Chapter 8

“…that’s just ‘because you won’t stop bugging me!” I heard someone shout. Well. That was a nice way to wake up after fainting on the floor. At least I was lying down on a soft bed with a soft pillow under my head. It was a relief to know that I was not left alone on the carpeted floor.

“I’m sorry, was I the one who endangered someone’s mate? No, I wasn’t!” I heard Dylan shout back with tons of sarcasm. It sounded as if he was arguing with Jez.

“She’s not even your mate yet!” she bit back. “Did you ever drink from her? If she was one of my nymphs, I wouldn’t have allowed it,”

“You and your virginity,” he said, his tone acidic and cruel. I heard someone hiss.

“Hey, that’s going a little too far, bro,” I heard Ryan say. I didn’t want to open my eyes, even if I knew that it was just proper to. I wanted to listen, for now. They were arguing about me, and I…just wanted to hear what they thought of me, that’s all. “My sister likes her virginity, thanks very much. I did some things that I regretted just to keep it that way,”

“Ugh, don’t remind me about Orion,” she groaned. I could imagine her put her fingers to her temples or something. “Seriously. I don’t like remembering him,”

“Sorry, sis,” Ryan apologised.

“Dude, stop straying away from the subject. This argument is not about Jez…again---,”

“And what do you mean by that? You’re the one that brought her into our lives in the first place, so she’s you’re responsibility!”

“It’s kinda hard since everywhere I look, you seem to be there with a machete ready!”

“I do not own a machete,”

“It was a figure of speech. Whatever. Back to the topic,”

“I still stand by the fact that you should start getting away from her since we’re going to leave anyway!”

“Yeah, so?! I can stay here if I want to! It’s not like you can boss me around since you’re our big sis or anything. Ever since Athena died, you’ve---,”

“Don’t ever bring her up,” Ryan and Jez said simultaneously. I guess the others were used to this weird twin thing. They continued with their simultaneous talking thing. “She didn’t just die, she was murdered. We both tried to stop it, but I’m sorry if we were late for about, oh, a few seconds,”

“I’m sorry,” Dylan apologised silently. “But that doesn’t change the fact that your carelessness almost killed Leah!”

“She was there, she didn’t move. It was her fault, too, so don’t start beating yourself and other people up just because she was too damn scared!”

This was the truth, and we all knew it. I didn’t want to accept it, but I knew that it was real. I had been scared then, and I knew that I was still as scared now, just as before.

“You guys should totally stop talking about her---,” Bella started to say, her voice getting nearer and nearer. She was cut off with a hiss. I heard her scoff beside me, and Dylan and Jez continued on to argue. Honestly. She whispered in my ear: “I know you’re awake. Don’t try to act like you’re not,”

My eyes shot open, but only Bella saw me.

“Is it always like this?” I asked, slowly getting up. None of the others noticed. Bella nodded.

“It’s been like this since we came here, hun,” she said, putting a hand to my forehead. “Are you okay? It feels like you have a fever. You should go home,”

“I want to stay here,” I said defiantly. “If that’s okay,”

“It’s more than okay,” she said with a warm smile. I grew familiar to her warm smiles recently. “You can stay here as long as you want. Would it be wrong to ask why?”

“No, it’s okay to ask,” I said. “I just think that it would be awesome to stay here since I have nothing to do. Besides, next week is sem break. Two weeks without school is kinda boring in my house,”

“Oh,” she said as she helped me up. “How about your clothes?”

“I’ll just ask my butler to bring them over,” I answered.

Whoa.

Did I just invite myself into their house?

Kewl.

“You guys just SHUT THE HELL UP!!” Bella shouted over my head. It rang in my ears. It shocked me, since I’ve always thought of her as a kind and mature person ever since I saw her in my party. “God. You know that I hate it when you guys get so annoying and you keep on fighting. What’s the big deal?! She’s here, she’s alive, she’s awake, and she wants to stay with us during the rest of the sem break. Are you all happy now?!”

Dylan grinned widely and hugged me. I laughed, but my throat felt hoarse. I hugged him back.

“You’re a crazy, crazy person,” he murmured in my ear before kissing my cheek. Heat rushed to the spot where he kissed, at it spread throughout my face. “But I love you for what you are, and I won’t ever let you go,”

“Aw,” I said out loud. “I won’t let you go, either,”

“That’s a great thing to hear,” he said as he hugged me tighter. “You can stay in my room,”

. . .

! ! !

Oh. My. God. Stay for two weeks inside my boyfriend’s room? Well, okay, maybe I liked to do it…but what would it do to my image? Who knew if----

“Don’t worry. I won’t rape you,”

I laughed at this, and the others laughed with me. Jez, however, scoffed and walked out. She slammed the door behind her. Sometimes she can be so bitchy.

“Just don’t…notice her. She’s like that when you’re around.”

“Would it be better if I left?”

