Evie slumped into the lounge, folding her arms as she pouted. I watched her with the attitude, her eyes looking to the side, almost ready for one elaborate eye roll.

'How long?'

'A couple of months.'

'And your intentions?'

'Jeez I don't know. It's just a whatever thing at the moment.'

'Do you think that you might be old enough now to lay off the attitude?'

She rolls her eyes at me, turning her head to the other side of the room. I sit on the lounge near her and watch as she struggles to maintain composure.

'Evangeline, what's wrong?'

'Nothing.' she whispered but I pressed on, seeing the tears welling in her eyes.

'Evie.'

Before I knew it she was in my arms, head on my chest sobbing. Through the tears and the sobs, I managed to hear that Stephanie had not contacted her in quite some time. I pulled her off me to look at her blotchy face, her eyes red and puffy.

'How could you know that Alex has been cheating on her if you've not been in contact with her?'

'I tapped into Miranda's mind.'

'Oh.' I whispered as I pulled her in to hug her.

That in itself was a remarkable feat. To tap into the mind of a phoenix was truly a remarkable talent. There were only a few dark beings that could do it and none of them were young like Evie.

'I guess she has been really busy, being a personal assistant is quite a task.'

Evie pulls from the hug and scoffs as she wipes the tears from her cheeks.

'Too busy screwing Alex to remember the person who has protected her for her entire life.'

'She doesn't know that, remember?'

She shrugged as I pulled her long beautiful black hair behind her ears and wiped the tears from under her eyes.

'You can come with us, but I want you to be on your best behaviour, no more attitude and be vigilant, it is very obvious that Gavril will stop at nothing to get to the throne. I don't want to lose you.'

She wraps her thin arms around my neck and hugs me hard.

'Thanks mum.'

The door opened and Ethan walked in, the look on his face was one of shock, his daughter willingly showing affection, this was something he had not seen in years. I smiled at him as he closed the door and wandered over slowly. Evie got up and sauntered out of the room, in a very good mood. Ethan was still shocked.

'What on earth was that about?'

'Stephanie hasn't been in contact with her in quiet some time. I told her she could go to Rostonin if she changed her attitude.'

'Is that wise?'

'She is becoming very powerful, I think Preston and Stella have had quiet an influence on her.'

'Yes.' he frowns. 'And bringing their son for their visits.'

I giggle at him as I pat the lounge beside me.

'Don't worry about it, she is an intelligent person, both of them are. They will be fine.'

Instead of sitting on the lounge beside me, he picks me up and throws me over his shoulder.

'Ethan!' I giggle as he wanders into the bedroom.

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

I lay on his chest as his fingers gently caress my naked back. The clock ticks, the passing seconds, the minutes it washes into a blur of pure bliss. A moment of relaxation before our new task. Mary and Dale were safe within the walls of this castle, I didn't have to worry about them for the first time in eighteen years.

'She's almost eighteen.' he murmurs.

'I know, where has the time gone?'

'Do you think it might be time for another one? You know once Steph is married and queen.'

I move up to the pillow lying beside him.

'Only if the conception doesn't happen in the hallway.'

He laughs.

'Yeah sure, what about the stairs?'

I squint my eyes at him as he pulls the sheet over us.

'How about the bed this time Ethan?'

'Nah, where's the fun in that?'

'Aww gross you two. Jeez get a room.' she groans.

Ethan flicks the sheet back.

'Uh this is our room, intruder.'

Evie rolls her eyes with her arms folded making a scoffing noise.

'Can we be of assistance to you?'

'Not me, I'm just the messenger. Apparently there's some king dude here. Terrance says you need to be in the main lounge to discuss the next movements.'

She flicks her hair away from her shoulder muttering something about how gross it was catching her parents in the sack and wanders out of the room.

'Impeccable timing.' Ethan mutters as she shuts the main door.

'Could have been worse. We could have been in the middle of it.'

He groans as he gets up from the bed.

'Or we could have been right at the end.'

He stops and thinks about it, standing by the bed.

'Yeah, you're right.'

Ten minutes later we were dressed and making our way to the lounge for yet another meeting. The some king dude that our daughter informed us had arrived was Alex's father. The plan was that we would all get on the plane and fly there as a group. His wife who was a shifter would be posing as a bird, the idea would be that the bird would be a wedding gift for the yet to be found girl. They were hoping that if they pretended they didn't know Stephanie was the girl, it would buy them some time. The queen would watch over Steph during the night, the bird would be placed in her bedroom. Miranda and Terrance would go in early to organise the priest. There were certain things that had to happen, it had to be a proper wedding, it had to be in a church in Rostonin. This was the difficult part, we couldn't just take them to any old priest or church, not even a registry. Our duty was to protect Mary and Dale until we got to the church, then once she was married, Terrance will openly declare her as the queen. Apparently the king now knew that Steph was the missing princess, there were lots of little clues that gave it away.

'Can I ask something?'

Everyone stops talking and looks at me.

'Sorry, I missed out on a lot over the past eighteen years but what happened to Lucian's parents?'

Terrance and Alexandru look at each other.

'We do not know, our hope is that once Alina is queen, they will come out of hiding, if they are alive.'

'But one would assume that if they were, Grigore would have returned to the throne.'

There was a sad silence around the room as we contemplated Steph's grandparents, highly likely to be dead.

'I will go and get Steph from the shifter realm today.' Miranda says quietly.

The meeting finished rather abruptly after that, Miranda, Terrance and Alexandru left and from what I heard in the days that followed there was an incident with Steph. Miranda was in my mind, telling me everything. I think she liked being able to speak to me, I was the sibling that she had craved to have for so long. Everything that happened, good or bad, she told me about.

