"Tell me this is just an elaborate work of fiction?" I snap. "Mom? Dad? Come on, this isn't funny. Tell me you're kidding."

I slam shut the book in my lap and stare at my parents. The both of them just sitting there across from me and looking at me like they hadn't just told me that my whole life had been a lie.

"Rosie, please try to understand." My father says, reaching out for me, trying to place his cool hand on my leg, but I stand up, the book clattering to the ground. My mother's big crystal blue eyes grow wider as she looks between me and the book on the ground. I can't believe she gets off looking offended that I'm not excited about getting a bomb dropped on me like it is no biggie.

I cross my arms, shaking my head at the both of them. "This is how you chose to tell me?" I point at the book laying open by my bare feet. "I'm a-a..."

I couldn't say it out loud. When my mom gave me the book, insisting that I read it for better understanding, I had stupidly thought she'd written a book about vampires for me to better understand her and my father. I thought it was just a cool story she'd written about this girl taken to a foreign land and raised in seclusion who later falls for a prince and has a daughter she escapes with that had a little vampire twist to make it relatable for me.

Even now, thinking about it, I can't believe I'd missed all of the connections right up until the last chapter where my father dedicated the story to me and the names were all changed. The little girl in the book, Princess Daisy, instead she's not Daisy...she's Rose.

She's me.

"A princess essentially." My father nods his head once, robbing his chin with the back of his hand.

I laugh out loud. "Essentially a princess?"

Like it's so normal.

My mother, finally unable to take it, stands and grabs the book from the floor, smoothing the pages before placing it on the coffee table and then turning to me, her eyes searching mine. I hate when she does that. Like she can see what I'm feeling. It drives me nuts, just like her bright blue eyes do. Why'd I have to get father's eyes? No one ever dreams about dark blue eyes...they dream about mom's eyes. They glitter in the light even as she frowns.

"Rose," She says, using her 'mom' tone on me. "We chose to do it this way," She glances back at my dad, always seeking his approval. "Because we thought it was the best way. I know you clearly disagree but we wanted you to know the whole truth, not just bits of it." She touches the top of the book. "This is us," She whispers. "The whole story from beginning to end. It was all right here for you. We wanted to wait until an age we were sure you could handle it."

I drop back down into the chair, catching my face in my hands to hide my eyes. "All of that is true?" I whisper, unsure I want to hear the answer.

"Every word." She replies, a shake in her voice.

Split emotions of whether or not I want to cry or scream tear me apart. Not only a princess, but a princess to a vampire population that kidnaps children to keep and grow until they're old enough to be fed off of. Practically cattle. A daughter to a man and woman who defied any odd if it meant being together. I always knew mom and dad had a strong bond, and that maybe it was even something special, but the book...Their love was a once in a lifetime thing. What hope does that leave for me?

Even more concerning were the revelations about where my father came from and what he was capable of. I've never known him as more than a fun, loving, smart man. I never would have pictured him as being capable of being cold and killing people. Plus, if the whole story was true, then I was kidnapped too.

It was all way too much too fast.

Mom steps forward, reaching for me, but I jump from my chair and out of her grasp.

"I can't believe this." I shake my head, holding my arms tightly around myself to keep from falling apart. "You've both known all along and never..." Another thought comes to mind and I sink even lower. "Wait, is Weston in the book Logan?"

My father stands fluidly, at my mother's side in a second as she slumps her shoulders forward a little. "Yes." She whispers, a slow nod. "I told you, I didn't leave out anything. It was never our intention to keep anything from you, we only wanted to wait until you were ready. Logan was in agreement on that as well. We are all prepared to answer any questions you might have."

"Oh really?" I snap again, my head beginning to ache. "Now you're all ready to be forthcoming, but the last nineteen years weren't any good?"

"Rose, I told you, you needed to be ready." Mom sighs, her eyes begging me to see things her way.

"Ok, fine." I laugh under my breath. "If I'm so ready now, then I want to go there." I told them, making mom gasp, dad's grip tightening around her shoulders. "That place is real, right?"

"Yes." My father nods. "Very real."

"Then I want to go."

