#vampress

🦇 vampiremichael x fem!reader

🧛🏻 You work as a maid for Michael Jackson. After retiring from his music career he vanished from the public eye living hidden in the dark woods under the name "Maestro." Over time your maid role brought you closer to him and bit by bit you found yourself falling in love. However you soon uncovered the heartbreaking truth behind his decision to disappear from the world forever.

a/n: I promiseeee I didn’t forget about this series. This was literally sitting in my drafts and I didn’t feel proofreading so :P also lmk if you wanna be removed and added to the tag list !

Taglist: @tojiswifeforlife , @zanyana626 , @heubstr , @moonaarts , @pyt03 , @ksavamp , @asillysimp

7 | reflection

June 1st 1997

Morning light pressed against the heavy drapes like a hand testing glass, the fabric holding back the day with the same quiet insistence Michael's arms held you securely.

You surfaced from sleep in fragments. The silk sheets pooled at your waist.

The air still carried sandalwood and the faint iron tang you were beginning to associate with him alone.

And there was warmth, surprising warmth, radiating from the bare chest pressed against your spine.

"You're awake," he murmured, and the vibration traveled through his ribs into your back.

"Barely." Your voice came out rough, unfamiliar to your own ears. You shifted, and every muscle registered its complaint.

"How long have you been watching me?" You asked.

A pause. "Longer than I should admit." Michael told you.

You turned in his arms. In the near-dark, his features were soft as charcoal sketches, the high cheekbones, the dark sweep of hair, the eyes that caught what little light existed and held it. One corner of his mouth curved upward.

"Last night was..." You searched for the word.

"Yes," he agreed, and there was something boyish in the satisfaction. "It was."

A laugh bubbled out of you, startling in its ease. You hadn't expected to laugh this morning.

You hadn't expected to feel this comfortable, tangled in your employer's sheets, your uniform somewhere on the floor with its buttons scattered to the corners of the room.

"It's been a long time," Michael said. His fingers traced idle patterns on your shoulder blade, slow loops that made your skin prickle. "Since I've done that. With anyone."

You propped yourself on one elbow. "A long time being what, exactly?"

"Longer than you'd believe."

The cryptic answer should have irritated you. Instead, you filed it away with all the other oddities, the way the candles had seemed to light themselves, the impossible darkness of the room despite the hour, the metallic note in the air that never quite dissipated.

"So this is a regular thing for you," you said. "Asking the maid to stay the night."

His hand stilled. "No. This is not a regular thing."

"Then what is it?"

"Complicated." The word fell heavy between you. "You make it complicated."

You didn't know whether to be flattered or alarmed. Before you could decide, your stomach tightened with something that wasn't quite hunger and wasn't quite nausea, a strange hollow ache that had been flickering on and off for days. The mark on your neck pulsed faintly.

"What about the other women?" you pressed, ignoring the sensation. "The ones before the long drought."

Michael shifted, and the sheet slipped, revealing the pale expanse of his chest, the lean muscle that seemed carved rather than built.

"There have been women. Not many. None in this house."

"Why not?"

"Because I've been careful." He said it without pride, something heavier beneath the word. "Perhaps too careful."

You filed that away too.

"So you just say it," you said, changing tack suddenly. "You just say sex without flinching."

"Should I flinch?"

"Most people do. Or they use other words. Euphemisms."

"I'm not most people." The statement landed without arrogance.

"Words are words. Hiding behind them doesn't change what they mean."

You just started at him.

He tilted his head. "Does it bother you?"

"It makes me blush."

The smile returned, sharper now. "I know. That's why I do it."

You swatted his shoulder, and the gesture felt dangerously domestic. He caught your wrist, his thumb pressing against the flutter of your pulse, and for a moment his eyes flickered, that same shift you'd seen on the terrace, pupils widening, something ancient surfacing.

Then he released you.

"The bathroom," you said, sitting up and holding the sheet to your chest. "I need to use it."

"It's the single door." He points.

Your bare feet met the floor, cold stone beneath the rug. The room was darker than it should be for morning, the drapes so thick they seemed to swallow ambient light rather than simply block it. You crossed to the window and reached for the cord.

"Wait, don't."

The word came quick and sharp.

You turned. Michael had risen to one elbow, his face unreadable.

"I get headaches," he said, softer now. "Bad ones. The light makes it worse."

Your hand dropped. "You should have said something earlier. I've been opening curtains in this house for weeks."

"It's only bad in the mornings I guess."

You nodded and found the bathroom door, pushing through into more darkness until your fingers located a switch.

