I jerked awake, my chest pressing forward as my hand slid into water, trying to save myself. An arm wrapped around my waist, pulling me back as things started to solidify around me. Stars through the windows, candles covering every inch of the bathroom counter, a wake of water in our oversized bathtub sliding back toward me. Familiar long fingers brushed up and down my ribs and everything came crashing back in. Vodka. Too much vodka. Panties. Molly. Stellan starting to short circuit in a bar.

I looked down noticing I was still fully clothed, even my strappy sandals were sparkling under the water. It stood out against a pair of very long, bare, legs surrounding me, complete with knees poking through the surface of the water. I didn't dare turn around yet. Instead, I let my hand search next to me in the tub, feeling a pair of boxers. Did I even want to know what happened?

Stellan sighed and started loudly chewing gum. It created this breeze of mint that I inhaled deeply into my lungs. It sounded too loud in the silence enveloping us, but I didn't care. I melted into his chest, sliding down and moving my hands through the water slowly, marveling at how perfect the temperature was and how silky it felt against my skin. It was magical. His hard body and the soft water, floating us like lotus flowers...oh shit, I immediately thought and closed my eyes groaning, I was still rolling.

"Um-hmm," he chastised behind me, his voice rumbling in his chest and sending a wave of chills down my body from the vibration. I sat up, my dress billowing around me in the tub, and turned around, moving to the opposite side, so I could face him. The displaced water sloshed up against his bare chest, gleaming in the low light as he blew a quick bubble and popped it loudly while dragging his eyes over me. His forearms were resting on the edge of the tub, his hands hanging loosely. I glanced past him out to the bedroom and noticed more candles there, but I doubted that he'd been feeling overly romantic before I'd blacked out at the bar.

Despite the cocky look I wanted to smack off his face I bit my lip as I devoured the way his collarbone and chest looked in this light. It really was unfair how beautiful he was. After the month we'd spent here together, mostly naked, you would have thought I'd be sick of looking at him. So not true. There was something to be said about the way he was looking at me too - curious, frustrated, amused. It took me back. Before the charity galas and blood plagues. Before all the bullshit our lives had become. When I was a distraction getting in his way.

I gathered up all my wet hair, spinning it into a bun at the back of my head. The droplets splashed back down into the tub, rippling the still water between us. Meeting his eyes I smiled and he grinned back and then shook his head, looking away, exasperated. It was going to be pretty hard to stay mad at me when he was as high as I was. I rose an eyebrow at him,

"So why the water? You trying to kill me?"

He rolled his eyes and then spit his gum out the window toward the ocean below us. He forced a frown, "don't say that."

"Says the guy with the lightning hands in the full bathtub," I giggled.

"Not funny."

"It kinda is," I gave him a knowing smirk, waiting until I knew he'd smile back. I'd finally started appreciating his dark, dry, humor during this trip. I could see him fighting the smile and tacked on, "besides, I think we both know you'll be the one that kills me in the end. Like you were supposed to in the tomb."

"`Tchyo za ga`lima," he cursed, his eyes flying open in shock.

"Rech'!" I admonished, putting my free hand to my chest as if I was taken aback. My cheeks hurt I smiled so big and I let myself slip under the water completely, avoiding whatever come back he was working toward. It felt amazing, I wanted to stay there forever, but he nudged me with his foot and I resurfaced, smoothing all my hair back off my face.

"One day," I said sliding onto my hands and knees, crawling the few inches toward him, "and I have no idea if it will be a week from now or years from now." I kissed his chest, right at the waterline. "You'll be sick of my shit," I smiled against his warm skin, sliding my lips up toward his collarbones, "and give me one little zap that will throw my bad heart out of rhythm and finally end me." He froze under me as I kissed my way up the side of his neck. "No one but Elodie and Jack will know what really happened." Pressing my body against his chest I whispered in his ear, "and they'll be too terrified to ask."

He cleared his throat, shifting under me, disturbing the water around us. "How often do you think of me murdering you?"

"Never actually," I kissed his temple and then fell backward into the water, making it slosh out of the tub and cascade onto the floor around us. "Maybe only when I'm high."

He shot me an annoyed look. I fought against my smirk. At least he wouldn't have to pick glass out of my feet with this round of Molly. He balled up his left fist and leaned his head against it, "you stupidly got shithoused and then started rolling with your bad heart. Fastest way to cool you down is water."

I nodded, "but why did I blackout?"

