It's been thirteen days since I brought Kinley and Maya into our home, and I have learned little about the mystery of Kinley Shea Rylan and her intoxicating blood since then. I enlisted the others to help me research this phenomenon. We've all come up empty-handed. Nowhere has anyone heard of a human who can defy compulsion or is immune to vampire venom.

Kalista has reached out to a trusted confidant back at the castle in Valderanna. The princess said when she was nine, she found her way into a hidden room concealed behind a statue. She doesn't remember what all was down there, but that there were scrolls upon scrolls and ancient books in a language she had never seen before. Later, she found out that the room she stumbled into was full of ancient documents that dated back to the beginning of our kind. Only Royals know these documents exist. When Kalista becomes queen, she will have access to all of the knowledge there is of the vampire race.

It makes me wonder what secrets are lurking within the Vondarrie's castle. Why would they keep the knowledge of our kinds past to themselves? I don't see what they have to gain from that.

Whatever their reasons, I know that if there are any written instances of someone like Kinley existing, the document would have to be locked safely in that room of secrets in the Vondarrie's castle in Valderanna.

While we await word back from Kalista's contact at the castle, I've launched my own thorough search through our family's written lineage. I know the basics, but I want to know if anyone has had hallucinations of the Beast of the Damned's life as I have.

When the black veins appear, I know I'm channeling my ancestral power. The question I need the answer to is why me? Was there another Darkos before me that could tap into the unknown, raw power of the Beast and his father the Great Warrior?

The Great Warrior that sits at the helm of our bloodline is said to have been almost as powerful as the Prince of Darkness himself. He was designed to obey without question, and he did. He led the army of the Prince and kept him safe for centuries. The Beast of the Damned wasn't the Great Warrior's only child, but he was the only child of the Great Warrior's that also had royal blood flowing through his veins.

"Argh!" I slam another book shut and toss it across the room.

Kinley flinches when the book makes impact with the far wall, gouging the stone.

I'm sick of searching and finding nothing useful.

Kinley looks up from her seat on the floor in the cellar where we keep important documents in a fire-rated room only accessible to members of our family. You have to bleed to gain entry to this room quite literally. She appears uneasy as she watches me pull on the back of my neck in frustration.

The routine we've established has been working well considering. After Maya cooks for the two of them, in which usually Kinley helps because I can't seem to get her not to, I keep Kinley busy so she doesn't realize her friend is being used as a living blood bag. Dorian and Kalista are the only ones who use Maya for sustenance. Serena and Sabrina prefer to source out. Kalista might too, but she has to take whatever we put in that golden cup of hers.

Kinley closes the book she's been flipping through for the past half hour. She can't read it because it's in an ancient tongue. However, the depictive drawings sprinkled throughout the leather-bound pages have captured her interest.

"I'm sure I'd be horrified if I could read whatever lines these pages as some of the pictures are rather gruesome, but it's neat that you have all these things from the past. All I have is a note..." Her words trail off as she runs her thumb across the aged leather book she holds in her lap.

"What do you mean all you have is a note?" I ask.

I haven't been able to find out any information about Kinley's past. She doesn't know I've hired people to help me figure out who her biological parents were. It seemed like the first logical step to take.

The thing is the place that handled her adoption caught fire in a bad electrical storm. Her file was lost with all the rest of the files. It was a small place that had one on-site server and it burned along with everything else.

"A note. That's all that was with me when I was placed on my parents' doorstep. My mom kept the note for me. She gave it to me when I turned ten. She didn't even tell my father about it until that day." Kinley's vocal cords pinch as she grabs the bridge of her nose.

"What did it say?" I walk over to where Kinley is, a faint ringing in my ears.

Could this note be the piece of information I need to move forward in my investigation into our pasts to see if they connect somewhere down the line?

Kinley shuts her eyes and lets her head drop against the stone wall behind her. "It was hard to read. The note had gotten wet, yet I like to think the smudges are from my biological mother's tears. That it was the toughest thing she had to do, giving me up."

I bite the inside of my cheek to keep from rushing Kinley. I can't stand how sentimental the human species can be. This is one of those times. If I press too hard, I will scare Kinley and she will shut down. This is the most talkative she has been since her arrival here.

She only talks to Maya and tolerates me because she has to. She stays clear of the others by hiding out in my room when she can. She used to fuss when Dorian would play around and tease her about Maya. Now, she just leaves whenever he starts up.

It's fun to watch Dorian pout as a human has figured out how to beat him at his own game.

"The note was short, rushed it seemed," Kinley continues, pulling up the memory of the note she has ingrained into her mind.

"Do you still have it?" I ask, growing impatient.

Kinley shakes her head. "I made the mistake of taking it to school with me when I got to high school. I pinned it to my locker. It must have fallen when I shut my locker because it wasn't there one day when I went to switch books like I always did between third and fourth period. I looked all around for it, but it was gone. The next week, so were my parents."

