"Excuse me? Excuse me, sir? You can't just go back there." The receptionist who asked me to wait while she was juggling three different phone lines scrambles after me as I am no longer willing to be patient.

I don't bother to knock. I open the unlocked door next to the plaque with Dr. Angela Wakelin's name on it with a sense of authority. If you are going to barge into someone's office, own it.

A slice of tomato falls out of the sandwich Dr. Wakelin's teeth are sunk into.

"I'm so sorry, Dr. Wakelin. I told this gentleman to wait. He just started to come back while I was on the phone." The receptionist finally catches up to me.

"I apologize for disturbing your lunch break. I felt it was urgent. You see, I ran into one of your patients the other day, and I fear she might be in the midst of a psychotic break," I respond, implanting faux concern into my words.

I suppose I have the princess to thank for the fact the black veins are no longer covering me. Her ability to infuriate me sent them back to whatever place they lie hidden beneath my surface.

Angela dabs a napkin at the smear of mayo the fallen tomato left on her keyboard. She tosses the soiled napkin into the trash where she has already disposed of the rogue vegetable. "It's fine, Bridgett. I have twenty minutes until my next appointment." Angela stands up, shoving her food to the side as she comes around to the front of her oak desk. "Please..."

"Tristan. Tristan Darkos." I fill in the blank as she motions for me to take a seat.

"Have a seat, Mr. Darkos. I value my patients' well being, as well as the safety of our community, so I appreciate you coming down here to inform me of such matters." Angela sits in the chair across from me, crossing her legs at the ankles.

"Who is the patient you wish to tell me might be suffering from a lapse with reality?"

"Kinley Rylan." The moment I say the human's name, Angela shifts toward the edge of her chair.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Darkos. Did you say Kinley Rylan?"

"Yes, I ran into her at a bookstore. She appeared upset. I tried to talk to her because it was obvious something was wrong, but she ran off. Nearly got hit by a car in the process. I followed her to the coffee shop to make sure she was all right, but she locked herself in the bathroom. I sent the manager in after her to check on her. She apparently lost it. He said she was on the floor sobbing with a bloody nose mumbling to herself about demons and other stuff that didn't make sense. He tried to console her. However, she ran off again."

If you are going to lie, you better have all your facts in order.

"The manager found these in the stall where she had locked herself. The phone was busted, but I told him I would make sure her things got back to her. Your card was in her wallet."

I set both the items I stole from Kinley next to the mints and tissues on the table between us. Then I take the appointment card I swiped from Kinley's nightstand and place the card face up for Angela to view.

I believe that's a checkmate.

It pays to be observant.

A mixed expression flashes across Angela's face, one of relief and sorrow.

"That explains the abrupt end to our call." She picks up Kinley's broken phone. "Thank you for seeing to it that her belongings were returned," Angela replies after a couple of minutes of contemplative silence.

"It was no trouble. I felt bad for the girl. I fear it was something about me that set her off. I helped her retrieve a book that was out of her reach. Next thing I knew she was looking at me like I was some kind of monster." I chuckle softly, playing off my use of the word.

Angela doesn't find the word "monster" as humorous as I do. Instead, hearing it causes her fingers to flex around Kinley's smashed phone.

Her reaction is the one I was hoping to see.

"I have to say this is the first for me as girls usually run toward me, not away." I curl my lips into a seductive and charming grin.

Human females like confident males. I've also learned they love to watch me smile. Something about my sharpened pearly whites causes shivers of excitement to decorate their skin.

That's right. These bad boys are always front and center. Our fangs aren't some obtrusion of Hollywood's making that retract until we are left with flattened choppers that bear semblance to human teeth. Our fangs are proportional to our features and simply grow more pronounced during hunting or feeding.

"Yes, I am sure her reaction would have been rather alarming. Kinley is...a troubled young girl who had to witness something no one should. In truth, I have not been her therapist long." Angela looks down at the phone clenched in her hand. "Kinley was a transfer. I fear she does not trust me enough to open up about the things that really bother her. Her therapist before has given me her file, but paper can only do so much."

"Do you believe in demons, Dr. Wakelin?" I seize her distraction as an opportunity to get up from my seat.

