."