(Sophia's POV)

At first, Alice spoke to me about wanting to see Claire, but then something happened. Something I can't explain. She collapsed before me. I yelled her name as I struggled to open her cell door. Once I finally found the key to open her cell, I rushed to help her, but I slipped on her bloody vomit. Before I could fall, I quickly gained my balance.

With her ginger hair covering her face which is also soaked in blood, she lies in the vomit. I rushed to her side, lifting her into my arms. I cradled her body close to mine. She was so cold, colder than usual. In light of my belief she was dying, I knew I had to act fast.

I decided to take her to the attic, which Kane had remodeled into a small hospital for his sick and injured hybrids along with the other vampires of his clan. Claire was there too. The bitch was forced into labor because she refused to drink from another human. She is having complications from what I can tell from the screams coming from her room.

Every time she screamed, Alice jerked. I couldn't tell if it scared her, or what caused her to jerk on the bed. All this confused me. There hasn't been a vampire baby since Kane and I were children. There were still complications even then. If you weren't a pure-blooded vampire, pregnancies were risky. As most of our kind was wiped out during the raging wars between the different creatures and the humans who hunted us.

We've had to turn willing and unwilling humans into our kind to replenish our kind. Conceiving a child let alone a pure-blooded vampire hasn't happened since Kane took his father's throne, and the clan split up into separate groups. That's when everything changed.

I was torn from my thoughts when Alice started bleeding from her nose and mouth. The once-white bed sheets were now stained dark red. I quickly stood up and ran to the door, before calling for Kane's two henchmen, Zane and Lucas, to come into the room. The two of them work at a hospital in the town below the hill we live on. That's where they steal blood bags for the growing clan to survive on, lowering the number of people and lives we take to quench our thirst. As soon as they met me in the doorway, I moved out of the way so they could see Alice's condition. They quickly rushed to her side, as I paced the white and black checkered tiled floor. I was so confused about what was happening, my mind and heart raced.

"She needs to feed," Lucas said.

"Are you sure that's all that's wrong?" I asked as they hooked her up to an IV bag full of blood.

"Yes, but this blood won't be enough," Lucas said.

"She's losing too much blood!" Zane yelled while checking her stats.

Claire screamed again, and Alice's body jerked as if she was having a seizure. I held her hand and she stopped. Zane and Lucas had strange looks on their faces. I knew what I had to do.

"You must take care of Claire," I demanded.

"Kane will be angry if Alice dies," Lucas said.

"She's vital to this clan," Zane said.

"Get out!" I yelled at them.

I could see my reflection in their white, almost completely opaque eyes. My eyes changed from green to fiery red. They knew what I would do if they disobeyed me. After all, I'm the reason they have to wear colored eye contacts to blend in with the humans. They hurriedly left the room, and I was left alone with Alice. The fate of her life rests in my hands.

I took the necklace from around my neck. It looked like a triangle, with one edge extremely sharp. I slid it across my wrist and held it above her mouth. A few drops hit her lips, slid through her teeth, and onto her tongue. The next thing I knew, her lips were pressed against my wrist. While her eyes are still closed, she continued to feed vigorously from my wrist. It felt empowering and weakening at the same time. It was electrifying. Lust came over me. This is a type of bloodlust. What could this mean?

After she fed from my wrist, she was still unconscious and twitching occasionally. I just sat by her bedside and held her hand. Wishing I could get past her wall, but there was no chance of that happening. Something or someone has blocked me out. It would take some dark magic to fix this.

Could it be? She is more powerful than I am? Or maybe she is my weakness. Or could it be a connection of some sort?

I wish I knew. The only thing I know is that something is wrong with Alice. I want to find Kane, but I don't want to leave her. He was probably in the next room, where Claire was still giving birth. It's been 8 hours since she slipped into labor.

I've never been pregnant or been around when someone else was pregnant, so I wasn't sure how the birthing process worked. But something felt wrong about that, too. There had not been a vampire born in over 100 years. It's not easy to tell what will happen.

I sigh as I look down at Alice, who is pale and unconscious. I needed answers, and sitting around waiting for them wouldn't help her. So, I stood up and ran my fingers down her cold face. Then I left the room to find what I needed. Upon leaving the room, I looked through the glass window on the door next to Alice's room.