"What?" Her head snaps in my direction.

I am now over by the bookshelves in her room.

Angela has tried her best to make this place feel cozy and warm for her clients. She wants them to feel like they are sitting in the middle of her living room, not in a massive office complex with twenty-four floors.

"Demons," I pause, holding the floppy-eared stuffed bunny I picked up from its placement on the middle shelf. "Do you believe they exist?"

"In our minds, yes," she answers, cautiously observing me as I hold the bunny up to my nose and inhale deeply.

"It smells like her." I inhale again, breathing in the faintest hint of cinnamon. "Sweet and spicy like the cinnamon-spiced pine cones people put out during the holiday season."

"I'm sorry, who are you talking about now?" Angela asks, assuming I've been pulled into some other memory, probably one from childhood.

"We are still talking about the same person." I smile and set the bunny back on the shelf.

Angela's head tilts. "I thought you said you ran into Kinley at a bookstore?"

"I did." I spin the mini geography globe sitting on top of a book that is lying down before turning my attention to Angela's scrunched face.

It doesn't make sense for me to be familiar with the smell of Kinley if I only met her the other day. Just as it doesn't make sense that I would even be able to recognize her scent on a stuffed animal she held on to probably over a week ago.

The second thought is harder to process so Angela's mind glides over it in favor of noting my sense of familiarity with her client though I am claiming we are strangers who met in passing.

"Tell me, Dr. Wakelin, what exactly did Kinley's neighbor confess to?"

"The murder of her parents," she replies without pause, her patient-client confidentiality no match for my compulsion.

"Dr. Wakelin." I come over to her, placing my hands on the armrests of the chair she resides in. "I asked you to tell me exactly what he confessed to."

"He confessed to ripping her parents' hearts out and trying to drink Kinley's blood," she states, unable to look away from my gaze.

"Yes, but what happened to Kinley after he tried to drink her blood?"

"She died..." Angela's words twist in me like a serrated knife plunged into my gut. "Her heart started beating again before they could resuscitate her."

"That's impossible, Angela. Tell me...What happened to Kinley after her neighbor bit her?"

"She died."

"No." I grab hold of Angela's shirt. " No, she didn't die because she is very much alive. Now, either tell me what happened or I will rip your damn throat out."

"She died. She flat-lined for over thirty seconds. When she came to before the paramedics could resuscitate her, she felt sick and then threw up lots of blood. They said there was blood everywhere. They think maybe the neighbor forced her to drink her parents' blood because they don't know where all the blood came from. It's all in the police report," Angela says.

Before I can ask Angela to hand over the police report detailing the events of that night, a knock comes from the other side of her door.

"Dr. Wakelin?" Bridgett's voice rings out. "Your four o'clock appointment is here."

Angela blinks a few times rapidly after I release her. Once her mind has been cleared of my influence, she glances at her watch. "But it's only two? I have other appointments before him."

"I understand, but Mr. Lockland says he can't wait and that he needs to see you right away. He's been pacing in the waiting room for the past ten minutes."

"I'm sorry, Mr. Darkos. We will have to finish this discussion some other time." Angela looks down at the arm of hers I grab.

"Tell me where the file is on Kinley Shea Rylan," I order, no longer willing to wait.

If it is two o'clock, that means Kinley may already be here as her appointment is in the next fifteen minutes.

"Filing cabinet, second drawer filed under the R's."

I release Angela's arm so she can go soothe whatever head case demands her attention. It takes one quick tug for me to break the lock on the cabinet. I grab Kinley's file and skim through it.

When I find a copy of the official police report, I tear it out. I return Kinley's file to the filing cabinet and make my way to the elevators. I would take the stairs, yet I am eager to read what is in the report. As slow as elevators move, I'll be able to finish reading the report before I hit the ground floor.

The elevator light dings.

As soon as the doors start to open, I know who is on the other side. I can already feel the warming of my blood in response to the aroma that glided on the puff of air the elevator exhaled directly into my face.

Kinley nearly walks straight into me. She wasn't planning on someone being right in front of the steel doors.

