“You have to eat,” Jules asserted for the third time.

“No, that’s disgusting.” Terryn’s arms were crossed tightly across her chest. She turned her face away from the glass he offered her.

She felt so weak and so hungry, but she wasn’t going to drink blood no matter what. She was not a vampire, despite all the signs pointing to the contrary. In the past week, while she lay in Jules bed, her canines had begun to ache so badly she could hardly keep her eyes open. When she explored her mouth with her finger, she found two newly minted fangs emerging from her gums. She still felt very weak, nothing like the strength she’d felt the first night.

“You had it before,” he insisted, “I don’t want to force you but I will if I have to.”

“I thought I was your princess,” she hurled back, “aren’t you supposed to follow my orders?”

Jules stretched his neck up and then looked down at her, “You will be a princess when you stop acting like an infant. You are just going to get weaker if you don’t eat.”

The soft sound of her hungry heartbeat was maddening, he weighed whether or not he should pinch her nose and pour the glass down her throat, but he didn’t want her to have that unpleasant memory when she was a princess and at her full strength. Still, it might be the only way. A sacrifice, he may have to make for his people.

“How can you even resist? You must be starving,” he set the glass down and leaned back.

Terryn set on him with one of her hard stares, “I don’t know what drugs y’all are giving me, or what is really going on here, but you are not making me drink blood!”

Zane had assured Jules, that once she got hungry enough she would feed eventually, but it had been a week and he was starting to lose confidence.

“Don’t you want to meet your people?” he asked.

She glared at him and he heard her heart skip a beat. That’s it, he thought, come on, you want this.

“They are all waiting for you and I know you can hear them, they will sound so joyous once they see your pretty face and know their princess has arrived.” There was bitter silence.

Terryn had shut down and Jules got up, he would have to try again later, she’d retreated into a cold quiet place, pushing him out completely with whatever strength she had left in her. She slept for awhile and he sat down at the piano to kill some time. He didn’t realize the most honored job in their pack would be so, tedious or boring. He’d spent the past week watching an obstinate and teething princess shoot daggers with her eyes and then sleep. He tapped a sad song he knew on the keys and started to sway his blonde hair, rocking with the music.

He played for awhile and almost didn’t hear the rustle of air behind him. His eyes flew to the bedroom and it was empty. He whirled around to find a sparkling eyed Terryn swaying behind him. “Don’t stop,” she purred, her shimmering eyes gazing out at him from heavy lids. She had a strange but pleasant look on her face. Jules opened his mouth to say something, but instead turned back around and slid over to make room for her. She slid onto the bench next to him, pressing her nose into his shoulder. He shivered reflexively and asked, “do you like jazz or classical music?” She sighed a long sigh breathing him in, “I don’t know much about music, but what you are playing is pretty.” He nodded and pressed on. For a few minutes, she just sat, eyes glazed and listening, but eventually with the gentleness of a spider’s web, he felt her hands slide over his shoulders. He felt a familiar predatory aura drift off of her. “You smell nice,” she murmured, “like flowers....delicious.” He shuddered and almost lost his place, a sudden explosion of warmth moving through his chest.

She thinks I’m food, he thought. “Are you sure your not hungry princess, I can get you something?” He offered, as every nerve in his body sizzled under her touch. “Shhhh” she softly hissed. She pressed her head into his side, and wrapped her arms around him. He was afraid to stop playing, for fear it would break the spell, she needs to eat, he reasoned, it won’t hurt anything if it was from me. It’s just...not usually done. His hands were shaking, it was almost impossible to play, but some desperate impulse inside him drove him on. He felt her soft breath on his neck and gently as a whisper, she slipped into his lap, straddling him. “Princess,” he sputtered. Her kiss was pure electricity and his mind went black for a second, when he regained his senses, his hands were no longer on the keys, but wrapped around her waist, pressing her into him. He was suddenly aware of her femininity, impossibly soft skin grazing against his chest, her thick curls seemed to be alive, moving under their own will. Her hands snaked up through his hair, sensually. When he opened his mouth to protest, she struck, her brand new fangs sinking into his bottom lip. White sparks shot in front of his vision.

Heaven. The deadly kiss of a pure blood princess was a blissful way to go. It took all of Jules will to gently detach her from his face and move her lips down to his neck, where he nudged her forward. “It’s better here,” he whispered through a snow of pleasure. She didn’t wait to bite down, gently pulling the blood from his vein. She drank for awhile, the body of an adult male vampire was more than enough to feed her, when she finally let him go, she licked the wound until it sealed itself. He didn’t want to look down at her, or for the moment to be over, but he felt her thighs tighten around his waist. She was following the natural impulse of a female vampire. “Terryn,” he whispered, but she just pressed her head into his chest and closed her eyes. He realized she was swimming in bliss and he forced his legs to stand up, lifting her from his waist and carrying her across the room to his bed. “Terryn, you need to sleep now,” he mumbled the glamour with the most effort he’d ever put to anything in his life.

When the storm cleared from his brain, he was sitting on the couch with his head on his knees. King Zane is going to actually destroy me, he thought. Come here, now. Zane’s demand rang in his skull. Despite his terror, he had to lock up the doors and march briskly to what would certainly be his death.

“What’s wrong Jules, you look like you’ve seen a ghost,” Zane swung around in his desk chair to look at him. Jules was most certainly shaking, but in his head he repeated the vows he’d made to Damya when he’d taken Terryn as his charge. It would be honorable to be killed in service to his princess.

“No-- ah, I mean--,” he finally said, “Terryn fed, my lord, she’s asleep now.”

Zane nodded, looking at him in the eyes.

“Jules, you know it is very important that she feeds. I’m relying on you to make sure she eats regularly, do what you have to. I’m going to start her lessons soon, so she learns more about our customs...but for now, the most important thing is that she is eating. She must be very strong.”

Jules nodded, still frozen, waiting for Zane to lunge at him.

Instead he looked up at the ceiling, “I’ve asked the Catherwoods to come and meet her, I think it would be best for her to meet others like herself, make sure you’ve bathed before you see them and anyone else, you smell like her.”

“Yes, of course, my lord.” This is it, here it comes.

“That’s all Jules, please return to her.”

Jules bowed stiffly then stumbled out of Zane’s study in a daze. What had just happened? Did I get permission from the king of vampires to feed his granddaughter?