JENNIE

I came to in frozen arms. Lisa's. For what felt like ages, she carried me, but I lacked the strength to even open my eyes. When her body finally withdrew from mine, a cloud of silken sheets provided a clue as to our destination. Forcing my eyes open confirmed it—a bedroom, darker than the main space. A sliver of moonlight served as the sole illumination, giving her limbs ethereal definition as she stood back.

My heart lurched in my chest. God, she resembled an angel more than ever as her eyes swept over me, her jaw tight. But her grated, hollow voice was pure hell.

"You should be fine," she said, almost to herself. "I cleared it with the doctor. Your labs had improved, and she didn't recommend against it."

Sex, I realized in the depths of my addled brain. She had gone through the trouble of discussing sex with her mysterious doctor. An image of my dress came to mind, how easily she'd removed it…

I didn't want to jump to the obvious conclusion. It was too insane. I wanted to sleep. Forget.

But some cruel sense of curiosity wouldn't let me. Struggling for breath, I croaked, "Jisoo—"

"I lied to her," she admitted, easily catching onto my train of thought—the lace had been one of her mysterious alterations.

But the fact that she had requested such a detail presented a scenario I couldn't fathom at the moment. I closed my eyes instead, desperate to reconnect with my limbs. They were jelly, disobeying any command I issued. I could only lie at her mercy, blind to her expression. Eventually, she left anyway, her steps resonating through the silence.

Only to return minutes later.

I jumped as warm liquid dripped against my inner thigh. My eyes flew open to watch her kneel over the mattress, a rag in hand. she ran it between my legs as reverently as a worshipper cleaning off a cherished altar, and the insanity of it…

I trembled, but she didn't look up, intent on her task. But something in my silence made her jaw tighten and her fingers stall.

Finally, she grated out a single request. "Say something."

"I'm dreaming," I whispered, clinging to that thin possibility. Otherwise, my brain throbbed with too many thoughts to process. Her touch. Her words. Her rage…

"I won't let you destroy me."

But then she stood, tossing the rag aside, and turned toward the door. Guilt didn't belong in this specter—it made her feel far too real.

"Wait," I croaked.

She froze near the threshold of the hall. Within a heartbeat, tension transformed her into a creature of muscle and bone. An unrivaled statue of perfection.

But her gaze revealed a crack. Something elusive that made my thoughts twist into knots when I tried to decipher it.

So I didn't.

I closed my eyes and willed everything away. Everything but the childish ache worming through my chest where my heart might have been.

In the end, all I could muster up the strength to voice was, "Why? Why leave?" I added, choking every word out. "Then come back. Then kiss me. Then…" My body hummed, riding the wave of lust even as my mind raged in turmoil. "Why?"

I waited.

But footsteps broke the silence rather than words.

She left.

And, alone, I squeezed my eyes shut tighter and fell into the darkness eager to consume me.

I awoke in a decadently furnished room accented in shades of ebony and emerald. Solid oak furniture clashed with the modern-style windows and light fixtures—much like I did, in a sense. An old-fashioned creature in a world far ahead of its time.

A heavy emerald canopy loomed overhead, fanning around a bed adorned with silken sheets and lush pillows. A window to my right overlooked a view of the city no less stunning than the one visible in the main room. Overcast daylight streamed in, illuminating a wooden wardrobe in the corner and a door partially opened, which I assumed led to the hall.

That shadowy doorway presented a reality too terrifying to face. Not now. I contemplated staying here forever, unmoving, ignoring reality for as long as I could—though it wasn't as if my body shielded my ignorance for very long. Only a strip of silk covered my naked limbs, and an ache throbbed between my legs. The images of last night loomed, inescapable.

Sitting upright was the only way to banish them. Groaning with the effort, I stood as well and found a robe draped over the end of the bed. I drew it around myself and crept from the room. It was a short distance to the center of the suite, but I didn't find Lisa lurking there.