Her sea-green eyes widen as she realizes I am the body that is in front of her. She hastily steps back into the elevator. She presses the button to close the doors. She presses it over, and over, and over again. With each press, the smell of fear oozes from her pores.

Before the doors close, I take the step I shouldn't. Kinley abandons the buttons to maintain some distance between us.

Don't do it, Tristan. I try to tell myself I need to maintain that distance, yet I can't help it.

Thump

Kinley's back hits the rear of the elevator. It's just her and me in this dangling metal cage twenty-two floors above the ground.

"Don't. Don't come any closer," she warns me.

I know that I should listen, but how can I stay away when all I can hear is the rushing of her life force?

Kinley squeaks as I get so close my cool breath dances through her dark curled tresses until it meets her scalp beneath. I'm practically smothering her with my chest. She is so much shorter than me, so much more...fragile.

Tucking her chin, she looks at the thin chain I am pulling out from underneath her shirt.

She is a trembling-riddled mess by the time it takes me to retrieve the cross pendant she hides underneath her clothes from her therapist.

"I thought we learned things like this won't help you." I let the necklace slip from my hand.

"It should have." She swallows hard as she watches the pendant swing side to side before it comes to a stop in the center.

"Why? Because your books say so?" I grab one of her wrists and dig my nail into her flesh until I smell the scent of her scrumptious blood being freed.

Her body goes faint when I raise her wrist to my lips. My hips hold her as I keep her pinned to the metal behind her.

Her breath hitches as I lazily drag my tongue over the wound I inflicted.

A moan of ecstasy reverberates in the rear of my throat.

"You have five seconds, human, to tell me where you got the talismans that are in your nightstand drawer." I position my mouth over her wrist and start to bite down.

"I ordered them from a shop in New Orleans." She caves the moment she feels the prick of my teeth about to pierce her skin.

I wrench her head back by grabbing a fist full of her hair, tilting her chin up while I nuzzle her exposed and invitingly tempting neck. "And what is it, my dearest Kinley, these talismans are supposed to do?"

"To ward off vampires and demons."

She cries out when I twist the fist that has a hold of her hair.

"I swear that's it. That is what they are supposed to do, but they didn't work. Nothing I have works to keep you away because you're here. You're everywhere I go."

Letting my lips graze the edge of Kinley's ear, I bend down. "Do you have one of them on you now?"

"No."

"Kinley, don't make this more difficult than it has to be." I drop my tone into an octave that is as menacing as it is a warning.

I like humans to obey without compulsion. It's much more gratifying to know their fear and their free-will to choose is what led to them complying with my "requests".

"I don't carry them with me."

"I don't know that I believe you." I allow my free hand to slip over the curve of her right hip and down into the back pocket of her jeans.

"You can trust me." She squeaks out a rushed breath that tells me she would say anything to get me to remove my hand from her back pocket.

"I don't make it a habit to trust one of my food sources."

She grits her teeth as I check her other pocket. She's about to crawl out of her own skin as I check her front pockets. She behaves quite nicely until I slide my fingertips along the inside rim of her jeans to see if she keeps the talisman hidden somewhere my kind wouldn't think to look.

Her squirming requires my free hand to become free no more as I use it to keep her mouth shut before the protest I can see so clearly in her eyes reaches her mouth.

"You can't keep away something that isn't supposed to be real to begin with," I state. "I'm free to do as I please and, if anyone ever seeks to take that away from me, I can promise you this can get much worse. And by worse"—I move my mouth closer so Kinley will feel every movement of my lips when I say this to her—"I mean it won't just be your heart I rip from you. I'll take everything, every part of you before I send you to meet your maker."

I release Kinley when the elevator doors open, my whole body enraged and on fire. The beast in me is beyond consoling as I walk away from the one thing he wants more than anything.

It is as if every part of me yearns to betray me: my thoughts, my blood, my heritage, and my body.

This human holds a power over me I cannot allow for much longer. I will end Kinley Shea Rylan once I figure out how the hell she survived a vampire bite. If I don't, I don't know which part of me will consume her—the beast after her blood? Or the other beast I can feel lurking within these boiling veins of mine. The one that demands payment of blood and flesh.