"Same reason the circuit breaker blew in this place," he gestured toward all the candles with his free hand and then pointed a long index finger at himself.

"And you're in here because..." I trailed off.

"Would you prefer Peter to be?"

"Niall actually," I giggled.

"Noted," he scowled and then shifted his eyes around the room like they might be listening.

I danced my fingers across the surface of the water, "still seems pretty dangerous."

"It's done." He shrugged. I gave him a skeptical look. "Does your arm hurt?"

I took stock of my body. The small of my back was smarting, even with the Molly pounding through my veins. But there wasn't anything that would have concerned me. I shook my head, tucking some hair that had fallen loose behind my ear.

"Now the fun part of the Molly?" I walked my toes up his thighs onto his stomach.

He grabbed my right ankle, "no."

"We just sit in here until it wears off?" I frowned, sliding the free foot up his abs.

"Yes," he snatched it with a splash.

"Then let's play a game." I sat up, wrapping my arms around my thighs, now only a foot away from him.

"Let's..." he started, releasing my ankles. I splashed forward, practically riding him now.

"Truth or dare." I smiled at him.

He glared at me, "dare."

I rose an eyebrow in appreciation and then looked around the bathroom for some awful task I could give him. Inspiration struck,

"Take a giant bite out of that bar of soap," I jerked my head to the shelf behind him and the stack of exotically scented soaps.

"That has got to be the tamest dare I've ever heard." He scoffed. I rolled my eyes,

"You'd rather shove it up your ass?"

"Now you're a sadist for me?" He cracked back, and I felt myself go bright red.

"If you're not going to do the dare…" I trailed off.

He twisted and reached behind him to the area holding bottles of shampoo and conditioner and plucked the bar of soap with all the bits of lavender in it. Closing his eyes and shaking his head a bit he took a breath and then stuck the corner of the bar into his mouth and bit down.

"Fuck!" I laughed. I honestly didn't think he was going to do it. Stellan started cursing and spitting all the dissolving pieces of soap into the bath, spiking the rest of the bar into the water with a spectacular splash. I dissolved into giggles as he washed his teeth with his finger and kept gulping and then spitting out mouthfuls of bathwater.

He pushed a wave of water toward me and coughed, "truth or dare?"

"Truth! I fear your wrath!" I laughed back. The mischievous gleam that lit up his eyes made the laughter died in my throat.

He smiled, broadly, and said, "tell me, in graphic detail, about your very first orgasm."

I pressed my lips together, hard, knowing I probably looked more like a tomato than a person at this point, and his smile went wickedly wide on his face. Unfortunately, he was misinterpreting my blush. It almost made me feel bad for him. Almost.

"I think it would be a little boring for you…" I trailed off, smirking.

He shook his head, "there's no way."

I propped my arm up onto the side of the bath and examined my nails as I casually tossed out, "well you were there for it."

From the corner of my eye, I watched his face go blank for a moment and then his neck flush as that beautiful smile I loved erased all the snark on his face. He sat up, leaned forward and planted a soft kiss on my forehead. With a splash, he was back on his side and nodded at me.

"Truth or dare?" I smiled.

"Truth."

"What's the worst thing you've ever done?" And then I slapped the water next to us feeling an unfiltered freeness, "other than murdering nine people."

He instantly went quiet. I wasn't expecting that or for my high to dull. All the bubbly, flirty, fun was ebbing out with each breath. I waited in what felt like unending silence because now it seemed too important not to know. We'd exhausted so many other things about our lives during this trip. How could I know that his most embarrassing moment was when he threw up in the cafeteria in 5th grade, but not this?

"I forced Chloe to get an abortion. And then I broke up with her because the Dauphins were getting suspicious."

"Oh..." was all I could manage, looking out toward the dark ocean and bright stars as another beat passed between us.

"Truth or dare?" He whispered.

I looked up at him, his face reserved but his eyes so intense I already knew there would be no more dares in this game.

"Truth."

"What's the worst thing you've ever done?"

I didn't even have to think about it, "ignored my mom's calls warning me to stay away from all of you."

"Because you ignored her? Or because she was right to warn you?"

"That's not how you play the game," I stalled.

"I see." He nodded.

"Truth or dare?" I immediately asked, not wanting to allow him to push me further about it.

"Truth."

"What's the second worst thing you've ever done?"

"You want the list, Avery?" He lowly asked, leaning toward me. "Because I have no problem telling you."

"I don't know," I breathed.

"Maybe you should know," he leaned away, settling against the back of the tub. "Then you'll realize just how right your mother was."

