"Are you sure that I can't go with you?" he asked.
"I really don't think that's best," I said. "I really do need to do this on my own. I think you understand."
He nodded. "I know, you're right."
Kayla stood up. "Hey guys, I think I left something upstairs. Let's go get it."
"Get it yourself," Eric told her.
Kayla cleared her throat. "Let's give these two a little space."
"Oh," Eric said, and stood up.
"Have a good trip," Brad said, and the three of them disappeared up the stairs.
I smiled at Tanner. "See? They're good people…vampires. You'll be in good hands while I'm gone."
"I know," he said. "I just wish that you didn't have to go."
"The sooner that I can get this taken care of, the sooner that we can get back home to our families and blend in, trying to live our lives as normally as possible. We obviously can't do that if the sun can kill us."
He smiled. "That would raise a bit of suspicion."
"I'll be back for you as soon as I can," I promised him.
We stood up and he wrapped his arms around me. "I'll miss you every second that you're gone."
"Me too," I told him, blinking back some tears.
He gave me a kiss and I was afraid that I would never leave. I gave him a quick squeeze and disappeared through the wall.
I looked through the window where he was standing for a moment before I started running. I began to run, with my mind on my goal. I wouldn't allow myself to think about anything else.
I didn't care about where I ran, because I was going so fast that no human eyes would be able to see me. I ran right past people, down streets, through some crowded areas.
Finally, I reached my neighborhood. I hid in a dark corner and looked at my house. I couldn't detect any movement, so I ran to the house and went through a wall in the back and went into the laundry room. I tiptoed upstairs to the room that Clara was staying in. It was empty.
I groaned quietly. Where could she be? I checked in on my parents and sister and gave them all a quick kiss before going to my room to change my clothes. I hid the clothes that I had taken off so that my room would look undisturbed.
I wanted nothing more than to climb into my bed and pretend that everything was like it used to be. But I knew that nothing would ever go back to the way it had been. I took a deep breath, stood tall, and ran toward my wall, and jumped through it, landing down on the ground below gracefully and quietly.
I ran toward Brooke's house and was there in just a couple of minutes. Clara's car was there, but I didn't see anyone else's cars except for Cliff's. His car was still in the same spot that it had been since he had disappeared, I noticed with disappointment.
Since I didn't feel like knocking, I walked to the side of the house and went through a wall. I heard two distinct voices upstairs. I walked soundlessly up to Brooke's room, where I saw Clara and Cliff alone.
I stood in the doorway with my mouth open in complete shock. Cliff was back? What was going on?
They hadn't even noticed me. Cliff was sitting in a chair and Clara was sitting on Brooke's bed. Both of them had their backs to me.
"We don't know anything other than what was in that email that she sent to Brooke," Clara said. "We're pretty sure that it was her that sent it, but we don't really know of course, since it was from a fake email address."
"I can't believe you all managed to completely lose her," Cliff said angrily and hit the desk. "No trace at all? How could this happen?!"
"Maybe you shouldn't have taken off for so long, Clifford. What did you think would happen?" Clara demanded.
"Don't talk to me like that."
"I'm a royal too, don't forget. Just because my father stepped down doesn't take that away. I will not treat you like a superior. You're what, twenty-something? I'm more than two hundred years older than you."
"I will be your king," he growled.
"You'll get my respect then and only then, Cliff. For now the only thing I care about is finding my cousin, who wouldn't even be missing if you had stuck around. Your father told you to stay loyal to Mar…Alexis during this time. What did you do? You took off and left her on her own. For an insane amount of time at that."
He was silent and then said, "You're right, I shouldn't have taken off for that long. I was furious when I heard what she did. I had waited my whole life for her, never letting even one thought stray from her. I needed to get some space before I did something that I would regret. I was very close to losing it, doing something stupid to lose her forever."
"That was a lot more than some space you gave her. You didn't even tell your parents where you went. We had no way of contacting when something went wrong."
"Look, it was nothing compared to the time that I spent waiting for her."
"You're comparing that to this. Seriously, Cliff? She was taken from you and didn't even know anything about that part of her life. You took off knowing exactly what you were doing. You leaving like that for so long is no less of a betrayal than what she did. Her actions involved another person, that's the only difference."
"I should have been able to trust you guys to keep her safe while I was gone. You couldn't even do that. You were even living right under the same roof as her, Clara." He punched his fist into his palm.
Clara glared at him. "She wasn't even at home when she was taken, and you know that. She was in a park with that human. The one who you practically threw into her arms this time around."
He slammed his fist on the desk and it went through. He stood up. "I most certainly did not throw him into her arms."
"You could have fooled me."
"Did you even try to protect her?"
"Don't give me that. She got away from her captors. She's smart and powerful enough to do that. Nobody gives her enough credit around here."
"They shouldn't even have been able to capture her." Cliff yelled. "That shouldn't have even happened in the first place."
"Look, Cliff. Everything was a disaster when I got here. I've been trying to clean up everyone's messes since I arrived."
I cleared my throat. "What are you doing back, Cliff?" I asked.
