Amaryllis rushed to the door and pulled it open. She looked down the hallway to find Ulric and saw that he was almost to the stairs.

"Wait!" She called out.

The King stopped and slowly turned around to face her direction.

He looked at her with an unreadable expression.

"I wanted to thank you for saving me earlier," Amaryllis said while wringing her hands together in nervousness.

Amaryllis wasn't ever the outgoing type or the social one, so being in such situations made her slightly uncomfortable. Especially such a situation with the king of vampires.

"Something really bad could've happened if you weren't there," she said awkwardly. She reached up and brushed a hand through her hair.

The King stared down at her, intimidation searing through her body, but she didn't look away. She was entranced, by both his beauty and dominance.

"I wasn't down there for you little human. I could have easily let the boy rip you apart, but I chose to spare your meek life. Never forget that." He turned on his heel and walked away from the girl, an uneasy feeling in his stomach.

He told himself that he didn't regret what he had said to her.

Amaryllis dropped her head and walked back to the cell. She opened the door and quietly let it close shut.

Sitting down on the little bed, she wondered what was wrong with her. She didn't have friends when she lived at home for she was bullied for most of her life.

And now, she comes here only to be bullied and segregated from everyone else. Why did everyone hate her so much?

She stayed in her cell until Cameron, the girl she met on her first morning there, knocked on the door.

Amaryllis opened the door and relief rushed over her. She was thankful it was just Cameron and not the King or someone else.

"Hi, Amaryllis," Cameron said. "How are you this morning?"

"Oh, I'm good," Amaryllis said, not wanting to go into details about her early morning adventures.

Cameron nodded and then led that way out of the dungeon and to the dining hall that the humans used. Cameron walked in with her this time and they both took a seat at an empty table.

Heather and Danielle sat beside them. A few girls were at the long table in the back of the room finishing setting up breakfast. When they went back to the kitchen, a vampire guard started to dismiss tables to go up and get their food.

A smile graced Amaryllis's lips as she smelled the lovely scent of bacon. She hadn't had bacon in almost a year as meat wasn't exactly easy to get. If vampires weren't feeding off of blood, they were eating all of the meat.

A guard dismissed their table, but not before giving Cameron a once over. Cameron didn't notice. Amaryllis wasn't surprised though, out of the few human boys in the dining room, all of them had been looking at Cameron; she was absolutely beautiful.

Amaryllis walked to the table and grabbed plate and fork. She took two pancakes, a scoop of scrambled eggs, a piece of toast, and three pieces of bacon. She also poured herself a glass of orange juice at the end of the table.

She immediately dug in when they got back to their seats. She hadn't had a breakfast this nice in years.

"Good, isn't it?" Cameron asked when Amaryllis started scarfing down her food.

Amaryllis smiled and nodded. It was delicious.

"That's one good thing about being here," Cameron said. "They have great food."

However, Amaryllis's breakfast was ruined as she heard Kayla talking about the King at the next table over form her. Amaryllis could tell they had already done it as she saw the clothes Kayla was wearing the night before but did she really have to brag about it?

Amaryllis wasn't really a jealous or an angry person, but she felt herself growing angrier as Kayla continued talking about the King and how handsome he was and how good he was in bed.

She hated feeling that way, but she couldn't control it. It was like her body demanded her to feel possessive of Ulric.

When breakfast was over, the girls went on to do their chores, and Kayla thankfully went back to her quarters and not to the King's. Amaryllis walked down all of the long, winding hallways to get back to the dungeons.

She walked down the stairs and immediately began to shiver as the cold air wrapped around her body. It was absolutely freezing down there.

She looked up from her feet to the door of her cell.

I thought I closed the door, she thought to herself as her anxiety peaked.

She anxiously walked toward her room, afraid of who or what might be in there. She slowly peaked her head into the room and found King Ulric standing in the middle of it, looking like a giant in the small space.

She wasn't sure whether to be relieved or frightened.

