Contently, a sigh leaves my lips as I lift my hand to the place healed on my neck. I've been bitten. I've been bitten by none other than the Beast of the Damned himself. His life force probably still runs through me. Sure when I was younger, Tristan healed an injury by wrapping a piece of his torn clothes he soaked in his own blood around my leg, but that's different. This time, I've ingested him and he's ingested me. I wonder what Narran and Vera would have to say about that?

A giggle of giddiness escapes me as I picture the look on Narran's face if she knew Tristan sealed his mouth to mine and fed me his blood.

Next time, you will take my wrist if I offer it to you. Tristan's voice fades along with the memory of him disappearing out my window.

Next time...

I lean against the wall next to the open window letting the daylight streaming in soak into my skin. The bright rays warm my face, the sun at its peak strong enough to overpower the chill tangling in the mountainous air from a winter determined to come ahead of schedule.

A day turns into two weeks and two weeks turns into a month with no signs of Tristan. Every night, I make sure I'm bathed and my hair is braided to one side in case he comes. With Thron and the Dark Prince gone, Tristan must be busy with his duties and unable to slip away. Seeing him again is the only thing that has made being locked indoors bearable. But as another month goes by and the last of the moon drops dies out, I give up waiting, accepting that all that is before me is another thirty days of isolation before the Dark Prince and Thron return to Valderanna.

By now, Narran and Vera have already long received their punishments for taking me to the spring. It seems unfair their penitence is already over and mine still continues.

A loud knock comes at my door rattling the locks.

"Who is it?" I holler, cautiously abandoning the open window to my chambers and walking to the door. My servants always just let themselves in, same as Marianna as they have the master keys to the locks. Come to think of it. I don't think anyone has ever knocked on my door before. Why would they when I'm just the Prince of Darknesses special pet?

The person on the other side bangs on the door in rapid succession, the knob turning as they try to open it.

"I'm not permitted to open this door to anyone." I press my palm flat against the hard surface separating whomever is on the other side, feeling the strong vibrations through the intricate metal.

The locks continue to rattle, the doorknob twisting violently as the person continues to pound on the door in a desperate manner.

All falls silent.

"Hello?" I place my ear beside the door listening for sounds of anything.

A wet stickiness runs into my bare feet. I lift my dress, looking down at the ground to see the substance seeping from underneath the door is blood. Without thinking, I undo the locks and pull the door open quickly. Deep, thick burgundy drools down from Tristan's face. Every inch of him is splatted in red while one of my servants lies in a heap on the ground in front of him.

Tremors work their way up my legs and into my chest as I watch Tristan calmly drop to the balls of his feet and use his teeth to tear off the mark branded into my servant's skin.

The reason the person didn't say anything is because she couldn't. Her vocal cords have been clipped. My servant didn't have time to use her key to undo the many locks she has to bypass before that mark that lets her gain entry to my chambers can be of any use.

I slam the door shut in Tristan's face. It doesn't close, his foot wedged in the way. He opens the door wide, stepping over the threshold and dead servant. As soon as both his feet are past the demon enchanted barrier, he drops the branded flesh in his left hand on the floor.

"I've been so thirsty." He stalks toward me, uncaring I am moving backward to maintain some distance between us or that he's visiting my chambers in broad daylight.

"You...you shouldn't be here." My back hits one of the wooden vertical columns of my four-poster bed.

"You are right about that. I most certainly should not as all I can think about is your sweet blood sliding down my throat before it burrows into my veins and fills me with a hunger only more can sate."

Tristan appears in front of me, startling me as he uses his vamp speed to close the remaining eight feet between us in a disorienting blur that has my head spinning and my knees weak with fright. His dark eyes are hooded with a ravenous thirst that seems on the verge of tipping over and resulting in my untimely demise.

For the first time I'm beginning to see why Tristan Darkos of the warrior bloodline is known among his own kind as The Beast they stay clear of.

"I dream of bathing in you, human. My teeth sunk deep into your warm flesh as your essence covers us both like the silk sheets that line your bed." Tristan wraps his red-drenched hand around my neck, gliding his thumb over the fast beating pulsations underneath my skin. "It doesn't matter how many I slay, your blood is the only sustenance my thirst wants to claim."

