It's been a week since I have seen Kinley Shea Rylan, a week since I've hunted, and a week that I've been forced to deal with an annoying princess convinced I'm destined to rule by her side. To say I am merely agitated would be the understatement of the century.

"Having fun?" Dorian flashes me a knowing grin.

If only Alekos and Arianna's lone offspring had been Dorian instead of Kalista, my life would be more agreeable than it is presently.

"Yes. I'm enjoying this beautiful afternoon from the confines of my cage like all the rest of the animals in this zoo," I grumble under my breath.

Kalista has seen to it to attach herself to my arm and is refusing to let go. No matter how many times I shake her loose, she finds a new place to latch onto me.

I almost picked the princess up and threw her into the enclosure with the tigers. The expressions on my sisters' faces told me I better rethink that decision since we are in a public place.

"Oh my gosh, look! Giant Pandas," Kalista exclaims ecstatically.

Her enthusiasm for seeing new things got old after exhibit three. By exhibit seven, it's plain irritating. Alekos should not have raised Kalista in such isolation. Or maybe I should be blaming my parents. After all, they are the ones who helped raise her.

I stand my ground, at my limit of tolerance for letting her drag me around from stinky cage to stinky cage.

Don't humans realize all these poor creatures want is freedom? I know that's all I want—freedom to tear Princess Kalista's arms from her. That way, she can't grab hold of me until they have grown back. By that time I'll be long gone.

I have already made up my mind. In two years when Alekos comes to retrieve the daughter he has forced me to babysit, I am going off the grid for at least a two centuries.

"Don't you want to see the pandas? I've never seen a panda. I hear they are super cute."

My god she sounds just like an adolescent human the way she whines.

Dorian laughs when he sees my jaw bow out on the side from trying my best not to rip Kalista's damn hands off me as she attempts to pull me in the direction of the panda exhibit.

How Dorian has dealt with the princess for the last twenty-three years, I don't know. I'm about to go postal and slaughter every human within sight. This would result in the zoo being shut down and us being able to leave.

The plan is tempting, very tempting.

I've never had to do something this ridiculous. This is what I imagine it feels like when humans say they can't breathe. It's like being suffocated and I don't even need air to live.

We are vampires, yet here we are touring a zoo. That statement sounds almost as preposterous as when the human tried to stake me with a pencil.

"Come on, Tristan. It will be fun." Kalista smiles up at me.

Fun? I don't know what that word means anymore. I'm exhausted with always having to try and figure out how to avoid Kalista back at the house. I'm also frustrated beyond reason I can't find out anything about a human being able to survive a vampire bite.

From everything I gathered from the police report, the vampire who bit Kinley left her to die, yet she didn't. She survived. I also don't understand where all the blood came from. The police didn't think to test the blood in the ambulance until it was too late. The ambulance had been cleaned and sterilized while Kinley was being medically treated for the bite wound and questioned.

If the police had been able to harvest DNA samples from inside the ambulance, what would they have found?

I've never heard of a vampire forcing their prey to drink blood before they killed them. Something tells me l don't have the full story because things aren't aligning. Something happened to Kinley in that ambulance and, whatever it was, it is the reason she is still alive.

"Pleeeease." Kalista tugs at me no differently than the human child that is tugging his parents over to the cart with frozen treats.

I don't want to be at this zoo. I want to be fangs deep in a certain cinnamon-blooded human.

"Go by yourself. You're almost at ceremony age. Start acting like it," I growl.

In two years, Kalista will be frozen in time. Then she must embark on her final rite of passage where she will be freed from her fledgling status. I bet this is the day Alekos plans on announcing the mate Kalista is to be paired with.

"How about I go with you to see the pandas then afterward we can go to the bookstore where Tristan likes to hunt?" Sabrina comes to my aid.

About time.

Wait. Did Sabrina say bookstore?

"I'm glad someone said something because I'm parched. All this heat is making me thirsty," Dorian says.

"Oh, yay! I've been wanting to go there since you told me it was Tristan's favorite place. Everyone talks about what a skilled hunter he is. I'd love to see him in action."

This fledgling is giving me whiplash. First, she tries to command me to be her mate, and now she is trying to butter me up so that I will want to become her mate.

I will rip my heart out before I consent to becoming this brat's mate. She only wants me because she thinks I'll be a good guard dog.

Well, Kalista, future queen of the Vampirie, I have news for you. This dog doesn't go woof when you ask him to speak. Instead, he'll tear your throat out just for asking.

"What do you say you and I go ahead and go to the bookstore? The girls can catch up after the pandas?" Dorian suggests. "It can be like old times."

Dorian stayed with us during a stint in the early 1900s. Sabrina and Serena were just fledglings back then who were madly in love with him. Sabrina might still be.