That's when I saw him standing next to Kane. He looked over his shoulder, almost like he sensed me staring. His golden eyes resembled burning fire. I quickly looked away and continued down the attic stairs to my bedroom at the end of the hall. After digging through every book on my bookshelf, I found the book I needed.

My father's grimoire, a book I promised myself I would never use. He stole the book from the first woman he killed, his mother. Under his father's orders, he killed the witch who tricked his father into sparing her life and seduced him into an intimate relationship.

Consequently, my father would be a half-breed, between a warlock and a human who hunts creatures. His father couldn't kill his only son, even if it made him an abomination. This was breaking the rules of the long bloodline of hunters he descended from. So, to make up for it, they made my father kill his mother, to show he belonged on the huntsmen's council. This was long before he met Ceciellia and my mother. He was just a child. A young teenager at the time.

I pushed aside my thoughts about the past, as I stuffed the book into my back pocket. Leaving my room a mess, to return to Alice. I didn't want to leave her alone for long. After making my way up the stairs to the attic, Claire screamed again, this time causing the lights to flicker like a strobe light. I hurriedly passed her room, before locking myself inside Alice's room.

Her eyes are clenched shut, and both her hands grip the sides of the bed, while her back was arched. It almost appeared that she was possessed, but that wasn't the case at all. This was something else entirely.

I quickly pulled the book out of my back pocket and placed it on the bedside table. After flipping through the pages, I finally found a spell that could work. It was challenging to read the book with the lights flickering. Just like that they stopped, and everything was quiet for a moment. Alice now lies flat on her back again.

While everything was content I quickly read the phrase over in my head, before reading it out loud. This was unlike any spell I've ever cast. I'm only half witch and half vampire, so I wasn't sure how well it would work, but I had to try something. Her life depended on it.

"I call upon the Necromancer. Hear my call and answer. I offer you a piece of my soul, and in return ask that you allow me to make Alice whole." I began to chant the incantation.

I use my necklace to open my wrist again, so I can draw the symbols from the book onto Alice's body. After drawing a pentagram on her chest, and an upside-down cross on her forehead, I continue with the incantation.

"With this sacrifice, I give you my breath, I give you life," I repeated a few times before I placed a kiss on her mouth.

When I sat up, I could see a shadow figure standing behind me in the reflection of the metal paper towel dispenser on the wall. My breath caught inside my throat, and my body felt paralyzed. He was here, the necromancer. His bony hand reached out to me. I can feel his hand's icy coldness travel through my body and grip my barely beating heart.

I couldn't move for a while, standing frozen in fear, unsure of my choice's outcome. When he pulled his hand out, I felt different in a way. My skin crawled, leaving me feeling like a thousand tiny spiders were underneath the surface. When his shadow disappeared, I was no longer frozen. I screamed as my body trembled violently.

It wasn't over yet, but I knew what to do to complete the spell. He showed me through flashing images in my head. I continued to chant the last part of the spell while using my necklace to cut open her soft flesh. Once there was an opening large enough to squeeze my hand through, I carefully pushed my hand into her abdomen and reached for her heart. It was barely beating and irregularly at that.

Claire screamed again, making the lights flicker. It was now or never. I closed my eyes and repeated the chant while squeezing her heart with my hand.

"With this sacrifice, I give you my breath, I give you life!" I screamed over Claire's deafening screams.

I could feel her heart pulsating in my hand, and her skin began to heal rapidly around my arm. Before I could pull my hand away, a rippled blast sent me flying across the room. I hit the door shattering the glass window in the process. The lights flickered on and off, making my head throb as my vision blurred and my ears rang. I felt so weak and unable to keep my eyes open. In the background, I could hear the door open and the glass scraping against the floor.

"You did very well, Sophia," the deep voice of a man echoed in my head. "You've done your part, and you'll be rewarded."

His voice was the last thing I heard before drifting off into deep slumber. I floated in darkness for a while. It was almost peaceful. I had almost forgotten what happened before entering this state of mind. I needed to wake up.