Author's Note

I am so sorry for taking so long to upload a new chapter everyone! University has been manic so I just haven't had much time to dedicate to writing at all :(

Shout out to a guest reviewer called Katelyn, if you make an account that would be fantastic as it would be nice to directly respond to your reviews and comments :)

I hope everyone likes this chapter and as always please follow and review :)

Lyn xx

~x~ Chapter 59 ~x~

When the car eventually pulled up to a large mansion, I was in total awe. Apart from the royal court, I couldn't recall seeing such a splendid looking house before. The architecture somewhat reminded me of an old English palace of some sort with its sparse grounds surrounding the main building.

I lingered at the back of the group and stuck with Joe without making it seem obvious. He gave me a light pat on the back as reassurance and I gave him a subtle smile to show that I was okay.

"What are you and Crispin going to do?"

"We're going to be in the room right beside you with a few of the other guardians. Don't you worry, we're not going to be far." Joe assured me.

"You guys are going to eat dinner though, right?"

"Of course." Crispin told me bluntly.

I didn't get the chance to say anything after that because the doors opened and once again I was thrown into a world of grandeur. Chandeliers decorated the vast ceiling, paintings and large photo portraits lined the walls, and various antique vases accompanied the style on mahogany tables against the walls. Suddenly, a wave of recognition and anxiety slammed into me.

Should I really be here?

Could I be here?

I didn't belong here. A mere nobody… a lost child…

Although the decorations weren't pretentious or particularly screaming of riches – because believe me, the royal court basically screamed of luxury and arrogance – but somehow I felt uncomfortable here.

Memories of being suffocated at court seeped through the heavy wall that I had built to try and protect myself. I took a deep breath and somehow forced myself to calm down. We were guided by a beautiful female guardian into a large dining room with a long wooden table in the centre.

The room was elaborate and a little over-the-top with its decoration but that was to be expected for a royal household. That wasn't to say that it wasn't beautiful. Because it was. The sight of it blew my breath away even more and it felt like the more I saw the less air I had in my lungs. I should've known that this would happen. The luxury was incomparable to anything else I'd seen except for the little memories I had of the royal court.

Now THAT was the epiphany of luxury.

Large doses of money had definitely been thrown into the interior design of the royal court. In my opinion, far too much was spent but that was just me.

But as bright as the room was, I could feel darkness settling over me. Anxiety, anger, pain, grief, and all sorts of negative emotions slowly seeped into me and no matter how hard I tried to fight it, I could feel that it was slowly taking over. I also should've been much better prepared for this. I should know by now that whenever I remembered the past, this would happen. But I wasn't nearly as strong as I would like to be.

I wasn't nearly as prepared to face my past as I liked and this was the result.

Drowning in the dark emotions that overrun.

Just as I was about to be suffocated by the darkness of my memories, a hand touched my elbow, making me flinch in surprise. Turning my head to the side, Drew's eyes met mine. His expression gave nothing away but the gleam of understanding in his eyes and his soft and gentle touch spoke for him. He knew how I was feeling. Probably not just intuition but somehow he really knew just by knowing my true identity as the lost Ivashkov princess. He was able to tell how I would feel and it was oddly scary but reassuring at the same time.

A burst of warmth spread though me. It was unlike any other emotion I'd ever felt before and honestly? I didn't know what to make of it at all.

I had no time to dwell on my thoughts as Trace took my hand and together we followed the female guardian into another chamber. This, if I recalled from my childhood, would probably be the waiting room. It was the room rich families had to welcome guests. There, I was faced with far too many strangers I could hardly recall at all. Since these were four renowned couples of the royal families, I would have thought that I would at least remember them somewhat but I could hardly recognise their faces.

Surely I'd met them before?

But perhaps I did but since I had shut out much of the memories of the people I had met back then, I couldn't drag out the memory so easily now.

Hearing our entrance, the four couples and a couple others stood from their comfortable looking armchairs and turned to us. On instinct, I toughened up my spine and bowed slightly to show my respect. Royal or not, I was just a mere novice dhampir in training right now and respect would be shown where it was due no matter how rebellious I was to the social hierarchy sometimes.

Okay… maybe a lot of the time.

But these royals were parents of royal kids who I got along well with. As parents of my friends, I knew that they were great people who most certainly deserved respect and not my usual rebellious attitude.

"It's a pleasure to meet you and I am honoured to receive and accept your invitation for dinner." I spoke politely.

As I straightened my back once more, I couldn't help noticing the intense stare on of the girls were giving me. Well… she wasn't a girl, she was a lady more like. And she looked oddly familiar. Did I know her? Was that why she was staring at me like that? Did she recognise who I was?

I had to resist stepping back when she strode towards me with a determined gleam in her eyes. I squealed as she lifted my arms, swirled my body around a couple of times for inspection and her face even came much closer than I expected.