Kinley doesn't attempt to hide the tear that trickles down her face. She lets it glide down her cheek and fall onto the book in her lap. "Everything in my past is gone, and my future might as well be gone too. I'm just here, stuck in a world where demons and monsters are real."

Another saline crystal falls but, this time, it doesn't splash onto the book. Kinley opens her waterlogged lashes to see I've caught the rogue tear with my finger.

"What did the note say, Kinley?" I ask, my sharp tone implying the unspoken threat of or else.

I can see in Kinley's eyes, the rest of my unspoken statement is or else Maya pays. Kinley swallows hard to moisten her raw throat, her hatred of me seeping through her pain.

"It said, 'Her name is Kinley. Take care of her for me'."

"That's it?" I bottle my anger, standing up because if I remain close to Kinley I may end up strangling her.

"She didn't sign it with a name. She drew a bird though, a bird flying to wherever I guess she was planning on disappearing to."

"What kind of bird? A raven, a dove?" I prod. She built this thing up and, now, she is giving me nothing but some meaningless message that might as well be garbage.

"I don't know. It was a bird carrying a twig on fire with a saying beneath it—something flamma ignis something iterum nata. It was impossible to make out the saying because that part of the note was smudged. I assumed it was an old Latin proverb, but I never found anything online when I searched for those phrases."

Flamma ingis means flame of fire and iterum nata means born again in Latin. Why would Kinley's biological mother leave a message with a bird and Latin below?

Latin is a dead language. In this day and age, only priests, the pope of the Roman Catholic Church, and scholars who study the past use Latin as a spoken language.

As I shut my eyes to concentrate and think back to all the popular Latin phrases within the human world, all I keep seeing is the little girl in the field of flowers, her smiling and laughing as she sits on top of me.

Why the hell can't I think of anything else but those stupid dreams or memories passed down through my blood, or whatever the hell you want to call them. Kinley is somehow connected to all this, and I can't figure out where she fits in because I can't find anything out about her past.

"Why am I here?" Kinley's meek voice disrupts the visuals of blood and ash, the little girl spinning in red rain, and a sixteen-year-old Kinley backing away from the Beast of the Damned as he's covered in blood wearing all black clothes that look as foreign to me as the dress that Kinley had on.

It's frustrating because I can't separate myself from my grandfather. I become him while Tristan Darkos seems to disappear. I honestly am starting to think he's channeling himself through me and not the other way around. Is he trying to rise beyond the grave and inhabit me? Is that shit even possible?

All I have are questions, questions, and more questions!

"I don't understand the real reason you are keeping me here," Kinley says louder this time as she stands and places the book back on the shelf where she got it. "Am I supposed to be yours and the princess's chalice? Or am I only here because you want to know how it is possible a human is immune to your kind?"

"I have already told you once I would snap your neck before I let you be a chalice to that spoiled brat." The muscles in my neck flex from the straining tension caused by Kinley's words.

"So what? Am I supposed to be your prisoner until that day comes? Why wait? Why not get it over with so you don't have to continue to share your bed with a food source? That's all my kind are to you, isn't it? That's all we will ever be to blood-sucking demons." Kinley spits at me, the entirety of her short stature flushed with anger.

Kinley's straightened shoulders cave, rolling forward when I take the four steps it takes for me to reach her.

"Do not test me, human. I am in no mood for one of your tantrums."

"Or what?" Kinley locks eyes with me. I'm betting because she is hoping I will do the same and, therefore, will not notice the tremble in her legs.

I noticed, human. I can smell your fear before your brain even processes that it needs to be afraid.

"Either way Maya and I end up dead," Kinley continues in my silence. "That is where all this is heading: today, tomorrow, six months, a year from now. Maybe you should just bite me and inject me with your venom so you can see what happens to me for yourself. Then when you see it doesn't matter or change anything, you can let Maya go as she can be compelled to forg—"

"All right, little human, you win." I locked Kinley against me and nuzzle the nape of her neck, keeping myself from breathing in her tempting scent. "But just know, your friend Maya will not be let go whatever the end result. With you gone, she will be handed over to become a part of the Blood Sacrifice."

"Wait!" Kinley yelps as I scrape my teeth against the tender flesh of her neck. Her heart thumps erratically against my chest and torso while her pulse ticks beneath my lips.

I don't "wait", but instead of biting down, I lavish an opened-mouth kiss against her neck. The feel of my cold, wet mouth makes Kinley go rigid in my arms.

"You're...you're saying that if something ever happens to me, Maya will be handed over to be sacrificed?" Kinley's words come out as shaky as the rest of her is.

"Mmm, yes." The husky gruffness of my voice causes Kinley's skin to rise in little bumps that decorate her arms.