"Slay?" The pitch of my voice rises, Tristan tilting my chin up to the side so my neck is stretched before him.

"Yes, human, slay. I am vampire." Smugness pulls at the corner of his full lips.

"I know. It's just..."

"Barbaric to your human sensitivities?" Tristan steps closer, caging me between his steel body and the bedpost.

"Unexpected to hear." I correct him, mindful of the way he drops his face to the nape of my neck and breathes me in. Any minute now Marianna could appear to check on me. She usually comes by several times a day. Now would be an excellent time for her to stop by.

"Am I not known as the most bloodthirsty beast of these lands?" He rasps against my ticking pulse, seemingly lost in the cadence.

"I meant unexpected that I was the cause."

Tristan stops rubbing his nose against me, his gaze flicking to mine as he stands tall. "And how does that make you feel to know your own kind met their end all because you offered me a taste of something that plagues my every waking moment?"

"That their loss was unnecessary and avoidable had you came to me sooner for I would have willingly offered a place for you to sink your aching fangs." The boldness of my statement gets hampered by the struggle it took for me to say the last four words. They almost didn't make it out.

Tristan grips both my arms, pulling me roughly into his unyielding frame until I can feel the individual contours of his sculpted torso. "Do not tempt me more than I already am. I have not returned to you because, if I get my fangs into you a second time, I'll drain your every drop before dining on your maddening, thunderous heart."

"I see the times we spent together when I little have meant nothing to you. Your father is right. You merely tolerated my existence while silently longing for the day my blood will spill upon your face."

"Your death is not something I long for, yet it is an inevitable truth my thirst will exploit for I am slave to the insatiable darkness that thrives in me." Tristan flips me around without warning, barring his arm across my chest while he holds me locked against his powerful chest." It demands payment of blood and the only payment it's willing to accept it seems is yours."

Frozen breath filters through my hair as he buries his face in my hair. The embrace he holds me in feels intimate as if we are two torrid lovers, yet nothing could be further from the truth. I'm just a blood bag, a bleeder to him that is as disposable as the next.

"I'm a beast who has never been able to tame the instinct to kill, though I've walked this Earth for nearly two hundred years. You can't imagine the difficulties it is to deny your own nature to preserve a human whose scarlet life force is laced with a hint of cinnamon." Tristan inhales another lungful of my scent, groaning while he squeezes me tighter to him.

"Perhaps you should learn some self-control," I say as he scrapes the point of his fangs against the place my neck and shoulder meet.

"I'll make you a deal. I'll learn self-control when you learn to control this around me." Tristan threads his fingers through mine and raises our joined hands to my chest.

"How can I control my heart? It beats of its own accord." A wave of lightheadedness sweeps through my extremities when Tristan clamps his mouth down on my shoulder and sucks hard at the trapped blood running beneath my skin that he yearns to drink.

"I don't know, human. But if you don't figure it out soon, I'm going to sink my fangs into that juicy, thumping organ of yours that torments me. That action will result in not only my killing you but my father cutting off my head on the Prince of Darkness's command. So do your best, for both our sake."

In the next blink, I'm left staring at my closed bedroom door, the chill of Tristan's cold flesh lingering on me in raised shivers that have the hairs on my arms standing on end.

A swooshing sound followed by the heavy thud of something rolling echoes from the hallway into my chambers.

I race to the door, the puddle of blood that seeped underneath earlier soaking into the bottom of my dress. I throw open the door in time to see Tristan flicking fresh streams of scarlet off his sword. My gaze drops down to the headless guard at his feet.

Tristan sheaths the weapon in the holster tied to his hip, twisting his head over his shoulder. A sadistic grin lines his lips when he sees me standing frozen in the doorway.

"How lucky for you I happen to be walking by and was able to stop this crazed guard out of his mind with bloodlust from entering your chambers. 'Tis a real shame I was unable to stop him before he killed another of your servants."

I step into the hallway, watching as Tristan walks away snickering to himself. I clench the fabric of my dress, willing my wildly beating heart to calm itself. That's when it happens. My heart hiccups, a declaration of acknowledgement that, no matter how hard I try, it will always beat strongest when Tristan Darkos is around.