It might not have been the best of ideas, but my first impulse after clearing things up with Alec was to do the same with Alina. We needed one more talk, even if it was the last one we ever had, so I went looking for her as soon as I could.

She was not thrilled to see me.

Great. The few friends I could have are also going to pull a Sandrine now.

She straightened her posture when I entered the media room, her fingers sinking into the sofa cushion.

"Does Alec know you're here?"

I crossed my arms, annoyed. "I don't need permission."

She winced, but retorted firmly, her voice never shaking. "And I don't want trouble."

I raised my arms in mocking surrender, taking a few cautious steps towards her. Filip stopped pretending he was still reading and put his kobo down.

"I guess I'll take my leave."

He got up from his seat to do that, but Alina's hand flew to his upper arm and locked it in an iron's grip.

"No! You're my witness. Just in case."

I felt torn between wanting to roll my eyes at her paranoia and regretting going to her at all. What if I really got her in trouble?

Don't be ridiculous, Alec won't torture or kill her just for speaking to you.

"I just wanted to apologise and say I never meant to cause any of you any trouble. I was just trying to make friends and all that."

Filip pulled his arm from Alina and sighed, giving me a sorrowful look. "You tried to force a complicated situation to be simple and that's not how it works, y'know."

"Yeah, I guess so. Again, sorry about everything."

Alina's eyes went back and forth between him and me. She slid away from me almost imperceptibly. "You shouldn't come here anymore. Alec won't trust me around you." She crossed her arms as well and looked down, avoiding my eyes. Her voice was only above a whisper when she spoke again. "I don't trust myself around you either."

I looked at Filip, feeling violent waves of embarrassment hit me like a stormy sea against a beach shore.

"Uhm, yeah. I won't come anymore. That's… for the best, I guess."

I prepared to leave, eager to escape the awkward and heavy atmosphere, but Alina called me out before I was out of the room. I turned around slowly, dreading whatever else she could have to say.

"I don't think I should ask you that, but…" She glanced at Filip nervously, but her eyes quickly found me again. "If things were different, would you…?

Filip shot up from the couch, so fast that he startled me and I jumped.

"Don't answer that!"

I ignored him and smiled forcefully at her. "Why not?"

I ran off, partially because I didn't want to see their reactions to my answer and partially because I was getting too embarrassed to function. My feet hit the floor making almost no sound, taking me through the maze-like corridors based on muscle memory.

I was assaulted by sadness when I thought I wouldn't be taking that path regularly anymore.


Alec's room was the type of place you would expect from the quiet, aloof person he usually was around others. There was not much inside and the decoration was almost void of personality. Someone else could have chosen everything in there, from his furniture to the images on the walls and even his bed sheets. It was the same with his clothes, like he made a point of sticking to an efficient guide on how to appear perfectly presentable without drawing any attention or revealing anything about himself.

Of course, beneath all that, there was more.

When it came to his person, I knew there was a viciousness kept away from prying eyes, a cruelty that his lovely features and his innocent smile rarely betrayed. An unexpected violence from an unsuspecting perpetrator.

In his room, it was the same. If someone were to spend enough time there, they would eventually find little pieces of the real him under the cream coloured, wood-panelled facade. They would, like me, stumble upon a box of trinkets or a journal filled with elegant penmanship and beautiful sketches.

A dark, cold sensation took over my chest and spread throughout my body when I came upon those belongings. Among other little things, he kept the journal I had made for him and the braided piece of hair he stole from me in one of the drawers of his cedar desk. I instinctively touched my scalp where I suddenly remembered he had cut it from - and there it was, the spot covered by strands so short they were barely there at all, to prove to me that it had been real. That he had really crossed that line all those months ago, violating my body in such a harmless and yet worrisome way.

I shivered. Inside the journal, with the hair, the sketches were the next thing that drew my eye.

Many of them were landscapes, varying greatly in style and aesthetics. Places he visited, I guessed, though a handful seemed to depict Volterra and other closer views. A lot of them were portraits, though, and lots were either of Jane or me.

There were dozens of those. It didn't strike me as odd that he would have drawn his sister so much, after all they spent most of their time together, but to see that he had as many drawings of me was a bit unsettling. The fact that I looked human in most of them didn't help at all. I was positively creeped out, as if I accidentally found a secret shrine put up by an obsessive stalker.

