It didn't take long—like a blink of an eye—until we arrived at a large stone house. I didn't know where we were or even how we got here so quickly. I just laughed as we arrived at the door, Lucious still grasping onto my shoulders.

I was shaky, but exhilarated with the feeling of this drug pulsating through my veins. My sense of hearing was heightened. I could hear voices everywhere: the neighbors across the street talking about the big game, the frogs croaking in the pond a few feet away from the door, and inside this home... talking, whispering... It all made me laugh with excitement... I could hear the world!

“Shh,” Lucious warned loudly.

“Okay, okay,” I said quietly with a chuckle.

He unwrapped himself away from me and knocked on the old wood door. Then, his touch was back on my shoulder. Curious, I wondered who was going to answer.

“Who is it?” The voice came from inside.

“Chris, it's me, I need some help,” Lucious replied to the mysterious voice inside.

I chuckled again as the door swung open and a man on the other side looked up at us.

“What the hell are you doing here?” The man asked.

“Just gimme' a hand here,” Lucious said as he threw my arm over his head and pushed me closer to the owner of the home.

I stumbled and fell into the man's arms, and Lucious followed walking slowly into the house closing the door behind him.

I giggled in this man's arms—his red button up shirt brighter than any crimson color I'd ever seen before. Like blood dripping down his chest it seemed, and with that thought, my hunger spiked.

“What the hell, Lucious?” The man loosened his grip on me.

I stumbled to the side, almost falling to my knees with a tenacious thirst for blood suddenly coming over me. Eyes wide, I grabbed at my throat trying to calm myself, chuckling like a madman the whole time.

“You tell me, Chris. What the hell is he on?” Lucious ordered.

Chris, that was his name, right? He looked over at me while I steadied myself on my quaking feet. He then stepped closer and tipped my head back to glare into my eyes.

“He's high, but I couldn't tell you what it is,” Chris said.

“One hundred percent blood... with a kick!” I pronounced, copying what the strange man in the city said to me.

“Marco!” Chris's voice echoed along with another voice from someone standing behind him.

“Marco?” Lucious asked.

“Yeah, he's a dealer.” Chris folded his arms across his chest.

“He's a scumbag!” The other man behind him voiced.

“I tell him not to take it on the street, but he gets a kick out of screwing people around,” Chris explained.

I balanced myself and dared to examine whatever was in the house. Immediately, I spotted other vampires sitting on the couch in front of me. A man with a human in his arms about to bite into her, or he possibly did already. The thought enticed me as I watched him brush her hair away from her collar, lower his head, and begin sending her into a wave of quiet moans... the sound echoed into my ears, the sudden smell of the blood wafted through the air... my hunger grew more intense. As I watched, I imagined joining them or taking the woman for myself, her blood running down the side of my lips to my chin.

I thumbed the side of my cheek, swiping the imaginary blood towards my hungry mouth as I watched her head droop onto the couch. When I stopped, I noticed no one else seemed to care what was occurring over there, they just continued to chat with each other. I was the only one who was uneasy with it... the drug maybe? I wasn't sure.

Where the hell did Lucious bring me?

“Okay, Lucious. I'll let you stay up in an empty room for a couple of nights, just until he comes out of his high,” Chris said pointing over at me. “As long as that bitch of yours doesn't come around here destroying the place in search of you like she's done in the past.”

“Good.”

I turned my head from the sight of the silent bloodshed, poising myself in a decent manner and ridding myself of those thoughts. Soon, I noticed Lucious staring in my direction.

“Get a hold of yourself,” he said quietly.

Chris turned around and looked over at the two on the couch. He waved over the woman who sat lonely on the chair across from the couple. “CiCi, come over here.”

The woman stood up and walked over to us, immediately I recognized her but didn't know from where. I focused in closely on her face, different than the last time I could have seen her... yet the same. Cheeks raised with a sparkling smile, brown eyes with a calming look, she looked absolutely radiant...

Who was she?

“Don't I know you?” I asked, bluntly.

She paused... the whole room paused. Lucious held question in his eyes. Chris looked over at her in curiosity.

“I don't believe we've been introduced before,” her voice trailed in thought. “CiCi here will help you to your room, boys,” Chris said, directing his voice to us but still looking at his beautiful partner who stood silent again next to him.

