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Do not fall in love with the vampire.

Failed already, did you?

It’s all right. Maybe you didn’t know he was a vampire (you suspected). Maybe he hid it from you well (there were signs). Perhaps he was disarmingly clumsy and ridiculously beautiful (we all make mistakes).

If you must fall in love with the vampire, at least start off with the assumption that he is human. It’s an easy conclusion to draw; vampires cannot walk in the daylight, and he can. Vampires have no reflection, and you’ve seen him in mirrors and windowpanes.

Though not every vampire is the same. Not all are tied to the night. Some, those strong enough—but how could you have suspected him?

But you did let down your guard, you did. Even when he pretended to eat and drink, you thought… Does it matter what you thought?

Foolish prince. Foolish child. You thought your manservant a friend. A miscalculation that has since cost you.

You meet him on a blustery spring night, when they behead that vampire in the courtyard. Vampires are executed at night for two reasons. During the day, they catch fire, and the last thing anyone needs is the thatched roofs of Camelot catching. And it’s a show of force, of fierceness: we will not surrender the night to you. (Forget that every other night, Camelot shutters. The poor souls who do venture out carry with them stakes and garlic and swords. And they hope not to be caught with their tunics down around their necks.)

That execution is a mess, as it turns out. His sire screams and wails and disappears before she can be caught. And, yes, that is the night you first notice him. The night he walks into your life, all white teeth and blue, blue eyes.

You see him in the crowd, lit up by the torches.

And then he saves your life.

There’s another rule. Never let yourself become indebted to a vampire.

But you do, and then he’s your manservant, and you know nothing. You know nothing.

He’s with you through it all. Through the vampires and the werewolves and the witches. He’s your right hand, your anchor, your manservant, your friend. Again, again, do not befriend your servant. Let no one in. Guard your heart like a princess in a tower.

But he disarms you, he does, with his jokes and his foolishness and his unerring loyalty. And even when you hunt a vampire that can walk in sunlight, and learn that there are those more powerful than the rest, you never think he could be one of them.

How could he?

Even when the castle rats show up drained of blood, and it’s clear that something’s been feeding, you never think—

How could you?

He is there every morning, with a cheerful, “Up and at ‘em,” and a swish of your blankets. He tends your fire and draws your bath. When he bathes you, he is gentle. When he dresses you for war, he handles the gauntlets and the hauberk and the sword as though they are pieces of you. As though they are precious to him.

And when you come across that vampire feeding on an innocent in the forest, he is there almost before you, grabbing the vampire himself, pulling it away. He kills it himself with a stake through the heart. It writhes and dies, and you see the expression on his face. No love for this vampire, no love at all.

Sometimes he scares you. When he looks past you, as though he is seeing things you can’t imagine. When he speaks, sometimes, of things you know nothing about. Strange lands, strange people. Things he said he’s learned from the court physician, his guardian of sorts.

And then there is the kiss. One night, on patrol, just the two of you, up against a wall. Hard and fast and too many teeth. Should you have known then? When he ripped himself away, panting? The two of you never spoke of it again. But should you have known that more than one part of him was rising?

So many questions. Too many questions. You’ll drive yourself mad if you keep running it over and over in your head. It’s insanity.

Part of you knows you couldn’t have known. And yet.

When those rumors come, about the vampire Emrys. Most powerful of the vampires, embedded in court. Almost two-hundred years old and only gaining in strength. You never think of him.

You do your best to root out this Emrys. Double patrols, start stopping passersby and listening for heartbeats. Yet you never take his wrist in yours and seek out that all important squeeze and release of life.

And when he looks at you with something like hunger, you thought—you think it is something else. A different sort of hunger. And maybe it is, but maybe not. That darkness in his eyes surely has a different meaning for him than for you. Later you wonder if he was listening to your heartbeat. If it quickened the fluid to his mouth, almost made him feel alive.

What does it matter? Because you know, now.

It happens on a blustery spring night, so similar to the one on which you met him. A vampire attack on patrol, just you and him in the woods. Just you and him and then another, a vampire with yellow hair and yellow fangs, who lunges for you. And you are not quick enough, you do not draw fast enough, and he saves you.

Perhaps it is the shock, or the fear. Perhaps he is tired of hiding. But when that vampire comes for you, the man you thought you knew transforms. He roars and lunges. There are fangs involved.

It is over quickly. His fangs ripping out the other vampire’s throat. His eyes, golden in the moonlight. He reaches for you, afterwards, and you back away.

“Arthur,” he says. “Please.”

And you look back at him, this creature, this thing. All of him shaking with bloodlust. You think he will come for you, then, but he doesn’t. He holds back. He says, again, your name.

And you, oh Gods. You love him. You love him.

That is your first mistake.