Hey guys! Another chapter is up, and I must tell you, this one chapter is thrilling and exciting and you will probably want to get a punching bag because you might feel the need of punching me or instead hugging me for what I will do.

Anyhow, I hope you enjoy this chapter, it is one of my best chapters so far, and I think it is great.

DISCLAIMER: I DON'T OWN VA OR BL.

SYDNEY'S POV

We spent all the way back to my hotel room in utter silence, and I apologized to Adrian for having lost my mind as soon as we arrived to my room. I saw how hurt he was at the hall because of my outburst, and I felt directly responsible for it, but I couldn't push myself anymore if I didn't want to mentally breakdown in front of everyone there. At least he was back to the usual charming and smiling Adrian when he left, though deep down I had an idea of how much it burdened him.

I have never lost control of myself that way before, and it felt horrible, yet, completely human. I've always been able to get a hold of my feelings and keep them under control ever since I could talk, which was by the time I started to get involved with the Alchemists. It felt human being able to discharge these feelings somehow, which I was strictly prohibited to do since always.

I know, such a young age to start, but it was that way and it would continue being that way in the Alchemist world, I doubt it was only Jared Sage who was this way. Because of this world, I never had a normal childhood, nor did I learn to interact with people my age without being as awkward as I now am. While some kids were learning their ABCs, I was learning the basics of chemistry already. While some teens were out partying and doing things people their age did, I was out working already.

But I knew, and still know that this is worth it if we can protect humans from these unnatural beings by keeping their secret. However, in the last week, I've met several of these 'unnatural beings', and even though it pains me to say this, they are not so different to us. They may not be the same species, or eat the same things we do as a main source of energy or physically look exactly like us, but they do have feelings, emotions and inner conflicts on their own. And it is something that has struck me strongly.

Perhaps we are all not so different emotionally and psychologically, though of course, Moroi think of blood, humans don't.

I took off my shoes, it was such a hazard spending an hour in these sky-high shoes, specially when I have never worn this kind of shoes before, but I somehow made it through the night in them, and it was such a relief taking them off, I could almost feel my feet thanking God. That was funny, maybe Adrian would have laughed at that. I stopped and grimaced at the thought of thinking about Adrian because of my comment.

Surely, lots of things he says are quite funny, and other things are just crazy. For example, the auras. I couldn't quite decipher what he meant that he could see auras, did he know what they meant? Was it like some cloud hovering above us? I had to investigate, even more now that I knew I 'usually' have a yellow and purple aura.

The night at my hotel room was uneventful, and fortunately no one stopped by. I took a quick shower and put my pajamas on. Because of my schedule lately, I was nowhere close to feeling sleepy, I basically lived on Moroi's nightly schedule by now. So instead of restlessly rolling in bed trying to get some sleep I knew I wouldn't get, I decided to turn my laptop on and research about auras, specially yellow and purple auras.

ADRIAN'S POV

After I left Sydney at her room, I had no desire whatsoever of returning to the dance. As much as I love my dearest cousin, Queen Vasilisa, I think I deserved a break—yes, another one—from the daily prison of Moroi society. I opted for the quietness and calmness of my room, and perhaps down myself some bottles that looked as miserable as me.

"You've outdone yourself, Adrian Ivashkov." I told to myself as I grabbed a bottle of gin and a bottle of whiskey and dragged myself to my room. "It's just you, you and me, no Sage tonight. Perhaps not even Sage tomorrow, or the day after, or the day after that. Not after what you have done, you great piece of jackass." I opened the bottle of whiskey, and gulped directly from it as I slumped in my bed.

I don't remember anything else, it was a huge blackout, but in the midst of my mild hangover, I felt my cellphone vibrating next to me, which was what woke me up. It was Christian.

I thought I would wake up alone, however, I was naked in bed, and there were two naked girls—which I don't have any idea of who they were, or how they got here—in it too, and the room was just a mess. I had to thoroughly evade falling objects and pieces of scrap all over the floor to grab a pair of jeans and exit the room to be able to properly talk.

"Christian? What happened?" I said with my morning voice.

"Don't you 'what happened?' me, Adrian," Christian said with an exasperated tone, "Lissa told me you called her in the middle of the night and you were drunk blabbering about who knows what."

"Does it help if I tell you I can't remember dipshit about last night?"

"Actually no, but you should apologize to Lissa, she couldn't fall asleep again," Christian sighed and then continued, "She was worried you might do something stupid."

