"You are telling us that this human is an immortal who dies? Not only that but if she was part of the Prince of Darkness's Vamperial Garden of Massaru that would make her thousands of years old?" I narrow my gaze at Thron.

"I admit. It sounds strange, an immortal who dies. Unlike our kind whose offspring is born into this world immortal, Kinley is not. She was made into an immortal but the curse attached to her changes things for her. She doesn't get to live out her immortality like the rest of us."

My nostrils flare as the smell of Kinley's sweet blood fills the air. I can hear the drip of it go splat onto the stone floor beneath her. I don't have to look behind me to know she's having a nosebleed. I do look behind me though when Thron is suddenly no longer in front of me.

By the time I spin around, his large hands are framing Kinley's face.

Shit. How the hell does he move so quickly!

"It has begun," he says solemnly.

"What has begun?" I grit my teeth together, trying to keep myself from ripping Kinley away from him. I'd only end up hurting her if he decided to hold on.

I can feel Kinley's trembling against my front as I ignore her shorter stature and step to my father.

This is the least favorable situation I can think of having her between us like this, but there isn't much I can do about it. He's much faster than me.

I place my hands on the tops of Kinley's shoulders. It's my not so subtle way of telling him to keep his fangs to himself because I can see the hunger her freed blood as brought to his surface.

If he was woken up recently, it would make sense for him to be unquenchably thirsty.

Thron's gaze moves from Kinley to my hands. I glance down at what he is looking at. Black veins are crawling all over the backs of my hands, swirling and twisting as they web out as they spread.

"The curse." He raises his gaze to me. "It has begun. She will die soon."

Black. Black consumes my vision. Thron disappears before I get the chance to snap his neck, taking Kinley with him.

"Tristan." He holds up his hand, his arm around Kinley while he keeps her locked against him. "You need to calm down. It is forbidden for any vampire other than the Prince to drink from a massarra. That includes me."

"An immortal can't die." The cords in my neck tense so hard it feels like they may snap.

"In her death, she will be reborn. That's part of the curse. It takes effect on her sixteenth birthday. After that, it is a guessing game of how long she will have before she is consumed by the curse that dwells within her."

"And after she is consumed you are saying she gets reborn and comes back as an infant?" Heat burrows into my core at the same time ice fills my heart.

"Yes, she doesn't get to live out a normal immortal life. She starts over from the beginning."

I don't understand my feelings, yet the thought of losing Kinley is threatening to cause an explosion in me that I am trying very hard to keep at bay. It's in everything Thron doesn't say. When he says she starts over from the beginning, he means she becomes a new slate who holds no memories of the life that gets burned up in the flames that ravage her and turn her into the ashes she will rise from.

"Is her being a massarra the reason she is immune to compulsion and venom?" I attempt to distract myself by seeking the answers to what I have been searching for since I first discovered Kinley's abilities to defy our kind. I have to distract myself because I fee like I am being ripped apart on the inside.

"The massarra can only be compelled by the Prince. As for the venom, they aren't immune. Their bodies can't handle it but since they are immortal, it merely stops their hearts momentarily when infected. The powers that grant them immortality then purify their bodies of the toxin and their hearts begin to beat again when they expel the venom."

"If they are immortal beings, why do their hearts beat? And if stopping their heart's can't kill them, what can?" Serena asks.

"We suppose their hearts continue to beat because they are human and not vampire. As for what kills one, I imagine if you ripped their heart out or their head off they would die as one of our own would. No massarra as ever been killed though. The Prince makes sure of that as they are his most prized possessions. They are not particularly strong beings, but they don't need to be as they only exist to be fed upon. "

While I hear all the words Thron is saying, my mind has moved on to the little girl who "sneaked" up on me in the field of flowers in my dream. My mind swiftly moves on to the little girl all grown-up who no longer admired the beast. She hated him. That little girl was Kinley. That is why she looked just like her all grown-up because she was Kinley thousands of years ago.