"Rhiannon, you are being rude to our guest, sweetheart," a voice piped up with a mixture of chastisement and amusement at the same time.

"Dad, I've been waiting too long for the opportunity to meet this girl. Ever since she appeared in the charts, I knew I had to meet her." The ... haired beauty complained as she continued to analyse my body some more. "You are surprisingly difficult to pin down for such a popular artist." She stared at my face this time with her arms crossed in frustration.

"I'm sorry but would it be too rude of me to ask each of you to introduce yourselves? I'm afraid I have no idea who you are with the exception of Lord and Lady Badica." I apologised sheepishly. Embarrassment flooded when I realised that I probably should have at least looked at pictures to familiarise myself with the names of the names of the royal families I would be meeting tonight.

Then again, looking backwards and forwards between the grownups and my classmates, I could somewhat see the different resemblances of each family. It also helped that Trace was currently being embraced by a man who looked very much like the Dragomir siblings.

"You could just make an intelligent guess, you know?" Drew commented with a tone that suggested that he knew I could vaguely tell who were whose parents.

"And make a fool of myself? I don't think so." I scoffed.

"Time to go stand with our parents to help make things clearer then." Quinn chuckled.

I watched as everyone split up into their respective families and felt proud as I had guessed all of them right based on their resemblances. As I stared at them, I couldn't help noticing the way that Drew's mum was looking at me. My instincts warned me that I really would need to be careful tonight not to let my identity slip.

They gave me a moment to observe them before the man who looked a little similar to Marissa stepped towards me. I glanced at him in confusion as he gave me a little bow.

"I heard that my little sister gave you a bit of grief at the academy but seeing you in person now, I can see why she felt so threatened by you."

"I was hardly a threat to her until she began her attack."

"I hope you'll come to forgive her. She is a rather insecure child when it comes to popularity and has often taken the wrong measures to secure her place in society." He smiled solemnly.

"Don't worry, I'm not one to hold petty grudges too much." I smiled reassuringly at him. "You must be James."

"And I was under the impression that you needed introductions?" he teased with a subtly playful voice.

"I remember Drew mentioning your name once."

"You have a very good memory."

"Thanks."

"Enough with the formal atmosphere already!" Rhiannon protested with a somewhat childishly chastising tone. "Now that I've finally managed to pin you down, I must warn you that between Tessa and I we're going to make one heck of a model out of you."

"Pardon?"

"Rhiannon likes to dive straight into the deep end a lot of the time without explaining things." Drew sighed. "Aunt Tessa is a fashion designer and Rhiannon is her closest assistant."

"I've been using you as an inspiration for over a year now since I first started noticing you on independent designer's websites." Rhiannon jumped back in, stepping close to me and slowly twirling me around once again so that she could inspect me head to toe.

"Rhiannon, sweetheart. Tonight is meant to be a relaxing dinner so that we could meet the young girl. Let's not talk about how much you're going to harass her to be your model so early on in the evening." Lady Ozera warned her sternly but her eyes gleamed with amusement.

From then until the end of the second course of dinner, the conversation was predominantly filled with the royals enquiring about my life outside of the Academy and how I grew to be so strong. They were intrigued about my reason for trying so hard to be so skilled in combat and became remorseful when I mentioned the reason being the death of my parents at Strigoi hands. I told my first outright lie then when I told them that it was at that moment that I was exposed to the existence of vampires and the like.

Drew, Quinn, Jacks, and Dan also frequently raved about the excitement they felt when they left the academy grounds and actually felt free for the first time in their lives. They raved about how different the life outside was and that normal kids were actually not too different from them in terms of social situations and dilemmas.

There was one point where Trace somewhat embarrassingly asked me to become his sister once again by marrying on of his twin brothers to which everyone laughed. It wasn't a malicious laugh but just amusement.

When I thought that it was an appropriate to break away from the conversation, I excused myself to go to the bathroom. I was more than surprised when Lady Ozera suggested to take me there since I wouldn't know the way. I watched as she elegantly rose from her chair and Drew sent me a reassuring smile.

"You don't need to look so nervous, Kylie, I won't bite," she teased adding a playful lilt to her otherwise elegant voice.

"You don't seem like you want to chastise me for placing your son in danger but there is something that's on your mind, no?"

"Perceptive, as Headmaster Hunt had said that you would be."

I followed her wordlessly as she led us into a beautiful garden and we sat on a garden bench beneath a large oak tree.

"If you wouldn't mind, may I hold your hand for a moment?"

"Of course." I nodded. I felt as confused as hell. Why Lady Ozera would want to hold my hand was beyond me but I had a feeling that it was important for her. There was a sternness in her eyes that seemed to suggest it.

She had held my hand for no longer than a few seconds when she suddenly looked at me with soulful and concerned eyes. I could see where Drew got his amazing eyes from. The blue of her irises shone in the dim light and they seemed to sparkle in the moonlight like polished gems.

