Somehow, in the midst of the madness, Alex ends up telling me that I’m the only one he’s ever loved. At first I question it, but the look on his face is genuine. I’m the only person he’s ever loved and I’m pretty sure he’s the only one I’ve ever loved.

Then he takes me up the stairs, kissing me, with this hungry look in his eyes that makes my skin tingle. We end up in his room, on his bed, kissing, slowly at first, but the more time that passes by, the more things get heated. My skin feels like it’s burning up as his palms feel every inch of me. His tongue is in my mouth and he tastes like life, full of warmth and familiarity. He’s positioned above me, with one elbow propped next to my head, so his full weight doesn’t bear down on me. As he runs his tongue along the roof of my mouth, I slip my hand below his shirt, sketching the lines of his muscles as I gasp between kisses.

Suddenly, he’s pulling back, though, and I think he’s going to stop. Through the darkness of the room, I can barely read him, but the trail from the moonlight shows the passion in his eyes as he reaches over his shoulder, grabs his shirt and tugs it over his head.

I trace my trembling fingers over the edges of the Keepers’ mark on the side of his ribcage, taking my time on each pattern of the golden flames and the black circle centering it all.

He shivers from my touch and it makes my body heat as he returns his lips to mine, almost violently. I open my mouth, letting him in, and he kisses the oxygen out of my lungs. Pulling away slightly, he kisses a trail down to my jawline, the arch of my neck; my body getting warmer and warmer. When he reaches my collarbone and slips the strap of my tank top down, I feel like I’m going to burst. I moan as he moves his mouth to the hollow of my neck and runs his tongue along my skin. My hands slip around him and I clutch onto his bare shoulder blades as my body arches into him.

He groans as his lips travel lower and my body bursts with feelings I’ve never felt before. “I love this…” he murmurs. “I love you…”

“I love you, too,” I whisper, knowing out of all the words I’ve ever spoken, these convey the most truth. These words own me; they changed me, made me become who I am. It’s the most amazing moment of my life, and for a moment, I’m just a normal girl, basking in the touch of her normal boyfriend, who she loves, knowing he reciprocates her love equally.

I never ever want the feeling to go away, but I know as soon as I open my eyes, reality will crush me, like it always does.

Chapter 15

Laylen

The mark is back. The stupid, annoying mark that’ll never go away, not even with magic. I know because when Aislin removed it the first time, she explained to me that if I died again, it’d come back and there would be no way to take it off.

So, after a few months of thinking, I get to finally have a future, I’m back to where I started, which isn’t that great of a place.

I sometimes get the feeling that I’m the most confused person—or Vampire, anyway—that’s ever roamed the earth. I love Aislin. I really do, but I also love Gemma. Sometimes, I can distinguish between the two loves, and realize that Gemma’s is more of a friendship thing. There are times, though, like now, when I have a hard time.

I hear Gemma and Alex going upstairs, into his room, and it’s followed by a lot of noises that I don’t want to hear. Finally, I get up and shut the door, silencing it. When I return back to the chair, I feel a little bit better, but I’m still distracted. I make myself focus on the book, though, and a few minutes later, I’ve blocked it out.

I’m actually really good at blocking things out. The whispers. The hateful comments. I can remember when I was first turned, just how much I had to block out. Back then, Aislin and Alex were pretty much pod people and did whatever Stephan, and the Keepers, told them to do.

“You can’t be around him,” Stephan had said, right in front of me. “He’s an abomination—evil.”

I wanted to show him just how evil I was. I’d even run my tongue along my teeth, pretending I was hungry, when really, I had no desire to bring out my fangs. Deep down, I really thought—very stupidly thought—that Aislin and Alex would be on my side and that they’d stand up for me, but I was wrong because they stood behind their father while he made me walk away from the Keepers, never letting me return, as he put it.

It hurt and, sometimes, when I’m with Aislin, the pain I felt back then comes back. It’s hard being with her sometimes, but with Gemma, it’s easy—like breathing. With Gemma, there’s no painful history. In fact, her past is even worse than mine, which makes her understand me and allows me to understand her. It’d probably be easy if we were together. No complications. However, she’d always have feelings for Alex and I’d always have them for Aislin, and in the end, I don’t think it’d work out.

Flipping the pages of the Lost Souls’ book, I sigh, wishing I didn’t feel so alone all the time. Wishing I could forget the past. Wishing I wasn’t a goddamn Vampire that was frozen in age, knowing that eventually, I’m going to have to watch everyone die.

Chapter 16

Gemma

I’m walking down a long aisle, wearing a long, black dress with red roses embroidered on it. My hair is pinned up in curls and residing in the hollow of my neck is a red, teardrop pendant. There are flowers all around me; roses, lilies, tulips. Leafy vines twist across the ground as well as around the trees and the air smells intoxicatingly of freshly fallen rain. Dew beads the grass and leaves, a light trickle falls from the sky.

