When I enter the throne room, the Dark Prince is sitting slumped in his seat with his hand shielding half his face. He doesn't acknowledge me though he has requested my presence. He snaps his fingers.

Thron nods and descends the steps the throne sits upon. Kneeling in front of the intricate metal box on the ground, he takes off the necklace around his neck. He places the jagged-edged pendant into the slot that matches the pattern and turns it. Gears click, turning until the sphere key has opened all the mechanisms of the lock.

My father opens the lid. A familiar energy snakes into me as the sword with the face of a beast on the hilt claims me. The black veins covering me begin to move, their pattern shifting on me as they swirl like a magical incantation sealed within me.

Thron slams the box shut, ending the maddening storm of power rising in me. This sword harbors a part of me. We are tethered together by an invisible bond gifted to us as the warrior bloodline. War and death is our specialty, but a member of the Darkos bloodline is strongest when paired with the weapon that contains the full extent of our power.

With each life claimed by my hand, the sword's power grows. Mine was taken from me during the Great War. It was locked up and kept out of my reach for my kind began to fear the power I was wielding with it. Yet, I know the real truth. It was taken from me because the Prince could see my power with it matched his own and, unlike the other vampirie, I can defy him.

"Imagine my surprise when I went to Kinley's room to find Marianna there, rocking a baby Kinley. I have spent the past three days forcing her to drink my blood and, for what? To have you trigger the angel in the east courtyard? It seems you are never going to stay away from my massarra so let's make a deal." The Prince stands and comes to my father's side.

He shoves the box containing the sword over to me with his foot with such force I have to stop it by placing my foot on the top of the box to keep it from breaking the bones in my legs.

"I need someone to raise the army of the firstborn from their prison in the underworld," the Dark Prince continues. "In order to do that, I need to spill a massive amount of blood in a single blow. That little trick of yours with the energy you took from my mate is just the thing I need to achieve such a deadly attack. So, Tristan, if you will acknowledge my rule in the new era of darkness I am about to unleash upon humanity, I will give you that which you most desire. I will gift you the massarra I have never had for three hundred years. After the three hundred years, she will become mine again to do with as I please."

"Army of the firstborn?" I narrow my gaze at the Dark Prince.

"Before the first massarra was created, I struck a deal with our Maker—the sacrifice of pureblooded humans as payment for an army that would replenish our warriors numbers should a conflict between the angels and vampirie erupt. The Great War broke out. Zeura's white army descended upon us, targeting our warriors, most notably the Darkos bloodline. The loss to your bloodline can never be reconciled no matter how many forced pairings are made. The deal proved fruitful—seven virgin humans and the firstborn who would rise again."

"What if I refuse? You can force me to kneel, but you cannot force me to do anything else." I take the sword that bears the mark of the fanged beast sent straight from the pits of hell out of the box and feel it's weight in my hand. It's like being reunited with a missing piece of myself.

"Then I will serve you Kinley's tiny little heart on a bed of her innards. The angel problem will be solved and I will comfortably rule over my new kingdom while you spend an eternity as stone with the taste of her forever lying on your tongue and in your stomach." The Dark Prince takes Kinley from one of the warriors who brought her in here.

He was indirectly threatening her life, now he is directly threatening it by the way he holds her in his arms.

"Before you get any ideas about trying to kill me as I can so plainly see the hate you house for me in those devil black eyes of yours do know that if anything happens to me all of my massarra will die, including Kinley. Their gift of immortality ends when the one who gifted it no longer walks this earth." He grins at Kinley and play bites her stomach as he raises her into the air. His actions make her giggle and smile as he continues to pretend to eat her stomach.

I lock myself in place, my muscles trembling as they want to tear the Prince's jaw from him before they separate his head from his shoulders. Nothing good can come from me ripping Kinley out of his arms so I grit my teeth and ground my weight into the stone floor beneath me.

"I'll do it on one condition. You release Kinley as a massarra. Three hundred years with her means nothing to me. You will grant her freedom from being your blood slave and you will give her a new title that ensures she still is under your protection as she always has been."

"This isn't a negotiation, Tristan."