A single bulb flickered to life above the sink, casting weak yellow light on marble and brass and—

Nothing.

The wall where the mirror should have been was bare. You could see the brackets, the faint outline where a frame had once hung, but the space was empty.

The mirror was deliberately absent, as though mirrors had never been part of this room's design.

You used the toilet, washed your hands, and stood there in the humming silence, staring at the blank wall.

When you returned to the bedroom, Michael hadn't moved.

"There's no mirror in your bathroom."

"I'm aware."

"Why?"

He was quiet for a long moment. "There's nothing to see."

The phrase landed oddly. Every bathroom had a mirror. Every person needed a mirror to shave, to check their reflection. The absence felt intentional almost.

"What does that mean?" you asked.

"It means exactly what I said it means." He sat up fully now, the sheet pooling around his waist. In the gloom, his skin seemed to absorb the shadows rather than reflect them.

"You should get ready. The other maids will arrive soon, and it might raise questions if you're seen leaving my bedroom."

Deflective. You recognized the tactic because you'd used it yourself.

You gathered your ruined uniform from the floor, holding the torn fabric together as best you could.

"I'll need to change before I start my duties."

"There's a robe in the armoire. Take it."

The armoire was massive, carved from dark wood, its handles cold beneath your fingers.

Inside hung garments in shades of black and burgundy and deep purple velvets and silks that whispered of another century.

A robe of midnight satin hung at the front. You pulled it around your shoulders, and it smelled of him.

"About the bites," you said, turning back. You kept your tone light, teasing. "They hurt, you know. A little warning next time might be nice."

But Michael's expression shifted instantly, the playfulness draining away.

He rose and crossed to you in three long strides, his fingers tilting your chin upward, his gaze fixed on your throat.

"Let me see."

"It was a joke, Michael. I wasn't—"

"Let me see."

You tilted your head, baring the curve of your neck. His breath caught.

His fingertips hovered over the spot without touching, and then very gently, so gently you barely felt it, he traced the edges of the wound.

"It's bruising," he said, and his voice had gone hollow. "I was too rough. I should have controlled myself better."

"It's just a bruise. It'll heal."

"That's not the point."

He stepped back, and the distance between you felt suddenly enormous. His hands hung at his sides, those elegant fingers curled inward.

The candlelight from last night had been kind to his face; the darkness was not.

"I apologize," he said formally. "I should not have done it."

"You already apologized. Last night. I didn't ask you to stop then, and I'm not asking now."

"That doesn't make it right."

You didn't know how to answer that. You'd assumed the biting was a kink, unusual  but not outside the realm of things wealthy, eccentric men might request behind closed doors.

Blood was just another fluid, wasn't it? Just another threshold crossed in the dark.

"It's fine," you said finally. "Really. I'm not fragile."

Something flickered across his face.

"No," he said. "You're not."

You slipped out of the bedroom, clutching the robe closed, your ruined uniform bundled under one arm. The corridor was empty.

The house still slept, heavy and silent, the way old houses do in the early hours.

You made your way to the servants' quarters, found your spare uniform, and dressed quickly, your fingers working the buttons with practiced efficiency.

The mark on your neck was hidden by your collar. The ache in your muscles was yours alone.

Downstairs, the kitchen was already stirring, the cook was setting out pans, and you could hear the distant clatter of the other maids arriving through the service entrance.

You joined them, and no one looked at you twice. No one asked where you'd spent the night. The routine swallowed you whole, as routines do.

Upstairs, in the bedroom that still smelled of sandalwood and sex and something metallic, Michael stood exactly where you'd left him.

He stared at the rumpled sheets. At the faint rust-colored smear on the pillowcase, his own doing, his own weakness. At the robe missing from his armoire.

She doesn't know.

The thought circled like a wolf.

She doesn't know what she's letting into her body. What's already there.

He pressed his palm against his chest, where no heartbeat answered the pressure. The blood he'd taken from you hummed inside him still warm and vital and impossibly sweet.

He could feel you moving through the house, a bright thread in the tapestry of his awareness.

Connected and claimed now, even if you didn't understand the terms of the claiming.

He should tell you. He should sit you down and explain what he was. What the bite meant.

What would happen if he did it again, how many more times before the change became irreversible, before the sun became your enemy and your reflection became a memory.

But if he told you, you might leave.

And if you left.

His fingers found the mark his fangs had left on your throat, tracing the phantom shape in the empty air.

🩸 Blood Type: Blended 🩸 I’ve wanted to remake this one for a long time — the original (from 2018) had some wonky bits, especially with her drink design and the angle.

Digital drawing of my vampire oc, her name is Vanian🖤