The overbearing scent of Kinley Shea Rylan, the object and human of my current, unquenchable bloodlust wafts directly into my awaiting lungs as I step over the threshold of a top floor condo with an ocean view.

"I'll take it from here. Now, forget you saw me." I turn and face the building's onsite maintenance man who I compelled to let me in. I had planned on going through the sliding door on the balcony but, what do you know, it was locked.

Sure, I could have broken the lock or shattered the glass, but that would ruin the fun I have planned.

In the bathroom of the coffee shop, I needed to rush. Here, in the privacy behind closed doors and surrounded by walls stuffed with noise reduction insulation, there is no need to hurry. I'm free to take my time, and I plan on taking lots of time. For when will I get another chance to toy with a human who already knows what I am?

The answer to that rhetorical question is never.

Humans haven't known about the existence of our kind since the Prince of Darkness's reign. I don't see that changing anytime soon despite Alekos's worry.

Little does our leader know, if I had accepted his bid to be paired with his daughter, I would be on the side that wants to see the truth brought out of the dark and into the light. I like the sound of my kind no longer living in the shadows of a species that is far beneath us. There would be blood flowing in the streets and mayhem everywhere. The churches of the humans would be packed full as they preach about how the end times are upon them.

I'd love to see the humans' faces when they realize their creator does not hold dominion over this living rock—we do and will continue to do so for the many millenniums to come.

The maintenance man nods, his eyes glazed over from me imposing my commands deep into his subconscious. He leaves without a word, going back to finish watching whatever TV show had him glued to the television when I came in through a window.

The biggest advantage to having the maintenance man let me in is that I got to pick his brain about the person who lives in unit A301 of this pricey condo complex.

Drumroll...that person isn't Kinley.

My dear, sweet unfortunate Kinley is house-sitting for some corporate executive spending the next six months abroad for business.

Poor little Kinley has no friends or family from what I gathered. She moved here specifically to take this housesitting job. She is a month into her six-months stay. Meanwhile, I am only ten seconds into my exploration of her temporary lodging arrangements.

The condo is decorated with smooth clean lines. The furnishings appear to only come in two choices, white or glass. Everything looks staged and sterile.

I head toward the aqua glow coming from further inside. On the far wall of the living room sits an aquatic tank filled with exotic fish. The fish tank is the only light source to be found in this condo's open floor plan besides the light coming from a lamp I can see through a cracked bedroom door.

The spicy tang of Kinley's scent as I approach the room she must sleep in crafts the sensation of ants networking their tunnels through the black veins under my eyes.

Hell's mercy, she smells delectable.

The ants begin their march toward my esophagus as the bitter taste of venom saturates my mouth. I can hear the sounds of running water and an electric toothbrush humming as the bristles brush against teeth. I tune in my hearing until I can make out the individual squeezes within the chambers of Kinley's heart.

I close my eyes, letting the sound fill every inch of me. It's such a beautiful sound, yet I am looking forward to making it speed up.

The vibrating of the toothbrush stops, followed by the sounds of spitting, swishing, gurgling, and spitting again.

I'm in the bedroom now, silently opening the top drawer to the nightstand. A lopsided grin eases onto my face when packs of yellow number two pencils come into sight. Next to them is a stack of already sharpened pencils bound together by a rubber band.

Just behind the pencils are Kinley's more serious weaponry, which includes actual stakes, some tipped with titanium or silver. Additionally, she has several different talismans that are supposed to ward off the undead. There are also a few books in the drawer. One is titled How to Tell When Your Mind is Playing Tricks on You, another on demonology, and a third that is a well known classic about vampires. All of the books have sticky tabs jutting out of them. I'm certain if I opened one, they would have notes scribbled in the margins.

Picking up one of the cross necklaces that lie in a pile near the back of the drawer, the pendant dangles so far down on the long chain it probably reaches past Kinley's breastbone.

I'm sure this is the necklace she wears when she goes to her therapy sessions. She wouldn't want Angela to know she still believes a demon is responsible for whatever crime it is her neighbor confessed to. That is something my kind does from time to time when we are in a bind.

Compelling someone else to confess to killing the prey we slaughtered comes in handy if you should unexpectedly be interrupted while feeding. I've had that happen a time or two. It always adds an extra element of fun, especially when the party who walks through the door happens to be part of the immediate family to the half-dead corpse on the floor.

My attention moves from the necklace I am holding to the appointment reminder card for her therapy visit tomorrow. At least I will know where to go to tie up loose ends. Or maybe I'll let Angela join Kinley in the afterlife just so Kinley can say, now do you believe I'm not crazy?

