Prologue

Maxwell

My thoughts have been occupied with one object for many years now. Nothing can hinder the daydreams, and nothing can stop the nightmares that plague me on a daily basis. It feels as if I’m in the deepest depths of Hell, enduring indescribable agony, but I’ll endure whatever Hell brings my way to get what I want—what I need.

It’s been over a year that I finally found what I was searching for. Over a year since I began watching Charlie Preston. After all this time, I still can’t confront her. As if her rejection is an option. Her acceptance of who I am…what I am, determines my survival and what I am isn’t easy to digest.

Just the sound of her name makes my bloodless heart beat, and tricks my dead lungs into breathing. She’s all I can think about, and my willpower is fading fast. Even the thought of her soft, tan skin causes my hands to shake with the overwhelming need to touch her.

Tonight is like any other night; I crouch in the shadows that gather around her house, becoming invisible. The only light that threatens to give away my presence comes from the street lights lining the nearby road. I shield myself behind trees and bushes from prying eyes.

It’s almost midnight and she sits on her couch, with a bowl of ice cream in her lap as she watches TV. Her dark brown hair is pulled back into a ponytail and her small, curvy body curls up in the corner of the couch. Occasionally her hair flips from side to side as her head jolts at the ridiculous scene playing out on the screen. She even waves her spoon in the air yelling obscene words, adding to her dramatics.

Prolonging the inevitable is all I can do because once I tell her what she was born for, everything will change. She’s meant to live in the vampire world, she’s meant to nourish me. Each vampire is given a bloodline to feed from, and the words I keep repeating to myself explain it perfectly. “She’s mine,” I mutter between tense lips once more.