Prologue

My life wasn't perfect. I'd like to say that no one's is, but I've met some people who had lives that were pretty damn close. But unlike them, my life wasn't meant to be perfect. It wasn't even meant to be sane by the looks of it. Maybe it was all supposed to turn out this way, maybe this all happened because of something that I did or that my parents did that I'm paying for. Who knows? All I know is that it turned out this way, whether I liked it or not.

I was always good at poker. My dad had taught me how to play when I was five and I learned fast. Whenever Dad would bring some of his friend's home over to play poker, I'd usually play one round then go to bed. I'd own them all, except for my Dad. I could never beat my Dad at poker whenever he was alive. After he died, I started playing poker more and more. I guess I felt a bit closer to my Dad that way because he taught me it, and that's how I got as good as I got.

At first, I played with my friends. Small games, no prizes. They were my friends; I don't wanna take their money or possessions. Then I started playing with adults for only up to one dollar. Then to five. Then to ten. Then I started playing on the streets with strangers from one hundred dollars and more. I was good and getting tons of money, and I was only twelve at that time.

Then I started playing with Them. And that's where everything got tricky.

After my Dad died, I found out about vampires and the supernatural. It surprised me, but the knowledge seeped in fast so it wasn't a very big deal in my mind. As I got older, (and the longer I lived on the streets) I noticed much, much more than just vampires around me. I kept note whatever I noticed in my mind and continued on, as though everything was normal. It was, at least, in my world.

But They were a tricky species to play poker against.

'They' have no name because they're not well known .They are a very odd form of immortal, but cool nonetheless. You would never be able to tell because they don't look like the normal 'immortal' types— tall, dark and handsome or ungodly ugly. Their more of a soft, nice, nerdy type of immortal— they look like the type of people to not even be near the word immortal when it had to do with them.

But they are, trust me.

And they are as smart as they look nerdy, so it's a very hard task to play poker against them. Also, a lot of them cheat. But the stakes were high—large sums of money, expensive jewelry, etc— and I couldn't tear myself away from the game. But then the stakes changed on me, and before I knew it, I was playing along. 'What were the stakes?' You may ask.

The stakes were the possession of each other's souls.

I started playing along with them, my soul always as the prize money while they only occasionally put theirs on the line. They mostly had put down their servants souls, but the occasional danger-loving one put down his/her own soul. Time after time, I won each and every soul that was put on the line. I chose to keep them as living servants instead of just their souls (it seems that quite a few species enjoy to… devouring souls). I let them go, of course. I wouldn't have servants that were to be bartered and traded like slaves and not utter a comment or complaint about it.

I won every game of poker against Them, until I met him. I was thirteen when Mal beat me at my game, and took me as his servant. I was thirteen (it was only a day after being his servant) that I lost to him again in the game of poker and gambled away my body.

I was smart enough to quit while I was still ahead; he wouldn't get my mind, too.