The soft sound of light footsteps snapped me out of my trance and I looked up to see Alec opening the door. He looked at my face for only a second before his eyes found the journal in my hands. I spoke before he could.

"This is really interesting."

He lifted his eyebrows and smiled mischievously. "Is it, really?"

I wasn't sure of how much liberty I was allowed to take in that room, but he did say it was just as mine as it was his now and he didn't look upset to see me going through his things, so I relaxed and refrained from blurting out an excuse or an apology. He languidly took off his shoes and sat on the chair by the desk, looking up at me in amused expectation.

"Creepy might be a better word," I admitted and his delighted laughter filled the room.

"I can be an intense person in the right circumstances."

That is an understatement if I ever heard one.

I noticed then that I hadn't read anything he wrote yet and looked down at the journal again to do that, wondering if he would let me. He made no indication that he would stop me, so I began to read it in front of him, too curious to care about being rude.

I instantly wished I hadn't done that.

"Whoa," I let out before I could help myself, closing the book and placing it on the desk. "Yeah, I don't want to read the rest."

Alec turned serious, scrutinising my face with dark eyes.

"What would you write about me in your diary, I wonder?"

I snorted. "Nice things, for the most part. The occasional complaint about your controlling, aggressive ways, but mostly nice things, of course."

I didn't want to show just how much his observations and feelings about me had scared me, but he saw right through me as usual.

"Yes, of course. Because you're always so nice."

Without warning, he pulled me into his lap and caged me in with his arms. Though I could easily free myself, I leaned against him and rested my head on his shoulder.

"Sorry for being a nice person?"

He huffed, staring into my eyes with no trace of his previous amusement. "I love that you are nice, it's one of the things I like the most about you. You're just a little too nice and to more people than you should." He paused and his lips twitched involuntarily. "You can be a bit of a pushover."

"Shut up."

He laughed again, and seeing that he was still in a good mood I decided to tell him about my conversation with Alina and ask him about the Cullens before I lost that window.

"I talked to Alina."

He frowned and his lips parted involuntarily.

"Why would you do that? Are you testing me?"

"We had to talk at least once more," I quickly amended. "To set things straight. She won't keep talking to me, I think. I won't go there anymore, or talk to the boys. I promised you."

He was still unhappy.

"You never tire of making the same mistakes, do you?"

My unbeating heart clenched in my chest. I knew all too well what he was referring to, and the fact that I never came to know exactly what he did to Luke did little to calm me down. I caressed his cheeks with my thumbs to soothe him and he closed his eyes for a moment. Without meaning to, I leaned forward and peppered his face with soft kisses, enjoying how his hands went from my back to my hair and how he sighed against my skin.

"You're way too good at distracting me." He pulled me away just enough to stop me from kissing him. "It's not enough to get my mind away from your stubbornness. I would still gladly put you on a leash and beat you into obedience."

I pushed him away in a knee-jerk reflex.

"Damn. Kinky."

He smirked, but I could still see that my use of humour didn't have the effect I hoped. He was not ready to let that go and I was a little too afraid of his thoughts on the matter to let the conversation linger on that topic.

"Lady Sulpicia gave me permission to write back to Alice Cullen. Do you think Natalia and I could visit her? I didn't want to push it by asking for both on the same day."

"I doubt it. Master Aro is still out of sorts with the Cullens."

I frowned in confusion. "They didn't do anything wrong."

The look he gave me was both enigmatic and foreboding. "That is subjective."

I dropped it for the time being, but I couldn't stop my mind from echoing one insistent question:

What the hell is coming for the Cullens?

If I couldn't go to Alice to ask her, I had to go to Nat and pray that she could tell me.


"He did what now?"

I couldn't believe my own ears, even knowing there couldn't be anything wrong with my hearing after I became a vampire. Heidi lifted one elegant brow at my tone, but seemed too amused to be bothered by my lack of manners.

"Yes, it was quite the spectacle from what I've heard. Shame I missed it."

My mouth hung open as I tried to absorb the unbelievable information dumped on me. I remembered hearing a strange, metallic scraping sound earlier that day and my brain made the connection. So that was what it was. It was Alec tearing Alina's limbs from her body and cutting her chest open with teeth and claws to rip her heart out. It sounded way too awful to even be true, a fantastic horror tale that jumped from a fiction book. Learning that it had been Alec who had breathed life into it put my mind in a lethargic state – I felt numb for a moment before I could process how angry I was.

Absolutely unbelievable.