“No!” Dylan and Bella exclaimed simultaneously.

“Don’t let Jez be the reason for you to leave,” Dylan explained as Ryan ushered Bella out of the room to give us some private time. “Luv, don’t let her scare you or anything like that. She really cares for you, no matter what she says,”

“I highly doubt that,” I said as he let me lie down. He kissed my cheek, and this somehow made me sleepy.

“Rest your troubled mind, my beloved,” he murmured in my ear. “I’ll be here until you wake up,”

I trusted him and his word. I slept dreamlessly again, and this time, I didn’t wonder why.

*******************************

I woke up in a white room.

For a while, I was confused. I didn’t have a pure white room, and I surely didn’t have white sheets. I didn’t have an unbelievably soft feather pillow. Moreover, I usually didn’t wake up with a heavy thing on my abdomen and a snoring head on my back. I groaned and turned over, only to have Dylan’s head fall dangerously close to my face. Without thinking, my hand shot up to catch it, and found his nose touching mine ever-so-slightly.

I laughed as he snored again. His arm was slung over my abdomen, constricting my breathing a little. Okay, so he was topless and he was sleeping beside me. That was kind-of weird. I tried to lift his arm, but he groaned and murmured something incomprehensible before letting his head fall forward again. This time, it fell on my shoulder. I seriously didn’t know what to do.

What can I say, he smelled great. He looked great. He looked like a sleeping angel next to me. He looked so damn cute!!!

I didn’t know if it was my heart or my hormones (or both working against me), but I kissed him. He didn’t kiss back, but he stirred. His eyes shot open and he began kissing back. I didn’t know what was happening: I was high.

“God, you two can’t get enough of each other,” someone scoffed. We broke off, and I blushed as I saw it was Jez. As usual, she was scowling widely at me. “Seriously. I think Leah’s gunna lose her virginity soon at this rate. Dylan can’t get enough of you, for some reason,”

“You are such a bitch, Jez,” Dylan snapped as he got out of bed. “You’re so gunna pay for this,”

He started chasing her. I heard her laugh wildly all the way from downstairs.

Then, a crash that sounded as if a whole bomb just went off. Everything was silent for a while, and I swear that I could hear my own heart beating in my ears. It was like there was an eerie silence that covered everything and then…

Laughter. Loud, mirthful laughter that would make anyone happy as well. I sighed, then tried to fish for my phone in my pocket. Thankfully, it was still there. I texted my butler (yes, he has a phone, and he is rich enough to afford a BlackBerry) about my situation and that he needed to bring stuff here. I knew he’d be cool with it.

The door blasted open to reveal Dylan in his perfect, shirtless form. No one could ever look so hot. He was sweaty and his face was cute and red. Those beads of sweat were trailing down his perfectly-sculpted chest. He ran his hands through his thick blonde hair, and he shook it to make it dry from too much perspiration. The whole room was sweltering hot with his presence. It was like he was this world-class model. He even had that thing that models have on their waists that indicate that they are models. Well, I’ve never seen Dylan in a fashion magazine, so that must mean that he works out. A lot.

“Sorry about that,” he said as he climbed into bed next to me. “I hope that you weren’t offended by her. She just likes disrupting other people’s happy times,”

“So kissing me is your happy time?” I asked, pretending to feel undermined and raising an eyebrow at him. I didn’t feel like that, though; in the contrary, I was so flattered about it.

“Nah,” he said as he hugged me tight to his chest. “This is one of my happy times. Just knowing you’re here next to me, or when you smile or you talk or you hug me back and kiss me…I’m happy. Don’t you understand how much I love you?”

“I do, but…” I started to say, but I was distracted by his hopeful blue eyes, waiting for the next word that would pour out of my lips. “But…I…what about…you know…you’re a vampire and I’m…I’m a…”

“You’re a Dark Drinker, yes,” he said with that sure certainty in his tone that he only uses when he talks about serious stuff. “I’m a Royal vampire. I know what you’re thinking: we shouldn’t be together. But we are. I won’t let our races separate us, Leah. You’re everything to me now.”

“They’ll find out,” I said, fear overtaking everything else. “My dad…he’ll find out about this. Your dad isn’t the one who’d literally burn you like a witch if he finds out,”

“They won’t,” he said, pulling away for a while to look me in the eyes. I couldn’t bear to look into his anymore. I was just so scared. I got out of bed, despite the fact that I still felt a little woozy. I couldn’t think straight with him beside me. Everything about him made me messed up. “Where are you going, hun?”

“I…need to get some air,” I said, ready to get away. I could go anywhere except beside him. Right now, I needed to think. He didn’t even protest as I shut the door behind me. Music was booming downstairs, and I could hear people talking. I didn’t want to intrude, so I went directly downstairs, going out via backdoor, which led to their backyard (where else?). It looked just like before, with the fountain and all that.

