Richelle Mead owns the VA and Bloodlines series.

How good was the last TFH book trailer? Is it weird that I find it insanely adorable when Sydrian fights, even though it's sad? Because I do. Though that's not what this chapter is about. This chapter's sad for different reasons. Hope you enjoy it anyway ;)

Since I'd arrived in Palm Springs over Christmas I'd had a feeling that something was up with my sister. She did a good job easing my suspicions; she was always ready with a plausible excuse. But she was sneaky and couldn't always hide her paranoia around me.

I'd known in my gut she was keeping something from me. I just never expected it to be this!

Sydney wasn't the only sneaky Sage at Amberwood Prep, so when she'd snuck out of our dorm with some lame excuse about her history teacher, I'd had a friend—a friend with a car—follow my sister ten minutes from the school to an apartment complex. An apartment complex I was quite familiar with. With a quick word of thanks I'd hopped from my friend Trish's car—promising to text her later—and hurried towards Adrian's door. Without knocking, because that would give them advanced warning, I ripped open the door and stormed in knowing, somehow, exactly what I'd see.

And it was exactly how I'd thought it would be. Sydney, standing in Adrian's living room, wrapped in his arms. Their mouths were close to one another, but they weren't kissing. Yet.

"Zoe!"

Sydney ripped herself away from him, her face paling as she took in my expression. I wasn't sure what I looked like at the moment, but I knew how I felt. Furious. More furious than I could even begin to articulate.

I'd had my suspicions about her relationships with the vampires here, especially Adrian, but I'd told myself it couldn't be. Told myself I was being ridiculous, because that's what it was, right? Ridiculous to think that my perfect, overachieving, painfully dull sister could ever be involved with a vampire, right?

"It's not what it looks..." She trailed off, clearly not impressed with her own lie. I wasn't either. I wasn't impressed by anything about her anymore.

"This is where you go when you run off," I said, my voice low and angry. My sister flinched. "You run to him. Every. Single. Day. And you lie. You lie to me every. Single. Day."

"Zoe..." For once Sydney was speechless and it was such a rare thing I almost felt proud. Maybe I would have felt proud if I wasn't so mad at her. "You have to understand."

"Understand what? That you're having an unholy affair with a vampire? That you lie to me everyday so you can carry on with him? That you choose him over your own sister every time you do it?"

"I'm not choosing him over you, Zoe," Sydney said, coming to stand next to me. "It's not like that. I wouldn't ever choose anyone over you."

But she did. How could she lie to me? How could she be sneaking around with an evil vampire? Okay, I'll admit, the word evil might be pushing it when describing Adrian, but still. He drank blood, for God's sake! He controlled people's thoughts.

Then an awful idea popped into my head. "Are you compelling my sister?"

Adrian, who I'd only now bothered to glance at, looked as shocked by my sudden appearance as Sydney did. But it only lasted a few seconds before his typical arrogant smile was back in place, making me even angrier. "What? You don't think I'm charming enough to get your sister without magic?"

"I don't know why anyone would find you charming at all," I told him flatly. I knew I was sneering up at him, but I couldn't help it. I might not have thought Adrian was the world's most dangerous vampire, but he was certainly the most annoying, and I told him so. "You're more obnoxious than anything else."

"That sounds like me," he smirked. I grit my teeth, preparing to unleash some very bad words in his direction.

"Zoe, come sit down," Sydney said, taking my hand. I pulled away from her.

"I don't want to sit down. Not here. Not with him." I looked at her trying to understand how she could think her actions were acceptable. She still looked more concerned with calming me down than leaving the scene of her crime. "We should go," I told her. "You want to explain this to me than we can do it somewhere else. I'm not going to sit here on his disgusting couch and let you try to tell me that any of this is okay."

Adrian sighed and sat down on the couch instead. "Look, you don't have to like me, but you could at least be civil towards my furniture. We are going to be family someday. You might be spending Thanksgiving here on this disgusting couch."

I whipped my head up to glare at him for making such a stupid comment, but Sydney's pleading look brought me up short. She looked as if...

"Wait!" I said, throwing my hands out in front of me. "Are you guys serious? Not about the couch, but this is serious?" I gestured between them. "It's not just some pervy fling you two are having?"

"Pervy fling?" Adrian repeated with mock hurt. "What kind of boy do you think I am?"

I didn't even bother to glare that time. "I suspected you two were messing around, even though I didn't want to believe it. I suspected this was where you kept sneaking off to, Sydney. But are you really telling me that he's more than just a... distraction?"

Sydney opened her mouth and closed it a few times before she had an answer for me. "We're in love," she finally said with a helpless shake of her head. "We care deeply about each other. It's not just about sex or anything like that. It's so much—"

"What?" I screeched, cutting her off. "Did you just—" I turned to Adrian, who hung his head toward on his shoulders, not looking at me. "Did she just—You're having sex?" I felt like a million tiny ants were skittering up and down my body and I shivered in disgust. "Ew. Ew. Ew. Ew!"