The King turned around when she entered the room. Not only could he hear her rapid heart rate and breathing, but he could smell her from miles away. He could smell, hear, and sense her anywhere she was on his property.

Amaryllis looked up at him but quickly lowered her gaze down to the ground. She was intimidated.

"Amaryllis, what a lovely name," the King said out loud, but it sounded more as if he was talking to himself. How did he know her name, she wondered. She had never told him before and he had never asked.

"If only such a beautiful name was attached to a beautiful girl," he said, his judgemental eyes roaming her body in disgust.

Amaryllis felt embarrassed, ashamed even. She had been bullied by the way she looked before, but this time it hurt even worse. Why did he have to bully her for the way she looked?

She continued to stare at the floor as she awkwardly shifted her weight from foot to foot.

"Follow me," he said. He walked past Amaryllis, bumping into her shoulder. She would've fallen if she wasn't standing next to the wall.

She followed the King thought the hallways and corridors, before exiting the castle. They walked along a path into the woods. A few hundred yards back, there was a group of young vampires, all boys.

They were all sitting in a circle with two guards standing around them.

The King walked to the group and as he approached, all of the vampires bowed their heads in respect.

"Good morning gentlemen," Ulric said. The men all said good morning back in unison. As she got a closer look at the boys, they all appeared to be young, like the one that attacked her earlier. Her stomach dropped.

The King grabbed her arm and pulled her through the circle of boys to stand in the middle. Amaryllis didn't even have time to process what was happening before she felt a stinging pain on her arm.

She looked down to see three claw marks slashed through her arm. They weren't long, but they were deep enough to draw blood.

"We are going to test how ways these younglings can restrain themselves, especially with a meal right in front of them," the King said, and then he was gone.

The vampire guards backed away until they were so far away she could barely even see them. So now it was her, a bleeding human girl with a swarm of young male vampires around her.

Great, she thought as her face paled and she started becoming nauseous.

What Amaryllis didn't know was the King hadn't left, in fact, he was still there; watching and making sure they wouldn't attack his mate.

He wouldn't leave his mate to be feasted on by hungry vampires. He could reach her before one of the vampires could even stand up to attack her, for he was much faster and much stronger than any other vampire.

He just wanted her to know that he didn't care for her, that she was just another human to him and not his mate. He couldn't have a mate, especially not a weak little human.

Amaryllis stood in the middle of the group. Some of the boys stared at her with a horrifying hunger in their eyes, and some stared at the ground.

One, in particular, looked like he wanted to devour her whole. She wasn't sure why he hadn't yet.

She looked down at her arm, at the blood dripping from the wound. She inwardly sighed as she knew it was going to leave an ugly scar.

After thirty minutes of standing in the circle, Amaryllis grew bored and sat down. She was still wary of the vampires surrounding her, but she thought if they were that hungry they would have attacked by now.

Another thirty minutes passed before the King came back. He dismissed all of the boys, praising them for a job well done.

Then it was just Ulric and Amaryllis.

Amaryllis watched as Ulric's fangs extended. He bit into his wrist and then held his bloodied hand out for Amaryllis.

She looked at him in confusion. "Drink it. Hurry before it heals," he demanded.

She still continued to look up at him like he was crazy. Why on Earth would she drink his freaking blood, she wondered.

He wrapped his hand around Amaryllis's head and forced her mouth onto his wrist. She struggled against him, but then went still.

His blood seeped into her mouth. She didn't want to, but it was as if her body was working against her, and her mouth opened up.

The King pulled his wrist away, and Amaryllis was shocked to find it had already healed. She knew vampires had fast healing abilities, but she had never seen one heal that fast.

The pain in her arm was gone, so she looked down to inspect it. To her surprise, the wound was gone; no trace of it left behind.

"How..." she whispered.

"We can heal humans with our blood," Ulric stated.

"Let's go," he said. He walked back to the path that would lead them through the woods and back to the castle. Amaryllis followed him as she stared at his back in awe.