I beat myself up for much longer than I should have. She wasn't my goal, she was simply a distraction. Stunningly beautiful, torturously intriguing, and undeniably perfect, but a distraction nonetheless. With that, I decided not to think of her anymore. If I was going to hurt her in the long run by ripping her from her family, I couldn't risk being attached.

If only it were that easy.

A quiet thought still ravaged my mind even after my decision to move on: she's going to hate me. I chuckled slightly at the irony of it all. If she didn't know me then, she would definitely know me after I drained her father's life source and stole her family right out from under her. It wasn't how I wanted us to be, but there wasn't an "us" to begin with.

Don't pity me. Vampires don't have feelings. Vampires don't need pity. Vampires aren't just helpless teenage girls raised from the dead, subject to their emotions like any other undead humanoid, and wishing they could live out the life that was so brutally stolen from them. We're monsters.

Speaking of blood, the lack thereof was starting to make me sick. Continuing to make me sicker? Either way, it was getting to me more than before. I didn't have the old lady with me to make sure I maintained some level of humanity, and the brands she left were barely visible, so I wasn't sure what I would do. It had almost been a year since I made it to the castle, and I was nowhere near figuring out how to see the king, let alone get close enough to kill him. The only thing I was approaching was the anniversary of my undeath.

My deathiversary if you will.

While I was still hiding out in the forest, the woman would chain me in her cellar for the entire week, blindfolded and gagged. I might have been mad at her for taking such extreme measures, but I could never remember what happened during Dark Week.

Clever name, I know.

I was chained, there was chanting, and then there was nothing. When I awoke exactly seven days later, my skin was peppered with gouges, white flesh caked under my nails, and the walls that held the shackles were in such disrepair that I spent the next month fixing them.

Maybe it really was necessary. Maybe I am a beast who can't control itself. Maybe I had less than a month before my deathiversary and no one around to chain me to a wall. And I will admit that the thought of what I might do in that week frightened me, but maybe I was still more concerned with my stupid little crush than my possible murder spree.

One month. I counted the days, panic setting in the closer I got to my deathiversary. I frantically avoided the princess, ducking into hallways I wasn't permitted to traverse in order to escape her gaze.

My efforts were ultimately in vain. I was jumpy, I'm sure I appeared crazed, and I flinched away from everything with a pulse. It was less than a day from the start of Dark Week. They took me to a doctor, but I refused to let him touch me. 

Let's be honest. Doctors at that time were more likely to cut holes in my heels to make the bad spirits bleed out of my body than do anything productive.

My screams echoed in the ivory room. "Don't touch me! Run away! Tie me up and run away!"

They didn't tie me up. They really should have. They really really should have. Then again, I was nothing but a poor, sickly maid. Why would they listen to me? What could I do to them?

So instead of spending Dark Week in a cellar, I spent it in the princess's room. Apparently throwing a tantrum in front of the entire medical staff caught her attention. Had I known that was all it took, I would have gone full lunatic months before. Granted, if I knew she had a thing for crazies then I might not have been so intrigued in the first place.

If she was foolish, I was psychotic. What was I supposed to do? Ignore the princess when she saved me from the wrath of the nurses? Not follow those swaying hips to her quarters when she gave me that mysterious, near-perfect smile? Ignore the master of my heart? Right. I don't have a heart. Of course that's what I was supposed to do.

I crouched in the darkest corner, begging whatever gods were listening to save me from myself. To save her from me, from the monster I had become.

She eyed me from across the room, hands on the hips of her flowing dress. Whether her face registered concern or innocent curiosity, I may never know. My breath came in shallow, raspy gasps, my body trembled uncontrollably, and my lips mumbled something incoherent. I think she called out my name. Did she know my name? I'm not sure. All I could hear was the steady thump-thump of her heart.

Blood.

Nails dug into my throat. I clawed at my skin, unfeeling, unseeing, unable to breathe. There was fire. So much fire. I was burning alive.

Blood. That's what I needed. That's what would save me. I could smell it. So sweet, so tempting. Blood. It was so simple, so easy. She was right in front of me. Three steps away.

If only. The conscious fragment of my brain held me back. Had it been anyone else, a bloodless body would lay decaying at my feet, but she wasn't just anyone. I still didn't know why, but even if it meant burning in hell fire, I wouldn't touch her.

At least that's what I thought.