"I think I did, I'll go over there to explain better."

After I finished the call, I went back to the room, to find two, still drunk girls asleep. I shook my head and headed to the bathroom for a quick shower.

When I came out, I found an empty bed and no cigarettes. Great, I got robbed off my cigarettes. I mentally cursed them, then dressed up and headed to Lissa's.

Rose didn't even cross my mind until I saw her next to Lissa when I got there, but a pang of pain resounded as soon as I saw her, meaning this wound was nowhere close to healing.

"Here we go." I whispered to myself as I entered the Royal Palace and saw them gathered, I greeted them all with a nod. Lissa, Rose, Captain Russian, Jailbait, blue-eyed fire lover, Turkish Mafia leader, Janine, Sonya, Mikhail, and even Eddie was here, the entire gang was here. I thought Eddie was still being under questioning, but being friends with the Queen must have it's perks. They were all casually hanging out and talking to each other. Some of the royal guardians stood guarding the doors and near the windows.

I felt awkward there. How couldn't I when the supposed love of my life is chatting with the love of her life.

"Adrian," Lissa began, "What's wrong?" She was looking at the top of my head, I figured she might be staring at my aura. And I accept it wasn't in the best, nor the worst looking colors, yet I knew she could sense something wrong. "You called in yesterday and spoke about how you screwed things over and had to fix them but you were afraid. You worried me."

"Well, I don't remember any of it, but it's true. I did screw over something yesterday at the ball." Now all eyes were on me. "If you don't mind, I don't want this to become a self-pitying party, so, can I talk to you privately?"

"Okay, sure, let's um... go to my office, though, it won't be too private, guardians must stand inside the room at all times."

"It's okay, I guess, at least it's not the whole gang."

Lissa and I went upstairs to her office, followed by two guardians. The office was so familiar due to the fact that it belonged to my great-aunt, Tatiana, before and I spent countless hours here.

"Okay, tell me, what's wrong?" Lissa demanded.

I sighed as I supported myself on the desk and crossed my arms, "You know, this Alchemist Sydney Sage, she was at the ball yesterday, and I think I may have offended her somehow, it was not my intention, of course. And it's nagging me." I ran a hand through my hair and continued, "I just invited her to dance and perhaps I may have told her that she looked breath-taking, but that's it."

"Well, she's an Alchemist, Adrian," Lissa explained as she saw my aura, "My best theory is that it took her by surprise that a Moroi told her that, and she reacted that way?"

I closed my eyes and covered them with my hand, fully aware of what my aura conveyed, and now Lissa knew.

"Why don't you talk to her tonight? I, um... earlier I asked Rose to invite her to the dinner tonight. We haven't really celebrated that the plan turned out fine. It will be a small gathering, nothing formal."

"You did what? Lissa, I can't—"

"But you will, you wanted to fix this, now you have the chance, trust me."

"Oh, great."

"Now, let's head back, you'll thank me." Lissa said as smiled and opened the door to exit. I was left trying to think what I would tell Sage.

But nothing came to my mind. 'Screw this, just a sorry should be enough.' I thought.

To my surprise, when I went downstairs, Sage was already there, talking to Rose, Jailbait and Eddie in her usual professional demeanor. Her aura was back to being the typical yellow with purple streaks all over. I somehow expected her to be uncomfortable or mad or upset because of yesterday, but it was refreshing to see her back in her usual self. She then saw me, and her aura flickered for a second, but then it went back to normal.

She smiled at me, and I smiled back at her. Maybe I was over-thinking this. I raised a hand to greet her and then walked over to where she was. We all spoke a bit, until we were called in for dinner.

I ended up sitting next to Sage, this feels as if it was all planned out and this was a conspiracy theory.

"Adrian," Sage whispered, "I now know what my aura means."

'What?' I thought.

"Tell me if I'm wrong, but yellow means that I'm somewhat very organised and analytical, and purple means that I do things genuinely out of pure curiosity? I didn't get the purple one, but I agree with the yellow part of it."

"Mmm, you did your homework Sage," I smiled at her, "Though you're a bit wrong about the purple one. It means you're spiritual, and you're very dedicated to the things you believe in, and you know no limits when it comes to the things you like. In a word, passionate."

She scowled when I corrected her, and I rephrased my answer, "But you got the essence of it." She gave a small smile, proud that she partially got it right.