Instead, a glass table near the edge of the room had been set for one, containing a plate of sandwiches and a lidded cup. I devoured the food without stopping to savor it. Then I paced to keep any wayward thoughts at bay.

Eventually, I wound up wandering throughout the rest of the spacious suite in search of a distraction. She hadn't spared any expense, though that said little given her wealth. There were plenty of rooms lurking behind closed doors. A kitchen. A wide parlor with a billiard table and a piano.

None of it felt like her though—unlike a makeshift apartment hidden within a church.

This place resembled…

Well, a neat, clinical cage.

A sudden thud pierced the silence, and I spun around to find an ivory shadow lurking beyond the doorway, dressed from head to toe in steel gray. Her closed-off expression was far too dangerous. Cautious. The person might as well have been on tiptoe.

But sleepless hours spent tossing and turning on an unfamiliar bed could put a lot of things into perspective. Like the stark, cruel state of my current reality. And how much better it felt to ignore it.

All of it.

"I'm going to pretend that last night never happened," I blurted. For some reason, my voice sounded raspier than it should have, but it got the point across. "Whatever you said. Whatever we did—it doesn't matter. It never happened."

There. Like magic, I'd willed all the tension away. Sighing, I tilted my head to observe a painting hanging on the wall. A naked angel standing as the sole survivor on a ruined battlefield. How lovely.

"Jennie…" Lisa fixed me with a strange look. Suspicion? Well, she had no reason to be.

"My cat," I croaked, switching to more important matters. "Where is he?"

I could have kicked myself for forgetting about him yet again in the tumult of events.

Lisa stood there for so long that I started to wonder if she'd turned into stone. Finally, she sighed. "He's in the room beside yours."

"Really?" I raced down the hallway in a direction I'd missed during my first exploration.

Sure enough, a peek into the room beside mine revealed another suite, and curled up on the floor was Tinkles. My beautiful darling looked healthy, whole, and as surly as ever. He blinked at me, flexing his claws. Approaching him directly was a reckless act, but after days away, I couldn't resist.

"Darling!" I sank to my knees and threw my arms around him—but my skin wasn't immediately skewered by his claws.

In fact, something wet and warm stroked my cheek, so unexpected that I flinched back. His tongue, still protruded from his mouth, the culprit of the odd sensation. I had no clue how long I sat there before a familiar shadow appeared in the doorway.

"What did you do to him?" I demanded.

"Come and eat," Lisa said, ignoring the question. Without another word, she left.

After I made sure Tinkles had adequate lodgings—irritatingly, his room was even larger than the one he had in Kim Manor—I returned to the main room and found the table set with another cup and a plate of steaming vegetables and fish.

Lisa retreated to a far corner, her arms crossed while I sat and downed both offerings without complaint. She wanted to say something, I sensed, so I avoided her questioning stare. Presenting me with food at all was no doubt her attempt at getting a rise from me, allowing her to ruin our fragile truce. So I scraped my fork against my plate for emphasis. See? I wanted to gloat. Everything was nice and cordial. No need for any horrible reminders of events that didn't matter.

Because they had never happened.

"There is something we need to discuss," she began as I choked down the last morsel of food.

Damn. Fighting to keep my face neutral, I set my fork aside. "Like what?"

"You claimed you wanted answers… Well, do you?"

Answers. That wouldn't break my rule, per se. It would be harmless information I could choose whether or not to believe.

"Y-Yes."

"Good." She rummaged through a nearby sideboard. After withdrawing something from a drawer, she faced me again, revealing the object settled on her palm—a leather-bound book, dark with age. "You can start with this."

She dropped the book onto the table, and I eyed it as one might a bomb.

"What is it about?" I scanned the cover, more puzzled than ever. "There's no title."

"Consider it part of a private collection," Lisa explained, flipping it open to a yellowed page. "A ledger of sorts."

She was right. At a glance, I could tell that it wasn't a normal tome. It was handwritten for one—a series of lines penned in shockingly familiar script. Names and dates. Reading them, I felt my brow furrow.