"Zoe, I said it's not—"

"Let me, Sage," Adrian said, getting to his feet. "I think the s-e-x word is just making things worse."

"No, you're making things worse!" I shouted at him. "Why are you here? What do you want with my sister? Are you," I shivered again, "feeding from her? Because one of the junior Alchemists I know says that that's all you Moroi men want. That's why you're always cheating with dhampir women. Because you can drink their blood."

"Zoe!" Sydney cried, an appalled look on her face. "I wouldn't do that sort of thing."

"Well, I never thought you'd date a vampire either so I'm sorry if I'm not sure bloodwhoring is out of bounds for you anymore."

As soon as I said it I knew I'd crossed the line. Sydney's face went pale and Adrian looked pissed. I'd never seen him mad before, and he still wasn't exactly scary, but he was a little more intimidating than he had been a moment ago when he'd been teasing me. To my surprise he didn't say anything, just ground his teeth while Sydney went from pale with shock to hot with rage.

"Don't speak to me that way," she said with a quiet force that had me fighting not to take a step back. "My whole life I've done everything for everyone else. I've never had anything of my own. Dad shot down everything I've ever wanted for myself. Toys, friends, hobbies, college. I was never allowed anything but Alchemy and obedience. I love Adrian, and I'm not going to apologize for that, Zoe. I finally found something that's mine, something no one can take away from me. Something I won't let anyone take away from me. Adrian loves me and wants me to be happy. He would never expect me to do anything I wasn't comfortable with. I'll swear to you that we're not doing anything inappropriate, but even if we were, it is none of your business."

"Sydney, just being with him is inappropriate," I reasoned. "He's a vampire."

But even to me that felt like a weak excuse. I'd spent a lot of time around vampires recently and I knew they weren't what our father had taught us. The Alchemists descriptions of them were off. They were people who needed blood to survive, which was gross, but they didn't go out of their way to hurt people. In fact, from what I'd witnessed, they usually went out of their way to help people, including me and my sister. And I knew Adrian was harmless, at least when it came to hurting someone. He may be annoying, but he really did care about Sydney. I'd seen that for myself more than once. And I had to admit, his being a vampire wasn't the reason I was so mad. I think I might have been almost as angry if I'd caught her with some human guy. Except if she'd been with a human guy she wouldn't have had to lie about it. She would have had no reason not to trust me.

And that was the heart of it, wasn't it? My sister, my perfect, infallible sister had finally messed up—big time—and she didn't trust me enough to tell me. She lied over and over again because she didn't want me to know about it.

"Do you really think I'm that bad, Zoe? Do you really think I'd hurt Sydney?" he asked now. His earlier anger had faded and now he just looked weary. His unnaturally green eyes turned down in a way that made me think he actually cared about my opinion.

I knew what I wanted to say, what I'd been raised to say. Yes, you are and you will. Stay away from my sister. But somehow, over the past couple of months, I'd lost some of my conviction. "I think I'm very uncomfortable having this conversation with you."

"I'd never hurt her," he swore. "Or you. Or anyone. I probably couldn't even if I wanted to. I've never been much of a fighter. I usually just get drunk and avoid the conflict altogether."

"That's not helping your case," I said matter-of-factly. But it sort of had because he was right. I couldn't imagine Adrian attacking someone. The idea was actually sort of laughable. Honestly, after watching Eddie, Neil and Angeline train most mornings in the quad, I was pretty sure I had more of a chance against them than Adrian did.

"Zoe," Sydney said, bringing my attention back to her. "I'm sorry that this makes you uncomfortable. But you have to understand."

It did make me uncomfortable. Just thinking about my sister with Adrian... Ew. And, even though I'd hoped many times that the world would realize my sister wasn't perfect, that she wasn't infallible, actually seeing proof of it disturbed me more than I liked to admit. I knew how jealous I was of Sydney, but seeing her as anything but perfect was a hard pill to swallow.

What was worse was that I could actually see where she was coming from. I mean, Adrian wasn't the worst looking guy I'd ever seen. Alright, he was actually sort of attractive. And, while I found him to be annoying, I guess I could understand the appeal of his humor. And he did have those pretty green eyes. Sometimes when I was talking to him I wanted to step closer than normal just to see if they were really as clear as they looked from far away. And whenever they turned on Sydney they always had this look in them. Not a scary possessive look, like you would imagine a vampire having, but something entirely too soft to ever be considered threatening. It was what made me suspicious of them in the first place. Sydney said they were in love. Maybe that's what love looked like. It wasn't a look I knew personally.

