A/N: edited for REAL! Leave a review, new readers!

CHAPTER ONE

Problems that go away by themselves, come back by themselves. Damien Andrews was my problem.

He was a six foot piece of high quality eye-candy with melt-in-your-mouth chocolate brown eyes and short brown hair borderlining black. Girl's eyes would follow his narrow-hipped swagger down the hallway's and they would turn into slobbering piles of mush at his smile.

I never categorized myself into the slobbering mush mob.

I was always more of a stick a finger down my throat at the sight of the majority of the female population's reaction to Damien, kind of girl.

It was no surprise to my best friend when he finally set his sights on me. Graham—my best friend—told me that he had simply set his sights higher than his regular bimbo on a platter (I thought he may have set his sights lower once he'd corrupted the cheerleader and friends half of the school population). No matter who was right, it didn't help me much.

Damien had thrown all his good cards at me but I'd had a better hand.

At least, that's what I had thought during the beginning.

Who knew he could be so influential?

I knew all of the things he had done before, but a part of my mind reminded me that they were just gossip passed down through the school (and who knew how accurate it actually was). I knew of all the heartbreaks he had provoked, but the same part of my mind told me that they were just wimps who couldn't handle some one breaking up with them instead of the other way around. I knew that he practically had a giant neon sign on his forehead that spelled trouble and he would undoubtedly find a way to leave a giant black smudge on my so-far clean reputation. But by the time this reason against it had been brought to my attention, I had already been brought to the dark side.

I finally understood that the side doing all the persuasion was my curiosity. I think it may have curb stomped my common sense. Then again, common sense is an oxymoron, so I don't think it would have helped me out anyways.

Curiosity killed the cat but cat's have nine lives. Right?

I certainly thought so...then.

My reasoning was irrational and ignorant and I never realized how undeniably accurate the first half of the saying applied to my situation before it was too late.

Apparently, you cannot compare humans to stubborn felines. There were no nine lives for me.

All I'd had was a simple one that I'd been planning to use until I was old and wrinkly.

That didn't really pan out like I wanted. My wants didn't matter or help me much when Damien finally had his way with me.

I mean, there's not a bucket full of things you can do once you're dead.

But I wasn't headed six feet under any time soon.

Oh, no.

The night Damien Andrews brought me out on our first—and last—date ever, his charm didn't work on me. This doesn't sound like a bad thing, right? I mean, I only went out with him so that he would stop bugging me twenty-four seven. He just wouldn't give it up already!

From a psychologists point of view, they would say he was used to getting his way and I was a challenge he wouldn't pass so he gave it his best effort.

Yeah. When hell freezes over.

He was used to getting his way and I had originally refused to give it to him? Okay, I'd agree with that. But I think he liked the chase because he'd been too full of himself to think that maybe I hadn't actually wanted anything to do with him rather than I was just teasing him. And then when he finally got me out, he'd released his revenge on me for not relenting sooner.

He fricking bit me.

Not like a little playful nipping before the first meal or anything. No foreplay included in this dangerous package.

Let's back up a bit.

I hadn't wanted to make awkward conversation while our food arrived, so I'd done what any sane woman would have done. I ditched him to go to the bathroom and 'freshen up'.

Plus I was looking to see if there was a window in case I needed to get out.

I'll admit he did smell really good. And he didn't want to make me gouge my eyes out just by looking at him. Quite the opposite. He was—for lack of a better word—hypnotizing. But he'd had such a bad reputation! I couldn't afford any affiliations with him other than that one measly date.

When I'd entered the bathroom, it was completely deserted, and I'd sighed in relief as I saw a small window between the rows of sinks and stalls. He had been looking a bit edgy and tortured when we had ordered. And he'd been staring at me the whole time.

I thought I might have ticked him off. But that was stupid, because he was the one who brought me there. So I'd disregarded it.

Until he came storming into the bathroom and locked the swinging door behind him.

He'd looked absolutely livid.

His breathing had been shallow and he'd taken slow forceful steps towards me like he was fighting against every strained motion. A part of him wanted him to put his foot down and another wanted him to retreat.

I'd been mentally cheering on the retreater.

He'd stalked me back against one of the sinks and he clenched his fists beside his thighs before he went completely limp for a moment.

