The sound of a book being slammed shut pulls my attention away from a sleeping, dream shade drugged Kinley. The Dark Prince tosses yet another religious text onto the empty chair next to him. He's burned through three in the past six hours.

"No wonder the humans of today are so stupid. They were actually closer to the truth thousands of years ago. How pompous of them to think our Creator was a fallen angel of their god. The belief this world was once all wrapped in light is repulsive." The Prince sneers in disgust.

We are twenty minutes out from landing in Romania. It will be a long car ride to Valderanna, which sits deep in the mountains and is surrounded by a dark magic barrier humans cannot trespass through. My kind has several places like Valderanna scattered about the globe the humans know nothing about. Valderanna is the oldest one. It has been our home since the beginning.

"The poor creatures don't even know how they came into existence, from sun gods to evolving from apes. What do you think they would do if they found out their god made them because she wanted something to worship her? When the Mother of the Heavens did that, she broke the rules." He rests his chin on his hand, opting to watch a sleeping Kinley who's sprawled out on the couch of the airplane using my father's lap as a pillow.

If she only knew that last part.

"This planet was never meant to house life other than the animals that roamed it," he continues. "Yet there Zeura goes, making beings in her own image. The God of the Heavens is truly a jealous god trying to convince her confused flock she alone is the one and only god. There has always been and always will be two gods. The God of the Heavens and the God of the Underworld. They both have existed since the beginning—the two Mothers of the Afterlife, two sisters whom despise each other for what the the other stands for. Who knew humans would step so far away from the truth."

The Dark Prince stands, stretching his legs as he cracks his neck to loosen it from the thirteen hours of flying time we have had.

"It is time to wake Kinley. Her ribs are long past healed and she will enjoy the view as we approach Romania. It is such a beautiful country."

He doesn't give me the chance to object. He is beside Kinley, kneeling down in front of her before I can think of a way to stop him. Every move he makes is part of his game and, in order to win, I have to be smart about how I play it.

"It is time to wake up sweet Kinley." Her eyes flutter open when she feels his cold hand sweeping her hair out of her face.

Everyone in the plane grits their teeth, covering their ears as she screams at the sight of the Dark Prince's face right in front of hers. She plasters herself to the corner of the couch furthest from my father and the Prince.

Adrenaline courses through her system at such a rate it sends a yearning tingle shooting into my bloodstream that awakens my predatory side. I will always love the smell of fear. The difference with Kinley is she's a different type of "prey" to me.

She is the kind of prey I want to chase, catch, and, instead of eating, I want to crush her beneath me and have my way with her. The urge to mate with her runs parallel with my lust for blood. That may not seem like a big deal, but for a vampire like me who only lives to hunt and kill, it is a very big deal.

Her gaze bounces from Serena to Sabrina then to Dorian and Kalista before she finds me. I want to go to her so badly, yet I know better.

The Dark Prince chuckles. "My how you have changed. Look at you, so scared. I guess that is what happens when you are raised by your own kind." He sits down beside Kinley at the same time Thron gets up.

Thron has been good to stay still as Kinley slept on his lap. Probably because he saw my objection when the Prince told me I couldn't stay beside Kinley and that my father would watch out for her.

"Do not fear me, child. Now, come sit on my lap like you used to. It was your favorite pastime as a child. You would sit on my lap for hours while I would conduct business."

It is a good thing this plane is made with stronger materials because I'm fairly certain if it wasn't, the armrest would be crushed by now with how hard I am gripping it.

"You bit me," Kinley says, her hand moving to where he bit her on the neck.

"It is nothing Tristan hasn't already done to you. Now, come sit. Do not make me ask again."

A trembling, pale-as-a-ghost Kinley does what the Dark Prince asks of her, her fear of him making her obedient.

"Such a good girl." The Prince strokes Kinley's hair, twisting her long curled tresses as he reaches the ends. "It really brings me back to the days when everything was better. Much of this world is so ugly now from what I have seen, but not you. You, my Kinley, are truly a rare beauty."

Kinley stiffens as he leans in and takes a whiff of her scent, rubbing his face along her exposed flesh.

"I must confess you were not one of my top picks of the girls that had been brought to me. I honestly didn't even notice you. You were just one of the seven humans hand chosen for the chance to become a part of my Vamperial Garden of Massaru. It was customary back then for my potential candidates to be introduced to me at a ball. There I would select the lucky three girls who would be in the running and only one I would gift immortality to one day." The Dark Prince leans against the backrest of the couch, sprawling his arms out on the back of it. He is testing Kinley. Seeing if she will stay where he has told her she must sit.

If I had known Alekos would be so reckless as to awaken the Prince, I would have killed our former king myself.