"I'm the reason she's dead. Did you murder both your parents?" I replied.

He held my gaze and I swallowed hard, everything freezing in me but I wasn't sure why. Fear?

"You think that's going to scare me away?"

"No one stays," I countered sliding back toward my side of the tub. I reached down into the water to unbuckle my sandals. "Friends. Boyfriends. Family. Everyone forgets me, or gets sick of me."

"How can you be so cruel to yourself?" He wondered, his fully dilated eyes roaming all over my face, "I'm still here."

"Habit?" I laughed, mirthlessly, yanking off my ruined shoes and ignoring his remark.

"I would never do that to you," he slid his hand along the edge of the tub toward me. "I never have."

We met eyes across the water and I nodded. He was right, of course, but if I'd learned anything from all my heartbreak it was that people were never really who they said they were, there was always some hidden agenda.

"I haven't even known you for a year," I said, lifting my sandals out from the bottom of the tub and tossing them aside. "We barely know each other."

"Ahh, but we do," he smiled, a real smile and my blood buzzed through my body, reacting to him immediately. He sat up and leaned toward me, inching his fingers up my arms as he said, "I know you had a shoplifting phase when you were twelve, and there is this perfect triangle of freckles on your inner thigh. You know parts of my past even Jack and Elodie don't know. You know more now than Luc does. I've always answered every question you've had."

Mere inches away from me now I couldn't stop the shiver that raced across my body. I let out a shaky exhale as I whispered, "but that's only because I haven't asked the right questions."

He smiled again, closing the space between us and running his lips slowly along my jaw as he murmured, "what aren't you telling me, my little spy?"

"You really want to know?" I panted, the drugs now singing in my veins from all his smoldering persuasion.

"Was it the right question?" He asked, chuckling against my neck. I chucked back, distractedly, as the room went quiet again.

He left a little bite to my neck that sent another wave of chills through my body, sloshing the water around. With a kiss to the shell of my ear, he slid back to his side, the water rushing out of the infinity tub in a giant wave. His skin glimmered in front of me as his scars caught on all the candlelight. Magic. He shouldn't be alive, for so many reasons. Yet here he was, this gleaming, golden, treasure in front of me.

It all bubbled up. Through the Molly and the last of the vodka. But my lips couldn't form words, all of the letters were getting jumbled as they bumped into my high.

"You." The word broke through everything. "I only want you," I reached behind my neck to unclasp my necklace, the heavy stone hitting the bottom of the tub with a thud. "I don't want anything else about this life but you, and Anya."

I pulled my dress up over my head let it slap onto the floor outside the tub. "We have so much money. We could run. I want to run."

"We only have the money because of this life." He reached toward me, his fingertips tickling a line from the lace of my bra, lower and lower toward the water.

"So fuck the money too. Let's go to Costa Rica or some other cheap place." I inched closer, his hand slipping over my hip under the water, "have a small house, work, live a normal life, the island life."

"Ordinary," he corrected immediately, voice rumbling, fingers roaming, eyes focused on the strap of my bra. "There is no normal. It's a sliding scale."

I paused, fighting against the demand of the Molly to make his hands do more. "You want this extraordinary life then?"

"I'm already extraordinary," he rose his free hand and wiggled his fingers at me.

"You didn't answer my question." I pulled back a little from him, his palm sliding down my thigh.

"You already know the answer," he cocked his head a little as he appraised me. "I gave it to you a long time ago."

Had he? I couldn't remember in the scrambled mess my brain was becoming. It didn't matter. "This isn't freedom - it's a cage."

"That trapped you on a month-long vacation in the Maldives?"

He pulled his hands out of the water, resting his forearms on the edges again. My knees started to protest from the position and I sat down in front of him, the two of us staring at each other, an ocean breeze making all the candles flicker in the room. That connection I'd felt back in Ibiza, that blinding white tether burning between us, pulled taut as the silence stretched out. We took a breath, simultaneously, and then he quietly asked,

"Why are we still here, Avery?"

I blanched. The connection frayed, and panic bubbled up my throat, choking off my immediate reaction of,

"We...are…"

"That thing you did the other day…" he stopped and smiled, his neck flushing. "I guess I stupidly thought you'd get bored of fucking me and finally tell me what was wrong."

The shock of his brutal honesty made this huff of noise escape instead of the thousands of thoughts running wild in my mind. This swirling tornado of panic intensified inside me when he leaned forward,

"You are more than I will ever deserve for all the terrible things I've done." He paused and my heart started beating wildly in my chest. "But I'm not that stupid."

