I leaned into the cold spray of the shower, my mind wildly buzzing from the event that had happened only moments before.

What. The. Hell.

I had a lot of questions flying through my head but those three words summed them all up pretty well.

What the hell did I just do?

Why did I just do it?

Why with her?

These questions kept repeating themselves in my head, even though I already knew the answer to all of them.

I knew the answers but part of me didn't want to know them.

But regardless of what I wanted the answers were as clear as day.

Frankly put, it was just because of her.

It was because I realized how absolutely stunning she looked in that dress. It was because of how she was looking at me as we danced, seeing the glee in her eyes when she would go a certain amount of time without stumbling.

It was because time decided to slow down the second time I twirled her, giving my body time to overtake my mind once again and decide that I was going to dip her.

It was because of how she gracefully hooked her hands behind my neck, like she was the master of an art that she had never tried before.

And that smile. That damn smile she gave me. That damn perfect smile.

That's where I lost it.

I let out a deep sigh, turning the water down to its coolest temperature.

I've been on this earth for over four centuries and never have I once felt something like that in regards to someone else.

Vampires are greedy creatures. We see something that we want and we take it. That's just how we work.

Of course, I've known this and lived through it for hundreds of years, but I've never felt it with that amount of power.

With that hard of a pull.

It felt like a bomb going off in my chest, engulfing my mind and coaxing it into just taking what I wanted.

And I almost did, but the fact of the matter caught me so off guard that I was able to stop myself.

I wanted a human. I wanted Khloe.

Why?

Yet another question that I already knew the answer too.

Khloe was almost everything that a female vampire wasn't.

Granted, due to my position in the family line, I was already set up for a disadvantage when it came to finding someone who didn't want me for the status they'd gain by marrying me.

Those female vampires were hubristic and full of themselves to the point where nothing anyone could say to them would fill their pride enough.

They had no problem flaunting the natural beauty our species gave them, and they knew how to use that to their advantage. Or at least they knew how to try.

I'd seen it enough times and I was tired of it, knowing what they were truly after.

Not to mention that most of them would go to any extent to get what they wanted. Even if it meant going batshit crazy.

Khloe was the complete opposite. She was selfless and delicate. Seemingly oblivious to the beauty that she had.

She was kindhearted and has never once done something against anyone else for her own personal gain.

She was so different from every vampire and human that I've encountered and for some reason I was drawn to that.

I wanted to give her the things that I knew she would never ask for.

I felt my nails dig into the skin of my palm as anger began to fill my mind.

I was drawn to the one thing I couldn't have.

I was drawn to the person that I promised to kill when the time came

I was drawn to a fucking human.

The freezing water running down my skin was doing nothing to ease my anger.

An aggravated groan passed my lips as I took a step back away from the water.

What the hell was I supposed to do now? I couldn't just ignore it.

Now that I wanted her, there was no ignoring it.

But there was no acting upon it either.

No matter how I felt, humans were below us and they were to be treated as such. That's how the world worked.

Somehow I needed to figure out something but I needed to get myself in check first.

My wants had entered me into a dangerous situation, one that no one else could ever know about.

Including Khloe.

God, I can't even begin to imagine what she must be thinking right now.

What would she even begin to think?

Knowing her, whatever it was, she was going to keep it to herself, and that was probably for the best at this point.

I reached forward, turning off the water.

Maybe she should just forget about it. It would be better like that, just pretending that it never happened.

Pretend that something as unusual as what just happened never happened in the first place.

That would keep her from any sort of danger until I figured this out.

The problem is, I didn't even know where to begin.