There is a reason I haven't injected Kinley with my venom. She nearly died last time, which means she may die this next time. Some vampires' venom isn't as potent as others, just as some of us are more beautiful than the other members of our kind.

While even a weak vampire's venom is deadly, its possible the vampire who bit her didn't inject her with venom. He may have had trace amounts of venom left in his mouth from his attack on her parents. If that is the case, I guess it is possible that, if a perfect storm of things happened, a human could survive venom in their bloodstream.

I don't think that is the case. I think Kinley is indeed immune somehow but, on the off chance she isn't and I inject her with mine, there is no way to counteract the venom once it reaches her bloodstream and gets filtered through her heart. I am not a vampire a human wants to get bitten by. I could pump Kinley full of my blood, and it still wouldn't matter. My venom would kill her before I could get enough of my blood into her system.

"So you don't want me to bite you now?" I ask, quickly falling under the hypnotic humming of her blood as it rushes through her veins while venom gathers in my mouth. The beast in me is eagerly anticipating the moment I unleash him and let him strike to satisfy his growing thirst.

"I...I don't know," Kinley replies, her petite frame being rocked by massive tremors.

There is no good option for her, and there is no saving her friend. I've put her in a position she can't win. The only way Maya gets any kind of life is as our house meirru, and I will only keep Maya as our house meirru if I have Kinley.

No Kinley equals no need for Maya.

The human can beat Dorian at his silly little mind games, but she can't beat me at mine.

Kinley's dark tresses cover her face as she tucks her chin to her chest. I imagine feeling trapped by me in every sense of the word again. "What's it going to take for me to save Maya? Even the devil makes deals so let's make one."

I can't contain the twisted grin that spreads onto my face. Kinley is never going to give up trying to save her precious friend.

"Fine. Let's make a deal." I spin Kinley around so quickly it suspends her ability to breathe. "You have one week to figure out why you are immune to compulsion and venom. If you succeed, I'll end your miserable life and let your friend go, but if you fail"—I pull Kinley so close to me our bodies might as well be one—"you will belong to me. Your blood and flesh will be mine for the taking whenever I please and I will turn Maya over so that her suffering will not have to be endured as long as your own."

"That's impossible. I wouldn't even know where to begin looking." Kinley's voice goes so high it squeaks.

"I guess you better get to figuring it out then because this deal has already been struck."

"No. I didn't say I accepted the terms." Kinley tries to squirm out of my grasp. The panic lined in her voice causes my mouth to water. I do love the smell of petrified prey.

"That's the thing, human. When you make a deal with the devil, your acceptance of the terms isn't needed. You asked for a deal. I gave you one. That's it. There are no take-backs." I swallow back the influx of venom and saliva threatening to spill from my mouth.

It's truly a sin against nature how achingly mouthwatering her cinnamon blood is.

"No. That is not it." Kinley tries in vain to push away from me. "You're not a god. Your word isn't final."

"You're right. I'm not. I'm the Antichrist, remember?"

Kinley stops squirming and clawing at my arms in her efforts to escape as she looks up at me. "My god, you're...you're joking."

The dark mask I compelled to my face gets broken as a devilish smile takes its place.

"I am."

Kinley's weight plummets all at once, forcing me to keep hold of her. "That...that wasn't funny," she says, struggling to get air into her lungs.

This human makes it too easy to mess with her.

"What I did not joke about is that Maya's stay here is dependent on you staying among the land of the living. If you behave, I will release Maya before I end your life. That's the deal I am willing to make."

"Deal." Kinley finally finds the strength in her legs to stand on her own. "We have a deal, Tristan Darkos." Kinley awkwardly raises her hand for us to shake on it.

As I still have my arms wrapped around her waist, it takes nothing for me to capture her lips with mine in a crushing kiss. When I break away, Kinley is left gasping for air.

"You seal deals with dark beings with a kiss, payment of blood, or payment of flesh. Handshakes are a human thing."

"Noted." Kinley wheezes out, trying to regain a natural rhythm to her straining lungs until, suddenly, she collapses onto the ground.

The bitter tang on my tongue is a wake-up call to what I have just done. I kissed her while my tongue was still saturated from the overflow of venom I swallowed back minutes ago.

I must stop the venom before it reaches her heart. The only way I know how to do that is to inject my blood directly into her heart before it gets there.

In a blinding blur of colors, I tear apart the room looking for an empty syringe I can use. I finally find one in a metal box high up on a shelf. The two syringes inside the box are filled with a blue liquid that appears to be glowing.

Screw it. I don't have time.

I grab a syringe filled with blue liquid and squirt out whatever is inside. When I go to jab the needle into a vein in my forearm, I see my veins have turned black...all of them.

My body begins to shake because I don't know what to do. I don't know if what is running through my veins will help Kinley or kill her faster.

I turn around when the room falls silent. There is no more fading lud-dub...lud-dub...lud-dub. There is just silence, a silence that is screaming inside my head.