Prologue

Rayn ran down the hall, her racing heart pounded against her chest. The vampire was gaining on her, his cruel laughter echoed through the house toward her. The picture of her mother's bloody corpse would forever be burned in her nine year old mind. Her father, who left earlier to go hunting, reached out to her mind.

"Look at him." He commanded. There was no loving father there, just the cruel hunter who had just lost his lifemate, she shook her head and kept running. Her father forced her compliance and her head snapped around to look at the vampire but in doing so, she tripped over the corner of the rug that had been curled up. The vampire reached down for her and simply plucked her off the floor. His hands gripped her tightly, almost breaking the young bones in her arms. He held her head so she was looking away from him and he bit down into her wrist. Rayn cried out in pain but this only made the vampire happy. The front door of the house burst inwards, her father had arrived. Rayn looked at him with hope but he was not the same, his eyes were wild and his face did not hold the love and care he once had. He struck at the vampire and the blood oozed onto Rayn, burning her flesh away. She cried out in pain and she was dropped and forgotten by both predator and prey. Rayn looked away during the fight, not wanting to see the blood, or the death. She heard the sickening crunch as her father crushed one side of the vampire's skull, and the sickening sucking noise as the heart was ripped from the chest. The father threw the heart away, and turned to leave. The heart landed in front of Rayn and it started its slow crawl back to its body. Rayn called to her father for aid, but as she watched hin horror, her father waved one arm toward the house and the carpet burst into flames around her. The heart reached its body and the vampire moved to rise. Rayn stayed silent, hoping to be unnoticed. Her prayers were answered when he just passedher by and left the house. She rose too, knowing she had to leave or die. She left the house and with one last longing look towards the house, she fled into the woods to go to ground. She knew as all Carpathians did, the earth would heal her.