My eyelashes flutter against the water as I put one foot in front of the other, moving towards a podium, trimmed with rubies and holding a silver throne. It feels like I’m walking somewhere, yet nowhere. It feels like I’m not moving on my own.

“Hello,” I call out as my feet keep moving forward.

At the echo of my voice, figures emerge from behind the trees. They are different sizes; short, tall, some are more round, others thin. The colors of their skin and eyes could make the most colorful rainbow. Each of them has one thing in common, though—they have wings.

They step to the lines of the aisle, a sheet of red carpet, dusted with white rose petals. I glance at each one as I keep walking towards the podium, towards the throne.

“What’s going on?” I ask, but they all just stare at me in awe.

When I reach the end, I stop and turn around. It has stopped raining, but my skin and dress are still damp; raindrops fall down from the leaves. Gathering my dress behind me, I step backwards onto the throne. My gaze sweeps across the Faeries, and even though my mind seems confused, my body doesn’t, so it lowers itself onto the throne. It feels like I belong there as I wrap my fingers around the velvety armrests. I stare out at the land, waiting for whatever is next.

The Fey move in and gather in front of me, then they lower onto their knees and bow their heads.

“Our Queen,” they say in harmony. “Our ruler.”

It’s terrifying and my pulse races because, for a moment, I like it. For a moment, I feel powerful. For a moment, I feel like I belong here.

***

I wake up trembling, sweat dripping down my skin as I clutch onto the locket around my neck. I glance around the dark room, trying to figure out where I am and why there’s a warm body next to me. I’m about to panic—scream—when the night’s events catch up with me and my heart and breathing steady again.

“Hey, are you okay?” Alex sits up, his bare chest pale in the moonlight as he wraps his lean arms around me and delicately kisses my neck.

I nod, turning my head to look at him. “I just had a weird dream. That’s all.”

He cringes. He knows that sometimes my dreams aren’t really dreams, but visions of the future or the past. “Want to talk about it?”

I shake my head. “No, not really.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

He glances around the dark room and then a devilish grin rises on his face. “Do you want to continue where we left off?”

A blush touches my cheeks and I’m thankful it’s dark. “Only if you do.”

He laughs underneath his breath, lying back down and pulling me down with him. “I always do.”

I rest my head on his chest and trace the lines of his muscles. “I wish everything could be just like this.”

He chuckles again. “What? Me being shirtless?”

I slap his arm. “No.” But I kind of do and he must be able to read my mind because he starts laughing harder. Resting my chin on his chest, I peer up at him. “I mean, just you and me, away from all the crap… away from the world. I wish we could just disappear and not have to deal with any of this anymore.”

He’s silent for a while, his chest rising and falling beneath my chin. “We will.”

I force a smile. “I sure hope so.”

He tips his chin down and then, while lifting me up, he scoots down so we’re at eyelevel, lying face-to-face. “It’ll happen. I promise. We’ll get this fixed and then we can have our time.”

“But what happens when something else goes wrong?” I ask. “Because it always does.”

He pauses, scanning my face for something. “Then, we’ll let someone else handle it. I think it’s time that you and I start moving on from this. We’ve worked hard enough. We need a break.”

I offer him a soft smile. “Together?”

He rolls his eyes and then leans in to kiss me. “Of course, together. How else would it be?”

I smile and he returns it wholly. Then he rolls over, covering his body with mine as he begins to kiss me again, kneading his warm tongue against mine.

I hope he’s right. I hope one day we can escape it, but every time I look into the future, all I see is chaos lined up with more chaos.

Chapter 17

Alex

It’s probably one of the best nights of my life. When I wake up, Gemma’s nuzzled into me and her legs are draped over my side. She’s wearing my shirt and I love that she is. In fact, if I could have one wish, I’d wake up every morning like this, only I’d wake up knowing she’s safe. It seems so farfetched when I think about it and it makes my chest hurt.

I breathe in the morning air and her scent, but then frown at the sun rising over the mountains, the land shifting from grey to hues of pink and orange.

“Evan said he only needed an hour,” I mutter. Glancing down at Gemma, I lift her arm off my chest and scoot her leg off me, carefully, so I won’t wake her up. I sit up quietly so I don’t wake her. Giving her a quick kiss on the forehead, I slip on my jeans and exit the room, yawning and stretching my arms above my head, wondering why the hell Laylen and Evan didn’t wake me up.

I’m about to head to the right tower where Evan usually crashes, when the smell of bacon and eggs hits me in the nostrils. I follow the scent, like a dog, down the stairs, past the library, and into the kitchen.

Evan is leaning over the stove, dressed in a pair of holey jeans, a grey t-shirt, and his hair is combed. He has a fork in his hand and is turning sizzling bacon over in a pan. “What the hell are you doing?” I ask, stopping in the doorway. “I thought we were going to bail out after you took like an hour nap.” I nod my head at the sun lighting up the crystal clear lake. “But it’s morning.”