Hi everyone! I'm so sorry that it's taken me this long to update again but things have finally calmed down a bit and I've been able to spend more time on writing!
Hopefully you have as much fun with this chapter as I did writing it!
Thanks for your patience :)
Lyn xoxo
~x~Chapter 64~x~
I woke up feeling tired and hungry. I had hardly slept, waking every two hours almost. It was exhausting. I didn't know what was wrong. I shouldn't have been that on edge. After all, this place was a resort where royals frequented which meant that there was plenty of security here. And yet for some reason I was still feeling high strung. I couldn't shake the feeling that something really bad was going to happen at some point on this trip.
There was something or someone dangerous here.
I was sure of it.
But was it a danger to everyone here. Or was it a danger to a select few people here. That I didn't know.
"Oh wow… you look worse than when Els first wakes up." Roxy commented in surprise. "Are you alright, Kai?"
"I'll be fine after some food and coffee." I told her reassuringly. "I just didn't get much sleep last night."
"You have about ten minutes before we're supposed to be at breakfast." Ingrid informed me as she gently tugged me out of bed and shoved me into the bathroom.
I got ready quickly and changed into my usual training clothes. As we approached the stairs, I noticed that the four boys were waiting for us just like yesterday. The four of them stared at me in surprise when Roxy called out to them, thanking them for waiting. Man, I must've looked really bad. I hadn't bothered looking in the mirror when I brushed my teeth this morning. I'd done what I could with my hair which was to pull it into a messy bun. Maybe I looked like a crazy lady. Maybe that was why they were staring at me like that.
"Heck… you look worse than Drew usually does." Dan murmured.
"Are you alright, Kai?" Quinn asked worriedly. "You weren't looking so great yesterday either."
"Funny, I didn't think anyone else noticed." I drawled sleepily, covering my mouth as I yawned.
"You looked like you were on edge. I noticed it when we were sitting on the beach but didn't want to say anything," he explained.
"Thanks for noticing. It's nothing big. Just not all that used to being in new places. It's a habit I haven't managed to get a grip on just yet."
"But for a guardian that's a very important skill," a familiar flirtatious voice whispered into my ear.
I should have heard him approach. My lack of sleep must've affected me much more than I thought. On reflex, I whirled around with a fist. I barely managed to stop in time. My knuckles brushed against his nose and he tipped his head up to press a firm kiss on my fist.
"Nice control, darling. Thanks for not breaking my nose. That would be an interesting thing to try and explain to my parents."
"Axel! I didn't know you were here." Dan piped up in surprise.
"I was asked to be the maestro for a few days here. When I heard that the training camp would coincide I thought this would be a good time for a catch up when you're free." Axel explained to him before turning his attention back to me. He bent down slightly so that we were eye to eye and he frowned. "You're looking a little worse for wear. I doubt that messy hair of yours is due to a night of pleasurable activities. I take it you didn't manage to get a good rest as you'd hoped."
"As you've mentioned, my appearance speaks for itself." I scoffed. "A night of pleasurable activities? Seriously? That's what you call it?"
"I may be a charmer but I am still a gentleman when I am on my best behaviour, I'll have you know," he feigned indignation but I knew that he was playing when I spotted the amusement gleaming in his eyes. "You should've taken my offer and joined me for a drink. You would've slept well if you had."
"As if a friendly drink was all you had in mind, mister charmer."
"Well… I may have intended to be the cause for such messy hair of yours. Nothing is sexier than a pretty lady with bed hair tousled from a fantastic night."
"You sure do say some of the strangest things."
"Wait a minute. What did you mean when you said taken up on your offer? When did you guys meet?" Dan cut in, confusion clear on his expression. In fact they were all pretty confused.
"I met Prince Zeklos, a.k.a. mister charmer, last night at the bar." I explained. "I couldn't sleep so I went for a little walk."
"You've got your eye on her already?" the twins chimed with a groan.
"Try not to cause the guardians too much trouble, Axel." Drew sighed. "We all know how you can get once someone catches your eye."
