**Chapter eleven**

Sage

*Hailey*

Sage stared down at me, her eyebrows furrowed. I raised mine, as equally confused as she seemed to be.

"I'm not Bella, I'm Hailey. Hailey Ellis," I told her. Her eyes widened slightly, while I remained confused. How could she possibly know Bella? Bella died over a thousand years ago.

"Sage." Damon watched her almost apprehensively. "What are you doing here?"

Sage shrugged. "I was just stopping in for a drink when I saw you two…"

I frowned. How did Damon and Sage know each other? I didn't like it. Knowing Damon, he probably slept with her. Multiple times. Hell, he could've easily turned her. I didn't even know Sage and I already hated her guts.

Damon turned to face me. "Hailey, this is Sage. We…" Damon suddenly looked awkward. "We're old friends, I guess you can say."

Sage smirked slightly. "Yes, old friends. How long has it been, Damon? A century?"

"Just about." Damon's eyes kept shifting over to me, while mine never left Sage.

Yes, they definitely slept together.

~EL~

"What is wrong with you?"

"Ow! Why are you asking me that? You're the one hitting people!"

I glared at Damon and hit his arm again. Three hours later, we were back in our room and I was less than happy with Damon. "You invitedherto stay here!" I hissed, refusing to say Sage's name. I didn't like her, not even a little bit.

He rolled his eyes. "I was being polite, Hailey."

"You've never been polite before. Why start now?" I retorted, crossing my arms over my chest.

Damon sighed, clearly exasperated with me. "Hailey, we were friends back in 1912. She needs a place to stay, and we have six other bedrooms in this house-"

"Bullshit." I rolled my eyes. "I know you two used to sleep together."

Damon froze. He clearly didn't expect me to know that. It wasn't hard to figure it out, though. Damon was a manwhore, Sage was a slut, they were "friends," Sage kept smirking at me, and her stares lingered on Damon. They definitely had a thing going on in 1912.

"We didn't-" Damon started to say; apparently deciding that lying about it would be the best way to diffuse me.

"Bullshit," I repeated. "Don't even think about lying about it, Damon. You two slept together. Fine. Great. Good for you. But she's not staying here."

He sighed. "I hadn't seen her in a hundred years, Hailey. Really, our relationship was just sex. It was nothing, I swear."

I rolled my eyes again. "I know it was just sex, Damon. You were still obsessed withKatherinein 1912." The mention of Damon's other exe only caused my anger to rise even more. God, why was the man I loved such a slut?

Damon placed his hands on my shoulders and forced me to look up at him. "We've gone through this before," he said softly, his blue eyes completely serious. "I don't love Katherine anymore, I loveyou.And I never loved Sage. I'm telling you Hailey, you have nothing to worry about. You have no reason to be jealous. She's just going to crash here for a few days and then you'll never have to see her again."

I sighed, but his words had calmed me down. "I was never worried about you cheating on me, Damon," I told him quietly. "Mostly because I'd castrate you if you ever did. I'm worried about Sage not being able to control herself."

He smirked. "Can you blame her?"

I rolled my eyes, grinning despite myself. "Who could resist the eternal stud?" I joked.

Damon wrapped his arms around my waist and pulled me closer to him. "She'll be gone before you know it. You won't even have to see her if you don't want to," he told me.

I sighed and rested my head on his chest. "Fine, she can stay," I muttered finally. "But if she so much as checks you out, I'll rip out her throat with my teeth."

Damon chuckled. "I love it when you get jealous."

I just rolled my eyes and wrapped my arms around him tighter.

~EL~

I sighed as I stared at my phone. I was sitting on the stone steps outside the boarding house. It was pitch black outside, the glow of my phone offering minimum light, but I didn't mind. As cliché as it was, since I was a "creature of the night" now, I liked the night. I found it oddly calming and relaxing. I was a complete night owl, another cliché, since I was a vampire.

I was debating with myself whether or not to call Jace. A part of me never wanted to see that jackass again, but another part couldn't help but wonder how he was taking everything. He was my brother, after all. We were family, and nothing would ever change that.

I sighed again. Should I even care about him anymore? He basically told me that he wished I wasn't his sister. And that honestly hurt me. I already saw him as my big brother, despite the fact that I had only known him for a few days.

