Why did she and only three of her relatives not age at all? Why did that have to bite others to survive? Why did she suffer if she didn’t terrify other people by using fangs in their flesh? After decades of wondering why she was still alive, Rena finally found the amazement of living so long. She reveled in the many changes in society, the advancement of cultures and technology in the world and accepted the privilege of being one of few was worth a few moments of regret each day.

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And then it all came crashing down upon her when she was taken and held on an island with many other women. Those holding them prisoner only wanted them for one reason — to have children that carried their rare, unusual DNA. Everything became distorted as she withdrew inside herself to survive it.

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Months later she’s in another realm with others like her and her father and brothers are there as well. She was too numb to find the joy in finally having answers as she forced herself to function routinely so she wouldn’t see that look in their eyes when they saw her. The pity, the compassion was more than she could bear.

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Giving birth to a child —that she did love but couldn’t hold or look at without reliving the heinous things she had suffered while captive, she struggled through every moment of every day to feel even a slight trace or normalcy. Would she ever feel anything but fear? Living several lifetimes paralyzed by trauma was a waste of the long life she had been given —she knew this but couldn’t do anything to overcome it.

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When she started to navigate coping and believed for a few moments each day that she could continue to force herself to pretend she was living a normal life, fate unbalanced her again by giving her a mate. A partner that was deemed her other half, her one and only, the person that was just for her to have her happily-ever-after. But it’s too late for her and now she will have to live with knowing she is destroying someone else’s life. How cruel was it that she would now condemn him to suffer a life of incompleteness? Forcing him to watch her be swallowed by the shadow that followed her, even in the darkness.

 

To him all females were to be cared for, protected and allowed to live the life they wished. Long ago he had given up being watchful for one that would be his own. He was just a guard, his status was low, perhaps not the lowest, but he certainly wasn’t worthy of a member of a royal family —yet fate was telling him otherwise.

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The fact that she wasn’t from his realm didn’t bother him at all, he didn’t care the slightest where she was from. She was an amazing woman, much stronger than she believed herself to be. It caused him physical, very real pain to feel her fear and distrust caused by horrific traumatic events. She was going to survive it, and if it took him the next hundred years, he was going to make sure she knew that.

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From the moment she had made eye contact with him and braved her own distress to speak to him, he had silently vowed to protect her, to keep her safe — even from herself— to slay her demons and fight for her when she was too weary to do it on her own.  All she could see was a victim in herself. She didn’t see that she was brilliant, wonderfully analytical with deep compassionate feelings. How could she not see she was beautiful and delicate and had the soul of a warrior with the strength of unbreakable resolve? He didn’t care if he was never able to have a complete bond with her, he would be satisfied and honored just to walk the same path with her, for all of eternity or for as long as the fates allowed.