"How do you guys know him so well? Dan I can understand but I'm surprised you three seem just as close."
"He used to flirt outrageously with my sister. It used to irritate the hell out of her and James until someone else caught his eye and he finally left her alone."
"You don't usually accept these kinds of requests, Axel." Quinn eyed him suspiciously.
"Dan wasn't the reason why you took the request, was it?"
"You were here to check out Kai!" Dan accused him.
Axel gave the four of them a grin that was all cheek and somehow it was also the embodiment of a sultry and sexy as hell grin. I noticed out of the corner of my eye the other three girls ogling him without any discretion. He knew exactly what he could do to girls and he wasn't afraid to show it.
"Guilty as charged, dear cousin," he drawled as he draped an arm across my shoulders.
"Wait. I thought it was a joke what you said last night. You didn't really come here just because you knew I would be here, did you?"
"Darling, I get asked to be the maestro here at least twice a month. I usually refuse. I'd need a damn good reason to keep me entertained. I can only come here so many times on my own without being bored out of my mind. I knew that you would be here because of the training camp and the holidays are coming up. I couldn't wait another two months before getting the chance to meet you so I accepted the request to play here."
"You're out of your mind. You would've met me at the charity event. You wouldn't have to wait two months."
"But this was such a good opportunity. If I make a good enough impression, you might accept having me as your date for the event."
"Okay, now I know you're definitely crazy." I scoffed as I shook his arm off.
"Opportunistic, yes. Crazy? No way." Axel glanced at the three girls beside us and turned his attention to the royal quartet. "I see you have new friends. Are these three lovely ladies the ones who were on the breakout excursion as well?"
"Stop throwing your pheromones around, you compulsive flirt. It's too early for us to be dealing with this." I grumbled. "And can we please get moving? I'm starving and you know how I get when I'm tired and hungry."
"Something terrifying." Jacks grimaced.
"I pity whoever is going to be your sparring partner today during the warm-up." Dan shuddered. "I would not want to be that guy."
"Let's get going before Valentine gets a chance to burn this whole place down with her remarks." Drew suggested.
I snapped my fingers in front of the girls' faces to try and get their attention but they were still staring at Axel. Maybe they had never met him before and had no immunity to this type of Moroi. Sure, Eric Cooper had been a playboy but even he didn't hold a candle to the raw attractiveness of this royal standing with us. Axel Zeklos was in another league altogether and was clearly too much for the girls to handle so early in the morning.
Jacks gently rested his hand on Roxy's lower back. It was a touch that went unnoticed to most people but I could see it from my angle. Oh something was definitely going on between the two of them. She snapped out of it at his touch and gave a sheepish smile.
I grabbed Els and Ingrid's hand and physically dragged them towards the dining hall. At first, nothing really happened. But just as we were sitting down the entire hall went silent and I felt like the morning after the breakout all over again when the royal quartet came to sit with us.
"That's Prince Zeklos! THE Prince Zeklos!" I heard girls murmur.
"You're that famous?" I glanced at him as I took a bite of my cereal.
"You really don't know much about our world, do you?" he mused.
"Didn't really see the need to. It's not like it's going to impact my life that much."
"Have you not learned yet that having a royal within your entourage as some people may call it is a pretty big deal?"
"Well… okay. But they're not behaving like this because you're just a royal. So spill it, fancy pants. Why're you so famous?"
"Remember how we said that Axel gets requested to be a maestro?" Quinn jumped in.
"That's because Axel here is a prodigal musician." Jacks finished off.
"Has been since he was a baby apparently." Dan added. "Aren't you famous in the human community as well but under a different name?"
"Oh really? What name do you go by?" I asked curiously.
"Becoming interested in me, are we?" he drawled playfully.
"Just drop the flirting for at least ten minutes, please." I groaned, tempted to throw something at him to emphasis my irritation.
"I'll see what I can do," he sighed with feigned resignation but I knew that he was just playing. He really was going to be such a handful. "My alias is Frederick Jefferson."