“It looks like you finally managed to get away from him,” I heard a female voice say. I recognised the voice well. I didn’t bother to stop as I heard her catch up with me. I walked to the fountain in my usual pace.

“Yeah,” I replied, kinda pissed off at her for a reason I barely know. “So?”

“Well…I just wanna thank you,” she said, saying the last two words hurriedly. “For saving my life and all, even if I didn’t want to drink your blood.”

“Oh,” I said, taking note of how oddly she said these words. It was either because I wasn’t used to this side of her, or that she really was uncomfortable when she says ‘thank you’ or ‘sorry’. I looked at her and saw that she was wearing a black Paramore shirt and green-and-black chequered shorts. She couldn’t look anymore normal, except for that odd glow on her skin. “You’re welcome then.”

“Don’t hurt him, okay?” she said as she sat beside me and leaned on the foot of the fountain. “He’s a good kid, and I don’t like seeing my brothers getting hurt.”

“Hey…can I ask you about…that dude you were talking about?” I said, still feeling insecure and uncertain around her. She sighed once, and then said:

“I guess there’s no getting out of it. Are you asking about Orion?”

I nodded. The name sounded so familiar…

“I’ve always tried to avoid the topic, but since you’re asking, I’ll have to answer. I couldn’t avoid the topic for long anyway, so I might as well get to it. He’s my sweet, dead lover, you know. He’s so sweet, always in the sky, watching over me.”

That was when it clicked: his name was the famous constellation that I learned about during primary school. But what was the connection…?

“He’s….well, you won’t get it since you probably haven’t studied much about Greek mythology, but I’ll save you the trouble of researching about my past life and I’ll tell you about it.

“I was a great hunter and, together with my brother, we hunted many animals. Once, when Apollo was out to court more human girls, I met Orion. Since then, we had been great friends. I’m just going to say this once: I was falling in love with him little by little. Soon, we couldn’t imagine a world without each other. Apollo got jealous that I was pre-occupied by another man and infuriated, since I wanted to give up…you know, being the goddess of virginity. He didn’t like it.

“So, he made a big freakin’ scorpion chase Orion into the sea. He hated scorpions, but he was a great hunter. When he was swimming away, Apollo made me kill him by telling me that he was a criminal and that, if I was such a great hunter, I could hit him from that distance. I didn’t know it was him, and my senses were so fogged about my thoughts about Orion that I didn’t know what my brother was thinking. Then, I killed him. Just like that. He was dead.”

“Apollo…he’s Ryan, right?” I asked, feeling stupid after I said these words. Instead of pointing out my stupidity as she usually did, Jez just nodded. “He’s harsh,”

“You said it,” she said with a slight laugh. Then, she frowned as she hugged her knees lose to her chest. She let her hair down like a curtain to cover her face, and then lowered it, so I couldn’t see her reaction at all. “Ugh. I was so stupid!”

“That wasn’t stupid,” I pointed out. “Just a little too irrational. It’s a good thing you didn’t kill Apollo after what he did,”

“Nah,” she said. “Couldn’t do it. I just cared for him too much.”

“Oh,”

“Still…you’re right. I was irrational. I wasn’t thinking about anything except my pride. I wanted to show off to Apollo and shove it in his face that I’m a better hunter, but I guess that I never needed to prove myself. I was too full of pride…and you know what? I think that’s the main reason why I hate human emotions so much.”

“But you love Luke,”

“Exactly. I love Paul, too. That’s why I hate them both…and still love them,”

“You’re messed up,” I said with a slight laugh, trying to lighten up her mood.

“I know,”

“That’s nothing compared to how Jayce was killed, though.”

I wanted to slam my head on the ground. Why did I have to blab on?! Now…I’m guessing that there’s no way out of this one, either. I’d have to tell someone sooner or later anyway, so…

“Jayce? Who’s he?”

I told her. It was like I was in another world while I relived our memories---him and I---and it hurt. Still, even if the hurt was still there, I found that I liked remembering it. I knew that each memory came with a lesson learned, and he taught me the most valuable lesson of all: loving someone was worth the risk, no matter what the risk was.

After I finished, that was when I was slammed with the realisation that this was the lesson that needed to be applied. I loved Dylan and he loved me, so I would risk whatever to be with him, just like Jayce did.

Thank you, Jayce.

He was right: it’ll all be alright.

“Excuse me, Jez, but I’ll go back to Dylan now,” I said as I slowly got up. I saw him there, leaning on the backdoor, smiling at me with a shirt on (much to my dismay, I realised). Deep inside, I knew that he would always be like that: waiting for me. I didn’t bother to wait for her reply as I made my way towards him.

My walk was hurried, and it soon turned into a jog…then into a run. I was running to him, and I slammed onto his body. His arms enveloped me, and I relished in his presence.

“I won’t ever let them hurt you,” he whispered into my ear as we stayed like that.

I just murmured an agreement as I buried my face in his chest.

I wanted to stay like this forever.