Anastasia Snow, a fiery red-headed vampire, has been under the blood pact for as long as she can remember. The details of the pact are fuzzy, but she knows the two most important elements: don't get killed by a Bell, and make it to sanctuary before dawn. However, when she fails to reach sanctuary and falls into the clutches of Taurus Bell, her life is flipped upside-down as she begins to turn back into the very thing she has despised for years: a human. In her weakening state, Anastasia finds herself in the care of the family that's tried to kill her since she became a vampire, and worse still, she has fallen in love with one.

Chapter 1 The urban decay of crumbling buildings covered in graffiti, clunker cars with busted out windows, and near constant sirens bordered the old cemetery like prison bars. I tried to ignore its oppressive sights and sounds from squashing the sanity out of me in the only sane place left in the chaotic labyrinth of forgotten brick giants. My feet caressed the patch of dirt and grass, squishing it between my curled toes like sand on the beach. The grass in the cemetery was starting to brown. It was hard and prickly, like needles under my sensitive soles. But here in the fresh upturned soil, it was soft and inviting. I hesitated, dreading the field of dead grass I’d have to wade through to get to the worn, square grave marker that had once been white, but now was blackened by age. From here, I could see that the elements had slowly shifted it forward since I had been here last. An ominous rustling of leaves drew my attention away from the vague outlines of the name etched into the marker I was seeking, and I glanced about, remembering my goal. I had to hurry now. He was close—nearly upon me—and I knew he could follow the blood trail easily. Remembering him, I glanced down at the blood pooling at my raw wrists as it dribbled down my fingers and stained the dirt. A silly part of me wanted to apologize to the woman buried here for bleeding on her grave, and I probably would have if he wasn’t watching. He was there. I could feel his presence by the cold sweat that broke out against the back of my neck, and the sweet cologne of his body teasing my nose. I wondered idly which direction he’d come from. Would he try an attack from behind, or maybe the side? No. Taurus walked toward me head on with an angry smile twisting his boyish features into the face of a dangerous hunter. “So, Anastasia, is this the place you choose for your final resting?” “I’m still full of life, Pup,” I answered with a smirk, because I knew I still looked a heck of a lot younger than he did, “though I do tire of doing this every time one of you Bells comes to age.” “Don’t worry, this will be your last,” he promised. “Is that so? What makes you think that I won’t beat you like your father, and his father before him?” I asked, settling myself down on top of the old woman’s grave marker, fully aware of the answer to my question before Taurus even had to reply. Taurus could “slay” me because I still had his knife wedged up under my ribs, an inch from my heart. Normally, the knife really wouldn’t be much of an issue for me, but the knife he chose to use was like the backward facing fangs of an anaconda. The more you tried to tug it out, the more the jagged blade dug in, causing ten times the damage it would if it was just left in. I had learned that the hard way by tugging at that sucker for a couple of minutes, probably slicing my internal organs into ribbons. Taurus looked pointedly at the hilt of the knife prodding out of my white peasant blouse that was stained with an ever-growing circle of blood, as if to answer my question. A laugh bubbled up from my lips and I tried to keep from wincing when this movement shifted the knife inside me. “I’ve experienced things a hundred times worse than this, Boy.” Taurus smiled almost politely. “Yes, but I’ve been tracking you for twenty miles. I know you’ve lost a lot of blood—more than you’ll be able to handle soon. You are too weak now.” He didn’t advance, and I figured that he was trained well enough to know that the closer he was to the grave, the greater the chance he had of catching me—either that or he really liked to banter back and forth. His Great Grandpa Mel did, I thought sourly, pushing off the grave with my hands so that I was standing up again. My hands left bloody palm prints on the polished granite, and again, I felt compelled to apologize to the woman buried there. I walked towards him lazily, deciding that he probably wouldn’t come to me. We both knew that I was the one who was short on time. Taurus could stand there for an entire year and it wouldn’t make much of a difference to him. But I had until dawn. Once dawn hit, if I wasn’t on that plot he was guarding…bad things would happen. Taurus didn’t tense up as I approached him. He watched me calmly, his deep sea green eyes studying me quietly as I came closer and closer, analyzing the way I carefully picked my way through the dead grass. “Are you ready, Pup?” I asked, and my voice quivered a little. Taurus was right. If there was any time in my long life that I could be killed by a Bell, it would’ve been Taurus. I was weak and dizzy from blood loss, and even as I looked at him, my vision was trying to dot out. I blinked furiously to clear it. “Ladies first,” he replied with a suave come-and-get-it wave of his hand. “I’ll hand it to you Bells, you all are always gentlemen.” I said dryly, but some of my humor was lost in a painful, deep cough that brought blood to my lips, and sprayed in a fine mist all over my arm when I tried to cover my mouth—a common courtesy that had not been lost when I ceased being human. I raised my arms to attack, and he tensed, ready for it, but the dizziness hit me hard, and I wound up falling into his arms instead of hitting him like I had planned. “What is this, some kind of trick?” Taurus demanded turning me so that my back was to him before he lowered me down to the ground so I wouldn’t be laying on the knife in my chest. I could see it. The grave was so close. It was within touching distance—all I had to do was reach out and touch it, touch sanctuary, but I couldn’t. I was too weak. “Anastasia?” Taurus asked, giving me a gentle shake. My eyes closed shut against my will, and my mind swam away from his face, into the darkness.

Haley Star Griffin is a young author in Illinois who loves to write stories in the sci-fi romance, and fantasy-romance genres. Her first book, Ariel: Genetically Yours was published when she was sixteen years old, and Indebted is her first eBook. To learn more about Haley's writing, visit her website at http://haleyshootingstarswrite.webs.com