Although the chattering in the ballroom had been minimized due to my screams, the music kept playing. A crowd was growing around the demon and me, hushed voices reaching each other but not making sense in my ears. All I felt was the pulsing pain of the gashes across my skin. There were three now; one on my arm, my chest under my collar bone, and on my stomach just above my navel.

Wet blood was dripping from the wounds across my skin and onto the floor, where the tip of my feet slipped and struggled to keep my weight from closing off my windpipe captured in the man's grip. The pain helped me fight the fear enough to grab the man's wrist in order to keep from choking to death. My wounds screamed in protest. Sweat was dampening my clothes along with the blood, and tears were streaking my face. The man himself didn't seem moved by my pain.

"Vincent!" His voice caused me instant relief. I couldn't see Xander, but just knowing he was here and that the man harming me wasn't Jacobi made me feel slightly less helpless. Unless he was a Royal. Looking into his scary dark eyes, I could believe this man was what a Royal was to be. Not that I would know...

At Xander's voice, the man tightened his grip on me as though I might be pulled from him. I cried out quietly, trying to pull his fingers from my neck to no avail. My toes slipped in my own blood, causing me to lose my footing and in turn lose my oxygen. I struggled desperately to get it back, but my feet couldn't find less slippery ground.

"Vincent, stop!" Xander was closer now. "Jacobi doesn't want her killed yet."

"Jacobi isn't my master," The man, Vincent, said oh so slowly. His eyes watched me struggling in his grip both to stand on my toes and to breathe. My heart was racing painfully and my lungs were burning from deprivation.

"She's mine," Xander snarled viciously. I didn't think he had a vicious bone in his body, but the intimidating claim was thick and solid with rage. Vincent rolled his eyes to look at Xander carefully, daring him to attack.

"Vincent, the girl," Corentine interrupted, moving closer. She wanted to kill me, still. A little pain was good, but in the end she wanted to be the cause of my death. Instead, I was losing feeling in my limbs and my vision was blackening.

Suddenly, Vincent's grip loosened on my throat and he instead wrapped an arm around my waist to hold me to him firmly. I gasped for air, inhaling so sharply that I coughed on it. I pressed my hands against Vincent's chest by reflex, not used to having a stranger's body so aligned with my own. He easily swiped away my hands, reaching to move my hair aside and looked at my neck and shoulder on both sides.

"I do not see any mark of claiming, my Xander," He stated, holding his free hand in the direction of my neck as though presenting me as his argument. He was playing with Xander, I knew, but what I didn't know was why.

"I'm not yours anymore, Vincent," Xander growled darkly.

"Would you like me to show you how to claim a human properly?" Vincent laughed then, low and dementedly. It sent shudders throughout my body. He grabbed my face and turned my head sharply so that my neck was bare beneath him. I whimpered, finally able to see Xander standing with Aveline just behind him. Her hand was to her mouth in horror, uncertainty filling her eyes as she looked from Vincent to Xander.

When Xander moved to stop Vincent, he quickly said, "Ah, ah, Xander. Come any closer and I'll rip her head off her shoulders. You've seen me do it before." Another chuckle rumbled through his chest, "I've seen you do it, as well."

Vincent's attention moved back to me. I felt his lips brush the skin on my shoulder. Then I felt him suck the skin of my neck between his teeth sharply, causing me to gasp and close my eyes in terror. He released my skin easily, releasing a low chuckle again no doubt at the expression of rage on Xander's face. It was then that I felt the smallest trace of sharp fang brush my skin, causing me to tremble compulsively. I didn't want to be claimed by anyone, much less this terrifying being.

"Vincent Bennett."

Vincent stopped his assault and smiled darkly before looking up and away from me. Jacobi stood now in front of Xander, his stance relaxed but his expression was of extreme annoyance. By reflex, I cast my eyes away, not wanting to bring his notice to me in case he decided to have someone finish me off after all.

"You'll release the Monet girl immediately," Jacobi ordered firmly.

"Oh, will I?" Vincent drawled slowly, unimpressed.

"Yes. You will." They glared at each other intensely. It had to be some sort of battle of will. I wished I wasn't in the center of it. "You're in my territory, Bennett, and you're attacking one of mine."

"She isn't claimed. She's no one's yet."

"She's on my territory, therefore she's mine. You're on my territory. Therefore you are mine until you leave. And as such, you will drop her and obey me," Jacobi's voice rose thunderously, causing me to wince in fear. How is it that he can be ordering me to be left alone and still frighten me so much?

"I am not yours. I am my own master," Vincent's voice boomed dangerously. "You took what was mine. You took my Kindred. I will have your Monet as payment. My coterie will love taking out their losses by the hands of Monets on one of their own blood."