"James, Agatha…Mary…Edward." I met Lisa's gaze, an eyebrow raised. "These are my ancestors' names."

"Yes." The firm line of her mouth revealed not even a hint of her intentions. Good or bad. "Every last Kim for over three centuries. Dead, alive, or otherwise."

"Ah…" I nearly choked. No wonder she knew so much about my heritage—she'd studied it. Though a better question was: Why? "So what am I, the tenth Kim to fall under your spell? What, do you keep a list of your conquests to reminisce over?"

As much as the thought irritated me to indulge, I couldn't help but wonder if Rosé was written in her little book as well.

She raised an eyebrow. "You still don't realize the gravity of what you've done, do you? Allow me to enlighten you, Jennie, but most people—spinster or otherwise—do not sell their soul on a whim."

"You sold yours to Raphael," I pointed out, though I didn't intend it as an insult. Going off her stiffening jaw, I suspected she took it as one anyway. "I just want to understand. Why?"

She made me sound so horrible for forging a contract—but what might tempt the infamous Lisa Manoban to embrace virtual servitude?

"It wasn't a decision I made out of boredom, I can tell you that," she said coldly. I looked at her face and braced myself for one of her glares, but she wasn't staring in my direction anymore. "And it certainly wasn't one I took lightly, even now."

"It's not like I had a choice," I said, eyeing my hands. They were shaking. "Not the first time, at least…"

Signing her contract had been a life or death decision then—mainly because, unbeknownst to me, she had poisoned me to the brink of death.

"I believe your lineage may provide answers as to this…situation," she said, changing the subject. "See if you can recall any forebearer with an unusual legacy."

"How would I know?" I asked.

She looked back at me. "I'm sure your parents, who gifted you a gravesite as a child, regaled you with plenty of tales of your ancestors. Do you deny it?"

My silence gave her my answer. She was right. In lieu of normal childhood games, Rosé and I had recited the names of our forebearers as reverently as schoolyard rhymes.

"Read," Lisa commanded. "Scour your memories for any relatives that stand out."

"You think this…" I swallowed hard, choking down the word cancer. "This condition has something to do with my bloodline?" I could have laughed. It sounded that sordid. Until I remembered my sister's secret life, that is. I grimaced as the true depth of my ignorance resonated like a slap. You're so pathetic, Jennie. "How?"

"I'm not sure." She eyed me for so long that I felt numb when she finally turned away.

"You're lying." I wasn't sure exactly why, which was the confusing part. But Lisa rarely backed down from a fight—unless she had more to lose by playing her hand. "I remember when you taunted me about knowing James, my ancestor, personally. But now I find out that you have a literal book on my family, and you're acting like it's just a normal way vampires pass the time."

By tracking centuries of genealogy. For the fun of it.

"What aren't you telling me?"

"I have my own avenues to hunt," she confessed without turning around.

"Like?" I sat forward as she crossed the room.

Staring broodingly from the windows, she looked more the stereotypical vampire archetype than ever. Eternally tormented. A snippet of a past conversation crossed my mind, uttered in a woman's voice. "If you do decide to seek him out, don't count on me to help you."

Just who was she trying to avoid?

"Don't I have a right to know?" I pressed.

"Rumors," she replied. "Even I have enough pity not to bore you with them."

But there was more, I suspected. So much more. Not only was she lying, but she was hiding something.

"What kind of rumors—"

"Ma'am?"

We both spun in the direction of the foyer, where the soft, feminine voice had come from. The blond from last night stood there, framed in shadow, dressed ironically in a light-pink dress. My eye twitched. Lisa would have a conniption if I were to wear such a color.

But in this instance? she inclined her head, her expression neutral. "What is it, Kate?"

There was no scorn lacing the single syllable. No derision. No hate.

Kate.

"Your appointment is here," she said while folding her hands primly before her. "Should I show them in?"