They both whipped around to look at me. Cliff was suddenly next to me and had me wrapped in his arms. I hugged him back and looked into his eyes. I immediately felt at ease, and my heart started fluttering as I got lost in his eyes. I didn't know how we would ever rule anything if I always felt this way when looking into his eyes.
"Alexis, I'm so sorry for abandoning you when you needed me," he said with tender eyes.
"I'm sorry for betraying you," I said. "I'll never forgive myself."
"Don't say that," he said, brushing a strand of my hair behind my ear. "This will only serve to make us stronger together."
I smiled and he leaned in close and gently placing his lips upon mine. My heart sped up and my mind raced. I felt like I was floating on a cloud.
He pulled back and said, "I was going to save our first kiss for our wedding, but you arriving safely after a second kidnapping warrants it." He closed his eyes and gave me one more kiss. After only a moment, he interrupted my bliss. "Now we need to hear every detail about what happened to you and who took you. How did you get back here?"
"It sure wasn't easy," I said feeling dizzy. "Especially because I had my sun blessing stripped from me. That really complicated things."
"They took your sun blessing?" Cliff asked, eyes blazing. "I am going to make them pay."
"They're already dead," I told him. "Adam and his followers are taken care of. What I need right now is a new sun blessing."
"You killed them?" Clara asked with wide eyes. I had forgotten that she was in the room with us.
"I didn't kill them all by myself. I had some help."
"Who helped you?" Cliff asked.
"Another vampire. It's not important now. I need you guys to take me to someone who can fix this curse."
"How was the blessing taken from you
?" Clara asked. "The way it was taken will affect the way it can be restored."
I sighed. "A witch set up a circle of candles and removed the blessing that I received at birth."
"Do you know what kind of witch?" Clara asked.
"What kind of witch?" I asked. "I didn't know that there were different kinds. Otherwise, I would have stopped everything and asked her."
She was clearly trying to suppress a smile. "Do you know if she only removed your spell, or if she also gave you a curse too?"
"I might know…if I spoke the ancient language she was using."
"She was using an ancient language?" Cliff exclaimed. "We're going to have to find a witch that's at least as powerful as she is to reverse this for us. It won't be as simple as having one of our vampires giving you back your blessing. There's most likely a curse to remove first."
"We need to take care of this quickly," Clara said. "There isn't a lot of time left before sunrise. If we don't go now you'll be stuck in here all day."
"I assume that you know a witch in the area," Cliff told her.
"Of course," she said. She whipped out her cell phone and started dialing.
I laughed.
"What's so funny?" Cliff asked.
"It just cracks me up that she can just use her cell to call a witch," I told him.
"How else would she call the witch?"
I shook my head. "I don't picture witches with cell phones. I see them living in the middle of the woods, brewing things in their cauldrons."
"I keep forgetting that you were raised with all the human myths," Cliff said, sighing.
"How could you forget?" I asked him. "Didn't you spend all those years waiting for me to return from the humans?"
He gave me a look that I couldn't read. "Of course I know that you were raised by humans. I just forget that you don't know all of the truths about the world."
"I wish I did. It would make a lot of things much easier than figuring all of this out on my own. I'm going downstairs to get some food to eat," I said, and went to the kitchen.
As I was finishing up some warmed up casserole, they came downstairs.
"I got a hold of Gessilyn and she's still in the area," Clara told me. "She can meet with us before sunrise and we'll see if we can get this fixed."
"Is there a doubt?" I asked.
"Just a small one. Gessilyn is very powerful, but if the witch that did this to you is more powerful than she is, it may be a problem."
I sighed. "Wonderful."
"Let's go," Clara said. "We're going to run because it's much faster than taking a car, so you're going to have to follow me closely. I'm not going to slow down."
"You won't have to wait on me," I said.
We ran through a part of town that I was unfamiliar with and would have been very scared of without my vampire abilities. We passed through a few other towns and into some woods that I had never seen before either. I was quite surprised when we stopped at an apartment building.
Clara buzzed apartment 563 and simply said her name, and the gate buzzed, unlocking itself to let us in. As we walked to the elevator and passed a family with a couple of kids, I couldn't help but wonder how many "mythical" creatures lived around us humans that we were completely unaware of.
When we got off the elevator on level five, we walked down a long hallway and stopped at a very normal looking apartment door. Clara knocked.
The door opened and a very cheerful lady with blonde hair and a yoga outfit welcomed us inside. I kept myself from asking if we were making a pit stop first. She gave us all cups of tea and had us sit on a soft leather couch. I wished that Tanner was there to see this because I knew he would find it as humorous as I did. Cliff and Clara acted as if it was the most natural thing on earth.
The yoga witch leaned back and turned her attention to me. "I'm Gessilyn and you are the long lost princess. Astonishing. I'm so glad that you're alive. That is such good news."
"Uh…thanks," I said. I wasn't sure how to respond to that, and I was still really taken aback by this witch. I wasn't expecting her to be flying around on a broom with a pointy hat, but I wasn't expecting a perky fitness instructor, either.