It infuriated me, to think that he would do something so horrible to someone who dared to show affection for me and refused to do anything at all to those who had hurt me. Whatever his reason for staying out of my business with my bullies really was, it was most definitely not what I thought it to be. I naively believed he just wanted to keep himself away from my mess because it was mine and not his to deal with, but he happily and quickly shoved his nose into my mess when he felt like it.

Fuck, and now I'm sharing his room with him. Can't even avoid him to give him the cold shoulder.

I couldn't think of a good enough way to show him just how fucking pissed I was and it was maddening.

"He is out of it. That is insane." I finally answered Heidi. She looked somewhat disinterested in my reaction, but I knew better than that. She sought me out to tell me herself and she never looked away from me. The corners of her scarlet lips were slightly turned upwards and her eyes had a malicious glint.

I was giving her just what she expected and she was enjoying it.

"He was entitled." She shrugged. "You're lucky he forgave you, seems like the confusion was entirely your fault from what you've said."

I scoffed. "Yeah, I'm the luckiest girl on Earth. Can't see how he is entitled to that, she didn't do anything wrong. She didn't know."

"I see. You believe he should have punished you instead?"

I ignored the underlying meaning of her words. "If he should punish anyone, then I suppose it should be me."

She gave me one last cold, evil smile before turning on her high heels and going away. I knew everyone in the permanent guard would hear my own words from her in no time, including Alec, but tried not to think too much of it. Wherever he was he better be fearing the moment we met again because I was more than ready to tear him a new one.

Heidi had intercepted me near the tower where the wives lived and I momentarily forgot why I was leaving their quarters in the first place. What followed those few minutes of gossip seemed like nothing but pure, unadulterated chaos. I was supposed to meet Master Caius in the throne room for some reason, but I ran incredibly late after someone else stopped me in the hallway.

She was shorter than me, looking to be about Alec's height. Her hair was a shiny golden and met the middle of her back in bouncy waves. Her thin lips were pressed together apprehensively when she stopped in front of me and her dull ruby eyes seemed like they were blue when she was human. I baulked, eyeing her curiously as she blocked my path.

"Marina?" Her soprano voice inquired, quivering a little. I nodded.

"That's me. And you are…?"

"I'm also Marina."

I took half a step back in surprise, all words escaping me. "Oh."

This is some awful timing if I ever saw one.

She decided to save us both from the awkwardness of my silence. "I've heard of you. Curious how we have so much in common, isn't it?"

"Yeah, right. Listen, this is a bad moment. Master Caius is waiting for me."

"Huh. I'm supposed to meet him now, too. We could go together."

My stomach dropped. Why would he need both of us at the same time? Our gifts were too similar, it was unlikely that both of them would be necessary for the same task. The only reason I could think of sent me into an anxious spiral.

We were about to be tested.

"So," she picked up our conversation as we walked side by side, "you're from Minas. Like me. And you were brought here for your gift… like me." Her voice got quieter until she whispered the last part. "And Alec also killed your… partner."

"Yeah, he did. When I was human. If you don't mind me asking, what happened to yours?"

I could only pray I was not being too insensitive as my curiosity got the best of me.

"He… tried to fight them. When they were bringing me here." She seemed lost in her own thoughts for a while, or maybe just overwhelmed by grief. She looked at me again. "He shouldn't have done that, but he was so young… He barely knew about the Volturi at all. Our sire ran away when they set the bar on fire. That was smart."

Something snapped in my mind and my arms flew to hers, gripping them and keeping her in place forcefully.

"They set a bar on fire?"

"Ouch?" She stared at my fingers buried in her flesh and I let go. "I was with my coven in front of this bar. When Theo made a scene and was… well, the humans saw everything. They had to be quick and efficient, so they got rid of the whole place."

There was something off about the way she was saying all of that, a creepy dettachment considering she was discussing the murder of her mate, but I couldn't focus on that. All I could concentrate on was that I knew exactly which bar she was talking about.

"Holy shit. Holy shit, they really took everything from me from the start." I shook my head, not caring how crazy I looked to the other girl. "What the fuck!"

Marina frowned and suddenly I was mad at her as well.

"They took you from your coven, killed your mate and basically kidnapped you. Don't you resent them?"

She seemed even more confused than before.

"Well, I guess at first I did. But they were just doing their job. Theo should have known better, he shouldn't have caused trouble." She started to walk again, visibly uncomfortable. "This is an amazing chance, don't you see? They think we could employ our powers for the greater good. They want us to be part of the most powerful coven there is. We're really lucky."