The lone picture frame sitting on top of the dresser across the room catches my attention while I listen to the sounds of exfoliating face wash scrape against delicate human flesh. I don't recognize any features of the woman and man in the picture, but I do spot a much younger Kinley sitting between them.

With this being the single personal effect left out, I can't help but speculate if these people are who the neighbor confessed to killing. I know these humans can't be Kinley's biological parents yet the love beaming off of them says they felt otherwise.

The water shuts off followed by sounds of a cotton towel being pulled while it is still on the hook.

It's time to let the games begin.

Turning off the lamp, I encase myself in darkness. A sliver of an aqua glow can be seen through the cracked door, the only light source in the entire condo now coming from the fish tank in the living room.

The tension in my stomach tightens in anticipation at the halting of Kinley's footsteps. Now that she has flicked off the bathroom light, she has noticed the lamp is no longer illuminated. My fangs throb with longing as she walks over and turns the lamp back on.

Lud-dub lud-dub lud-dub, the chambers of her heart squeeze in rapid succession when her gaze falls onto the black cotton tee shirt strategically spread out onto the bed.

Her body lurches forward at the feel of my cold, bare skin pressing against the thin material of her silk pajamas.

"Did you miss me, Kinley?"

Goosebumps litter her skin as I trace the rise and fall of her hammering pulse. I soak in every bit of terror: the tremors rocking her petite frame, the thunderous roar of her heart, and the way her breath is still caught in her windpipe from my sneak attack.

I press myself closer to her, letting her feel the way my icy skin as turned the cross that is dangling around my neck into a frostbitten piece of metal.

I don't recall my skin being this cold. Perhaps there is so much venom pooling in my mouth it made its way into my bloodstream. The sensation is maddening. Externally I'm freezing, yet the heat this human instills has become a condensed ball in my center, burning like a generator inside me as it tries to push away the frost that inhabits me.

"You're not really here," Kinley whispers on a wobbly breath that matches her quaking body.

The inflection in her tone leads me to believe deep down a part of her knows that I am, but she doesn't want to accept it. She wants to buy into the lie her therapist has been spoon-feeding her about how monsters aren't real and her mind made the whole thing up as a coping mechanism to help her deal with what she saw.

Why wouldn't this human who has wrapped herself in silk prefer to believe that her mind is playing tricks on her when the reality she is facing is much harsher?

Denial can be powerful, and I can tell she is trying her best to deny what she knows to be true. She doesn't have a drawer full of anti-vampire merchandise and stakes for nothing.

"Maybe I am... or maybe I'm not," I say, causing a shudder to disrupt the vibrations of her shaking body as my cool breath dances in her ear.

Kinley tilts her head in the direction of my thumb as I swipe it over the faint mark on her neck. It's my not so subtle reminder that if I weren't real, this mark wouldn't be here.

The mark my frenzied sucking caused is even more pronounced than when I saw it in the bathroom. The fact that it is still here, and is angrier than ever, brings about a sense of pride.

I didn't know I was capable of such refined savagery.

The potent scent of Kinley's cinnamon blood draws me in. I bury my face in the nape of her neck and inhale so deeply there isn't anything in my lungs except her.

"You smell achingly delicious," I mutter, my fangs tingling with longing.

My choice in phrasing causes her heart to beat against her ribcage in the most teasing of ways.

"What do you want?" She nearly chokes on the question before it can make it out.

She's surrendering, accepting what she has long known to be the truth. Monsters exist and, right now, one has her by the throat, or maybe I should say by the fangs.

"I think the answer to that question is obvious." I nip her neck then soothe the sting with the flat of my tongue.

"Did he send you to finish me off?"

The tongue bath I am lavishing over her ticking pulse ceases.

"He?" I lift my mouth from her neck.

I wasn't interested in finding out the details about how she knows what I am because, in the end, it doesn't matter. However, now that I am here, I do find I'm intrigued to know what horrors she had to bear witness to.

"The demon with the angel's face," she elaborates. "Or maybe...maybe you have taken on a different form to try and deceive me."

My outburst of laughter causes Kinley to flinch. Clearly, her demonology book has influenced her view of vampires heavily.

I would like to say my kind aren't demons, yet that would be a lie. We may not have the ability to inhabit bodies like most demons but we can possess our preys' minds. I suppose therein lies the greatest difference between demon and vampire.

"Perhaps I have." I spin her around to face me.

