Will smiled, surprised at the girl’s demands. Most captured humans were afraid of him. They cowered or begged. But not this one. He laughed, the corners of his mouth pulling up as he shook his head. The sound started to irritate Kahli, but she remained silent. Will replied, “That isn’t a Section 8 brand.” He pointed a tapered finger at her, his blue eyes meeting hers, his voice knowing, “That is something your people concocted to keep you out of the camps.” The boy rose slowly. His slender form filled the tiny space.

In two steps he was across the room to the spot where Kahli lay on the floor. As he spoke, Kahli’s heart raced. She remembered her parent’s warnings. The free must remain hidden. Otherwise the Regent would take them and deposit them in the slaughterhouses. But this Tracker was not conforming to the Regent’s demands. He’d do something even more deplorable instead. Kahli stared at his black boot next to her head. He knelt down next to her. Without a word, Will slid his hands under her waist and legs before he lifted her back onto the make-shift bed. There was a thin mattress, covered in blankets, lying on top of a ledge. Kahli tensed in his arms. A million screams built inside of her, but the boy placed her softly on the cot and backed away.

Kahli worked the muscle in her jaw, staring at him with utter hatred. “It is a Section 8 brand,” she hissed. “My mother escaped with me from that slaughterhouse when I was born.” She was quiet for a moment, watching the boy’s face. But he only returned her vacant stare. “She escaped right after they branded me.”

“So you say.”

Kahli’s throat grew tight. He sensed the lie. Damn vamps. They had unreal senses, but Kahli was certain the branding mark was real. It was supposed to protect her if she was ever caught. Her mother explained it to her a million times. But the boy didn’t believe her. “Because it’s true. The Regent will have your head if you don’t return me.” Her green eyes blazed.

“It’s not true. Ask me how I know?” Kahli said nothing. She just continued her death stare, wishing the arrogant bastard would burst into flames. “You said slaughterhouse. It’s just another clue that you are not what you say.” The boy stood and examined his fingernails as he spoke, his dark hair falling over his forehead. “Ask me how I know your brand is fake?” He glanced up at her. “Ask me, red-headed girl. Ask me why I haven’t returned you to your home, to your precious Section 8 camp where all the humans are dragged off to die.” His lips pulled into a knowing smile.

With a gleam in his eye, he answered his own question, “Because Section 8 doesn’t exist. It never has. Not ten years ago. Not twenty. And you’re not a day over eighteen, are you?” His blue eyes didn’t blink as he stood over her bed, looking down at her. “I remember you. I remember your fiery red hair and emerald green eyes peering out at me from that thicket.” Kahli’s jaw dropped open. He was the boy that captured her mother. After all this time, she’d grown to believe that the boy never saw her. And yet, here he was, nearly ten years later saying otherwise. “You blew your cover that day, little girl. You dropped something.” He tossed a wad of fabric on Kahli and stepped back, sitting in his chair. His eyes narrowed as he watched her reaction to the scrap of cloth.

Kahli lifted the fabric, instantly knowing what it was. Her eyes darted to his as she held up the mask, and looked past it at the boy. “This was mine. I dropped it that day.”

“I know,” he answered. “I took it.”

She didn’t understand. Confusion clouded her mind. He was a vamp, she was sure—but this meant he’d been a child. Did someone change him after he’d grown? That was impossible. The vamps were weak, unable to sire more of their kind. Shaking her head, she asked, “But you’re a vamp.” He nodded. Her eyes studied his face, wishing she could claw it off. But she still didn’t understand. “How?”

Will looked down, his dark lashing obscuring his eyes. His hands were folded in front of him like this conversation didn’t bother him. Searching for an answer, he decided to tell her the truth. After his plans were executed, he’d never see her again. There was no harm in her knowing. “I’m neither vampire, nor human—”

Kahli interrupted, shaking her head, not believing him. “You’re a vampire. Don’t waste your lies on me.”

Will smirked, “If only things were so simple. The ignorance of humans is adorable, and utterly naïve. Vampires, the Regents, the old ones, are not the same as Bane. You must have realized this. You must have noticed child vampires?”

But she hadn’t. Kahli had been isolated, and spent most of her life alone. The trackers she’d encountered were grown men. “You were the only child I ever saw.”

“Hmmm,” he said studying her face, searching for the truth. “Then you don’t know, do you? You don’t know the difference between the Regent and the Bane? You don’t know what happened, do you?”

