I just wanted to thank all of my fans for staying to listen to my story. I'm not that great at writing, but I haven't gotten one bad review! Thanks you guys! I love reviews, they help me a lot. Thanks for all your support, and here's the next chapter!

Chapter 10

My head spins for a moment, and I think I'm going to crash to the marble floor. Instead I feel cool arms wrapping around me, urging me to open my eyes. It feels like they're glued shut, but I slowly force them open.

I gasp. Damen is staring straight at me, his face mere inches away. The sight of him makes my heart start accelerating, and I hear muffled laughs behind me. I think they come from Charlie and Alyssa.

I sigh. Why did the sight of him do that to me? Oh yes, he was breath-taking and I was bound to him. Right.

Again, I forget too late that everyone in the room is listening to my thoughts.

Everyone in the room bursts into laughter except for Damen. He just smiles widely at me and leans down to kiss me lightly. I gasp again and wiggle out of his arms, only to find myself in a heap on the floor.

This starts the laughing all over again. Damen extends his arm out to me, chuckles vibrating through him. I push it away and scramble to stand up.

When the laughing has died down, I go to pick up my shopping bags which were still sitting on the floor.

"So, why did Lucius come here?" I ask quietly. The name sends shivers down my spine.

Damen answers me, venom hanging thick in his voice. "To meet you."

"Why would he want to meet me?"

"Jesse, you should come sit down. This is a long story." Alyssa says to me quietly.

"Okay." We all move to go into the family room, where I had been sitting just a day before listening that my destiny is to become a vampire. Too many weird things happen in this house.

I take a seat on the couch again, but Damen sits closer to me. His arm wraps around my shoulder. I can't help but shiver.

Why me? I ask myself again silently.

"So, who's going to tell me why your brother is so horrible?" I say in a sarcastic tone, trying to lighten the mood. Jack frowns at me.

"I will," says Aislinn quietly.

Damen pulls me closer to him, and I unintentionally lean my head against his shoulder.

"Lucius was….is" Aislinn stumbles. I didn't think a vampire could stumble. "my oldest child. He was always ambitious about his goals. He wouldn't stop at anything to get what he wanted." Aislinn swallows, and I see tears welling up in her eyes. "But he didn't always have…the right goal in mind. He was the first to choose immortality with Charlie and myself. We were glad we would always have one of our children with us. What we didn't know back then was that Lucius wanted to try to destroy humans, then rule the vampires. It would be like he had the world to himself."

I hide a giggle with a laugh. Isn't evil always caused by power?

Aislinn continues. "Alyssa, my last child and my only daughter," Aislinn pauses to smile at Lys. "Was the second to choose immortality and the first to discover we could read minds. She found out when Lucius was planning his first attack in 1693. She rushed and told us what she had heard, and we stopped him. Barely." There are tears sliding down Aislinn's sharp cheek bones. "He wasn't positive on how we had stopped him, but he discovered the mind reading ability when Alyssa met Jack in 1712, Lucius felt how strong the bond was and he discovered the power."

Alyssa sighs at this. "That was my fault that he found out," she says quietly. Jack pulls Lys closer to him. She smiles feebly.

Aislinn returns to her story. "Since Lucius now had access to our minds, it was harder for us to stop him. He almost got away with his plan in 1854."

Charlie wipes away Aislinn's tears as they trail down her cheeks. "Anyways," she says, "Lucius didn't try his plan again until 1975. This was the first time he managed to kill over 100 humans."

I look up to Damen. Apparently, he knows what's coming, so he has averted his gaze from mine. I look back to Aislinn.

"Lucius knew that Damen hadn't found a tie to anyone yet. He used that to distract the family, telling us that Damen would be alone forever. We were so concerned about Damen for a while that Lucius went unnoticed. Well, until we saw some unusual deaths in the newspaper."

So that's why Damen wouldn't look at me.

"I'm sorry I'm rushing, dear," Aislinn says to me.

"It's okay," I tell her with sympathy hanging in my voice. "But, I don't understand what Lucius wants with me now."

Alyssa picks up where Aislinn left off. "He wants a bind to someone, but he can't find anyone. So, his theory is that since Damen and him have the same blood, or, did have the same blood running in them, Lucius can create a bind with you. Of course, since you have been bound to Damen now, you can't. But, if he manages to get you away from us and bite you, you will die."

Whoa. "Wait, why would I die?"