Mom steps out of dad's grip, reaching for me again. "That is out of the question." She says in horror. You'd think I'd just asked her if I could get a tattoo on my forehead of some guy I'd just met on the corner and was planning to marry tonight. A total overreaction to my wanting to go to this place that according to her and dad, as a princess, it belongs to me.

I turn my back on them, running up the stairs.

"Rose!" My mom calls out.

"Shush, let her go. She needs to think." My father tells her as I bolt out the door and into the main house, slamming right into Logan as he passed.

"Woah, where's the fire?" He laughs at first, then he takes in my expression and pulls me into his chest, no heartbeat meeting me as I lay my head there. "You finished the book?"

I nod against him. "How could you let her do that to you?" I ask him, looking up at him. "She tossed you aside."

He grabs at my shoulders, pulling me back and looking down at me sternly. "I know it may seem that way to you, but she didn't. I loved her and I was wrapped around your little finger the moment I met you." He smiles warmly. "If you hadn't ever been put in danger, we probably would have been married and she might have been happy for a while, but what she and your dad have...I couldn't get in the middle. Plus, if she hadn't made her choice, you wouldn't be here with your whole family...and I'd probably have grey hair." I manage to slip out a laugh as he runs his hand through his blonde hair. He looks up past me, over to the kitchen and I turn to see Octavia walk in, grocery bags in her hands. "I promise," Logan whispers, bringing my attention back. "I'm happy with the way that everything turned out, and I know if you take some time, you'll be able to accept this too."

I nod once, pulling back from him, then I push out the front door, feeling his and Octavia's eyes on me as I go. I walk in my bare feet down the porch steps and pull out my phone, typing out the long but familiar number.

"Rosie, my dear!" Pedro's voice warms my insides. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"

I sigh, sitting on the bottom step, stretching my legs out in the grass while I watch the lightning bugs play. "Tell me its all lies and I'm on a secret TV show that is going to come out and wave their cameras in my face any moment now?"

"Ah." He mutters and I hear him make his apologies to the people around him and dismiss himself. "You finished the book then?"

"I did."

"My dear, Rosie." He says softly, the sound of a door clicking shut behind him. "I can't tell you it isn't true, because it is." He pauses, letting it sink in some more. However, every time someone confirms that it's true I have a harder and harder time processing it. I've always felt different, but a freaking princess? The heir to the damn vampire throne no less? None of it seems possible.

The thought of my affliction, and the sound of Pedro's voice filling my ear as he goes on and on about how mom and dad did what they did to protect me and to give me a good normal life and blah blah blah, only made me think more and more about my...dreams. Specifically the one I'd had a month or so ago that featured Pedro. I'd brushed it off at the time, and I've never told anyone else about my black outs before, but if someone was trust worthy, I knew it was Pedro.

"I need to tell you something." I blurt out, cutting him off mid-sentence.

"Ok."

I take a deep breath, committing myself to coming clean about it with him. Maybe vampire born kids all have weird powers and the only reason it wasn't mentioned in the book is because mom didn't know anything about it since she was human. That would make sense, and it would make me feel a lot better too. I've felt like a total outcast the last few years since they started.

"I see things."

Pedro clears his throat. "Um, what?"

I sigh, rolling my eyes. "I have blackouts sometimes where one minute I'll be sitting in class or watching TV, or even one time I was out riding when it happened, and then suddenly I'm somewhere else...I see...I don't know, sometimes the future...sometimes just random things."

My face was flaming hot and my heart only pounded harder and harder every second that ticked by. "Are you talking about...visions, Rosie?"

"I prefer to say dreams, but I'm not asleep when it happens." I admit, feeling every bit the total loser.

"When you say you see future?" He asks. "What do you mean?"

I recounted the first time it ever happened, just sitting in class waiting for the teacher to hand back our math quizzes. I'd been sitting there when I got a hard chill and then I saw the teacher walk up the aisle and hand me my test. I smiled, and thanked her when I saw the large red 'A' marked down. Then just as suddenly, the teacher was at the front of the room again and she handed out the papers, mine having the exact grade I'd imagined.

At the time, I convinced myself that I had wanted the good grade so badly, that I'd visualized it into reality, but then the blackouts got stranger.