I swear to God if I hear that word again I'm gonna flip my shit.

I didn't feel very chatty after that. Even after making my peace with my new life in Volterra, I still couldn't think of it as this incredible opportunity anyone would give anything to be offered. The exhilarating feeling I had when I arrived in the castle as a human was nearly forgotten, buried in a part of me I was not quite brave enough to access. I knew that going there would be opening a Pandora's box and wasn't sure how ready I was for that.

Ironically, I found that out sooner than I could have ever guessed.

Our human paced walk to the throne room was interrupted by two familiar faces materialising in front of us, both wearing hostile frowns. I could feel Marina stiffening by my side.

"You couldn't just leave her alone, could you?" Viktor said furiously, his eyes fixed on my face.

"I had no idea he would…"

"Don't ever come near her again," he interrupted me and it sounded both like a warning and a plea.

"I won't."

Leo didn't say anything, but the tormented look he gave me was worse than anything he could have said.

They left without another sound and Marina relaxed.

"Sheesh. Thought they would jump us." She resumed her walking and I followed her on autopilot, still shaken. "What did you do?" She didn't bother to mask her curiosity and I didn't feel so bad for mine anymore.

"Made Alec jealous."

"The guard he attacked…?"

"Yeah."

She didn't press on, but I noticed she put more distance between us for the rest of the way.


The throne room was not empty, but we found all three thrones unoccupied. Master Caius was the only one of the Three in the room and he stood by the entryway, looking meaner than usual as his scowl betrayed his impatience.

"Siete in ritardo," he barked as a greeting. I lowered my head in embarrassment.

"Ci dispiace," the other Marina said in a small voice. Caius merely watched us as we entered the room and took in our surroundings.

We were not alone with him.

The first horrible thing I noticed was that whatever we had to do in there, we would do while being watched by half a dozen people. The second horrible thing I noticed was that one of those people was Alec, the last person I wanted to see at that moment.

The third thing I noticed was more than horrible, it was just nefarious.

I noticed I was wrong. Alec was not the last person I wanted to see; the last person I wanted to see was staring at me with a smirk on his face, standing all the way across from Alec, his flashy red hair hogging my attention.

Just what I needed.

It hit me as soon as I saw him, the realisation that I would not perform well. I couldn't possibly do a good job in his presence, not when the very sight of him wrecked my nerves and put me in recoiling mode. Even the certainty that he wouldn't pull his bullshit in front of Master Caius couldn't calm me, it was a feeling that surpassed my logical thinking.

Then I noticed that Nat was also in the room, and that finally gave me some peace. She smiled at me and winked instead of waving, being the most discreet I could remember her being in quite some time. Apart from Caius, everyone stood side by side in a semi-circle. Marina and I walked to the middle of the room, where the inside of the circle would be if it was complete. I tried not to let my eyes wander to Alec, but I could feel his gaze burning holes in my face. When I glanced at him in spite of my efforts, he was watching me intently, as if searching for something.

"We are here to check your progress," Master Caius announced, saving me from our staring match. "As both of you know, your gifts are very similar, so my brothers and I have agreed that whoever performs best is to stay while the other one is to be dismissed."

I was not ready to hear that.

"Dismissed?" I echoed, my confusion evident. "As in leaving the castle?"

He turned to me, his face stern. "Yes, you will be asked to leave the castle."

My eyes flew to Natalia and she also seemed to be caught off guard by the information. My thoughts started to run in disarray, panic and hope competing in my chest.

Did I still want to leave? Would I really be not only allowed, but asked to do it?

Was that a test as well?

Knowing Nat, she was probably thinking the same as I was. If I performed poorly on purpose, would they know? Would Aro touch us before we left? Was there any way for Nat to know that before it happened?

I couldn't even keep up with my own mind. There was too much going on there and I still had to focus on the test itself. I couldn't keep myself from looking at Alec again, and though he was not surprised like Nat, he looked worried in a way she didn't.

He was worried that the other Marina would do better than me.

It was conflicting. For some reason, I felt offended by his preoccupation. It was stupid, he had every reason to be worried about that - he had seen me failing time and time again right in front of him. Yet, I was bothered by the fact that he had no faith in me and felt an urge to prove him wrong.

The fact that he-who-slaps-me-whenever-he-can was in the room just added another ingredient to that recipe for a disaster.

