3. Jacen

The screams.The hunger. The blood.

I'd never forget the terrified looks on each of my victim's faces as I'd sunk my fangs into their necks and drained the lives from their bodies.

They haunted my dreams since the massacre. I re-lived it every night. The lust for their blood—the scent of it so tantalizingly delicious that my entire body burned for it, my fangs pushing through my gums and craving the silky feeling of the warm, smooth blood flowing down my throat. The way my soul parted with my mind as it gave into the craving—the desire for more and moreuntil I'd consumed so much blood that every inch of my body was bloated and bursting with it.

It had been nearly a year since the massacre, and the nightmares hadn't stopped. I didn't think they ever would.

I would never forgive myself for the pain and heartbreak I'd caused that night when I lost control of my bloodlust and slaughtered those humans in the village. So many of them had died that Queen Laila had to send out troops to replenish their stock.

Stock.As if they were crates of meat, or animals waiting to be slaughtered.

In my dreams, I saw the face of my final victim—the young boy who must have been no older than twelve. Then I woke up with a sharp breath, my fangs out and my gums aching for blood.

As always, a glass of it waited on my nightstand.

I reached for it, downing it in nearly one gulp. It tasted bitter—refrigerated blood always did—but it satisfied the craving enough that after a few deep breaths, I was able to pull my fangs back up into my gums and keep them there.

Still, my body craved more. But I didn't need more—I just wanted it. The craving was in my mind. It was an addiction—it wasn't real. What I'd just consumed was enough to sustain me for the rest of the day.

The blood I craved was my greatest desire and my greatest enemy.

After first turning, the lust for it controlled my every thought. But as the days had passed—slowly but surely—I'd improved at controlling my cravings. Three glasses in the morning eventually became two, and then became one.

Still, Laila refused to let me leave the palace. Not until I could prove that I could control my bloodlust around humans. After all, she couldn't have me killing any more of them. Not after the inconvenience I'd caused a year ago when I'd lost myself to that bloodlust filled haze.

Never mind the inconvenience she'd caused me by turning me into a vampire against my will.

And while I was strong, I wasn't strong enough to take down a group of guards on my own.

It was hard to believe it had only been a year ago that I'd been a human, unaware of the existence of supernaturals at all. After being locked in this palace for all that time, that year felt like an eternity.

This extravagant palace hidden in the wilderness of the Canadian Rockies—in an enchanted valley that the vampires called the Vale—had become my prison. Every day, I was suffocating. I needed to get out.

Which was why I'd been working daily on controlling my bloodlust. And slowly but surely, I'd been getting better.

Now, I placed the glass down on my nightstand and looked out my window as the last rays of the sun sunk over the horizon. I took deep, measured breaths, and the craving disappeared, my veins cooling down entirely.

I smiled, knowing this was it. I was ready to prove that I'd gained control of the monstrous creature I'd become.

I was ready to be free.