Fallen leaves have turned the forest floor into a painting splattered with reds and yellows of all different shades. There is a hint of winter tangled in the breeze that swirls the treetops, sending more of fall's butterflies soaring into the air before they land silently on the ground and become a part of nature's canvas.

"Are you sure we should be out here?" I ask, struggling to keep up with Narran and Vera.

"You humans are all such scaredy-cats," Narran rolls her eyes at me as she and Vera continue toward the natural spring they say lies beyond the edge of the castle grounds several yards past the thicket that surrounds Valderanna.

"I'm not scared. It's just—" The rest of my sentence gets cut off as I get yank backward. I tug at the bottom of my dress to free it from the sapling that ensnared it.

"We know. You aren't supposed to go outside alone. But you aren't alone, you're with us." Vera flashes her fanged smile at me.

Neither Narran nor Vera are really my friends. Vampires don't make friends with bleeders like me. Still, my longing for companionship with those around my own age is why I came. I'm tired of being ostracized because I'm different. I've lived in the castle since the day I was born yet I am still treated as an outsider.

The Prince of Darkness says it is because I am special and precious to him, but he won't tell me how I'm special. He is the only vampire who is nice to me besides my caretakers. He makes sure I live comfortably. It's why so many of the vampires around my age don't like me. They call me his pet. I hate when they call me that.

"Tell me again why we are going all this way to some watering hole?"

Bushes claw at me as I fight to squeeze through them. Broken twigs and thorns are stuck in my hair by the time I make it to the other side, meanwhile, Narran and Vera completely foliage-free.

I glance down to assess what is causing the sting I feel in my side. Gingerly, I touch the thin red line that is carved into my skin.

If I had known the only way to get to this supposed spring is to battle your way through thick thorn bushes that are as tall as trees with razor-sharp three inch thorns, I may not have come. However, Narran and Vera left out the part and now I have a torn dress.

I've only had this dress for a week too. Marianna, my main caretaker, isn't going to be happy with me as she just had it made for me.

"I thought you said you told her," Vera whispers to Narran as they press on, not even giving me a moment to remove the thorns and twigs that are tangled in with the curls of my hair.

Another thing Marianna is going to be upset about. She spent two hours fixing my hair this morning and now it looks like I went rolling in the horse stables like I used to when I was younger.

Marianna is really going to be displeased with me when I get back.

"Tell me what?" I pick up the pace so I can catch up to them, removing the debris as I go.

"It's a surprise." Narran turns to face me, a mischievous grin gracing her features.

Most vampires are beautiful, but Narran is absolutely gorgeous. All the male vampires fawn over her. She has long golden locks and these eyes that are a metallic purple. It's unfair. All I have are green-bluish eyes and they don't glow or have metallic qualities like all those who live around me.

When I was nine, I thought maybe it was the blood diet that gave them such beautiful and entrancing eyes. I threw up before I could even get myself to swallow the blood I poured from the Prince's private stash.

I didn't know I was being watched, but I was. The Prince laughed at me. It was so embarrassing. I thought he was going to be mad at me because it is forbidden to drink from a carafe that bears his seal.

He wasn't. I'm glad because I've heard stories of what happens to those that disobey the Prince. I don't believe most of them though. The Prince is so kind to me. He wouldn't do such horrible things to subjects of his own kind over something as petty as a stolen sip from one of his carafes.

The thing about being human in a vampire world is that it can make you have a lack of courage. And right now, I don't have the courage to tell Narran and Vera I hate surprises. Surprises usually don't end well for me. It's the price I pay for not being one of them. The fledglings around my age always like to have fun at my expense. Have since I was a young child.

"We are almost there. Cover her eyes," Narran says to Vera.

Vera uses her superior speed to cover my eyes before I can even open my mouth to get my protest out.

"Why do my eyes need to be covered? I thought we were going to a spring?" I whine trying my best to sound annoyed though my legs are shaking in my anxiousness.

I have been told time and time again to never go out on my own, to always stay on castle grounds, and to never be alone with vampires who aren't my caretakers.

For being raised among them, vampires are still a mystery to me. I know very little about them besides that they gain their strength from the blood of my kind. The Dark Prince doesn't like me socializing with the vampire fledglings that are my age or anyone who isn't one of my direct caretakers. If he finds out I went off castle grounds with Narran and Vera, he is going to be furious.

Maybe this was a bad idea. Nerves coil around my stomach and I become nauseous as I am led blindly to a place I have never been.

"You will see soon enough," Narran snickers, which makes the bad feeling crawling up my throat worse.