"We do not keep two guards with the same gift," Caius reminded us. "And we do not keep second bests." He pointedly looked at me and it just made my insides boil even more fiercely.

God, please give me patience because if you give me strength I will kill someone.

"You will go one at a time. Alec will use his gift on each of you and Finnick will attack you physically. Your goal is to block Alec and incapacitate Finnick."

We exchanged a nervous look after hearing his instructions and then he gestured to the blonde Marina.

"You've been here for longer. You can go first."

Taking the hint, I blended in with the others, standing by one end of the semi-circle. Felix too winked at me when I took the spot by his side but I couldn't find it in myself to respond. If I still could, I would certainly vomit. Jane spared me a quick glance from his other side, but didn't otherwise acknowledge me.

At Caius' signal, Alec released his mist. Marina stayed in place, and as I watched her calmly waiting for it to touch her I wondered if she trained with Alec like I did and he never bothered to mention it. Would he purposely keep that from me? Then again, she could just be used to doing it with any other person; her readiness didn't mean she was used to Alec specifically.

It still bugged me. It seemed like Alec liked to keep things from me and the more I discovered the more creeped out I felt.

Once the clear fog touched Marina, Finnick - or jerkface, as I liked to call him in my head - sprinted towards her. She seemed to be blocking Alec well enough to fight him off and they tried to subdue each other for over an hour. I got even more nervous as I watched her blocking Alec's gift for such a long time, something that I never managed to do myself, but then I noticed she was not doing it all of the time or fully. Every now and then she seemed to slip and have her senses robbed for a second or a fraction of a second, and even when she did block him she didn't seem to do it completely. It was almost as if she was partially numb, like a human on pain medication. I also couldn't tell how far her gift could go or if she could use it on more than one person at a time because Alec was the only one trying to affect her with his own gift.

I still had a chance, but I hadn't made up my mind about even wanting one.

Sometime around the ninety minutes mark and after many of us having to step out of their way, Finnick caught Marina by the neck and shoved her to the ground, face down. He bent her arms on her back and sat on them to keep her in place.

"Alec."

He retracted his mist at Master Caius' command and looked at me again. I averted my eyes, not wanting my personal problems to interfere even more with my test than they already did. Caius nodded to Finnick and he took his place back in the circle, a smug smile on his pale lips.

"Promising," Caius commented. "Much better than last time."

Marina thanked him and left the middle of the circle as well. Caius' eyes fell on me.

"Your turn."

A few different things happened when I heard those words. At first, I froze in my spot, overcome by sheer terror. Finnick looked at me in anticipation, with a vile hunger he spared the other Marina from. My stomach churned and my fists snapped closed as my mind presented my imminent humiliation to me in vivid images. I remembered the promise I made him in the library and I remembered all the times he attacked me when we were alone. Then he spoke.

"Hope you missed me."

I was burning from the inside, and my fear slowly abandoned me, a violent and immediatist thirst for vengeance taking its place.

There was no way that I would let him humiliate me in front of those people. Not in front of Master Caius, not in front of Nat, and definitely not in front of Alec.

I'd be dead before I Iet myself be treated in such a way in front of him after what happened between us.

There was also no way that I would let jerkface throw me around for almost two hours like he did to my namesake. No, he would enjoy that far too much, especially in front of an audience. I had enough. I had made a promise to myself too in that library; I deserved better than to be treated like garbage by that insecure little shit.

No holding back. No more.

When Alec got the order to numb me I was ready. His gift never affected me, in fact it never even strayed away from him. I stretched my area of influence as far as I could, covering not only everyone in the room but also anyone on that floor, as well as anyone three floors above and beneath us. As I looked around to all of the unmoving vampires in the room, I realised it was not my anger that fueled my power.

It was not caring so much.

I had believed it was the strength of my emotions that allowed me to succeed when using my ability, but in that room I finally realised that the secret to my success was only a side effect of my anger. When I got angry, I cared less. I didn't hold back.

I could learn to do that without getting angry at all.

I had no reason left to hold back anyway. The rumours of who I was and my relationship with Alec were spreading, I had told him I would stay away from the guards I had started to befriend. Even the rumours about how Finnick had his fun with me were going around the castle. The apprehension I had about how I would be perceived during my first years in Volterra was void at that point, people here were already forming their opinions about me and there was not much I could do about that anymore.

If they wouldn't like me, let them fear me.