I stopped mid bite and almost dropped my spoon. I gulped the food down and stared at him in shock. "No way. You've got to be kidding me. Just how bloody small is this friggin' world?"
"What makes you say that?" Drew faced me with a frown.
"Think about it. You guys know the answer if you just think."
Quinn was the first to understand and he burst into laughter. "You're right, Kai. This does seem to be a pretty small world. Maybe it's been fate all along that we would all become friends."
"I still don't get it." Ingrid and Dan chimed in sync.
"Frederick Jefferson is the collaborative composer of almost every ballad and original Risqué song." Els breathed, staring at the pair of us in shock.
"How do these things keep happening to you, Kai?" Roxy laughed.
"Maybe you were meant to be caught and dragged to the Academy after all."
"What does my work have to do with Kylie?" Axel frowned in confusion.
"Don't tell me you haven't noticed the resemblance. Surely with Rhiannon telling you all about the dinner the other night you can work it out." Dan teased.
I watched as Axel's expression turned pensive and I could basically see the wheels turning in his head. Eventually, his eyes widened and he stared at me in surprise.
"You are truly a lady with many talents, sweetheart."
"Why thank you. You're not so bad yourself. I don't think there's been a single composition that we haven't fallen in love with. They are faultless. Absolutely faultless. Not many composers can boast about that."
"Thanks for doing my songs justice." Axel smiled and it was the first time I saw a smile that wasn't just a flirtatious one. This one was actually heartfelt which went to show that Axel loved his musical ability and was damned proud of it too. "You know, we would make quite the team. We should definitely make arrangements for a few rehearsals while you're here so that we can have a song or two together at the charity."
"Let's see what we can do, charmer boy." I laughed. "Just let me each my breakfast in peace first and then we can talk. If you keep disrupting my meal I'm going to beat your ass to kingdom come."
"You'd hit this pretty face?"
"I make no distinctions when I'm hungry. It's your risk to take."
"Not worth the risk, cousin." Dan cut in before Axel could say anything. "You should never keep this one from her food."
"She can be scarier than Drew in the morning." Jacks and Quinn drawled.
"She can get scarier than grumpy pants?"
"Grumpy pants?" I mused, glancing over at Drew and Axel. "Someone actually calls you that? That's brilliant."
"Just finish your breakfast, Miss Prodigy."
"Oh shut it, fire boy. For the last time do not call me that."
"You're going to have to accept that term eventually, Kai." Jacks teased.
"It's a ridiculous label and you know it. Do you even know how much pressure the name evokes?"
"It's okay, you have us around we'll help you get through it." Dan grinned.
"That's beside the point." I grumbled.
"Prince Zeklos, please stop distracting our students." Joe sighed as he approached.
"But I'm bored and this little one is so interesting." Axel complained.
"This 'little one' is going to beat your ass if you don't watch it." I scoffed. "Aren't you here for work? Stop distracting us and go to work."
"I don't work until the evening, sweet chick. You can't get rid of me that easily." Axel smirked, sending me a cheeky grin.
I groaned in annoyance and simply ignored him. It was too early for me to be dealing with this. I was sleep deprived and hadn't finished my coffee yet. If they wanted me to be pleasant, they had another thing coming. Royal or not I was in no mood for his flirting even if I was being a little rude about it.
Joe sent me a worried glance over Axel's head so that he didn't see but I could. Clearly Crispin had told him about last night. Of course he did. I wish I didn't have to worry them like this. But I just couldn't help it. I couldn't ignore the anxiety I was feeling. Something here wasn't right. I could sense it. I just couldn't quite put my finger on it. I hoped that I could get through this trip without anything drastic happening. Life has been far too eventful for the past few weeks. In fact, I felt like life had been continuously throwing mad situations at me since I came back to the Academy. I felt like there hadn't been a single moment of peace since Joe brought me back into this life.
