"Just friends?"

I whipped around to face the smoky voice behind me. Alec was leaning against the opposite bookcase with a single raised eyebrow, watching me with amusement. His hair was parted on the side, half-heartedly combed down, but he ran a hand through it, thankfully ruining the facade for a more familiar Alec. And though he lacked an outer layer, the form-fitting dark blue button-up indicated he had been 'at court'. Which is what the guards liked to call their shifts when protecting the kings.

Alec's entertainment increased as I stepped back in surprise, running into the shelves behind me. "It's rude to eavesdrop," I accused him softly.

"It was the first thing the two simpletons said." His eyes followed me, examining my entire person and lingering on my lips before he took a step and closed the distance between us, boxing me in.

He was staring right through me. He lifted his arm, moving it right near my head on the bookshelf. My voice wavered, finally managing, "They were baiting you."

"Quite successfully," he admitted. He was close enough that even the slight tilt of my head would connect my lips to his. His bicep brushed against my shoulder, and he stepped back. I looked down.

Alec was offering a book – the book I was about to retrieve from the shelf. I cursed myself for being so one-track minded.

"Thank you."

I went to take the book, but he held on. "You are aware that ⅔ of this will be inaccurate, yes?" I nodded slowly, so he reluctantly gave it up but stated petulantly, "I am a far greater resource than anything you could find in this collection."

He was frowning defiantly, almost pouting. I cracked a smile at the absurd arrogance of his statement, though I did not doubt its validity. "Are you jealous of a book?" His eyes snapped to mine.

"Only being a good friend," I pointedly ignored the shit-eating grin on his face that sprouted from his previous pout.

"Very funny."

Without prompting, his true objective, he commented casually. "I must admit, I am curious as to what inspired the question."

Ducking my head, I glanced to the side. It was suddenly mortifying to say the words aloud. "They wanted to know if we – if you, I mean…if…if we'd kissed yet." His eyes widened, and I avoided giving details, wanting to get ahead of his temper. Before his shock could turn to contempt aimed at the men, I tried to stay light with my tongue. "I didn't think you'd want them to know anything, so I avoided more questions by saying we were simply friends," I admitted earnestly, shrugging it off.

I prepared myself for an outraged Alec with plans to storm off and give Demetri and Felix a worthy punishment, but the boy remained standing across from me.

"It was the best I could come up with," I said in my defense to his silence. I observed the tiny twitch of his lips, the drop of his gaze, and unknowingly imitated his frown. "You're always so upset when you've lost control after we…you know. I didn't want to broadcast your mistakes; Felix tends to have a big mouth." My attempt to make the statement lighthearted failed miserably.

Alec remained quiet, but his face fell with every word.

"You believe I regret – that I pardon kissing you to be a mistake?" His voice was weak and faded out with an empty taste.

My face scrunched in bafflement, and I turned back around while he figured himself out, pretending to read the other books on the shelf. This wasn't exactly a conversation I wished to delve into, especially not with him. It's probably the best he'd ever communicated. "Yes. You've made it clear enough, don't you think?"

He seemed taken aback. "Have I?"

"You don't want to kill me, but being near my blood is tempting." I rolled my eyes. "Touching me, kissing me, distracts you from controlling your bloodlust, la di dah. It's fine."

"Athenodora says that when a woman says 'fine', she means the opposite."

"It's fine." I exhaled sharply, frustrated and still perplexed by his reaction. "Logically, I guess it makes sense." I moved the opposite way, leaving him to his forthcoming temper tantrum. I'd done nothing wrong.

He went to respond, but something cut him off. A new thought, most likely, as he turned on a light offense. He followed me, mimicking the innocent puppy-like charm I could recall from early on as he ventured. "Then why are you so upset?"

This stopped me in my tracks as I passed the last row before reaching the dark, glossy oak table I was aiming for, and I spun around to correct him. "I am not upset."

He smirked, thinking he had me figured out. "You want me to kiss you again."

"What! No," I scoffed, but his smirk had already weakened my knees as his hands found their way to my hips. "That's presumptuous of you."

"Is it?"

"Ye – yes" My eyes widened as I hit the table. Alec, who had subtly been guiding me backward, lifted me onto it, so we were face to face before I had a chance to react.

My heart was racing, and I was not the only one who noticed. Alec's composure returned, arrogant and powerful, with a wanton desire shading his features. His fingers traveled ever so gently up my sides and back down, just barely reaching the end of my dress. Alec's eyes drank me in, watching me carefully, curiously.

"It pleases me to know I still make you nervous." He chuckled lowly, and I know the bastard in my chest betrayed me for at least a second.

I managed to reply, "nuh-uh."

"I hear otherwise." He delivered the comment as if he didn't know the physiological response of my heart better than I ever could. "With every touch," he muttered in a husky tone. Then, to prove his point, the weight of his hands rested gently on my thighs. My eyes widened as his fingers spread over the black silk tights, the edge of his thumb just barely slipping under the edge of the dress. He lifted his head, making me mimic the move and catching ourselves lost in each other. His gaze austere, yet impassioned, burned into mine as if he were gauging my reaction to the touch so bare it set my veins on fire. My teeth went to capture my bottom lip, and this time, he did not stop me.

His fingers tightened, grasping my thighs and tugging me to the table's edge. A sharp intake of air escaped past my lips, and my fingers gripped the stiff fabric of his formal shirt, leaving me in a state of shock before I looked up at him.

