"He what?" She bit her lip, realizing maybe she shouldn't have said what she did. "Cind . . . tell me."

"Not here, come with me." Grabbing hold of my hand, she pulled me out of the kitchen towards the garden. Oh, the garden, I smiled to myself remembering yesterday. As we walked outside, Cinders went left and somehow we ended up by a lake. Oh, come on! He has a lake!?

"Where is this place?"

"This is a place Alex never comes, it's the only place he lets his slaves go, this is 'their' place. Though it's all fenced in, we won't be able to run away or go anywhere, so he feels safe about letting us be here" Sitting down in the grass, she patted the space next to her. "Sit with me and I'll tell you everything." Instantly I sat.

"Okay, tell me everything."

"When Alexander found out about Imogene's betrayal, he decided to sell her, only the vampire who bought her was an evil, horrible monster. He worked her to death basically. Treated her lower than dirt, lower than anything."

"Oh my god, did Alex know he treated her like that?" She nodded.

"He made sure whoever bought her, made her suffer."

"But . . . if she was a vampire, isn't there some sort of law against that?"

"No, she was born a human, and was brought here to be a slave. She should never have been turned and therefore the rules don't apply. You have yo be brought here for a pure reason, not for slavery."

"Ohh . . . okay, well what happened before that?"

"Rose . . . Alexander has some serious secrets, are you ready to know them?" I nodded instantly. "Okay . . . well . . . Imogene slept with Kane, no one really knows why. Kane doesn't talk about it, but it happened, Imogene felt so guilty she told Alex. Make no mistake, she loved him with all her heart and Alex knew that, but none the less, he sold her . . . Imogene begged Alex not to, begged to stay here . . . with her child, but he wouldn't let her."

"Wow, wow, back the hell up! Child, please tell me Alex doesn't have a kid?"

"No, vampires can't have children, it's impossible, they're for all intensive purposes dead, they can't reproduce. Though, he has a step-daughter since he was married to Imogene."

"Is she still here?" Cind looked down at her hands and sighed sadly.

"Yes, she is."

"So, who is the dad? Another slave . . . what, tell me!"

"Imogene was pregnant when Alex bought her from the Slave House, she didn't even know because she was in such early stages of her pregnancy. The Slave House does tests for this but somehow missed it. When she missed her period she thought nothing of it, her experiences up until that point were rather stressful, and of course everyone knows when you're stressed it can cause that sort of problem." I nodded. Well, that made a lot of sense.

"Anyway, when it happened again and again, she started worrying and thought Alex would let her leave of she told him, but of course when he did find out, he took her back to Scars-Fall."

"Scars-Fall?"

"That's where the Slave House is. He took her back but because she had obviously only JUST got pregnant when she was taken, they said that they nor Alex could be sure that one of his male slaves hadn't been the one responsible for impregnating Imogene and therefore wouldn't accept her back. Obviously, Alex called all his male slaves to the ballroom and found out that none of them were responsible."

"So he realized that Imogene was pregnant before being here."

"Exactly. But of course, he wouldn't let her leave still, and he may be a bad guy from time-to-time but he wasn't going to do anything bad to her. Anyway, over time he grew fond of her, and oh my god, I can't tell you how good he was with the baby when she was born. He turned all goo-goo-eyes and he was like a natural." Hearing that made me smile.

"Really?"

"Yeah, he's super good with babies and children."

"Yeah, he's really good with Parker." She nodded in agreement.

"Of course, after Imogene had a baby, she couldn't work for a little while and slowly they grew closer and closer, years passed and well, they got married. Alex loved her and her daughter so completely. Then . . . one day, something bad happened . . ." She trailed off, the sad expression returning.

"What happened?"

"Alex had company over, and at this point, Imogene was still human, there was an accident and she was attacked by their child. Young vampires can't control themselves, she got seriously hurt and was dying from blood loss and . . . Alex had to either turn her or lose her."

"So he turned her."

"Yes. Everything was fine after that, perfect even. Her . . . their daughter started growing up, she became best friends with Parker but then . . . Kane came to visit and everything went wrong. After Imogene was sold, Alex couldn't bare looking at their child and sent her to be looked after by the slaves, she grew up, was turned on her 18th birthday and . . . been his slave ever since."

"That's so sad!"

"I know it is." There was silence for a little while before she suddenly stood up.

"Who's the daughter?" I stood up too.

"It doesn't matter. I have to get back to work, I'll see you later."

"Yeah . . . see you later." I decided to stay out here for a little bit, it was so peaceful.

I must have been there for hours, and eventually, it started raining, but I didn't want to go back . . . I was terrified . . .