Not that I was complaining about reuniting with my family but it would be nice to have just a week or so without anything dramatic happening. Maybe life would be a little calmer once most of the students head home for the break. Maybe then I would be able to relax properly. This was meant to be a relaxing trip for us. That was the intention of the guardians but it was turning out to be anything but.
"Kai, here's another cup of coffee. You've been staring at that empty cup for a while now…" Ingrid commented as she set a full cup in front of me.
I blinked and stared at her gratefully. I was so tired that I didn't even realise I'd finished my coffee already.
"Are you going to be okay? We've got hiking in half an hour." Roxy asked worriedly.
"Ain't a problem. Ain't nothing another cup of coffee can't fix." I drawled.
The others stared at me for a moment before the girls burst out laughing.
"What?" I demanded defensively.
"Your way of speech just reverted back to how it was when we first met you." Els giggled.
"You used to say the word 'ain't' all the time when we first met you but then you stopped for a while." Roxy added.
"Oh…" That was all I could say in response to that. I hadn't really paid much attention to the way I spoke and didn't realise that there were any changes. But thinking about it, it did make sense. People tended to change the way they spoke unconsciously according to the people they hung around with.
"It's not a bad thing. It's just so interesting to hear you speak sometimes. You do have some strange ways of expressing yourself." Quinn commented in amusement.
"I blame my friends for that. Being around soccer boys and cheerleaders and drama groups I picked up a lot of different phrasings."
"Soccer boys, cheerleaders and drama groups?" Axel glanced at me curiously. "I get the soccer boys but what about the others?"
"Being in the soccer team means you get pretty close to the cheerleaders by default. As for the drama groups, I worked backstage a lot and helped them out on a couple of musical productions."
"Do the others at the Academy know about your singing?"
"No and I plan to keep it that way for as long as I can. I attract attention for enough reasons already. I don't need to feed them any more bait to annoy me with." I grumbled.
"So no collaborations while you're here at the resort?"
"Not a chance, mister charmer."
"What if we did it on the sly and kept it a secret?"
"Nope."
"What if -"
"Still no. I don't need crazy rumours about spending one-on-one time with yet another famous person in the vampire community to be flying around. You're creating plenty gossip just by sitting here."
"Then at least something for Rhiannon's wedding. You won't say no to a couple of duet performances for that."
I set my cup down a little harder than intended and sighed. This was far too early for me to be dealing with this guy. "Just for Rhiannon's wedding. We can work something out between now and then." I turned to the girls. "Do you remember what the guardians had planned for us today?"
"There's a hike before lunch. After that is activity time but it can be anything that we want." Ingrid told me.
"I think we're supposed to come up with a 'fun' game between ourselves but it's probably going to need to be something quite active otherwise the guardians won't approve." Els sighed.
"That only goes on for about an hour or so. After that is completely free for us to do whatever we want." Roxy added. "So it's not all training and no fun."
"Nap time before dinner it is then." I stated. "They want us to hike in the mountains in the dark? Are they trying to kill us?"
"There will be trail lights to make nothing happens. The paths have been deemed safe. Even Moroi families take casual strolls there during the summer." Quinn explained.
"Still sounds pretty risky to me." I grumbled. "But I guess if even Moroi families go there then it can't be that bad."
"I would've thought you'd be the type to be excited about hiking." Drew commented curiously. "Why do you sound like you want to get out of it?"
"I have no qualms about exploring the woods when the sun is still up but when it's dark… can't say that's my favourite thing to do." I shrugged.
The guardians called for everyone to finish up their food. Dhampir were supposed to assemble outside in the car park whereas the Moroi were to gather on the beach for magic training. I quickly shovelled what was left of my breakfast into my mouth and headed outside. Axel started to follow us when Drew and Dan caught hold of his arms and dragged him away. I sent them a grateful smile. Axel did seem like a nice enough person and I even started to respect him somewhat upon discovering that he was the composer of our songs. But that didn't mean that I appreciated his borderline stalker-like tendencies. It was already too much for him to just show up at breakfast like that but to actually have him join us for the hike, I would probably kill him out of irritation.