Kahli wanted to say yes. She didn’t like being weak, or feeling ignorant, but she hadn’t heard this story. It didn’t matter whether she acknowledged it or not, Will had already seen it in her eyes. She didn’t know.

He leaned forward, placing his elbows on his knees. “The Regent are ancient. They’re your classic variety of vampire. They require human blood to live. Without it, they die. It’s simple, really. Before the ice age—before the famine—they drank freely, secretly. They took what they needed and more. Gluttony was a sin that they enjoyed.” Will shrugged like draining helpless humans wasn’t a big deal. “But my kind, the Bane, didn’t evolve until after the famine. We live and breathe, and our bodies only require the smallest trace of blood to survive.” He spoke so coolly, but it was an act. Will worked long and hard to temper his words, to hide his true feelings. No one knew what he thought about anything. Not the Regent, not the Bane—no one. And he planned on keeping things that way. It mean a longer life, free from complications; complications that usually had to do with a grizzly death and an aristocracy that didn’t like being defied.

Kahli had never heard this. Her mother had told her there were humans and vampires. There was nothing in the middle. The two did not, could not coexist within the same being. By their very nature, vampires were dead. Their bodies were frigid, cold like marble. Their hearts were just as dark and frozen. There was a time to ask questions and this was it. She wanted to keep him talking. Make the vamp-who-thinks-he’s-a-human guy keep talking, so she could get a read on him and figure out what he planned on doing with her. So far, she couldn’t get a read on him at all. He was closed down, everything from his facial expressions to his stance said he didn’t care what happened to her—but he was still there, talking. So she was valuable to him, but the reason why wasn’t what she thought.

The way he spoke bothered her. His indifference was a slap in the face to a lifetime fighting for survival. And losing. She gritted her teeth, “You make it sound so blasé. Like nothing you just said matters or even affects you, assuming you aren’t lying like the rest of your bloodsucking cousins.” She arched a brow at him, trying to gauge him, “So, let’s say I accept your little story. If the Bane weren’t around before the ice, then where did you come from?”

He smiled as if it were an amusing tale and not a nightmare. Will watched the girl. He planned this moment. The words he practiced were burnt into his tongue. There was no fumbling, reaching for thoughts that wouldn’t come. Will knew the girl would ask, and he’d prepared an answer. “They’re as close to being my cousins as you are.” His eyes narrowed, crinkling at the corners. The idea repulsed her. Vampires destroyed her life. Her family—all of them were slaughtered—to feed a population of the undead. Man could have survived the ice, could have survived the wars, but he could not survive the vampires. The Regent were too powerful.

Kahli’s gaze, that fevered hatred that he shared, put Will on edge. He recognized it burning brightly in her eyes. The look made him falter. It blindsided him like a plank to the head. Will shook it off before she had time to consider it.

He continued, “The Regent’s food stores grew thin. The blood supplies dwindled as humanity killed those who managed to survive. The Bane were a futile effort to make self-sustaining humans who required little food to survive. We were created to endure this new world. We were meant to feed the Regent, but things didn’t work out that way. Our blood isn’t sufficient. They can drain a thousand Bane and barely survive. Ancient Ones need, and have always needed, human blood to live. Without it their powers diminish, and their bodies become frail. That’s where the farms came from. The Regent called them camps, but they were farms meant to protect the remaining humans from destroying themselves. Losing power, losing the superiority that they had maintained for centuries was not an option. If the Regent needed human blood, they would have it. All other threats to their precious food supply were erased.” He smiled widely even though he wanted to puke. For some reason, he felt like she was looking through him, and he didn’t want her to. If she knew what his life had been like…

Kahli pushed herself up. She noticed she was still wearing the clothes from the Empire safe house. They were covered in dried blood and grime. Ignoring the disgust she felt as she slid her hand over her clothing, she said, “I don’t understand. Why do you need the Regent?”

Will’s blue eyes locked with Kahli’s. He regarded her as if the question was asinine. “What do you mean? We need them for survival, the same way that they need you. We age. We aren’t immortal. Bane are vulnerable. The Regent protects those who are loyal.” Enslaves was more accurate, but she didn’t need to know his whole story.

His words didn’t feel like lies, but Kahli still wasn’t satisfied. She shook her head, “Why didn’t they just kill you off when the Regent realized your kind couldn’t feed them? Aren’t they already having a food crisis? Why’d they keep you?”