"You will drop that girl or else I will kick your ass and kill every one of your coterie. Then you can be a Master of dirt," Jacobi spat viciously. His stance changed offensively, his muscles rippling dangerously and his eyes blackening into his demonic form. Vincent growled, the sound moving through his body and rumbling through my own before taking away my breath in fear. He suddenly dropped me carelessly, causing me to land sharply against the solid ground. I yelped in pain, but quickly moved away from Vincent until my head hit the edge of one of the tables.

Vincent didn't simply surrender, though. Instead, his already black eyes widened until they bled that demonic black completely and he bared his fangs and claws dangerously. The vampires surrounding them shifted as members of Jacobi's coterie began flooding behind him protectively, preparing to fight to what I assumed would be the death. Vincent's coterie, on the other hand, was lacking the man power from what I could tell. Perhaps only a small group was invited to the gathering or maybe the Bryant coterie, being the wealthiest and most powerful, was just simply larger. Regardless, it was easy to tell which was on the winning side.

In the chaos forming, I found I could push myself to my feet and leaned against the table for support. My legs still trembled in fear, but the immediate threat was no longer presently occurring so now I could mostly just feel the throbbing pain of my wounds on my body. Besides the gashes, my throat was aching from Vincent's death grip and my lungs still felt sensitive to nearly being suffocated.

"Show a little self-control, Vincent, before the Royals arrive and you embarrass yourself," Jacobi said sharply. He then indicated to Xander and Aveline to go for me, and they were beside me within seconds. Aveline hugged me to her protectively like a child, trying to shield me from everyone. Xander tried to pull me away from her in order to look me over but was failing miserably. I wondered if it was smart to show concern for the hated Monet in public like this.

When Jacobi saw I was in their grasp, he growled at Vincent one last time and began to turn to leave. It was then that time suddenly changed for me. A ringing screamed in my ears, like a key on a piano being held down indefinitely but not loud enough to be too noticeable. I turned my head from inside Aveline's grip, noticing Vincent's posture changing abruptly from retreating to advancing. Only instead of attacking with his fists, his hand was reaching for something inside of his suit jacket.

It had to have been instinct that did it, instinct or something close to it. All my fear was gone. The tremors in my legs dissipated and the pain of my wounds was void and nonexistent. I didn't even think. I just reached behind me and grabbed one of the bright tea lights from the tabletop, and then I wasn't there anymore.

Within a second I had advanced faster than Vincent was advancing on Jacobi's back. I immediately gripped his unsuspecting wrist in my free hand, slamming the LED light into his eyes viciously, and twisting his wrist with my entire body so that the weapon, a silver studded stake with a black wooden hilt, was flung uselessly onto the ground. It was then that time caught back up to me, greeting me with Vincent's roar of pain as he reached up to his face. I was right before in assuming bright light would probably affect a vampire in its heightened sense form.

I only was able to stumble back half a step before his hand moved from his face. Then I only barely saw the swift swing of the back of his hand just before it met my skull with a deafening crack. I couldn't say that I felt anything afterwards, being that it immediately threw me into darkness even before it threw me onto the ground.

~...~

I was running through a forest, the trees flying past me as I tried to reach the low hum... that thing that called to me. I felt as though someone were running with me. Or maybe behind me. Maybe I was running behind them. I couldn't tell.

I came upon a clearing, the moon high in the sky but red like blood. On the top of the hill within the clearing was a woman, standing with her hands clasped together in anxiety and pacing back and forth. Her raven hair blew in the wind, whipping around her chaotically but she didn't seem to notice. She turned her face and her pale blue eyes found mine.

Desperately, she waved for me to come greet her. I hesitated, looking around and trying to feel for it, the thing that called for me, but it wasn't here. The woman had interrupted whatever it was. Still, I couldn't just leave her. She looked lost.

I made my way up the hill, noticing as I got closer that she paced the same spot. Was she unable to get down from the hill? The closer I got, the more I saw under the red moon. Her chest was black and wet just over her heart. And when I stepped closer, I saw a hole in the center of the blackened wetness. It had to be blood.

"What happened?" I asked her, horrified. When I looked up to her beautiful face, she cried out but it was silent. Her eyes were lifeless, and then they weren't. Beneath her lips, she had fangs, still present even after her eyes returned to normal. This only happened in death.

"What happened? Do you need help?"

The woman grasped my upper arms, her mouth moving but no words forming.

"I can't hear you," I called to her, though she was only inches away. My heart was racing painfully in my chest in fear. I shook my head, trying to hear what she was saying. And then, her voice crawled over me as if from my own throat.

"Please. Tell Cobi."

I widened my eyes and cried out, "Tell him what?" The woman then silently moved towards me. Before I could retreat, she grasped my face in her hands and placed her lips over mine. Images poured through my mind, none making sense. They drowned me. They choked me. I screamed.

And then I woke up.

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I was like, screw it, gonna update quickly again!

In case you missed it on the last update, I did make a book trailer that's pret-ty crappy, but I want to show it off anyway because I wasted time on it!