"No." Lisa's eyes flickered in my direction as she spoke. "No… I'll meet them personally. Thank you, Kate."

She nodded and left the suite.

"I guess you won't be joining in on the Kim family history book club," I deduced, trying and failing to sound civil.

"I didn't think you'd be so amicable." The bastard had the nerve to sound surly that I had the gall to thwart her expectations at all. "I will be gone for a few hours." She seemed to hesitate before moving toward the front door. "Read the book."

Her true command was easy to interpret: Stay here. Stay out of trouble.

Be a good little captive.

"If I have to immerse myself in centuries of dreary family history, it's only fitting that I commence such torture in Kim Manor," I pointed out.

Somewhere familiar, far from her beautiful, luxurious high-rise where a stunning blond could enter and exit as she pleased.

Somewhere I could remember my life's destiny as a grouchy spinster.

"You will stay here," Lisa said without turning around.

I swallowed, tapping my fingers over the surface of the table. "A short trip wouldn't be a bother to you. I could call François?"

She gripped the handle of the front door. "That we will discuss when I return."

I swallowed again, tapping my nails more frantically. So much for remaining cordial; my attempts were straining at the seams.

Desperate, I tried a new line of attack. "We did agree that he would remain as my driver."

"We will discuss it later."

Before I could argue, she stormed from the suite, slamming the door in her wake.

So much for cordiality.

Rather than pout, I flipped the book to a fresh page and started to read. It was a surprisingly enthralling task. Who knew that one could find morbid comfort in scanning the many variations of Margaret, Jennie, and Mary passed down throughout the years?

I wondered if Lisa had stalked any of them. Drained their blood or taken their virginity? The thought became less amusing once my eyes settled over one of the last names in the book.

Roseann Kim.

Tears pricked my eyes before I understood why. Did I miss her? My thoughts were so scattered that I couldn't tell. Hell, I wouldn't even know what to say to her.

Perhaps I could only write it down.

Upon rising to my feet, I approached the sideboard Lisa had fished the book from and found a silver pen nestled in a drawer. I ripped a blank page from the journal and filled it with line after line of text. Moisture spilled down my cheeks, obscuring the words, and I didn't even try to make sense of them. In a twisted way, I felt the same impulse that had driven me to write Lisa.

Desperation?

Folding the page, I returned to the room I'd awoken in and scoured it until I found my shoes and my purse on a chair in the corner. Jisoo's clothing conveniently stocked the wooden wardrobe, and I chose a garment at random. As I dressed, I did my best to squash any guilt. She was the one who'd suggested we bargain, after all. I had upheld my end so far.

Proving I wasn't a prisoner was the least she could do to uphold hers.

Regardless, I didn't call François as I slipped from the suite and crept into an elevator. Even I knew where to draw the line.

Apparently, so did Lisa—no one rushed from the shadows to stop me. The first floor was as deserted as when we entered, but the door wasn't locked when I tested the handle. Escaping the garage and locked gate was surprisingly easy as well; none of them required a code to exit from. On the main street, I managed to flag down a cab on my own—only to realize as the man dropped me before Kim Manor that I didn't have any cash.

After shoving a check into his hands, I escaped the vehicle without gauging his reaction. His muttered curse gave me a clue. Still, I tried to banish all guilt as I skirted the manor proper. Waning daylight bathed the grounds in a bluish, eerie twilight, and a screen of mist obscured the mausoleum, thinning the closer I came. A storm must have been brewing.

Once inside, I approached the urn and dropped my missive inside it.

Then…

I lingered, wringing my fingers at the prospect of returning to Lisa's alone. Was she still with her "appointment?"

Or Kate?

Shrugging the concerns away, I craned my neck to appreciate the subtle detail of the mausoleum's interior. Delicate reliefs of angels and demons decorated the crown molding, shaping the stone. Within minutes, I found myself inching from room to room, mentally pairing the names I passed with the ones scribbled in Lisa's ledger. Agatha. Mary. James II and III and IV…

Lisa had tracked them all with an alarming level of detail, birth years and death dates included. On closer reflection, the fact that she had studied my bloodline at all definitely deserved more scrutiny.

