After searching Victorija’s computer, she’d found a name. Daisy MacDougall. The Debrek Principessa’s friend. Drasas remembered now how that Daisy female had bitten her Principe and been bitten in return. That was where the infection happened. Other vampires liked to be romantic about it, but to Drasas, that’s all the blood bond was.

Now all she needed was to bring the female here, and her blood would save Victorija from madness and loss of her faculties. Just enough time for Madam Anka to harness Victorija’s power.

She saw Victorija pull away from the vampire she was feeding on and shout, “It’s not enough!”

Drasas hurried down to her. “Principe, can I—”

Victorija pushed her. “Get out of my way.” She then sped off down the castle stairs.

Sometime later, Leo came into the room, and Drasas waved him over.

“Where did she go?”

“An old disused graveyard. She paced up and down muttering something, and then came back here. I’m worried about the Principe, Duca,” Leo said.

Drasas patted him on the shoulder. “Don’t worry. I’ll take care of her.”

He nodded and walked off. Drasas took out her phone and dialled Madam Anka’s number.

“Yes?”

“You will give me the power you promised me? Then I have the name,” Drasas said.

* * *

Alexis didn’t know where she was headed—she just knew she wanted to get away from the Debrek house and Katie. She ran and ran, hoping for the exhaustion that she could hardly remember as a mortal.

The exercise being futile, she slowed after a few miles and found herself outside the gates of a small local park. She wandered in, and the gathering evening darkness made the park look eerie.

There was only one other person in the park, a man with his dog at the other gate, just about to leave. Alexis walked over to the children’s playground and sat on a bench. She let her head fall back and stared up at the evening sky. The moon hung in the sky, dazzling and bright. Now that she had some distance from Katie and their argument, guilt was starting to gnaw away at her stomach.

She looked down at her rapidly healing wrist. It had totally shocked her that Katie bit her, tried to initiate the transition. Alexis went through decades of pain trying to come to terms with losing her humanity, and she couldn’t let Katie go through that.

“Why did I let this happen again?” Alexis asked the sky.

The first time she had fallen in love, with Anna, she was a green vampire, not fully grasping the problems of falling in love with a human. Now she knew the full horror of watching your lover die, yet her heart still fell in love again. Why?