"I never said…"

He cut right over me, "was it all just a lie? Standing beside me? Being a team? A family?"

"Never," I snapped, affronted.

"Then why are we still here?" He implored.

I closed my eyes and felt the first flutter in my scar. The whirlwind of thoughts froze, and the Molly made the truth pour out of me,

"Everything has a price. I didn't know that before," I opened my eyes to find his rapt attention, "but I do now. If I choose the power it will cost me my freedom. If I choose fame it will cost me my privacy. If I choose both it will cost me my family."

"There is no way," he shook his head, but I leaned forward and covered his mouth with a wet hand. Our huge, dilated, eyes staring directly into each others. My subconscious took advantage of the truth serum the Molly had become and it all rushed out of me in a hushed tone.

"Every lesson in history has taught us you can never have all three. I will always choose family over power and prestige. That's why we have to give it up. We have to leave this behind. It will corrupt us. It will destroy everything we're building," I slid my hand down and pressed my palm over the scar on his chest, right over his heart, "I love you. That should be enough."

"The Circle will come for us-"

"So we go back to Mexico, they don't have control-"

He wrapped his warm hand around my wrist, "we'd be dead in a week."

"But we'd be free," I plead.

His eyes went wide in surprise, he swallowed hard and then dropped my wrist. I could feel his heartbeat pick up in his chest against my palm, my arm sent another flutter of warning at me. Of course he was worried, even I hadn't thought I'd rather be dead than stay with the Circle. But now that the truth had finally been said aloud it seemed to grow larger and larger in the silence. I knew what this life would look like 5, 10, 20 years down the road. Board meetings, couture, charity auctions, thinly veiled threats, spent bullets and children being raised in boarding schools. All while I was slowly dying inside, a ghost in the shell.

"You promised me," he finally whispered back. My heart ached in my chest from the agony etched on his face. "You promised me you'd stay. You promised you'd protect me, and I would protect you." He reached a shaky hand up to gently tuck a piece of hair behind my ear, "you said you loved me. That you chose me."

"YA tebya lyublyu, Stellan," I gently replied, digging my fingers into his chest. He screwed his eyes shut and leaned his head onto my shoulder, and I knew why. Even I could hear the 'but' in that.

He murmured against my bare shoulder, "I thought about this every minute of your coma. This is our lives now. We can't escape it."

"But," I tried, he shook his head.

"The Circle will murder us all. You don't understand how much danger everyone is in."

"From what?" I asked a little too loudly and pushed away from him, making his head dip a bit in my departure. "Burnt corneas from all these flashes? Too much ass-kissing?"

"Do you know how many people we've murdered? We haven't even been in power for a year!" He shouted back.

"And that's different from before I arrived how exactly?" I crossed my arms over my bra and glared at him.

"Careful," he darkly warned, his eyes narrowing at me, "people might misinterpret your cockiness as actual intelligence."

I shot up out of the water before I acted on the urge to reach forward and strangle him. But he stood as well, the water pouring from his boxers and sticking to his legs.

"I will not put my family at risk," he chastised me, "they've all sacrificed enough already for the two of us. They don't deserve to be hunted like animals because you're getting cold feet."

"Sacrificed?" I scoffed and shook my head stepping out of the tub and onto the wet floor. I grabbed a towel to cover myself, but he yanked it out of my hand, spinning me back toward him and his furious look.

"Luc almost lost his inheritance following us to Egypt. Hugo was going to transfer it all to his infant brother. And that was all after he'd been shot." He stomped out of the bath, slopping his boxers to the ground and pulling the towel tightly around his hips.

I backed up toward the counter, making the candles hiss behind me from the motion. My feet froze to the ground not sure what was more dangerous at this point. He barreled onward,

"Jack doesn't know I had to put Order guards on him. Half the Circle still wants to kill him because they think he's a traitor. Even Alistar tried to beat your secrets out of him when you went to Paris with me. But you want to put his life at risk because you don't like meetings." He sneered at me and stormed out of the bathroom.

I couldn't do anything but stand there, stunned, watching his tattoos condense on his back as everything on him tensed. He disappeared into the bedroom and I fumbled for a towel, quickly wrapping it around my hips.

"And Elodie," he shouted toward me, "Elodie is basically a fucking wizard now from all the magic she has to perform to maintain your persona."