Chris stepped aside, allowing CiCi to walk toward the stairs, motioning to us to follow her lead. Up the stairs and across the hall we walked, all along I pondered her existence. I've meet many people in my life, but I never cared to remember many of the faces I passed by. Yet her, I desperately tried to identify her.

“Here you are.” CiCi stopped in front of a door in the middle of the hallway. Then, she turned on heel and quietly walked back down the hallway.

Oh well, maybe it will come back to me...

I stood as Lucious opened the door, entered the room, and glanced back at me. The powerful drug that caused the furious cackling in me was now producing a tempting hunger deep down in my gut. I stood in the doorway staring straight at Lucious.

He is going to change me, now!

I stepped into the room; Lucious stepped back. I thought for a moment he could see the aching in my eyes as I stepped closer to him until his back was flush against the wall. I wanted his blood, now... to change into a full vampire at last—a true goal in my drug filled mind.

Everything moved so quickly...

I grabbed hold of Lucious's throat and pushed him up against the wall with all the strength I could muster. His eyes immediately glazed over, his lips curling up in confusion.

“You will change me now!” I ordered.

“I can't... you're not ready.”

I pushed against him. “How can you say that now?”

“Two things, Mikael.” He began. “One, your high on something, and two--”

I let go of his neck and dropped my arm to my side. Tilting my head to the floor, I wasn't sad by his words. I was angry.

“What makes you think I'm not ready? I've been ready for twenty years!” I interrupted, pushing his shoulder harder.

“You're not...” He said quietly.

“Ah, don't say it again, Lucious. I'd like to know what makes you think I'm not ready?”

He glanced at the floor, pursing his lips.

“My heart,” he whispered.

I turned away from him. What was this nonsense?

“Psst, your heart? You have no heart,” I growled.

He sighed and cupped my shoulder, trying to console me the best he could.

I guess I could understand his reasoning for not wanting to change me when I had this strange poison running laps inside my veins, but his heart was telling him I wasn't ready? What kind of bullshit was that?

He grasped my shoulder, then swung me around so I can face him.

He took my hand and directed towards his chest, placing it on top of his shirt to where his heart would have been. Suddenly, silence filled the room and I could feel somewhere deep inside of his cold body the slight beating of his heart at work. It was shallow, not enough to sustain a human's life, but just enough to keep him standing here in front of me.

The sheer thought of a beating heart inside of him...

“My heart tells me... you're not ready,” he said softly, the tone of his voice deep with somber.

“But...”

“You thought everything was going to be okay once you turned?” He tipped his head. “You're wrong, Mikael.”

And it was then when he pressed my hand up to my own chest, and deep inside I could feel a shallow heart beating within me as well. A phenomenon I had not once felt since becoming the creature I was.

“There, it beats inside you too. You were just too busy to notice,” Lucious said quietly.

Maybe he was correct, I never once cared to notice the faint beating of my own heart but now with his help I was able to identify it.

“There's no way. Wouldn't I have known?”

He dropped his hands, leaving me with my own hand upon my chest, and walked over to the middle of the room.

“Many vampires never care to feel for their own life beating deep inside of them. They go on with their eternity, eventually losing themselves to the hunger inside of them. Losing their humanity, their dignity, their essence,” Lucious explained.

“All of them?” I asked.

“Serena, Chris, Sebastian... the majority only care for one thing... their own selves, feeding...” He lowered his head. “It's harder the older you are. Elder vampyres such as I, we...”

“You?” My hand fell away from my chest. I wanted to walk over to Lucious just then and console him no matter how he answered.

“I've struggled,” he sighed “With my own desires to not become as depraved as them. It's a fight I've almost lost several times.” Suddenly, he spun around to stare at me. “Until that day I found you again.”

I stepped back, almost tripping over his words.

Is he... saying...

“My heart tells me you're not ready for that final gift, Mikael,” he said calmly.

I felt a stabbing pang in my already weak heart as he repeated it. It wasn't what I wanted to hear from him, yet I wasn't sure the answer I'd get once I asked. Another confession perhaps, the conversation we were having almost called for it but it did not come from his lips. Instead a blow, that denial once more, that I was not ready for his touch... his final gift to me. The thought made me want to crash to my knees.

“Lucious, I...”

“Call tonight a lesson in our vampire society.” His voice deepened; the sadness now gone from his tone. “Now, it's late and this night has been too much. I'm going to sleep.”

With those words, he left the room, leaving me with many unanswered questions... and my new found beating heart, aching from his words.