"I never got to tell you this all those years ago but I am truly sorry for Raymond and Amelie. They were great people."

I tore my hand from her grasp and shot up from the bench in shock. Several things ran through my mind. It had been incredibly rude of me to have jumped up like that. But how on earth did she know? How had Lady Ozera known who I really was? I knew that Drew wouldn't have told her. He had promised and he was not one to break promises.

But she definitely knew who I was and it hadn't just been a guess.

"I hope you don't mind me asking, Lady Ozera, but what element do you specialise in?"

"Spirit." She gave me one of those strange otherworldly smiles that spirit users seemed to share.

"That makes it a little easier to understand how you know." I sighed, taking a seat beside her once more.

"You are certainly much stronger than you were before, Kalani. I had expected you to run as fast as you could away from here."

"I think I've worried enough people with my runaway tactics."

"You may be right about that," she mused.

"Do your friends know about the truth?"

"Just Drew." I told her honestly.

"That must have been something of a shock for him." She laughed. "He had always been the most curious about whether you were still alive or not and what you might be like if you were."

"And now he knows. He took it a lot better than I thought he would."

"He will be a very good ally for you, Kalani, and you will certainly need a lot of those once the secret is exposed."

"I was terrified of him knowing." I admitted honestly. "He was basically idolizing the Ivashkov princess whenever we talked about her. But now that he knows, I'm really relieved. At least now he'll stop staring at me with that intense stare of his. I knew that he didn't believe I was who I said I was fairly early on and he just kept dropping all these confusing and subtle hints it was driving me mad."

"That is certainly a bad habit of my son's." She sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose. "I have often advised him to stop but once he becomes fixated on solving a mystery, he stops at nothing until he receives the full answer."

"I think I'm beginning to realise that." I agreed.

"Now, he will be able to cover for you should anything happen or if you simply need someone to consult."

"He's been very well raised. Drew's very mature for a guy his age."

Lady Ozera gave me a warm smile. "You two certainly seem very alike in many respects."

"And for that reason we've clashed heads a couple of times already. We're both too stubborn for our own good for sure."

"Does anyone else at the academy know of your identity?"

"Just my tightknit family unit that I had back then and Guardian Jenson."

"I had wondered why you hadn't been severely punished for breaking out of the academy. If it had been any other student, I somehow doubt that they would have been let off quite so easily."

"No doubt that has confused quite a lot of people."

"I will not lie to you and say that there haven't been those who tried to push for a harsh punishment. But since you had returned our children unharmed and in one piece, we didn't see any reason to press for any severe punishments."

"And I sincerely thank you for that."

"The children pleaded with us not to. They were all so grateful to you for showing them the outside world like that. They had been on various visits but what you showed them was nothing like any freedom they had before."

"That's because they didn't have freedom. They had guardians watching their every move. Not that this was any different but at least the guardians weren't breathing down their necks."

"Drew had mentioned that you had known that the guardians knew where they would be and that you knew exactly when they arrived."

"I didn't know the precise moment they arrived but I had left a hint with one of the guardians what I had intended to do."

"Raymond and Amelie would be so proud if they could see who you have become."

"Did you know my parents well?"

"We were friends but not as close as those who are currently at the academy were with them. How have you managed to change your eye colour?"

"Coloured contacts."

"That must be quite difficult."

"It took time to get used to but I got there. If I didn't hide their real colours, people would've found me a lot sooner."

"Are you glad that you were brought back to our world?"

"I didn't used to think that I would be when I was out there but now that I am back, I've realised that it isn't nearly as horrible as I'd feared. I never let myself think about it too much when I was living in the outside world but I had really missed my family unit."

"It is a great reassurance to know that you are safe and even better that you are back in our world. Rest assured, I will keep it a secret that you have returned."

"Thank you. I apologise if this puts you in a difficult situation at all."

"Being a royal, secrets are a common occurrence. It would do you well to keep that in mind." She advised sternly. "Let us head back. The others would be quite mad at me, especially my daughter, if I were to keep you any longer."

"Let's hope Rhiannon doesn't get too excited after dinner with her fashion talk." I grimaced. "I don't want to disappoint her considering how happy she is but I'm not really a big fan of modelling."

"You can always tell her no. You don't need to feel pressured to say yes."

"Let's see what she has in mind. I might just be overreacting."

Lady Ozera kindly took me to the bathroom before heading back to the dining room. As I was washing my hands, my mind ran through the conversation I had just had with Drew's mum. I never would have expected for someone else to find out so soon about my identity, especially not one of the influential royal grownups. I really would need to be much more careful from now on.

I was surprised to be ambushed by a guardian I didn't recognise as I was heading back to the dining room to rejoin the others. Even though the flooring wasn't carpet but floorboards, I didn't notice the approaching figure until the very last moment when I felt something behind me.