Yet again, my face was so utterly close to his, and it was impossible to miss the smirk inspired by his success. I had to close my eyes, the intensity too heavy to bear. In an attempt to soothe me, his nose gently brushed the bridge of mine, and his lips graced along my cheekbone to reach my ear.

"I yearn for your blood as naturally as your heart beats. But my mind is consumed with thoughts of you." His hand slid down to my knee, and I tensed in preparation, but he breathed out a laugh. "I have been reckless to give into them, but my only regret is endangering you to do so."

His breath scathed over my lips, and I knew if I made a single move towards him, all bets were off. We were on the verge of the breaking point he'd been desperate to control. He believed distance might help, but we were currently proving how senseless that could be. The brush of my chest against his was enough to prove this. We were the spark of a match, desperate to burn the one that fulfilled its carving for oxygen, the same oxygen I seemed to lack as I realized his hand had not left my thigh. In fact, it had moved slightly higher over the paper-thin fabric but rested with a timid innocence, a naivety its owner hid so well. I took a deep breath.

My eyes fluttered open as he moved back. Laughter danced in the corner of his eyes, his lips tugging up as he murmured, "to confirm, you do not wish to kiss me."

I wet my lips, realizing I had been staring at his. "That's correct," my voice was anything but sturdy. He smirked as he moved a safe distance away, removing his touch from my body, but his eyes dropped as I drew my bottom lip between my teeth.

A familiar touch pressed against my mouth, gently freeing my captured lip and tracing his thumb's flawless pad across it. His Adam's apple bobbed as he swallowed, lingering on my parted lips. In a husky tone, Alec taunted, "so long as we're clear, my friend."

And then he was gone. I huffed, raking my hand through my hair haphazardly in a moment to catch my breath. After I somewhat gracefully landed back on the floor, I was stopped in my tracks. Alec had skirted ahead only to pull the chair out at the table I usually selected and was waiting smugly. I begrudgingly accepted the gesture and held back any 'just friends' comebacks that came to my head. I had a feeling it would only come back to bite me.

Instead of finding his own reading material, Alec chose the seat beside me, sans any personal activity to occupy him. He rested his head on his hand, leaning on the table with his eyes directed at me. He hadn't made any attempt to leave a reasonable distance between our chairs either. I tugged my lip because staring at me until I called him out was one of his favourite games, but I was much too flustered to say it outright. My breathing hadn't settled, and when I tried to subtly feel my pulse, it didn't take long to confirm that my heart was still speeding.

It'd only been a few moments, but he just wouldn't stop staring.

"Aren't you supposed to be in a training session with the others?"

Alec chuckled, "I rather spend the time with my friend."

"Okay," I left my book alone and turned towards him. "What would you prefer I have said?" He paused before his expression grew increasingly frustrated, and I assumed he hadn't thought that part through yet. Before I could continue with my own smug response, he retorted.

"You might have at least provided an adjective?" He complained thickly, and if I didn't know any better, I'd say he was a bit more sensitive than he was letting on. "Best of friends or the like?"

I stopped, fixing him with a deadpan stare. "Jane is my best friend."

Alec gaped at me. "What?"

Why was he confused? I repeated clearly, "Jane is my best friend."

"You can have more than one best friend."

I shook my head. "I don't think that's how it works."

The lines on his forehead deepened as he scowled, "and so I am relegated to the same status as the two dalcops you keep as company?" I refrained from asking for a definition, but I assumed the word to be another one of his variations for dimwitted, which he tended to use for Felix more than Demetri.

"First of all, they're your friends, too, whether you claim them or not." He wrinkled his nose in distaste with the ostentation of a spoiled, posh schoolboy but didn't deny it.

He had a plummy tone as he relented, "I suppose they do have their uses." What a nice compliment.

Now that I'd given him some attention, Alec's gaze had at least dropped to my book, or rather the tapping pattern I'd been making with my fingers. Then, he sat straight, unable to hide the grin on his face as he eyed me up and down. "This is what friends do, is it not?" He then said the most unnatural words I'd ever imagined could be in his vocabulary, "contemplate life, gossip," he paused, making air quotes for his following words, which were so unnatural for him they made me cringe "'and hang out'?"

Where do I start? "Will you just stop saying that?"

"Saying what?"

I scoffed, turning the page of the book I now cared very little about.

"All of it, actually."

He merely hummed in delight, but I kept my focus on the novel in front of me. I traced each word, folding over the corners when there was something I wanted to return to. Each time I did, Alec made a small sound to express his disapproval in my choice of reading material.

Which is how I knew he had gone back to staring, as if I couldn't already feel his eyes boring into me.

"What do you want?"

A jury would have believed his innocence based on his reaction alone, which was obviously fabricated to mess with me. "I'm sure I don't know what you mean."

"Staring at me has got to be the least entertaining thing in the world. You have to stop."

He laughed – actually laughed, as if what I'd said was absurd. "I have been waiting to admire you for centuries, Tesoro [Darling]."

"Cool," I said flatly. "You'll have several more to do so, so cut it out."

It occurred to me that I might have won when there was no witty response, but a modulated voice indicated that I had been mistaken.

"Do you mean that?"

Guilt clenched my heart, tearing through it like the claws of a rabid wolf. There was no guarantee I would live, but with nearly every outside element working against it, we had to at least acknowledge the statistical reality that I would not make it through the year.

But, on the small chance that I did…I nodded. "Yes."

He made no move to touch me, only leaned back in his chair with the most genuine of smiles, a slight tilt of his lips, graceful as they parted to say,

"Good."