She took a sip of her tea and asked, "Can you tell me in detail everything that you can remember about the witch who removed your blessing and about the ceremony, dear?"
I told her everything that I could remember, leaving out the part about getting into the circle willingly because they had threatened Tanner's life. Gessilyn nodded every so often and had a very serious look on her face as she listened to me tell the story.
"I think I know the faction that she comes from. They are a lower class than my group, so I should be able to remove the curse that she placed on you easily. Can you humor me and tell me about the vampires that she was with?"
I told her about Adam and everything I could think of about the others.
"Were there any others?" she asked.
"Oh. I forgot about Samantha. She was there when I was abducted, but I didn't see her again until after I escaped."
"Samantha?" Clara exclaimed, jumping up and nearly spilling her tea. "Samantha was there?"
"Do you know Samantha?" I asked.
"Dirty blonde seductress with a star tattoo on her neck?" Clara asked in disgust.
"I didn't notice a tattoo, but she has dirty blonde hair and was acting very seductive and very full of herself."
"Samantha is back in town. How dare she?" Clara's face was red and she looked like she was going break something. "Tell me everything you know about that wench."
"Did she steal your boyfriend or something?" I asked.
"No. She's my sister. Your cousin."
"What? No way. How is that possible? She said that she was turned 20 years ago."
"She's a liar and out for power. She can't stand the fact that our line is not on the throne. Because our dad is the oldest brother, she feels that it's her rightful place to be next in line. She's power hungry and has always wanted to find a way to sit on the throne. In fact, she was so jealous that you were born with the Sonnast mark that she went out and got that tattoo. She's pathetic."
"So that's why she was working with Adam and trying so hard to get to me," I said.
"What do you mean?" Clara asked.
"She's the one who got to Tanner. She told him a whole story about how she just happened to notice that I was transforming into a vampire. She got him addicted to vampire venom and then disappeared. He came after me so that I could use him as a human volunteer. Samantha had also given him a ring that she said kept him from being mind controlled by vampires, but it was actually a ring with a spell to make a transforming vampire fall in love with him."
Cliff's eyes looked like they would shoot out fire. "I'm going to finish her off myself."
"I already got her with a stake," I told him.
"What kind of wood did you use?" Clara asked.
I thought about what kind of tree I had gotten the branch from that day. "Pine, I think. Why?"
"She's not dead," Cliff and Clara said in unison.
"I was there. I staked her and she…."
"Since she is from the bloodline of the Fyrsturae, she must be staked with wood made of the Icelandic Populus Tremola tree. It's one of the rarest in the world," Clara said. "Even if she appeared dead to you, she was not."
The blood drained from my face and my stomach dropped to my feet as I thought about Tanner out there without the right kind of stake, not even knowing that she could be after him. Again.
"Where do we get that wood?" I asked.
"I'll take care of that," Cliff growled, his fists clenched. "I will take much pleasure in eradicating her. What she has done to you, to us, is unforgivable." He stood up and began walking to the door. "I will avenge you."
"Right now?" I squeaked.
"Yes. You and Clara can find me once you are able to go into the sun again. I will not wait."
"But she's working with the Moretti's. She may be waiting for y
ou, knowing that you would come after her."
"Then she won't be disappointed."
"Won't you wait just a little bit?" I asked. "I can't imagine that this will take too long. We haven't even had a chance to talk." I pouted.
"I've waited long enough to deal with this," he said.
"That's for sure," I muttered, and then suddenly felt bad. "Sorry, that slipped out."
"I had it coming," Cliff said, and left the apartment.
"I'll be right back," Clara said. "I need to talk to Cliff real quick."
When she was gone, I turned to Gessilyn. "Can I ask you a favor?"
"What, darling?"
I sighed. "I have some friends who would like to be able to go into the sun as well. I have a piece of jewelry from each of them. Would you be able to bless the jewelry so that they can go into the sun while wearing it?"
"Let me see the jewelry," she said, holding out her hand.
I handed the pieces to her and she examined them.
"This one," she said holding Tanner's ring, "appears to have some kind of spell already on it."
"That's the one that made me fall in love with the human," I mumbled.
She apparently heard me just fine. "Why does a human need a blessing to go into the sun?"
"He sort of isn't human anymore," I said, looking at my hands.
"Uh oh," she said. "Do Cliff and Clara know this?"
"Not yet," I said, sinking into the couch as far as I could go.
"What about these other three?" she asked.
"They belong to some vampires who helped me."
"I see," she said, and stood up. "Give me a few minutes. It may take a little extra time to remove the spell on the first ring. The others should be no trouble." She left the room.
I sighed and sipped my tea.
TWENTY SEVEN
I was sitting in the middle of a circle of candles again. It seemed all too familiar, except that this time I was there because I wanted to be. Gessilyn was speaking in a foreign language; she had explained to me that she would need to use it to lift the curse before giving me the sun blessing.
Clara sat on the outside of the circle across from Gessilyn, who still looked like a yoga instructor. I had to close my eyes in order to concentrate because it all seemed too strange to me. I listened to the relaxing instrumental music that she had playing in the background.
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