"Because you can't have two different vampire venoms in you at the same time. Do you remember us telling you that no two vampire venoms are the same?"

I nod. I remember from when we were talking about the bind.

Alyssa continues. "Well, since no two are the same, the venoms will clash and burn out each other, and since you have weak organs, the two venoms will burn out those, killing you instead of changing you. And, since you already have a little bit of Damen's venom in you," I shiver at this. Bleh. "You'll die if Lucius bites you."

I roll my eyes. "Great. So, basically my decision date is cut back."

Alyssa giggles. "Yes." She stares at me pointedly, saying that she already knows my decision. I sigh.

"So, am I just under closer watch right now then?" I ask. Charlie steps in to answer my question.

"Yes. But, right now, I think Damen just wants to spend some time with you."

The subject changed quickly. "Oh," I say, surprised, as I turn to look towards Damen. He still looks incredibly angry, but when he sees me staring at him, his gaze turns soft.

"So, what do you want to do?" I ask him awkwardly. He flashes me a smile.

"You'll see," He says before picking me up in his arms and running at lightning speed away from the room and into the basement.

"A movie?" I ask cautiously.

He smiles. "Is that okay?"

"Yes, it's…normal. I didn't know vampires liked movies."

He laughs at that. "Just because we drink blood doesn't mean we don't like movies."

"Right," I say, a little embarrassed. He sets me down on a soft couch and goes to turn on a movie.

Something occurs to me then. Something that should've occurred to me yesterday when I found out who they were.

"Uhm…..what kind of….what kind of blood do you drink?" I ask him quietly. He freezes.

He answers me slowly. "We try to drink animal blood, but we cheat a lot." I gasp.

He raises his hands up slowly. "We don't kill people, Jesse. We get donated blood…usually. Only when it's an emergency do we drink fresh human blood. And we don't kill them. We take just enough to leave them slightly light-headed."

I breathe slowly. "So…how much do you cheat?"

He smiles a little. "We only drink animal blood at desperate time, like when we have run out of donated blood."

"So….how do you not kill the human? Like, if Lys bites someone, and then you bite that same person, wouldn't they die?"

He nods his head. "Yes, but since we have a good sense of smell, we kind of claim people to drink from."

I stare at him. "We only leave our scent there so other vampires won't drink from them. And we wait the valid 55 days before drinking from the same person."

I'm about to barf. Why couldn't he be a vegetarian like the Cullen family from Twilight?

He laughs at my thoughts. "Because, Jess, no vampire can live just on animal blood. Even if we have the self-restraint to hold back, you would starve."

I speak quietly. "Why don't you just always use the donated blood then?"

His smile vanishes. "We try to. It's just, sometimes, they will run out of donation blood to give us, and we'll go crazy if we don't drink, so we have to bite humans sometimes."

"How do they not turn into vampires?"

"We can hold enough venom back so they don't change."

"Don't they remember being bitten though?"

Damen shakes his head. "No. When we hold enough venom back, they completely forget what happened."

"So, if you bit me, how much blood of mine you take?"

He stiffens. "75% of it, Jess. You need the extra 25% to carry the venom through your body."

"Oh." I say to him weakly. My head is spinning. I don't really want to bite people for eternity. Damen turns back to put the movie in the flat-screen T.V.

In a second he is back over by me, sitting down on the couch. He flips the volume to low, and lays down on the couch. I still have enough room to cuddle in my corner, but I unintentionally feel myself laying on his chest. I snuggle in closer to him as he wraps an arm around me. I find myself feeling....something more than just a crush. It feels right being close to him.

"Do you see, Jessica?" He murmurs into my ear softly. "Is it so bad to be with me?"

I shake my head, snuggling closer to him. "No," I reply strongly. "It's not."

He turns my head so he can kiss me gently. I sigh. He was perfect.

"Damen," I say against his lips. "Do you really want me? Or do you just want my blood?"

He pulls me closer to him, wrapping his arms around my waist. "If I only wanted your blood, you would be dead right now."

I guess that should have scared me to death, but instead, I swiveled closer to him. He sighed.

"Does it repulse you to be so close to a vampire?" He murmurs in my ear.

I decide to answer him honestly. "No. It feels….right. Like I'm supposed to be here. With you."

At that, he smiles and kisses me once more. "And the bond isn't even acting up right now," he says.

I laugh and lay my head against his chest, curling up into him to watch the movie.