I told Pedro about the time I saw the fire at the neighbor's house a week before it happened, and the time I knew exactly where Prince had run off to when he'd gotten out of the fence before. Finally, I broke down and told him the dream of him being drug behind that creepy man and woman with the cloaked men with chains.

"What do your parents say?" He queried when I grew quiet.

I lean forward, plucking a blade of grass from in front of me and splitting it with my nails. "I haven't ever told them." I whisper. "I just...I don't like to talk about it because saying it out loud makes it feel more real. Is it normal?"

I didn't want to get my hopes up, but I was already holding my breath.

I slumped forward when I heard him let out a deep breath. "I'll certainly look into it and get back to you, but there is nothing to worry about."

"Easy for you to say, you're not the one seeing things in your head." I scoff. Pushing up to my feet and leaning over the banister.

"Hey, I'm running a kingdom here." He laughs. "I'll take a day off and have some visions while you come here and deal with the squabbling masses."

I knew he was joking, but it only made me want to do it that much more. "I want to come there with you, Pedro." I tell him, the determination growing. "I need to see it...and you." I tack on the end. "It's almost been a year since I saw you last." I frown.

"I miss you too, Rosie darling." A smile in his voice. "I'll make you a deal. If you promise to tell your parents the truth, and also try not to be too angry with them about making you wait until now to learn the truth, then I will come see you in a few days."

My heart jumps in my chest, a smile sneaking past my defenses and stretching across my face. "Will you be bringing Lance?"

Pedro's hearty laugh echoes over the phone. "Oh, I see." He jokes. "You don't want to see me, you want to see Lance."

"No, I want to see my wonderful Papa Pedro." I promise. "Lance would just be a bonus. It's been two years since I've seen him."

"I know, he's been a busy man here lately." He tells me, someone's voice in the background. "I'm sure he'd love to come and see you again as well...He was quite smitten with you last time."

"Shut up, no he wasn't." I covered my smile even though no one could see me.

Lance is my father's best friend, Cromley's, nephew. He used to join us for holidays and special occasions when I was younger, but the last time I'd seen him he was nineteen and I was seventeen. That was two years ago and he hasn't reached out to me at all. We used to be pretty close and he was almost my first kiss before I chickened out and we missed our moment.

"You should know..." Pedro brought me back to the present. "He lives here fulltime now, and he's gone through the change."

The thought hadn't even occurred to me.

Where Pedro lived had always been a very vague thing to me. My parents always brushed over it, but would tell me that he was a very powerful man and lived where a lot of other's like my parents lived...now it made more sense, he's a king of an underground world of vampires...and now Lance is one of those vampires too. Everyone but me.

"I see." I mumble.

"Don't be upset, he's still the same person, but look, I've got to go my love." He says quickly. "I'm not sure yet if I'll be able to bring him with me this trip, but I will look into what we discussed and I will see you in a few days, ok?"

"Ok."

"All my love."

"All my love." I hit the red button and slide my phone back into the back pocket of my jeans before creeping back into the house.

Logan and Octavia have finished putting away the food and they are busy fixing dinner, the two of them working in the kitchen together effortlessly. I guess I do have to admit that I'm glad my mom came back to Castrum to save me, or else I wouldn't know my dad, and I wouldn't know Octavia. As weird as it made me feel sometimes, I loved having two sets of parents. And there was no denying the connection they shared.

"Rose?" My mom's voice calls from the living room.

I turn on my heels, walking slowly towards her.

The second I enter the room I don't give them a chance to say anything.

"I've spoken to Pedro and he's going to come visit in a few days." I blurt out in a hurry. "When he gets here I'd like to leave with him to go to Castrum de Petra and see it for myself."

Mom is the first to hop up from her spot on the couch. "Rose, please, you don't understand what dangers are there. You can't go, plus if someone ever found out who you truly are we could all be in danger." Mom's fingers shake at her sides and her eyes are wide like saucers.

"Rachel," My dad whispers, trying to calm her. "Let's try to hear her out."

Logan walks in behind me, putting a hand on my shoulder but I dip from under it.

"You all can't keep me away!" I shout. "I should be allowed to see where I come from! Where you come from, dad." I gaze across the table to him, knowing if I can wear someone down it's him. His deep blue grey eyes, same as mine meet me, but he doesn't seem to be caving. "Please, I just want to experience it the same as every one of you has."