It was not fair, but I was not aiming for fairness. I wanted it to be fast and I wanted to get a message across, that message being: do not mess with me ever again.

No one could move as long as I used my gift on them, and they also couldn't speak, so I couldn't know how my actions were being taken. I tried not to think of it as I took Master Caius' lighter from his pocket and focused all my attention on Finnick.

I only lamented that I couldn't see his reaction to what he surely knew was coming for him.

"This is how it ends," I told him a little theatrically, putting my face a few centimetres away from his. "If you ever bother me again I will kill you. I will gladly take any punishment for that, as long as I get to vanquish you from the face of the planet."

His pupils grew wider, the only indication that he could hear me. I removed one of his little fingers, the sound of metal scraping against metal that was now familiar to me echoed through the room. I then took a fistful of his hair on the back of his head and forced him down until he was on his knees in front of me. I made him look down to the floor and placed his finger on the ground, in front of his eyes. It was a perfect mockery of a ritual and I was sinfully excited to lit the sacrificial pyre.

"How amazing it is to burn." My words threw themselves from my lips as the inane ramblings of an unaware lunatic."We burn for love just as hot as we do for hate."

I tossed the lighter on the highly flammable limb, a little too sad not to do it to the rest of him. The light was reflected on his eyes as his finger combusted and once it was over, I put a foot on his shoulder, driven by an overwhelming sense of justified cruelty.

"Never again," I stressed, looking him in his fearful eyes. "Never again will you touch me."

I grabbed his hair again and removed his head slowly and unskillfully. It didn't matter, no one was going anywhere. I had time. When I was done I threw his head across the room, watching the rest of his body fall limply on the ground with a grim thud.

There was a long, dense silence in the room after I released everyone from my gift. I gathered up the courage to search every face in there for any reaction and was only met by incredulous, nearly blank expressions. I almost skipped Nat altogether, scared of what I would find there, but she too only had horrified shock to give me.

Alec was staring at me like he had never seen me before.

"Outstanding."

Master Caius broke the silence, striding over to me. It reminded me of the day we met and I wasn't quite sure of how to feel.

"Thank you."

My voice was a hoarse whisper.

"You permanently injured him," he noted disapprovingly but I shrugged.

"It was personal."

He looked thoughtful for a moment but ultimately dropped the subject, turning to the other Marina.

"You are dismissed."

It was as simple as that.

After taking her from her coven, having her here for months; after putting her through hours and hours of training and killing off her mate, the Volturi dismissed her. Because of me.

And she didn't resent any of us for it, all she could talk about was how disappointed in herself she was for not being good enough. One of Finnick's minions took what was left of him when we were allowed to leave, not even glancing in my direction. Felix, Nat, Jane and Alec came to me and I tensed up.

I wanted more than anything to stay mad at Alec the way I was when I couldn't see his face, but the sight of him turned my blazing fury into the gentle heat of a warm embrace. The pride I could see in his angelic features cooled me down until I felt nothing but the nice warmth of the early sun, like I was a stone under the sunlight in the first hours of a spring morning.

He smiled and the last heaps of my resolution melted away.

"You are so formidable, my love."

I was not, of course. It was all in his eyes and I found myself marvelling at the fact that such an amazing creature had chosen me. Even when I was still human, before I could even come close to be good enough for him, he had chosen me.

In some ways, I really was lucky.

"And you are about to give me an explanation, I hope."

"That's our cue." Felix took Nat's hand but she pointed an accusing finger at me before she let him tow her away.

"Later! Everything!" She managed to croak before being dragged out of the room. Jane rubbed my shoulder.

"Demetri is finally getting some money, it appears."

"I did it all for him, actually. Cross my heart."

Jane's crystalline laughter filled the air and Master Caius chuckled before collecting his lighter from the floor. He raised it so we would look at it.

"I will overlook the theft."

Another wave of embarrassment came over me, but quickly vanished when I saw that he meant it. He turned and left the room without a word of goodbye, something we were all used to.

I turned back to Alec, ready to scold him for how awful he was to Alina, but he captured my lips in a heated kiss and I lost all sense of urgency.

He was much better at distracting me than I ever was at distracting him.


a/n: I have decided to rewrite the first chapters of this story. Still don't know how many, but no less than ten. Since there are only two chapters left, I will do that before posting them so when I upload the ending I can just mark this as complete and never look at it again lol Sorry for the inconvenience