My mind feels like it's ready to explode from all this information. I don't understand why? From what I have read about the Beast of the Damned, he was a beast that lived to kill. He didn't care if it was vampire or human. He enjoyed it. He lived for it. So why would a ruthless vampire that has no compassion for his own kind ever start to care for this massarra in the first place?

I know I did though. I could feel it in the memory I thought was a dream. It was in the delicate way I touched her bruised face. I cared for this immortal human and I don't know why. It doesn't make sense. Vampires don't care for their prey, immortal or not. They are nothing but the sustenance we feed upon.

Kinley's frantically racing heart reaches into me and pulls my thoughts away from the past I am trying to sort out. Her body slumps against Thron's right before the rest of her gives out, including her heart.

When I asked Kinley how often passing out happens to her, she told me it only happens to her three times a year. It's barely been three weeks since her last episode. Either she lied because she doesn't remember all of them or they are speeding up.

Thron keeps her from collapsing to the floor, scooping her up into his arms and cradling her like a child as she is nothing more than a limp pile of flesh and bone on the cusp of death. I can make out her shallow, wheezes for air as her body fights to survive against the thing that is trying to take her.

Kinley's heartbeat is extremely delayed between beats when it starts up again. Unlike the first time I witnessed her episode where it was one single beat every three seconds, it's now one in every five seconds.

"Is this the first time she has passed out?" He looks to me.

"She passed out the day Tristan brought her home. We thought she had a heart attack," distraught heavily weighs Kalista's words as she answers before I can. I'm not sure I can speak. My chest is so damn tight right now I can't even continue to mimic breathing as I usually do.

"When was that?" Thron twists his upper body to face Kalista.

"About three weeks ago."

That answer causes Thron to frown, but he doesn't say anything.

"Why? What does it mean?" I step closer to them, my tone so dark I don't even recognize it as my own.

"It means she doesn't have much time left before she is consumed by the curse that has already begun its destruction of her."

I bite down so hard I crack a few of my back teeth. Unbridled ire is building so fast in me I can't stop it. I barely register the heat that is searing behind my eyes as I feel a click happen in me yet, before the explosion of energy welling in me can detonate, I look down to see blood and a hand buried in my chest.

"Don't. Now is not the time for you to become what you are." Thron's words are like ice as he stares me down, his hand wrapped around my heart as he squeezes it. "We need you to stay level-headed until it is time."

"Until it is time for what?" Kalista wipes at the red streaking down her cheeks, still trying to regain the composure she lost in her grief.

The distinct sound of bone being crunched fills the room as my gaze locks on Dorian who Thron passed Kinley off too.

"It's too late." My words come out in an accent that matches my fathers while black veins cover the arm and hand I am using to crush his wrist. In this moment, there is no separation between the beast and me. He is me, and I am him.

"Don't make me rip your heart out."

"No, don't kill him!" Kalista screams darting over to us before Sabrina can stop her.

"Please, please don't kill Tristan. He's my future mate and I love him. I love him," she beseeches on my behalf.

I lean in ignoring Kalista's presence completely. "Go ahead, because we both know I can survive it. Did you know that before you ripped it from me the first time?"

"Don't get so cocky, my son. You may be able to survive it, but when you wake you will not be you."

Kalista's scream burst my eardrums. In my father's hand I see my heart. He pulled it from my chest before I could get to his.

"Bastard." I fall to the ground and am engulfed in complete blackness before my head hits the ground.

The next time I open my eyes, I'm in my room. I bolt up in bed, grasping at my chest as it feels like frozen shards of glass are cutting into me. I can feel my heart is in the final stages of growing itself.

It takes my mind a few seconds to piece together how I ended up here. My eyes widen when the flash of Thron ripping my heart out enters my mind. Looking down at my chest, I see that the veins that had taken over me are now gone.

"You tore my heart out." It takes all my energy to say those words to Thron as he leans against the wall with his arms folded across his chest.

He pushes away from the wall. "You left me no choice."

"How...how am I still alive?"

I should have died. Hearts can't regenerate if they are torn out of a vampire. They can only rebuild if injured, not if they are missing completely.