"I can picture it like it was yesterday." The Prince of Darkness continues with his story, reminiscing about a past that seems to be repeating. "I was looking forward to the dance all of you had to learn. It was my favorite part. That was the moment you stood out to me. I already had my eye on three of the others girls yet it shifted to the human who went left instead of right. You, sweet Kinley, were a replacement since one of the guards couldn't resist the pure blood of the candidate who strayed too far within the castle. Your heart was beating so hard from the embarrassment. You only had a couple of hours to learn the dance and you could not get any of the steps right. You were a lost little lamb."

Kinley's blood is arguably pumping just as fast as it was that day at this very moment. She wants to move off the Dark Prince's lap, but she isn't sure if it's a smart decision so she stays, silently squirming in her own skin.

"It was comical to watch. I couldn't help but laugh." The Prince's lips twist into the same wicked grin of amusement our kind tends to get when facing humans and their shortcomings. "I did stop laughing when you turned around and there was a vampire from my army ready to sink his fangs into your neck. Your frantically racing heart proved too much for him to resist. I was just about ready to force him to his knees when, swoosh"-the Dark Prince sits up grabbing Kinley swiftly as he runs a finger slowly across her throat-"there went his head."

Kinley's heart looks as if it has moved up into her throat the way her pulse is thumping in her neck so prominently in her fright from the Dark Prince's sudden movements.

"The room was quiet." The Dark Prince carries on, relaxing against the back of the couch again. "The music stopped and the only audible sounds were the petrified beating hearts of the human slaves and a head rolling away from the body it had been severed from. You stood there too scared to move a muscle as Tristan flicked the blood off the sword he used to kill one of his father's warriors. He stepped over the body that lay between you and came to his mother's side. He didn't take his eyes off you once after that because he knew before I did that you would be my next Massarra. And, what do you know, he was right."

"This is the Captain speaking." A loud voice comes over the intercom system. "We have started our descent so please prepare for landing. Once again, thank you for choosing to fly with Shadow Enterprise, the only truly hassle-free way to fly in the twenty-first century."

As the plane dips past the clouds, Kinley's gaze moves to the window in front of her, the majestic mountains gathering her attention. She stays entranced by them and the lush green lands until the plane touches down on the runway.

The jarring motion of the rattling plane as it breaks makes her aware of the lap she is still sitting on. I wish she could have stayed in that far away place her mind went to for now nothing but misery awaits her.

Kinley goes to stand when the others get up from their seats as the door opens for us to depart the plane. My steps are halted when the Prince grabs her hip and forces her to sit back down. "Not yet. You too, Tristan, stay a moment."

Thron nods his head and ushers Kalista, who paused when she heard my name, down the steps that have been rolled out to the airplane.

Once the cabin has been cleared and it is only us three that remain, he narrows his eyes into slits as he looks to me.

"As we both know Kinley's time left with us is short, I'm going to grant her a temporary reprieve from her duties as a massarra. It seems rather odd to begin now considering she has never actually fulfilled her duties due to the curse that resides in her taking her before she comes of age to start performing them. And you..." His mouth curls into a sneer that matches the fury in his ice blue eyes.

"There was that one cycle she did, but you made sure I didn't know. You had been poisoning her for weeks with weeping ash. Giving her just enough to keep her sick so that I would think the curse was close to taking her." His tone darkens to a tenor that seeps into Kinley and causes her to shiver.

"Why are you bringing this up now?" I growl out, agitated at the way he is keeping his hand on Kinley's hip. A simple squeeze is all it would take for him to crush it and he's making sure I am aware of that.

The Dark Prince slides out from underneath Kinley and is in my face before she can comprehend she is no longer sitting on his lap but is instead sitting on the couch all alone.

"Because if you ever do that again, it won't be you who pays. It will be Kinley, and I think we both know exactly how I will punish her for your disobedience." He steps closer to me, placing his mouth right next to my ear. "I bet you wish you knew that truth before the first time we lost our sweet Kinley to the curse. It would have made things so much easier for you in the long run. Then again, it may have only made it harder." He snickers on his way out of the plane leaving me with Kinley."

"That's twice." Kinley stands reluctantly. "Twice you have killed your own to save me."

"I've killed a lot of my own kind for you," I answer honestly.

"You've also killed a lot of my kind too." She stops in front of me, craning her neck up to look me in the eyes."

"Yes." I force the word out, knowing it will cause her to hate me more.

I can't change what I am, and I won't ask her to change who she is. I'll let her hate me.

"You don't make sense. You kill my kind, yet you save me? You even poisoned me because you were trying to, what? Keep me safe from a monster no different than you?"

"Not everything needs to make sense. Some things never will no matter how bad we wish they would. That doesn't make them any less real than the things that do."