As we waited outside, I yawned several times and was about to doze off when tension suddenly gripped my body. I whirled around and stared up at the building at the many windows overlooking the car park. Someone was watching us again. I definitely wasn't overthinking it. I'd grown to notice the difference between casual staring and intense stares and whoever was up there was definitely watching us with intent.
Wariness skittered across my skin and I couldn't resist the urge to rub the tops of my arms. I took a deep breath and forced myself to look away. No matter how many times I scanned the windows, it was impossible to see into the rooms to see who it was. Craning my neck up to look up at the building wasn't doing me any good at all.
"Kai?" Roxy called out to me and watched me with a concerned stare.
"It's… it's nothing. I'm just getting paranoid."
"Considering how many attacks you've faced recently, I'm not surprised." Els sighed. "Hopefully summer break will be kind to you."
"I bloody hope so. I don't know how much more of this tension I can take." I scoffed.
The guardians called for us to get into male-female pairs and my eyes instantly sought for Christian since he was the only guy on the course I had actually spoken at length to. He seemed to have had the same idea because our eyes met each other's at the same time and I couldn't resist a grin. We stepped towards each other and decided that we would be the last pair of the group.
The hike didn't turn out to be as horrible as I had expected. The woods really were much safer than I'd first feared. Perhaps it really had been recent events that set me on edge a little too much. The further we got into the woods, the less anxious I became. Christian and I chatted and joked around and discussed what kind of training he should perhaps think about doing during the summer break. Apparently, he would be going home for a couple of weeks before going to O'Connor's villa to study and train with him.
By the time we finished the long hike and returned to the resort, I was feeling somewhat energised and normal again. Lunch was as delicious as the dinner we had had the evening before and I hummed in bliss as I ate.
After lunch, we were given half an hour to rest before all the students gathered together to figure out what game we should play. Eventually, we settled on a game of 'capture the ribbons'. We were split into two mixed gendered groups and the guardians provided us with the coloured strings. There was a one hour time limit and whichever team had the most strings of the opposing team won.
It was decided through rock-paper-scissors regarding how to divide up the royal quartet and me in order to make it fairer. The game was surprising tough and really fun. A lot of people slipped and skidded or fell into the sea as we tackled each other for the strings loosely tied around a place of our choosing. The Moroi trainees weren't allowed to use their magic and it was the job of those on the guardian course to help protect the Moroi on our team since they would be considered the 'easy' targets.
By the time the game ended, I'd completely put aside any paranoia I'd felt last night and earlier that day. It was probably because I was too competitive and spent too much energy protecting the Moroi on our team from having their ribbons stolen that kept me away from thoughts of whoever might have been watching us earlier before the hike. Either way, the game turned out to be a good thing because I felt calmer and definitely much more relaxed than I had done since we first arrived. After catching a quick shower, I sat out on the balcony and relaxed when I noticed Drew's upper body leaning over the upper room's balcony.
"You got a minute?"
"Yeah. I mean we haven't got anything else on schedule until dinner or for tonight which is nice." I smiled.
"Axel is in our room and pestering us about whether it would be okay or not just to have a little music moment between the two of you."
"A little music moment?"
"I'll just get him to explain." Drew sighed and disappeared for a moment before Axel's face replaced his.
"Just one hour. That's all I ask. I finally get to meet the lead singer in person and while you guys were off with your activities for the day, I came up with quite a lot of songs. I promise to try and keep the flirting down to a minimum but I want to go through them with you."
I thought about it for a moment and realised that there wasn't any harm in it. It would be fascinating to see the composer for almost a third of our hits in his work mode. Besides, since I was the cause of so many rumours already, what harm could one more do? Not to mention, the holidays were coming up soon which meant that I wouldn't need to suffer through constant whispers.
"Only if you can promise secrecy and to tone down the flirting."
"We can settle the definition of 'toning it down' in the music room. As for the secrecy that's completely covered. Meet me in the third music room in fifteen minutes."