Pride, spite, rage, and despair were his inner beasts. The demons that had tormented him for the longest time; they had ruled him. Until the day she arrived, the girl, she was the key to lock away those beasts and demons. She was one of the chosen, that would one day be a high priestess at the House of Night(though she or anyone else, for that matter, knew it yet). But that is in the now. Let us go back to before she came into the picture.

It was a normal day(well, technically Night, but still) it was chill but not quite chilly enough yet for a jacket. The leaves on the trees were just beginning to change colors for fall. They were now a deep green with a few crimson thrown in here and there. Eric was walking around the grounds with Markus, the overweight toadstool of a Siamese cat with his furrowed coat. Markus refused to leave Eric's side since the day of his arrival at the House of Night. They were wandering around waiting for the sun to begin to rise.

At first Eric wasn't sure how having Markus around all the time would pan out. But after the first couple of days his new cat-well, along with the beliefs of the house of night the cat wasn't actually his it was he who was the cat's.

On the day of his arrival he was practically mauled by Markus. But as Neferet had told him then, it was a sign that he had chosen Eric to be his, but after all; that is how it always is. The people we choose to have in our lives had to choose to have us in theirs. Just as Neferet had determined then. He and Markus grew to know each other and learned that the bond they shared made them inseparable.