"You need me to raise your army and we both know you can't force me to do something on a scale so massive without my consent to carry out your orders. You want a new world to rule, the payment is Kinley's freedom and a lifetime of your protection as if she were still one of your precious massarra without the benefits." I lift my gaze from the steel blade in my hand to the Dark Prince.

"And what title would you have me give her?" He hands Kinley to Thron, his energy seething in his anger at my unwillingness to submit to him as easily as the rest of my kind would.

"I don't care. Make one up. Keep calling her a massarra if you want, but keep your hands off of her unlike you do with all the others."

The Prince's jaw tightens and I move three steps closer to him in case that glance at Kinley is him preparing to tell my father to tear her heart out.

"Fine." His jaw relaxes and he walks up the steps, retaking his seat on his throne. "I will release Kinley from her full duties as my massarra. However, if I can't have her, you can't either." His smug grin pulls so far right it eclipses his wicked soul perfectly.

Kinley's soft coos cause me to cast a glance in her direction. My father is cradling her, letting her suck on his pinkie as that seems to be the easiest way to pacify her.

The only way to save her is to let her go once and for all. This would have been easier if the angel hadn't given me back the Kinley who loved me for a fleeting moment. I don't understand why the angel did in the first place. Kinley houses no memories of her past lives so the angel would have to have loaned Kinley her memories as a passenger inside of her.

"This new deal you have negotiated for expires in three, two-"

"We have a deal. Kinley gets pardoned from her full duties as a massarra and neither of us ever gets to claim her flesh." As I say this, I ignore the faint pulsing of her infant heart throughout me. I grip the sword in my hand so hard it cuts my hand deep and blood trickles onto the stone floor.

"Let's make this more interesting, shall we?" The Prince flicks his wrist.

Without hesitation, Thron slices the inside of Kinley's arm with his nail. Baby Kinley screams, her face turning red as she cries while I helplessly watch my father draw the serpent that binds us to this deal on her forehead.

The Prince bites into his wrist as Thron takes Kinley over to him. He lets his blood drip over her forehead at the same time Thron draws a matching serpent on the Prince's forehead with Kinley's blood.

The power buzzing in my blood is so intense my body begins to shake when my father brings Kinley over to me. Usually, when you make a deal, it is just between the two parties who make it. If one breaks it after it has been sealed, there are consequences that vary depending on the type of deal struck.

There is another option and the Dark Prince has just claimed Kinley as the blood payment if one of us does not uphold our end of the deal. If I don't complete the binding to this deal we struck, it won't hold any value.

The Dark Prince's ice blue eyes glint with amusement. He has outmaneuvered me and he knows it. Instead of the consequence being a century of living as stone for one of us, it will cost Kinley her life. Her soul will belong to our Marker and the angel who inhabits Kinley will be free to take over her immortal flesh permanently.

I've spent days researching in the hidden cellar of the castle about Kinley's condition. The original celestial body of the angel that resides in Kinley was destroyed. Once an angel's body has been destroyed, they can no longer exist in the human realm. So if the angel doesn't wish to possess Kinley's body for herself, she will return to heaven and Kinley's immortalized flesh will remain frozen with no soul to occupy it.

The satisfied grin on the Prince's face is a stake to the chest. He never cared about Kinley. All he cares about is making sure I never have her. He didn't pick Kinley to be his massarra because she was the one he wanted. He picked her because he knew she was the one my thirst wanted.

That day at the ball I killed for her, he saw it-the intense hunger she implanted in me. He saw how badly I wanted him to not pick her so I could have her blood for myself.

The truth is if the Dark Prince hadn't of chosen Kinley as one of the three contestants to be his next massarra, she wouldn't have made it through the congratulatory toast that follows.

My falling for her in the end only added to his pleasure of torturing me with something I can never have because it was something he didn't foresee happening.

The smell of Kinley's cinnamon blood wafts into me as my father draws the serpent on my forehead. Kinley's cries of upset as my cold blood mixes with the Prince's over the serpent mark she bears on her forehead turns to white noise.

The true price of Kinley's freedom is what is left of my soul. It now belongs to the Prince just like he has always wanted.