"Please don't tell anyone," Sydney was saying, and I realized she'd probably been speaking this whole time. I'd tuned her out... to check out her vampire boyfriend. Ew. "The Alchemists will send me to Reeducation and Dad... Dad will be the one to throw away the key. He'd disown me."

"Then why do it?" I asked, more out of curiosity than threat. I was still upset, but I felt calmer than when I'd first walked in. "Why risk being locked up?"

Sydney watched me for a few seconds before reaching out and taking Adrian's hand in hers. He smiled at her in a way that had me feeling oddly jealous. Not because I wanted Adrian, God no! But because no one had ever looked at me like that before. I'd never even known someone could look at someone else like that outside of movies and books. It was that look. The Love Look.

Neither of them answered, but I didn't need them to.

"I won't say anything," I told them, looking away. "But please don't look at each other all googley eyed in front of me, okay? It's disturbing."

"You won't say anything?" Sydney repeated. She looked a little amazed I hadn't called our father on the spot to rat her out and I felt a little ping of anger make its way back into my chest. What kind of person did she think I was? She was sleeping with a vampire, yet she thought so little of me?

"Of course she won't," Adrian said, startling me. I glanced over to see him giving me a funny look. Almost like he could see the anger fizzling below the surface. "She's your sister. She wouldn't do that to you."

I nodded and the anger faded. The certainty in Adrian's voice made me feel vindicated for some reason. At least someone trusted me, even if it was him. "They'd send you away. I don't know what they do in Reeducation, Sydney, but I'm definitely not looking for you to find out first hand. No matter how mad I am at you right now. Besides," I paused to huff and look totally put out. "It could be worse. You could actually be dating that bore, Ian, that Dad's always going on about."

Sydney actually snorted like I caught her off guard, which caught me off guard. My sister usually had this larger-than-life quality to her that made it hard for me to feel close to her, mostly because I always thought she was so perfect, but right now, laughing with me in the middle of a vampire's apartment, she was anything but perfect. I kind of liked it.

"He's a real killjoy, isn't he?" Adrian quipped. "Just be glad you weren't around for the Brayden period."

"The Brayden what?" I asked, confused. "Who's Brayden?"

Sydney began talking but Adrian cut her off. "Sydney's snooze fest ex boyfriend. He was an idiot."

"He was actually quite intelligent," Sydney put in.

"He called you a prostitute."

My eyes widened. Why would anyone call Sydney a prostitute? I knew for a fact that my sister owned nothing even remotely slutty as far as clothes went and she was too boring to ever do anything... Well, I guess I had to take that back, because having a secret relationship with a vampire was, if nothing else, interesting and sort of risqué. Probably the most interesting thing Sydney had ever done.

Sydney looked completely unconcerned as she rolled her eyes. "Adrian tricked him into saying that. He was commenting about... You know what? Never mind. He was pretty boring."

"He was," Adrian said with a smile. "The Sage girls need more fun in their lives, not less, which is why I'm perfect for you two."

I scrunched up my nose. "What are you talking about?"

"I'll be just like the big brother you never had." He paused. "Well, to you of course. Not Sydney. That platonic ship sailed a long time ago."

"The big brother I never wanted," I corrected, trying to ignore his comment about Sydney. "And even if I did have a brother, I'm sure he'd be much better than you."

It was true, I'd never wanted an older brother. When I was a kid I had brief fantasies of being an only child. Carly was older and barely spent any time at home. Sydney was home, training with Dad, but barely had any time for me. I wasn't sure which of them annoyed me more, but, even if they got on my nerves, they were still my sisters and I loved them. Which was why I wouldn't tell Dad or anyone else about Sydney and Adrian. There was no telling what the Alchemists would do to her if they found out.

"No doubt," Adrian said, pulling me out of my thoughts. "But I still bet I'm more fun than any hypothetical brother you could come up with. At least I'll sneak you beer and stuff."

"Adrian," Sydney complained, but she was laughing.

"Aw, look, Sage," Adrian cooed and pointed as my lips involuntarily curved upward into a small smile. "Little Zoe's first smile. Get a picture for her baby book."

I rolled my eyes. "Maybe you are like the brother I never had. So irritating I can barely suppress my urge to smack you."

"Irritation and barely suppressed threats of violence," he smiled. "Just what family's for."

The thought of a vampire being a part of my family was too disconcerting to think about. I knew he was just joking, that, even if they were in love, they were still way too young to make that kind of commitment. Not to mention, if they ever were to get married, my dad would send Sydney away. Part of me felt relived knowing that their relationship would never last. It couldn't, even if they wanted it to. But there was another part, a part that saw the way they smiled at each other, that saw that Love Look in their eyes. That saw the relief in their smiles, relief that they could still be together because I hadn't ratted them out. That part of me pitied them, because it could never last.

It couldn't, no matter how much they wanted it to.