As a child, she had always heard the make-believe stories. The ones about witches, and vampires, and werewolves, and goblins. No one actually believed in those stories. How could such mythical creatures be real? But what if they were real?

Amaryllis Tait Westbay never believed those stories, not even when her older brother Luca tried to scare her. As she got older, she enjoyed reading the fictional romance novels based on supernatural creatures, but she still never believed. Bloodsucking creatures that looked like humans with blazing red eyes were simply not real in her mind. However, Amaryllis could not have been farther from the truth.

Ulric Nixon Posillico had been the King of the vampires for three centuries. He took the throne on his twenty-fifth birthday, the time in which royal vampires stop aging. The non-royal or regular vampires stopped aging on their twenty-third birthday. His parents had ruled for four centuries before he obtained power, but they wished to step down and spend more time with each other.

For two hundred years, no one in his kingdom had seen even the slightest form of a possible smile. Ulric was an emotionless, stone cold, hard man. He had only cared for a select few people in his life, and even that number had dwindled over the years.

His kingdom loved him and respected him, but never talked back or disobeyed for they wanted to continue living. He was a powerful and vicious man, feared but held to high respect by all. Ulric protected his people and would lay down his life to protect them if needed. No one would ever be strong enough to kill Ulric though, for he was the vampire king.

As the years went by, his aggravation toward past wounds manifested themselves into a dark, twisted reality. He couldn't be bothered to love or take interest in another.

His violent tendencies grew and so did his anger. He took his anger out on humans, a species Ulric believed to be weak and inferior to vampires. Soon his empire had grown all over the world and the vampires had taken over.

The humans were treated awfully by the vampires. They were given strict laws to live by and if they disobeyed, a vampire would love to drain the blood from their body. All the humans in the world were forced to live in small towns around the countries. They were forced to live in such small towns in order for the vampires to keep them contained and under their control.

Once a year, the vampire king went around the United States - that is where the Kingdom is based - to a different town. He gathered all girls from ages sixteen to twenty-four from the town. The girls were forced to stand in a line, while the King observed them to decide who he would pick. He would pick the girls he deemed best to be his servants, whether that be a cook, a cleaner, a farm hand, a blood source for royals, or his own personal plaything. No girl that was picked ever came back.

Now it is Amaryllis' turn. She is a very sheltered and innocent eighteen-year-old girl. Ever since the vampires had taken over when she was eight, her father had kept her under strict house arrest. Amaryllis did not have a problem with that though, as she didn't want to be outside where the bloodsuckers could get her. But now that the king has come, there is not much she can do to stay away from them.