Within a split second, he jerked his head to me and I felt a wave of terror roll off of me.

His regular soothing brown eyes had churned to a hard, soulless black.

The monster he had evidently been fighting for control with had won.

And it scared the living shit out me.

He'd grabbed my face like he was going to give me a wild passionate kiss, but tugged my head up so that my neck was by his lips.

My whole body shivered once as I heard him take a deep inhale of my scent. And then I'd been frozen stiff under his touch.

The moment his teeth sunk into my flesh, I hadn't even screamed.

I didn't do anything but feel the excruciating pain as he pulled all the warmth from my body. It felt like every limb, every muscle, every minuscule part of my being was burning as if on fire. It was like I was dunking my body into boiling water and I couldn't decide if it was ice cold or simmering. I could feel the blood retreating from my toes, then my fingertips; leaving a needle numbness in their wake.

I faintly took notice when he stepped back and my vision went hazy like I had just spun around in too many repetitive circles and couldn't stop. The room was twisting into an unrecognizable blur. The world was swimming into a black pit.

It'd only gotten worse.

I'd watched as the control he had lost, returned and his expression was immediately showered with constricted pain, fear, and hate. The glare he had was inhuman and terrifying.

As I'd slumped to the ground, I'd felt a twinge of pity. He'd had no choice. The monster within him had broken free and left him no say.

The last thing I remembered was him diving out of the window I had located seconds before as I succumbed to the beckoning black.

Now? I'm pissed.

He didn't kill me.

Oh, no.

It was much more horrifying.

He turned me into one of his own kind.

If that's what he did to everyone that he used his magic touch on, then the city had a lot more to worry about than road construction.

Fortunately—or not, depending on how you looked at it—I was “special”.

Okay, I was glad I hadn't been living in a vampire infested city for the past year or so, but I didn't want to be special.

I got enough of that from my mother.

Needless to say, being a vampire did have it's perks.

The fact I could see in such detail it almost made my head spin, would be one. Agility—which in Damien's case, came in handy—would be two. Heightened hearing was something I enjoyed using. Beauty, not so much. I was never one for standing out of the crowd, and the way my figure went from 'meh' to 'wow' was a bit unnerving.

The only thing I dreaded to my very core about becoming a different species, was feeding.

And when I say feeding, I mean sucking the blood out of people.

I never wanted to put someone through the pain I had been through. It would be too much for me to live with. Having that kind of situation placed onto my shoulders. It would become a heavy weight that I'd carry for the rest of my...life, and it would slowly—but surely—wear me down until I cracked.

And where was Damien—the sire to myself, Valerie Sharp—when I was going through all these changes?

That is a large ballpark I'm not even going to try hitting in.

Regardless, I was stuck by myself, and he left me to go through changing all my my lonesome.

Which, on one side of the fence, would be a very good thing. Then again, there was nobody to explain what was happening.

I'd thought I'd been dying.

I told my mother I was getting a bad flu, and she had no reason to not believe me. I was getting paler, and I felt nauseous for a week.

Having your blood being sucked out, can do that to a girl.

I moped around my house for two weeks—getting homework from Graham, and researching about what was really going on. It was like puberty all over again!

I mean, I had a pretty good idea of what was happening, but I just wanted to double check.

I wasn't going to go and ask if we—Damien and I—were vampires, if I didn't have any proof to compare the situation with. But the symptoms fit.

Graham told me to suck it up on the second weekend I hadn't been at school. He said he was tired of being my messenger when he couldn't even talk face to face (I didn't want him in my room in case I sprung on him).

So I did.

During the two weeks Damien had never contacted me, and my blood lust was deteriorating as I cut it off for so long.

I have to admit, during the first four days, my muscles were constantly tightening like they were ready to spring on any prey near me, and I'd locked myself in the bathroom. It took all the limited control I had left to keep myself from doing anything I'd regret.

Well, okay. Fluffy the cat from next door was now buried in the neighbor's backyard, but the old hag had twenty of them anyways! It's not like she would miss the company.

I figured it was safe to go back to school for one day—it was a Friday—and all I had to do was avoid Damien. There was no way in hell I'd let him try to talk to me after the stunt he pulled.

But the day I went back was the day fate decided to come back and bite me in the ass.