Author's note: This chapter has not been revised by any beta readers. Please help me improve my English by contacting me if you find any grammar mistakes. Remember I'm not a native English speaker.

Leia blinked and looked around. Her almondlike eyes had gained a weird sparkle, just like a cat's - it shone in the dark, reflecting even the minor light. She was marveled by that new way to recognize the simplest things around her. It felt like a veil had had been taken away from her eyes, and now everything had so much life!

She leaned on the bed and, with a bit of strain, she sat. She faced Kael. He sat on a wood chair by the newborn's bed; and whereas the master's stare was full with pure delight, Leia's was full of questions.

Leia suddenly opened her mouth as if she was in a hurry to say something important. However, her movement boiled down to help her hand to her lips. She stared at the blood on the tip of her fingers and wondered. Has her canine teeth grown so much that it hurt her lips? She touched it and felt how sharp the teeth were now.

"Don't worry. You're going to get used to it." Kael said.

Leia said nothing, but got on her feet and walked uncertain to a broken mirror on the other corner of the small, dark attic of that old house in Madrid. What she saw let her amazed and startled at the same time.

Her skin had acquired an unhealthy paleness; her long brown hair now looked stronger and shiner. Leia's appearance was supernatural - not ugly, but absolutely astonishing.

Kael approached her, his eyes focused on her face through the mirror. He touched her shoulders with his both hands, and smiled. Kael was an unbelievably handsome and seductive man, with his long blond straight hair, incredible blue feline eyes and a wide smile with perfect white teeth.

"Tell me, how do you feel now that you're no longer tied to mortality?"

"I feel tied to the night."

Leia turned to Kael and faced him with fury, and that wiped the perfect smile of his face.

"I told you! I told you I'd rather die than to live forever kept away from the sunlight!"

"I'd never let you die, Leia!"

She turned her back to him and walked to the window. Her eyes wandered around the panorama of Madrid at night, full of lights and life. Warm, alive!

"You should've let me go."

"Never!" Kael grabbed her arm tight and forced her to turn to him. "You're mine, understood? Mine! Not even death has permission to take you away from my arms! I swore I'd never let you die and I've honored my word!"

Leia didn't know what to say to him, for her feelings were so strong and so
contradictory, that she'd run out of words. She felt anger and fear; admiration and disgust; love and hate. How could she love that monster so much, and hate him at the same time¿ He had changed her human condition and doomed her to eternal darkness, and yet she loved him. Leia didn't know who she should hate most: Kael or herself.

She wanted to offend him, but she knew that a mere "I hate you" wouldn't affect him.

"I prefer the warmth of the sun on my rotten dead flesh, than the eternity in darkness by your side!"

Kael grabbed her arm even tighter. "Too late, kid." He whispered dangerously, "You have no choice anymore. Now you'll stay with me and learn all I have to teach you."

"I hate you!"

"And I love you too much to believe your childish words."

Leia had no answer to give him, as she stared at him with fury in her eyes; and with a rough movement, she freed herself from his grasp.

"I thought you loved me, Leia." Kael sighed.

She let her stare wander over the room before she mumbled, "I'm thirsty."

"We'll take care of it in a second." He approached her and involved her in his arms, nestling her against his chest. "However, before we begin, I need to hear you say you love me. Tell me that you love me. Please."

Leia struggled against her pride, but his smell was too delicious, his velvet voice was irresistible, and the warmth of his vampire body full with fresh human blood was too comforting to be wasted. She hugged him back, wishing she'd never told him those harsh words.

"Of course I love you."

Kael purred with pleasure when he heard her words, and rubbed his cheek on hers. As his hands wandered along her silhouette, he smelled her hair's perfume and kissed her neck. Leia's skin bristled with the lightest touch of his lips.

"You're going to pay for telling me lies, kid." He mumbled by her ear.

"Which lies?"

"Have you forgotten you told me you hated me?" he chuckled.

Still smirking, Kael grabbed the back of her head, and then his mouth took hers.