I took a deep breath and then decided to call him. I had to know how he was doing, for curiosity's sake.

I paced as I listened to the phone ring. After what had to be a dozen rings, he finally answered. Only I could barely hear Jace, because of the loud rock music in the background and his words slurred.

"H-hello?"Jace sounded wasted. Granted, he did just find out about fairies and vampires. I'm pretty sure I got drunk after I found out about the supernatural too.

I bit my lip. "Jace?" I said quietly. I didn't even know if he wanted to talk to me. I was his crazy freak of a sister, after all.

There was a pause."Halley?" He asked, and I could practically see his dark eyebrows furrowing as he struggled to recognize my voice through the haze of alcohol.

"Hailey, but close enough." I sighed again and ran a hand over my face. "How are you? I mean, how are you taking everything?"

"Jace! Come on! I thought we were going to your place?"I heard a feminine nasal voice say, and I frowned. Of course. Jace decided to drink and screw his problems away. He was just like Damon, in that way.

"Yeah, yeah Julie. I'm coming,"Jace said distractedly."Look, I don't have time for this right now, Halley, okay? And I really don't feel like talking to you right now anyway."

I narrowed my eyes. "It's Hailey, you douche-dick," I hissed before hanging up. I regretted calling him in the first place.

I groaned and blew my bangs out of my eyes. Screw Jace. He can go to hell. If he wanted to choose some random bar skank over me, I didn't care. I didn't need him anyway. We weren't family. I didn't care about him.

Or, at least, that's what I told myself.

I put my phone in my pocket and walked back into the boarding house. I had managed to avoid Sage while telling her that Damon was strictly mine. I had achieved this by having rather loud sex with him, making sure that I was dominant every time.

I regretted nothing.

But, as I walked into the living room, the times of avoiding Sage were over. There, in the middle of my living room, were several half-naked humans covered in bite marks. Sage was in the middle of it all, her fangs sunk into one guy's neck.

The smell of blood hit me, and I exercised my newfound sense of control by not draining a nearby girl of her blood. I took deep breaths and rubbed my temples. I couldn't wait until she got the hell out of my house.

"If you stain the carpet, I will personally rip your eyes out," I told her almost blandly, turning towards the stairs.

Sage suddenly blocked my path, blood covering his mouth. "How old are you?" she asked curiously.

"Eighteen," I replied, crossing my arms over my chest and raising an eyebrow.

She rolled her eyes. "I meant vampire age."

"Almost a year," I replied.

"I thought so." Sage studied me. "You still seem to be having a hard time controlling yourself."

I

rolled my eyes. "I'm doing just fine," I told her, walking around her. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I have shit to do."

But Sage stopped me again. "You mean, claim Damon as yours by having obnoxiously loud sex with him?"

she asked with raised eyebrows.

I smirked at her. "I'm glad that my message was received."

She rolled her eyes. "I have no interest in Damon," she told me.

"You say that, I let my guard down, two days later I catch you two screwing like horny rabbits in spring. I don't think so." I raised an eyebrow at Sage. "Why did you call me Bella?" I asked her randomly.

Sage shrugged. "You are her clone. I got confused."

"But Bella's dead," I stressed. "Did you know her before she died?"

She shrugged again. "I guess you could say that," she said vaguely, before turning back to the bloody humans staining my carpet.

My eyebrows were still furrowed. There was more to Sage's connection with Bella than what she was telling me. I opened my mouth to press the topic, when Sage spoke first.

"I'm really not here to get Damon back, Hailey," she told me, her hair seeming even redder in the light cast by the fire.

I

raised an eyebrow. "Good," I said, walking up to her. "Because I'm going to say this only once: if you make a move on my man, I'll kill you. It's as simple as that."

Sage watched me carefully, clearly trying to sense how serious I was. "I love somebody else, Hailey. And I plan to get him back very soon," she told me finally.

I smirked at her. "Then you shouldn't have a problem keeping your slutty claws off of him." I turned my back

on Sage and walked towards the door. "You have a nice night," I called sweetly to her before disappearing up

the stairs.

I definitely was keeping my eye on Sage.

~EL~

A/N:thank you to: Samantha meyers, HawthorneTree, JellyBear7, and SomebodyWhoCares for reviewing!

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~Abby :)