The first dish was being served, an entrée. It was seared pepper crusted kingfish, with crisp silverbeet and anchovy mayonnaise. Nothing formal, huh?

I quickly finished it in four bites, but Sage left half of it. "Sage, how come you haven't finished? This entry is the size of two oysters."

"Well, excuse me, but I don't know what I'm eating to be honest."

I decided not to push it and pressure her to eat, I didn't want to step on a loose floor board again.

"By the way Sage, I'm sorry about yesterday?"

"There's... nothing to apologize for," the waiters removed the plates and she continued, "I should uh... be the one who is sorry, I lost it there." She gave a shy smile.

"We're cool then? I mean, I thought I said something, I don't know..." I felt the air getting lighter, or heavier, I couldn't tell the difference now.

"It's alright, Adrian." she whispered as the second dish was being placed. It was a grilled salmon filet with pineapple sauce and dill. It almost had an artistic feel to it. I suddenly wanted to paint it and everything and everyone in the room.

Everyone on the table and I were half way through it, except Sage. As I suspected, she had only taken two bites so far. I wonder if her appetite is really small, or she is worried about her figure, which by the way is splendidly curvy and beautiful, though I wouldn't mind if she put on a little weight, it would be even more beautiful. Of course, I wouldn't tell her that, though.

I felt the air getting more tense by the second, and I had no idea why, but I had a bad feeling.

"Adrian, are you okay?" Sydney asked with genuine concern, "You look sickly."

"Yeah, just... spirit, I think."

She sighed and continued eating when I brushed it off.

'Something is not right,' I thought, 'Something is off.' I stared at Lissa to see if she could feel something, and I was right. Her aura had changed to a light indigo color among the spirit's gold, and she was staring back at me. I nodded and then she whispered something to Rose.

Rose immediately stood up and whispered something to Dimitri and the other guardians, and then they sat down again, but they were tense.

I immediately felt the change on the air, it was even heavier, and then it happened.

The windows were blown inwardly and shards of glass were raining over us. Almost all the guardians in the room ran over to where Lissa was in less than a blink of an eye and protected her, Eddie ran over to Jill, and I wasn't aware of this as I did it, but I was covering Sage as I grabbed her and pushed her against the closest wall and stood in front of her, protecting her.

The sight of who was attacking us wasn't pleasant at all. It was a combination of Strigoi and humans. They were working together? How and why? But even more surprisingly, the target wasn't Lissa, it was Jailbait... and Sage.

"There they are," yelled one of the humans. They were all in black, but this one had a golden band in his arm and signaled to where I was and Eddie was protecting Jill.

"Take those girls, kill them if you must," he yelled again to the strigoi who weren't fighting the other guardians. I concluded that only the humans, which were four, carried swords, and they were being protected by a bunch of strigoi, maybe ten. Strigoi never have auras, but these had pitch, black auras all over, and their eyes weren't the usual red ones either. They were black, pit-less, empty, black. The strigoi obediently launched to were Eddie and I were.

Eddie managed to blow off one of the strigoi, but the other managed to grab his foot and twist it so he fell. Rose quickly staked him from behind before he grabbed Jill and then they fought the other one, who went limp in a few seconds.

The strigoi that went after Sage was bigger, and bulkier, the other thin and tall. I figured they were a dhampir and moroi respectively before. Without thinking, I focused on the eyes of the bigger strigoi, and put my whole strength into it. The strigoi immediately plummeted and fell limp on the floor. The other strigoi was still running towards us, but I was too mentally tired to do anything. I tried to stand in front of Sage as long as I could. But I was brushed away easily by the super strength of the strigoi.

My head hit the wall, and I felt a hot liquid pouring out from my head. I had no time to figure out if I was bleeding, I stood up again and picked up a vase and hit the head of the strigoi that held Sage by her throat, pressed against the wall. He didn't shake one bit by it, but managed to hit me again, then Rose came out from nowhere and staked the strigoi, but she missed the heart. The strigoi let Sage loose, and instead turned around, with the stake still incrusted, and grabbed Rose by the throat with both hands.

I then heard a gun shot, then I heard nothing as I turned around to see her on the floor, and then I was pouring what was left of my magic into her.

Who do you think got shot?

Please review and tell me what you think of this chapter, or what you thing will happen in the future and your theories. I would love knowing what you think when you read this fanfic. :)

Thanks for reading!