"It's a perk you have because you house all of your mother's powers. The Prince and his mate along with the original court gifted to him can survive without a heart. Other vampires could if they could regenerate as quickly as we do, but they don't and they never will. You can survive up to three minutes without one, past that and you will die."

"How do you know that?"

"Because it takes longer if we are in a weakened state." He passes by my bed and heads over to the chaise lounge where Kinley is lying. Her heart is still beating too slow for her to wake. The shallow wheezes of her straining lungs have turned into deep, choppy intakes for air.

"How did you know I wasn't in a weakened state?" It's not like he knows when the last time I fed was.

He laughs. "Because you are too greedy to let yourself be in a weakened state. Your thirst always wins." He crouches down next to her. His gaze shifts to mine me as I have hold of the hand he was going to touch her with.

I let go instantly and backup. I don't even know how I got to him so quickly.

His lips pull into a deep, disapproving frown. "So the Princess is in love with you. That would be a good match." He stands.

"I've already told her I never intend to take a mate."

Faster than I can process the speed of his movements Thron grabs my face, stepping toe to toe with me. "And why is that? You will never have what it is you long for do you understand me? She doesn't belong to you. She never has. Never will." He releases me after he finishes crushing my jaw first.

I have to work my jaw back and forth a couple times after it heals before I can respond. "No, I don't understand because what you are suggesting is that I want to mate with the same species I take great pleasure in killing."

Kinley can be immortal, but at her core she is human...human. I can't care for a human that way and yet everything inside of me is telling me I did... that I do. The beast that lives in me that is who I really am cares too much for her.

It makes me sick to think about because how did he let that happen? How can he view her as more than a walking blood bag? If I could purge him from me, I would. He is the cause of my sickness. The reason I have been lusting after my prey.

"If only you would be so like-minded in your disgust when the real you comes out." He shakes his head.

"So it's true?" My gut twists much like it did that day I first kissed Kinley in the bookstore.

"I should have known better, I just didn't think...It doesn't matter." He cuts himself off as Kinley's heart ramps up speed. She gasps, sucking in a lung full of air as she sits coughing up trace amounts of blood.

"There, there." Thron pats her back as he attempts to soothe her.

"I...I passed out again, didn't I?" Kinley struggles to stay in a sitting position. She is so weak I don't understand how I could ever have feelings for a being that is so pathetic and easily breakable.

"Is she the thing that was stolen? Is this immortal human the reason I tried to tear this world apart?" Venom seeps into my words and soaks into my bloodstream as it fills my mouth. Someone tell me I didn't try to destroy everything for a species I'm supposed to eat.

"No, she wasn't. It was something else that was taken from the Prince."

"What was taken that would have led him to go to such great lengths to get it back?"

"Enough with the questions!" Thron snaps, his veins popping out as all the muscles in his face and neck flex with tension.

"You said I can't turn unless we find it, so I think I need to know what it is."

"It doesn't matter now."

In a flash, I have a still coughing Kinley in my arms. My hands positioned to rip her head clean off. "Stop lying to me and tell me what it is you don't want me to know."

"Fine, I did lie. She is the reason. Both of you brought about a war over a human. Hundreds of thousands died all because of her. If I could, I would kill her myself but I am bound by my duty to the Prince and he would not dare let harm come to one of his precious little treasures. So go ahead, do us all a favor and end her life. You'd be doing her a favor as well."

Kinley isn't the one shaking, despite my current threat to kill her. It's me. My muscles are trembling in violent tremors that are extending into every supernatural cell in me.

"You can't, can you?" Thron scoffs. "The very thought of how you feel disgust you and yet you still can't bring yourself to kill her."

My hands drop to my sides and, without my support, so does Kinley.

I leave without saying anything. I leave Kinley there and take off to go drown myself in her kinds life force, to sink my teeth into their still-beating hearts while their carcasses bleed out at my feet.

I'm a vampire, a spawn of Satan, a monster that will always feed on the blood of his prey and who kills without mercy or remorse, but what I really am is the Antichrist to the human I have been in love with for thousands of years.