Amusement with a sinister edge streaks across my expression in the form of a twisted grin. I step closer, using my size advantage and current appearance as an intimidation tactic. The pay off is handsome.

Hormones dump into the air—sheer terror.

That aroma never gets old.

The tremble in Kinley worsens as she takes in my black stained eyes and the black veins running underneath. If she had left the lamp off, she would be able to see how fierce the blue of my eyes is glowing. I imagine I do look every bit a demon to her.

I can't help but mess with her. She's so naive about our kind. If she wants to believe my kind can transform faces, who am I to correct her?

Kinley places her hands on my chest to stop me from getting closer, the back of her legs hitting into the bed behind her. It's kind of cute she thinks she can stop me with so little.

I grab her wrists and press her hands firmly to my chest. My actions confuse and terrify her at the same time because she doesn't know what I am doing. That makes two of us. All I know is I feel like being extra wicked, and this human being a virgin gives me plenty of ammunition to play with.

Slowly, I slide her hands down my body, ignoring the way it makes the ball of fire in my stomach flare up into my throat. I keep going, guiding her hands over my built chest and down the contours of my abs.

She sucks in a sharp, uneven breath as her fingertips graze over the cross necklace. I think my wearing it might be the thing that disturbs her the most. She's probably wondering if anything in that drawer of hers would actually work against me.

"Tell me, Human, do you want to know what it would be like to lay with the same monster as the one who killed your parents?" I take a stab at guessing what happened that night based on everything I have seen here. Humans are sentimental creatures, often keeping pictures of dead loved ones within sight like it means the deceased person is watching over them.

That does it. Pure revulsion scrunches Kinley's face as she rips her hands from my relaxed grip.

Her face flushes with anger at my delight-filled laughter.

How dare I use the death of her parents as part of my callous joke?

Shame on me. I'm such a bad monster.

Kinley narrows her eyes, the smell of her fear dissipating as she gazes at me with pure hatred. "If you have come here to finish this, then do your worst, demon." Her voice comes out surprisingly steady like she has been waiting for this moment for a long time.

"You sure about that, Kinley Shea Rylan?" I squander the last of the space between us, my taller stature forcing her to have to crane her neck up so that she can continue to look me in the eye.

She sweeps her long tousled hair behind her left shoulder. Whatever fun I was having comes to an abrupt halt as I'm left staring at six round scars. Two smaller scars flank the outside of a pair of larger scars with a third smaller set positioned directly below. The precise spacing between each scar and the placement means this scar can be only one thing—a bite mark.

Impossible. A vampire bite is deadly.

Sorry, humans. There is no way to turn into one of the glorious beings that we are. A viper's venom doesn't turn a rat into a snake nor does a spider transform its prey into a likeness of itself. The only thing that awaits a venomous predator's prey is death. So why is this human still alive?

If a vampire fed from her and sucked the venom out, this mark wouldn't be here. It would have been healed either with our saliva or blood. She also would have been compelled to forget the whole thing ever happened. None of these things appears to have occurred.

I have little time to ponder this discovery as every cell in my blood melts into a liquid fire that scorches me with a hunger I can no longer control. I rush the human, giving into the demands coursing through me.

The only thing is it isn't her cinnamon blood I taste on my tongue. It's the minty freshness of her mouth.

I tear myself from Kinley, shoving her away with so much force she falls back onto the bed. My whole body is teeming with heat, hunger, and...lust. Not lust for her blood but lust for her body.

What the hell is wrong with me? I back away from the female human, scared I may give in to the part of me that wants to climb on top of her and make her mine.

There are no words to articulate the vile and completely wrong thoughts that are swirling in my head.

Vampires don't bed humans. We eat them.

I've had 897 years to perfect the craft of hunting and killing. I have become so good at both. They are a form of art. An artistic expression of the beast within that ends with blood, entrails, and body parts covering the canvas of my face.

So what has changed?

What talisman in that drawer of hers can cause one of my kind to want to...Nope, I won't even think what my boiling blood is commanding me to do.

I take one last glance at the human who has armed herself with a silver-tipped stake. When the sight of her clad in silk that leaves little to the imagination makes my loins twist, I leave. I don't stop until I am walking through the doors to my gated home.

My sisters, Dorian, and Kalista turn their heads upon my loud entry. Serena's eyebrow cocks seeing me shirtless with a cross hanging around my neck while Sabrina looks alarmed as the black under my eyes has extended into the veins of my neck and arms. Alekos is already gone.

I say nothing as I head straight to my room for there is nothing to say. I almost bedded a human, and what's worse is I think I would have enjoyed it.