A/N: FYI, this is set after Masquerade, the second book in the Blue Bloods series. There's probably gonna be a lot of Jackyler, to tide fans over until Revelations comes out. Remember to r & r!!!!

Schuyler Van Alen groaned as she fell onto the rich, silk-covered bed. The pillows puffed around her, swallowing her inside an avalanche of soft velvet and tassels. She shoved some aside, onto the gleaming marble floors, until she could at least see. The canopy swirled around her, but it didn't soothe her at all. It actually irritated her. A lot.

Any girl would have felt blessed to be living in this room, but Schuyler felt like she was in jail. No, jail was a paradise compared to this, to Schuyler. The walls were painted pink, with delicate white crown moldings on the ceilings and white panels to match around the lower half of the walls. Each panel had a painting of some delicate flower on it. Old paintings of dead people dressed in elegant dresses and old-fashioned suits decorated the room's upper walls, with all their pretentious gold-framed glory. The ceiling was paneled in the same way as the walls, only it had the panels around the edges of the ceiling like an oversized version of the gilt frames on the walls, and the middle depicted a blue sky with fluffy white clouds. A grand crystal-covered gold chandelier hung from the middle of the ceiling, illuminating the room with warm light.

Prison. Pure, fluffy, pastel-colored prison.

Her luggage, all three pieces of it, was sitting in a corner. They were torn, dirty, and covered in duct tape. She and Oliver Hazard-Perry (her human Conduit, familiar, and best friend) had used the silvery tape to put KO-ed smiley faces on the black suitcases and Schuyler was simply too lazy to take off the tape. In all, her luggage looked out of place in the exquisite, pastel-themed bedroom as Schuyler felt. She longed for home.

Charles Force had adopted her, probably just to spite her grandfather, and now she was stuck living here, in an ultra-exclusive three-story Manhattan apartment, with Jack and Mimi Force. It was their parents' place too, but they weren't ever home. So it was like she was living with just the Force twins.

Not that she minded living with Jack. It was living with the gorgeous Mimi that would kill her. Mimi was the personification of the popularity stereotype, with her blonde hair, thin figure, and long modeling resume. Schuyler was the Goth stereotype, with purple-y black hair and an almost nonexistent modeling resume (she'd done only one Stitched For Civilization ad, but that was all). The girls had nothing in common, and the one thing they did share (a great liking of Jack Force) made living with the other simply impossible.

Which was why Mimi would probably kill her before the end of the week. Vampires were immortal, but still. Mimi had her own ways to get what she wanted, and Scuyler was sure Mimi wanted her dead.

Schuyler's dark thoughts were interrupted by her phone ringing. She answered it, somewhat reluctantly.

"Hullo?" she groaned, not recognizing the number flashing across the caller ID.

"Schuyler, babe! You're a hit! Stitched For Civilization wants you for a follow-up ad, Louis Vuitton wants you for a print ad, Target wants a commercial SERIES, Coach wants you for their perfume ad, and Teen Vogue wants you for their September issue!" Linda Farnsworth practically screamed into the phone.

Linda was Schuyler's self-proclaimed agent, and a somewhat lousy one at that. She'd booked an unenthusiastic Schuyler for the Stitched For Civilization billboard, which ended with Mimi being even more spiteful.

"I booked you for the Gucci ad, because it's very limited. They asked a lot of other models, in a sort of first-come-first-served way. Ever heard of Nicole Kidman? Yeah. You beat her too it." Linda paused, and Schuyler could hear her fingers flying across the keyboard.

"Um…Great?" Schuyler said, unsure of what was happening.

"Oh, and darling, you're posing for the ad with a male model. A Duchesne student, too. Maybe you know him?"

"Who is it?" Schuyler wondered, more to herself than to Linda.

But Linda answered anyway.

"Jack Force."