"It's not a place you want to experience, Rose." Mom sighs, pulling her strawberry blonde hair back into a ponytail. "It's filled with danger and you're not ready and you don't get what you'd be getting in the middle of."

I narrow my eyes, staring directly at my mom. "Whose fault is that?" I spit before turning and running from the room, up the stairs, into my room and fling myself down on the bed.

I lay there for just a minute before I push back up and run over to the side of my room where the air vent on the floor waits for me. I'd discovered as a kid that you could put your ear to the vent and hear what was going on in the living room.

"I told you both." Mom says. "I've always known she's way too strong willed and rebellious for her own good." She sighs and I roll my eyes. "She's not like I was, Calvin. She's always wanted more, and she's always been bored with her own life. She isn't going to let this go." I could hear the shakes in her voice from here and I tried to ignore the tug in my heart over it. "What if she goes there and actually decides that she wants that life?"

"Then we support our daughter, Rachel." Dad sighs and I nod, dad is always the voice of reason between mom and me.

"To what cost?" She fires back, never backing down easily. "We all know what it's like there, Calvin. She'll never be safe!" I hear my mother's footsteps as she rushes out of the room and a door slams in the distance.

Logan sighs and dad groans quietly. "You and I both know that those two are much more alike than either would like to admit." Logan whispers and dad laughs.

"Don't I know it." He agrees. "They're both obviously fond of the same dramatic exits as well." He adds, laughing with Logan again.

I shove away from the vent.

Mom and I are nothing alike.

I would never make the same choices that she made.

I try to push up from the ground to go back down and try to talk to Logan and dad alone, pretty sure that they'd both be more reasonable than mom, but my fingers and toes begin to tingle.

"Shit, not again." I mutter, sitting back down on the floor.

I stare at the yellow wall in front of me until it dissolves away into darkness.

I'm in a bar, someplace where they don't speak English.

There's a soccer game on the television hanging in the corner on the brick wall, most of the people cheering and looking that way while a man, tall and handsome stares the opposite direction. I follow his gaze to the young woman sitting at the bar all alone. She has long light blonde hair that falls in ringlets down her back and light olive skin that has more of a glow than the others around.

The man flashes across the room, his speed unnoticed by the drunk patrons. He taps the woman on the shoulder and I gasp as she turns around. I know her. At least I recognize her from my mom's photo albums. I met her when I was little, but she died too soon for me to remember her on my own. I'm sure of it though, the woman at the bar, it's my grandmother.

She's young, in her early twenties as she turns and smiles at the mysterious man, his auburn hair swept out of his crystal blue eyes and they shake hands. He smiles back, something about him familiar in a way too, but I can't figure out why.

All of a sudden, everything speeds forward, the people begin to leave, stumbling drunk away before the only two left in the small brick walled bar are my gran and the tall handsome man.

Time shoots forward even faster and I find myself in an apartment, the old furniture brightly colored and mismatched. I only study the plaid couch for a second when I hear the front door unlock and I gasp again as the man and gran tumble into the room, kissing feverishly and unable to keep their hands off of each other. The two tumble into the bedroom and the scene changes again.

Gran is wrapped in sheets asleep as the man rolls out of bed, dressing himself before he leans over Gran, covering her mouth with one hand as he quickly opens his mouth and bites down hard on her neck. I scream with her as he eyes pop open in fear and the man drinks more of her blood. I can feel myself shaking, but I can't get out of the trance.

Just as quickly as he did it, he releases her and vanishes from the room, leaving her in a bloody crying mess.

Time jumps again, and finally my fingers and toes start tingling again.

Almost over.

I open my eyes in a hospital room beside Gran as the nurses rush around her, calling for her to push as hard as she can. She grabs her swollen belly, pushing once again before my ears are filled with the sound of a baby crying.

A nurse swaddles the baby in a pink blanket and walks to the back of the room with her.

I turn to follow and I see the man again, he's hidden in the hallway, peeking through the glass in the top of the door, his eyes on Gran.

The nurse asks Gran where the father is and I turn to look at her as she shakes her head.

"There isn't one." She replies simply and when I turn back to the door, the man is gone.