Perhaps the journal was her subtle attempt at irony. A reminder solely directed at me—I wasn't the only Kim to catch her interest. Therefore, I wasn't important. In the grand scheme of Lisa Manoban and her devious intentions, Jennie Kim was nothing more than a single scribbled anecdote among pages of them.

But this name wasn't.

I frowned as my fingers traced the unfamiliar series of letters engraved in stone. Not a name at all, it appeared as I strained my eyes to read it, but a phrase.

Memento Mori.

Latin? I couldn't recall its meaning off the top of my head. Carved within plain sight, it dominated the space placed between my Great-Great-Aunt Maria and Uncle George in a section of the chamber where the light struggled to reach.

A slight roughness in texture differentiated it from the smooth graves nearby. The stone here felt older, more tattered than George's tomb and she'd been dead for at least two centuries.

Driven by an impulse I couldn't explain, I felt along the edges of the epitaph, tracing every divot in the worn stone. At the slightest bit of pressure, something shifted in a way it shouldn't have.

Unease prickled at the back of my mind, warning me away. Secrets, once uncovered, rarely revealed useful information as far as I was concerned. Just more deception. More lies. I tried to move—forsaking the intrigue—but my feet remained stubbornly rooted in place. It was the damn chamber, its mystery feeding a question I couldn't shake.

What would a Kim deem important enough to hide within the family tomb?

Eventually, the curiosity became too much to resist.

I rolled my sleeves up and tugged again, bracing my feet against the floor. The placard budged another inch. Another. Sweat dripped down my neck as I applied even more pressure, straining the muscles in my shoulders. More. More…

Until, with a thud, the lid of the tomb came away altogether. I jumped back, fearful of the prospect of a coffin lurking beyond. A cloud of dust obscured any contents, triggering a furious coughing fit. Hunched over, with my hand pressed over my nose, I peered through the darkness. The dust cleared gradually, revealing a cavernous space in lieu of some ancient deceased Kim. I pulled back, prepared to write it off as empty, but a glint of silver caught my eye before I could.

Intrigued, I sank into a crouch, squinting to make out the object. Whatever it was had been tucked too far back to observe from my position.

I had no choice but to reach inside.

My heart raced as I cautiously inched my fingers deeper within the tomb, feeling along the marble bottom. My arm was in nearly up to my shoulder by the time I finally brushed something cold. Slender. Familiar?

I withdrew it, holding it up to the light, and a gasp tore from my lips as I identified just what it was—a cross. Dangling from a thin chain, it looked identical to Lisa's. It could have been the exact same one.

But the shape differed upon closer inspection. The tips were pointed instead of squared, and a series of letters had been etched into the metal. A name? I couldn't read it, but as the talisman's weight settled over my palm, it was impossible to shake the sense that it was so much more than a casual piece of jewelry. Lisa guarded her more fervently than her own contract. Perhaps, in her obsessive need for control, she'd hidden a spare here?

Among the decaying bodies of a hundred Kims.

I mulled over the potential answers, none of them comforting. So lost in thought, I almost missed the slight noise at first. It shattered the quiet, reverberating from the upper level. A hiss. A thud.

Footsteps.

I bit my lip, assuming the intruder's identity. Lisa Manoban herself, arriving just in time to smack my hands for disobeying? I tucked the cross into my fist and turned toward the central chamber, fully prepared to face my scolding.

Do I need to get the manacles, Jennie?

"You saw her come in here?" a man whispered—but his voice was too soft. Not Lisa's.

Panic froze me in place as his steps continued their hurried descent.

"The lights are on," another man pointed out. "And keep your voice down. We don't want to scare her."

"Ms. Kim?" the first man called out, his raised voice echoing to the farthest reaches of the crypt. "We're…friends of your sister's."