He stalked back into the bathroom, now in a pair of blue boxers and a t-shirt. All I could manage was, "I...I…"

"It would be so much easier to just let you look like an idiot. But she believes in you, she bends over backward for you, she keeps giving you all the chances no one gave her. She can't even feel the tips of her fingers after what the fucking Dauphins did to her. And you just want to abandon her?"

I gasped, I couldn't help it. My mind flew back to South Africa, that ribbon corset dress, her wolfish smile. I fumbled out, "I never said…"

"Do you know how easy it would be for Colette to be in an 'accident' in Africa right now?" He air quoted at me.

"Just stop it!" I yelled. "I fucking get it, okay?!"

"Do you? Because we are still here," he growled.

"Since when is our physical presence needed to protect everyone?" I argued back, feeling my blush ignite with my fury. Grabbing at the towel so it wouldn't fall off I sucked in a quick breath to berate him when he held a finger up to me, taking three quick strides toward me to ask,

"And what about Anya?"

He crossed his arms over his chest and waited. I snapped back, "what about her?"

"We just left her in London." He threw his hands out toward me.

"She wanted to stay!"

"You're missing the point!" He yelled back.

"Argh!" I growled and stalked past him, making sure to shoulder him out of my way. I refused to keep fighting with him basically naked. I stormed to the closet, ripping through whatever was left hanging in the dim candlelight of the room. Yanking a purple sundress off a hanger I threw it over my wet bra and whirled back around and thrust an accusatory finger at him. He narrowed his eyes, but I finally had the nerve to fight back now.

"These are all things I should have known six fucking months ago! Don't get angry at me for not knowing the stakes when you're the asshole that has been keeping me in the dark this whole time! You're like a fucking vault! The only reason I know you can actually emote at all is because my arm feels like it's about to blow off my goddamn body."

"Kettle," he pointed to himself, "pot," jabbed his finger out at me. I jerked in confusion of him messing up the phrase which only made him angrier. He started growling things in Russian and went to turn away from me when I smacked his finger out of the air with a crack,

"I've died a thousand tiny deaths pouring myself out to you. Making myself vulnerable to you and trusting that you weren't lying to me when you told me you loved me and you wanted us to be a family."

"Because I do!" He grabbed my shoulders, tightly, forcing me into the ground a little with the intensity of his hold. "Ty vse, chto ya khochu."

"Then come with me," I begged him, "we can't go back."

"Avery," he grabbed my face in his hands, his eyes absolutely pleading, as he choked out, "don't do this."

"Do what?" I ground out between my teeth.

He didn't look away, just kept breathing as the pain in my arm slowly increased. A small buzz filled the house and the lights flooded on all at once. It was like stadium level brightness compared to the candlelight. The fan above us started whirling at top speed, electronics buzzed back to life around us. He released me, but our eyes never left each others. My peripheral vision caught Peter step into our attached living room with a bright smile.

"Got the generator back up," he nodded toward us, and then his face dropped.

"I want to leave. Right now!" I demanded to Peter but kept my eyes on Stellan.

"P...pardon, ma'am?" Peter fumbled to say. I whipped my head in his direction to see his eyes darting between Stellan and me.

"Did I stutter?" I snapped, storming past Stellan. I turned back toward the bed to find a pair of flip-flops as Stellan sucked in a deep, shaky breath.

Then a high pitched buzzing noise filled the room along with a familiar ring tone. Stellan deflated before me, dropping his face into his hands and then ripped at his hair with both of his fists. He ignored the call, I found the shoes, jammed my feet into them and turned back to Peter. His phone buzzed simultaneously with Stellan's again and this spike of fear thudded right into the center of my chest.

Peter took the call, and then immediately put it on speaker.

"Stellan," Jack's voice barked over the line and all the righteous anger froze in my chest, along with my breath. "There's been an accident. El and I are on our way to the hospital. Anya was bucked off her horse. They think...have...before..."

The call broke up and then abruptly ended. Stellan darted toward the dresser, fumbling for his phone and I pointed at Peter and demanded,

"Take us to the plane."

"Right now, ma'am?" He questioned, bewildered. The explosive anger boiled back-up to the surface and I sucked in a furious breath when Peter flinched and started bowing as he backed out of the room,

"Apologies Your Majesties. Forgive me. Right away."

Peter practically sprinted down the dock in front of us and I turned to see Stellan glaring at his leaving form, looking absolutely lethal. His eyes met mine and I snapped my head away and stormed out to the hammock to wait for the yacht.