"It's cruel to give an animal a taste of freedom knowing you will take it away later."

Dorian laughs. "The harder you push Kalista away, the more determined you are going to make her."

"I guess it would be foolish of me not to take what little freedom is being offered." I smirk.

"That's the spirit. Now, what game do we want to play? First to use compulsion loses or first to get an invitation back to their place wins?"

"Let's keep it simple. First to feed wins, and you can't use compulsion until the end," I reply.

"I like the way your mind works. It's been some time since I've had the pleasure of competition. I assume the rules are the same?"

"Yes. Any location counts. This game should be much more interesting than it was in 1910."

It will at least be more of a challenge not to get caught.

"You stole the words right out of my mouth." Dorian's mouth twists into a devilish grin that mirrors my own.

We leave without informing my sisters and Kalista. This is our time to have some fun before their arrival.

I wager the princess has never witnessed what it takes to fill that gold cup from which she drinks. Fledglings are considered dependent and aren't allowed to hunt on their own until the eve of their final rite of passage ceremony. It is a celebration that not only marks the year our immortal bodies reach their physical peak but also the night we are baptized in the blood that sustains us. Most refer to this final stepping stone as the Awakening, for vampires truly do not know themselves until they have had their first hunt, first kill, and first taste of freedom.

Up until the Awakening, we are students dependent on our elders to teach us the skills we need. Or, in my case, control. I was born with a bloodlust that many said could rival that of the Dark Prince.

I was a difficult pupil who spent many nights locked up because the beast in me was more demanding than others. He didn't want to wait until I reach twenty-five to experience his first kill, and he didn't. There are consequences for fledglings that do not listen to their elders.

The harshest punishment I received was thirty days fasting in a cave. It doesn't sound too bad until you realize there is nothing but the absence of everything. It's just the darkness and you.

Before my punishment in the cave, I was a slave to my bloodlust—a wild, untamable beast with no regard for any rules. I would leave trails of bodies in my wake from one town to another. It is fledglings like me that are the reason vampire tales started circulating among the humans.

After my thirty days were up, I was no longer controlled by my thirst. My mind had been cleared from the blood haze my fledgling emotions had induced. There is a reason fledglings are not supposed to kill before the Awakening. It is a lesson I learned the hard way.

To be a great hunter you must first learn to respect the natural order of things.

It is possible to respect that which you kill, but respecting the prey that gives us our power doesn't mean we can't have fun toying with our prey first. That is a lesson I learned at a much later date, yet it is the lesson I most fervently take pleasure in using.

Entering the hunting ground of the bookstore, I inhale deeply, drawing the air into my senses. I sift through the different smells in hopes of finding that particular one that belongs to Kinley. She's the only challenge I care about conquering these days. I need to prove to myself I can handle whatever effects her cinnamon blood cultivates in me.

My mouth fills with venom thinking about the way her blood tastes. I should have bit into her wrist in that elevator and let it pour down my throat.

It feels like a bolt of high-powered electricity hits me when the smoldering sweet tang of cinnamon burns in my chest cavity.

Kinley is either here or she was here not long ago.

I glance in Dorian's direction. He is on the tail of a brunette with oversized glasses. He's always been a sucker for the nerdy type. I think it is because he likes to make humans all flustered.

The one thing you need to know about Dorian is that he could charm the hooves off of a dead horse if he tried. I know this because he uses that charm on my mother. He's always had a thing for my mother, and he isn't ashamed of it either.

That's one of the reasons he and I always got along. Dorian isn't ashamed of anything. He embraces being a vampire much in the same way that I do. We both live for the challenge and chase. The only difference is that Dorian also enjoys the pleasures outside the art of killing.

I tried that once. It didn't end well.

Kinley's scent becomes more potent the deeper I make my way into the bookstore. This means she's here.

My fangs throb with sensitivity, instantly ready to sink themselves into whatever part of her I can get a hold of in a public place without causing a scene.

That's part of the game—feed then compel our prey to forget. It requires a specific set of skills to sink one's teeth into a human without having to compel them to be quiet first. Thankfully, it is a skill set I learned to possess early on.

It's déjà vu when I come upon the aisle Kinley is on. She's back in the fantasy section holding the book I helped her reach the first day I met her. She's just staring at the book like she is waiting for the book to confess to the things it has witnessed.

It would have been interesting to sit in on her appointment with Angela after her run-in with me. I didn't compel Dr. Wakelin to forget about me. That must have been confusing for Kinley as I bet when her therapist gave her things back, she told her a concerned individual is the one who brought them in.