Rosé. But something in his tone made me creep back toward the empty tomb and I traced the rim with trembling fingers.

"I don't think she's here," the second man deduced. Both sets of footsteps sounded like they'd settled near the base of the stairs. Mere paces away from my corridor.

"Let's fan out just to be sure."

My pulse surged, hammering against my eardrums. As footsteps approached my section of the chamber, I crouched, inching into the open space in the wall. Dust and grime clung to my skin. It took everything I had to shuffle back, peering through the opening of the tomb.

"Anyone down here?" A shadow darkened the doorway, his silhouette large, betraying a muscular frame. Seconds later, a slender figure appeared beside her. "I don't think she's here," he said. "Let's check the house again. The kid said someone came onto the property. If she managed to escape, it's only a matter of time before they track her down."

"You think she escaped?" the larger man replied.

"Of course. She isn't stupid enough to let her wander around alone. At least if she is in here, she won't be able to track her anyway. We can keep watch."

She. Lisa?

"I'm surprised she hasn't killed her already. Or sold her." Their shapes retreated from the doorway and I heard their footsteps as they crossed the central chamber. "But it's only a matter of time. She's already summoned the other one. I hear the bastard is on her way now. Manoban must know she's gone."

"Doesn't this feel strange to you though? Looking…well, hunting down a Kim? Especially since no one's seen Roseann since—"

"We don't question," the smaller man hissed. "And whatever reason there is for it, I don't really want to know. After what she's been through, she might be better off… Come on."

Their steps faded to silence. In their wake, my thoughts spun. Too much information clamored to be reconciled all at once. Rosé. Her "friends." Their intent—hunting me down.

For what?

And Lisa…

A dull pain seared through my palm, so I loosened my grip on the cross, wincing as warm liquid dribbled down my fingers. I'd gripped the necklace so hard that it had broken the skin. The coppery scent of blood tainted the air, as vibrant as an SOS beacon. I imagined Lisa tracking the smell, using it like a map to find me.

Or not. Deep down, I knew that the fact I'd left her property at all was a miracle within itself. Perhaps she didn't care enough to come looking.

Enough! I shook my head to clear it and inched forward on my hands and knees. My entire body trembled as I climbed from the tomb and approached the central chamber, clinging to the wall for balance.

A glance revealed that the space was empty. Taking a chance, I lurched to the stairs, straining my ears for any hint of noise. The upper level was deserted as well, but the heavy door had been left open, allowing a draft to blow loose branches and leaves across the floor. Each sound echoed like whispered admonishments. Run, Jennie!

But to where? Darkness loomed beyond the doorway, impenetrable this deep within the property. I couldn't even see the silhouette of the house.

Or anything for that matter.

I hesitated, racked with uncertainty. A part of me considered taking my chances and crossing the property anyway. Logic warned against it. I should hide instead. Wait for Lisa.

No. The second intrusion of her into my thoughts made me grit my teeth. No longer would I sit around playing the perfect victim, always awaiting her rescue.

I started forward, my muscles tensing to run. I didn't even see the hand rushing from the shadows to grab me until it was too late.

"There you are!" Harsh fingers clenched my forearm, wrenching me forward, but my assailant loomed beyond my sight, too strong to resist.

I lurched, ripped off-balance, and landed on my knees. Instinct took over. I lowered my mouth to the unfamiliar grip, bared my teeth, and bit. The figure hissed in response, shoving me aside, and I spun, failing to regain my balance. Wham! Stars exploded across my vision as ringing bells banged a symphony in my ears. Pain came in slow, nauseating waves, each one stronger than the last.

"Damn! Are you all right?" A face appeared before me—tanned and handsome, balanced among a cloud of dark, curly hair. "Ms. Kim? Can you hear me?" Concern constricted his features as he flickered in and out of focus. So real one second. A ghost the next.

Until the world vanished altogether.

And I was alone.