I walk away from her when all I want to do is pull her against me until the version of her whose breath would still when she would catch sight of me resurfaces.

They say you don't realize what you have until it is lost. Kinley and I are the original founders of that tragic statement. Seven life cycles, eight if you count the one before she was made immortal. Only once did she love me until the bitter end. She loved me despite my refusal to admit what was really going on between us.

Venom pools in my mouth as intense rage wells in me. I wish I had never found out the truth that day. At least, then, I would have been able to go on living the lie I told myself.

Thousands of years and all I have is misery, a longing for something I'll never probably have again, and a body count that is higher than any other vampire living or dead.

My state of being is so dark at the moment I know if I knew how to break the curse on Kinley, I wouldn't. What's the point? This Kinley won't ever love me. I'm just a vile, murdering demon to her.

"Welcome ho-"

Snap.

Thunk.

I step over the vampire's unconscious form, not caring in the slightest I broke their neck for no reason at all besides that I am angry. The vampire is lucky I didn't rip her heart out because that is what I want to do. I want to rip out every heart within a mile radius of me and lay them all at Kinley's feet.

I am a monster, but aren't we all in some way? I would do anything for Kinley. Start a war. Defy the Prince or our Maker herself. I'll even destroy the world to find her. I'll do anything to keep her safe and, yet, that means nothing to her.

The only way I will get the Kinley who fell in love with me back is to let the curse consume her and hope when she is raised among us again, her heart will find its way back to me. Still, there is a part of me that wonders if I should end the curse even though she despises me if I could. Maybe if I end the cycle, I'll end the false hope that fills me each time she starts anew.

The mere thought of Kinley hating me forever turns my blood into a glacial frost that saturates my tormented soul until it feels like it is encased in a tomb of ice. Without Kinley, there is no point in me having a soul. I don't need one to do as I am designed. Other vampires may be born to do more than kill, but I wasn't. Ask any one of my kind who knows "The Beast".

Human, vampire, demon; I don't care. I'll spill crimson until someone turns me to stone or sends me to the afterlife.

The angrier I become, the tighter my muscles are being wound and the darker my mind gets. It doesn't help that Kinley keeps glancing at me either as we begin the car ride to Valderanna. I'm torn between wanting to kiss her and wanting to show her just how monster-like I can be.

The Dark Prince and the sly smirk that sits on his face makes me want to rip his damn head off. My father looks at me concerned, eyeing me as the energy that surrounds me is growing icier with each passing second.

A hand touches my arm, pulling me from the vivid images of me tearing throats out with my fangs as warm burgundy is splattered all over me. I know exactly what the images are from. It's from a time the Dark Prince sent us to a village that refused to continue their payment. Back then villages were expected to offer us seven of their daughters and sons annually. The winter had been a harsh one and this village claimed they didn't have seven to spare.

We fixed that for them by slaughtering them and enslaving the rest.

Kalista meekly smiles at me as if we are somehow in this uncertainty of what is to come together. Alekos is dead which means the Prince of Darkness will ascend to his throne and become the helm of the vampire race just as he was before the Great War ended. Whatever the Norvak's plans had been, those ended when Alekos woke the Dark Prince. The Vampirie will unite under his rule because we were fashioned to serve him.

The Dark Prince grabs one of Kinley's hands from her lap. She yelps when he frees a small amount of blood by cutting into the tender flesh of the underside of her wrist with his thumbnail.

He brings her wrist up to his mouth and blows on the sting that is probably radiating out from the thin cut as red starts to seep from it. "I have a surprise waiting for you at the castle and another one on the way. I hope you will enjoy them. Now, be a good immortal human and go take this peace offering to Tristan over there. I need him in better spirits when we arrive in Valderanna because a Tristan in a foul mood always leads to unnecessary bloodshed."

Kinley's expression turns queasy as her gaze flicks from her bleeding wrist to me back to her bleeding wrist.

Whatever bad mood I am in, I'm going to have to bottle it up because the Prince knows my thirst is always a drop of blood away from out-of-control when I am angry. It's why he suggested a taste of Kinley as a "peace offering." He wants to see me lose control and he wants me to do it in front of Kinley.

"Go on. He won't take more than I allow him to." The Dark Prince encourages Kinley by pushing her in my direction. "Come, Princess, sit by me while Tristan enjoys the finest blood in all of Valderanna."

Kinley and Kalista switch places, Kinley falling over as the car turns onto the winding path toward the mountains before she makes it to her assigned seat. Sabrina shoves Kinley off her, which makes it where Kinley ends up in my lap instead of in the free seat beside me.

As my nostrils flare and my throat burns with the scent of her cinnamon spice blood, I am unsure whose life is the one that has a curse attached to it because, right now, it feels like it may have been mine.