I wonder what that must be like to be unsure of what's real and what isn't. I imagine it's similar to one of those dreams where you think you are awake but you're really not. For Kinley, it's in reverse.

Staying out of sight, I observe her as one of her hands moves from the book to the cross necklace she is wearing. She sets the book down on the ground and unclasps the chain from around her neck. She picks the book back up and flips it open to a random page. She lays the necklace into the crease, slams the book shut, and places the book back on the shelf.

Instead of walking away, Kinley rests her head on the bookshelf, letting out an exhausted sigh. She's been taking poor care of herself. She's got dark circles under bloodshot eyes and appears thin like she has lost ten pounds her petite frame couldn't afford to lose.

It's a sight that almost makes me feel bad...almost.

The hairs on Kinley's arms stand on end as I silently slip behind her. I can practically see the cold chill that runs down the length of her spine, igniting her nerves as they perceive someone is behind her. She spins around so fast it sounds like her heart dislodges from the cords holding it in place and smashes into her rib cage.

Her pulse erratically thumps as she sees no one there.

It's only fair I get to play head games with her as her blood plays them with me.

My amusement is short-lived as Kinley is heading toward the T-intersection where the fantasy section runs into the aisle that Dorian is on. I can't afford for Kinley to round that corner and see another one of my kind. I already know how badly that will go.

This leaves me with a single option—strike fast and suck hard.

Kinley's body becomes immobile, shock keeping her muscles tensed and locked as her brain struggles to catch up to what is taking place. I've got her back pressed into the bookshelf, already fangs deep in her neck, sucking hard. There is too much venom in my mouth to chance going easy.

Her scarlet life force slides down my throat so smoothly I feel I could drain her in a mere couple of minutes. Her cinnamon blood tastes like earth's most precious creation. It's so sweet, so rich, and so addictively intoxicating. It crafts a hunger that is ravenous and seemingly unquenchable.

I pull my fangs out before the liquid fire tunneling through me can reach my heart and watch as the recognition of what just took place flashes across Kinley's eyes in the form of widen-eyes filled with disbelieving terror. She falls forward, face-planting into my stone chest.

"You bit me," Kinley mutters.

I took too much, too fast. She can't stand on her own. She has to use me to stay upright. Even at that, her legs are about to give out.

I grab hold of Kinley as she loses her battle with gravity and almost collapses.

"Tell me what happened that night your parents died," I command.

She is so woozy and lightheaded I move one of my hands to the back of her neck to act as a brace. I have to hold her tightly so she won't fall again.

"I need you to tell me what happened after the demon with the angel's face bit you."

"You bit me..." Kinley mutters again, this time her voice filled with unadulterated distress.

All of my muscles flex. Did this human just defy my compulsion?

I pull Kinley's forehead against mine. There is nowhere else for her to look now but directly into my eyes. "What happened after the vampire that killed your parents bit you?"

"Go to hell, demon."

The heat in my center blazes up behind my eyes. Black veins spread like cobwebs as they start their descent toward the surface of my skin. Part of me is ready to rip into Kinley and another part wants to claim the mouth that just told me to go to hell. My whole being is teeming with the revelation this human before me cannot be compelled.

Whatever dam I built to keep the liquid fire from reaching my heart breaks. I claim this human's mouth so fervently you would think her lips are the sustenance that nourishes this immortal body of mine.

Her small hands press against my chest, trying to stop me from laying siege to her lips as if my life depended on it. I am only able to pull back when I realize I'm suffocating her, quite literally.

Kinley's lips part as she gulps in heaps of much-needed air. I can't tear my gaze away from her red, swollen lips as she struggles to get oxygen into her straining lungs.

Her body shakes in my arms. Hell, I'm shaking too but for different reasons.

I feel out of control, like something inside me has snapped and I don't know how to put it back together. I know I need to figure it out quickly because the most unnatural of things just happened and this isn't the first time.

"Tristan?" Kalista's voice floods the inch of space between my parted lips and the human's.

I can tell by the confusion laced in Kalista's tone that she saw me claim this human's mouth.

Kinley falls to the ground when I release her. She struggles to breathe as she also struggles to comprehend what has taken place and cope with the blood loss she has sustained.

"What the hell, Tristan?" Serena's tone indicates anger at me for being so careless as to feed in a public place.

I know Serena didn't see me kiss the human. If she had, she would be in the same state of shock and disgust that I am in, one where I keep asking my self repeatedly, what the hell are you doing, Tristan?

The bad part is the disgust is no longer coming from the fact I just kissed a human. My disgust is at my lack of control.

Something is happening to me, but I don't have time to worry about it. When Kinley lifts her gaze, she's going to be staring at five vampires—five creatures that, to her, are no different from the demon from hell that killed her parents.