This wouldn't be the first time a bad joke has been played on me.

"We are here," Narran states at the same time I feel no ground beneath one of my feet.

"Careful." Vera pulls me back from the ledge I almost walked off of. She removes her hands from my eyes and steps to the ledge where Narran is standing.

"He comes here every day," Narran says in a dreamy sigh as she peers out over the large spring that is thirty feet below us.

"Who comes here?" I ask once I am able to take my gaze off the breathtaking view of the crystal clear water and the colorful trees that surround it that go on for miles as snow-capped mountains are barely visible off in the distance.

"Your beast."

I choke on the fresh air that gets caught in my throat, my cheeks instantly flushing. "He's not mine."

"But you want him to be, don't you? You are always watching him from a distance." Vera lifts an eyebrow, her face contorted into that smug expression vampires always get when they know they are right.

"No. I...I don't even know him," I reply, praying a strong breeze will come and cool off my warming flesh.

"I thought you said you guys used to play together when you were younger." Narran turns to face me.

"We did, but that was a long time ago. I don't think he cared for it much." I look down at the ground. Were my feelings really that transparent?

"He just arrived, on time as usual." Vera breaks into the conversation I am more than ready to let die before I drop dead from mortification that they have seen me spying on Tristan Darkos, or as my kind call him, the Beast of the Damned. All the fledglings call him The Beast for short.

Watching him take off his shirt as he kicks off his shoes, my throat dries out. I don't have vamp vision, but I don't need it to know that the nickname "The Beast" fits him. Every inch of him is rock hard and chiseled like the stone statue of the Dark Prince and serpent that sits at the top of the garden fountain in the east courtyard. I know this because I've seen him without his shirt a few times during his sparring sessions. He helps run the training camps with his father.

I've been told to stay away from those too. The warrior bloodline isn't known for being the most merciful. Some say that the soldiers of the Vamperial army are nothing more than feral vampires who are blood crazed.

Me being a human means I shouldn't go near there, but I can't help it. It's the only place I can go where I know I'll get a peek at him. My caretakers never think to look there because I was forbidden from going there after an incident that almost led to me being bitten.

That's the last time I have actually exchanged words with The Beast. I thanked him as he's the one that saved me before I got bit by one of the soldiers who stumbled upon my hiding spot. I wasn't allowed out of the castle for a whole year. I had to beg and plead with the Prince to let me go back outside.

I turn my back when Tristan begins undoing the tie on his pants. "I don't think we should be here. It's rude to spy on someone as they bathe."

Really, I just want to go before Narran and Vera can start to make fun of me for the way my heart is racing in my chest at the mere sight of him.

"I have a better idea." Narran comes over to where I am. "Why don't you see if he wants to play?"

My shrill scream bouncing off the edge of the stone cliff is the only thing I hear as I...

fall...

fall...

fall...

Cold rushes into my nose and mouth as I plummet into the cold water. I try to swim up toward the light I can see shining through the rippling water, but my dress keeps weighing me down. The harder I strive to reach the surface, the faster I sink.

Panic sets in as I fight hard to keep my mouth closed though it wants to open and expel the water that is already choking me. I can't fight the instinct any longer. My mouth opens only for water to rush in right as an arm encircles me.

In a blink, I am out of the water and on dry land, choking on the water my lungs are trying to cough up. When my body finally gets all the water out, I find I am alone. The crystal clear water of the spring is as smooth as glass. You would never know that a few seconds ago it had plans to become my unmarked grave.

"You shouldn't be off castle grounds," a gruff voice says behind me.

I twist around to see Tristan standing behind me, his pants dry while the rest of him is covered in droplets of water.

My gaze drops to his pants. If they are dry, that means he didn't have them on when he pulled me out of the water. That thought causes the blood under my cheeks to turn hot.

"I...I..." Words fail me as I stare at his clenched jaw and the fierceness of his black eyes. He's the only vampire I know whose irises have no color. His eyes are always pure devil black, forever stained with the hunger that torments him.

I do know that much. The whites of vampire's eyes always turn when they are thirsty. I learned that when I wanted to join the offspring playing in the courtyard. Everything was fine until one tagged me too hard and their nail cut my skin. I screamed because it scared me. I had never seen the whites of a vampire's eyes turn black before that day.

Tristan crouches down to the balls of his feet as he waits for me to spit out the words caught in my throat.

"I needed some fresh air and wandered a little further than I thought. I got turned around and then I wound up here," I lie. I don't want him to know Narran and Vera are here as well. They could get in serious trouble for being the ones who brought me out here in the first place.

"Your dress is torn." His voice drops into a husky tone that sends a shiver throughout me that raises my skin.

"The thorn bushes got the better of me." I glance at the tear in my dress and the shallow cut on my side that got washed clean thanks to Narran pushing me into the spring.

A surprised gasp filters out of me when I turn my attention back to Tristan. He is no longer crouched. He is on all fours and halfway on top of me.

"Your heart...it's beating so hard."

"It does that." I gulp. "Probably from falling thirty feet and nearly drowning."

"You said the bushes got the better of you. If you mean the black thorn bushes with tiny red flowers, then, no. It's not from the fall. Weeping ash is poisonous to humans. It causes fever and an increase in heart rate." He presses the back of his hand to my forehead.

I know I said Narran and Vera weren't my friends, but I didn't think they were leading me out here to poison me.

"Is it fatal?" I ask, forced to lay down as he crawls all the way over me.

At this point, I'm pretty sure it's not just the poison that is making my heart thunder in my chest like a stampede of wild horses.

"Is what fatal?" He nuzzles his face against my ticking heart like he is in some sort of trance.

"The weeping ash?"

"It's such a beautiful sound." He rubs his face up my breastplate and buries it into the nape of my neck. "Why do you smell so sweet? You always smell so sweet."

Oh, dear.

This is not good. A bush that may kill me is poisoning me and all he can think about is feeding on me. I've never been fed on before, and I plan on keeping it that way.

"I should probably be heading back to the infirmary. Surely there is an herb that will counteract the poison."

"There isn't."

The speed of his movements is blinding.

Next thing I know, Tristan has both my wrists trapped and is holding them captive above my head with one of his large hands. "I lied."

"You lied about what?" my voice squeaks as he runs his tongue over the thumping pulse in my neck.

"The weeping ash," he mumbles as he scrapes his teeth against my neck. "It is poisonous to humans, but what you went through wasn't weeping ash. The little red flowers on the bushes you went through are what antherest is derived from."

"W-why would you lie?"

I think he's going to bite me.

I am about to get bitten by the Beast of the Damned!

"Why did you lie?" Tristan pulls his face from my neck and stares me straight in the eyes. "You know I can smell and hear your friends up there right?" I wince at the harsh way he puts inflection on the "friends" part.

It's all of a half second before it hits me. If he can hear them, then he heard the part where Narran called me out on having feelings for him.

"I should really be getting back."

"Don't you want to stay and play with me?" He tightens his grip on my wrists as he lets his lower body weight drop on me, trapping me beneath him.

"You don't really like playing." My heart rate spikes so high it elevates my blood pressure to the point I feel faint.

He groans, closing his eyes for a moment as his jaw clenches. "That is where you are wrong. I love to play, but I play much rougher than your fragile human bones can handle."

"It will be getting dark soon." I rush my words.

I'm not allowed outside at night. He knows this. He knows I better be back at the castle before dark. I know my caretakers are probably looking for me. I've been missing too long already.

"Why are you always watching me?" His tone becomes so serious it scares me and I begin to tremble underneath him.

"I don't watch you." The moment the words leave my mouth, it feels like the serpent from the garden statue comes to life and coils itself around my lungs.

"You do, and whenever I am around, this"—he places his hand over my heart—"starts to beat frantically in your chest. It is maddening."

"I'm not supposed to be fed on." I breathe out on a shaky breath.

Everyone at the castle knows this. Surely, Tristan Darkos wouldn't disobey direct orders from the Prince he serves. I'm not sure the warrior bloodline is capable of disobeying the Prince even if they wished to.

"That is the only reason my fangs aren't sunk deep into your neck right now," he growls unhappily like it is pure torture not to be able to drink from me.

Images of Tristan feeding from me run unrestrained in my mind. The act seems suddenly intimate to me. His mouth...my neck...my blood flowing through those black veins of his that don't look like veins at all.

"Do you want a taste of—" My eyes widen at the feel of his cold mouth on mine. The kiss isn't romantic. It is hard and over before my heart can finish the thump-thump it began on.

Just from that rough kiss, I can tell that if he kissed me like I want him to, that it would end with my lip getting bit.

"Don't say something you can't take back." With that, Tristan vanishes right before my very eyes.

He didn't kiss me because he likes me. He kissed me to shut me up. I'm not sure it matters either way.

Tristan Darkos just kissed me. I softly touch my lips.

When I am older, I hope he will become my beast and I the only human he ever wishes to sink those beautiful fangs of his into.

It is inevitable. One day, I will get bit and, as long as it's him, I don't think I will mind.