'So?'

I opened my eyes to see Ethan sitting on the lounge beside me, waiting to hear what had happened. Conrad and Isabelle enter the room, waiting for the news.

'Well, it turns out that there was a werewolf in the shifter realm with Steph when Miranda gave her the little holiday.'

They all look at each other.

'Finn.'

Ethan looks up at the ceiling as his hand wipes down his face.

'Of course Finn was in there. Let me guess, they spent the whole week together?'

'Yep, that would be the one. Anyway, once Miranda went in to get her, she discovered them, Finn was about to go back to his own realm when Steph disappeared. Neither Miranda nor Alex could find her.'

'Alex was there? Did he know about them?'

'Miranda isn't certain; she doesn't want to press the subject.'

The look on Ethan's face was completely unimpressed.

'Anyway, they figured that she had followed Finn into the realm, they contacted the king who got their best tracker to find them, when he found them they tried to jump realms again and they caught them at the entrance to this realm. So now Steph is back at Alexandru's manor house and Finn has been placed under curfew, banned from leaving the realm, had his key taken from him.'

'Jeez.' Ethan groans.

'And we are leaving tomorrow morning. Miranda said you and I need to get Mary and Dale to the private jet hanger by ten am.'

'Do we think that there might be an issue?' Conrad pulls at his jacket, adjusting it back into place.

'Miranda did mention that she had concerns. Gavril hasn't been seen around the palace in recent days.'

'Right then, I think a ruse might be in order, a car will leave before you, maybe even a couple of shifters from the club pretending to be them. You can take Mary and Dale to the airport as you please, I think if we are oblivious to the exact details, then it would be most beneficial.'

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

Conrad's plan went off without a hitch, I don't know if they were followed, we had maintained silence to avoid any issues. Evie sat in the back with Mary and Dale, she turned them and herself invisible and Ethan and I turned into two of the guards, we took one of their vehicles and pretended that it was a normal trip, headed towards town. Evie monitored the surroundings, there was no smell of Gavril on the wind, but that didn't mean anything, we had to remain ever vigilant. We arrived at the hanger before the others, Ethan took Mary and Dale into the plane whilst Evie and I waited at the steps, keeping an eye and a nose on the surroundings. I was glad that I allowed Evie to come with us, she was more help than I could ever imagine. She had taken the form of the other guard, I watched as she sniffed the wind.

'Do you smell that?'

'Yes, what is it?'

'It's familiar.' she frowns.

Out of a little office, the pilot appears.

'Afternoon gentlemen.' he addresses us. 'Have our guests arrived yet?'

'No. Not as yet.'

Mum, that's the vice principal, Mr Grinslow. She looks at me, the deep eyebrows of the form she has taken furrow. I look at the man, it had been a while since I had been at the school, I vaguely remembered him. Are you positive? Yes. Change of job maybe? No, now that I think of it, he was always, always watching Steph and me. Do you think he knew you were dark beings? I think he did. Do you think he knows about Steph? Why else would he be here? Contact Alexandru, I'll see if I can figure out which type he is and tell your father to stay on board.

'Captain...?' I question him, pulling him away from the stairs.

'Smith.' he mutters.

I watch as Evie stands firm, closing her eyes as she makes contact with Alexandru.

'Can our guests expect a good flight today?'

'Yes, weather is good.'

I try to enter his mind as he speaks, easy to get into so he isn't a wolf.

'There might be a bit of turbulence but generally a good day for flying.'

As he mutters on, I inwardly plead that he isn't a witch, please be a shifter or a vamp. It wasn't until he looked up at the sky, his mouth opened slightly that I saw the fang. Thank the stars, he's a vamp.

What I did notice was that when he spoke it was all general knowledge, nothing specifically aeronautical at all.

'I just love flying in a SX ten thousand.' I feign a love at the plane sitting in the hanger. I had no clue what it was called, I just made up some authentic sounding name.

'Yes a great bird to fly.'

'Uh-huh.' Caught!

He languidly wanders in front of me, I change back to my normal form, knowing that I will need the witch to best fight him.

'Of course, I much prefer my broomstick.'

He gasps and turns on his heels facing me. I swirl the freeze spell in my hands, he watches them build, the intensity growing by the second. His eyes flick to the person that appears beside me, Evie having taken her normal form, he knew what he was up against. He tried to run but the spell had reached its casting point, flying out from my hands. It froze him up to his shoulders. Watching on in horror, he saw Evie cast a spell, sending a web out and around him, bringing him back. That's a new one, I didn't know about it. I grin at her.

'Did Preston and Stella teach you that?'

She nods with a grin.

'Who told you to come here?'

He ignores my question.

'Preston taught me a truth spell.'

Evie holds out her hand, as she whispers into her palm it begins to sparkle, it looks like two teal coloured glitter strands rise from her palm, twining around each other until they touched, forming a peak. She then blew the glitter strands onto the man's face. He sneezed as the glitter spread across his face.

'I was hired by a man in a dark cloak, I do not know his name nor what he looks like.' his face was rigid, his eyes direct ahead, like he was in a trance. 'He told me to wait by this plane, to kill all that tried to board it.'

'Was he tall or short?'

'Tall.'

'Did he offer a reward to you?'

'Ten thousand dollars for every occupant killed, but one was a higher dollar figure, a girl called Stephanie, if I killed her he would pay me one million dollars.'

'Do you have any helpers?'

'No.'

'Do you know if the man who hired you has helpers?'

'No.'

'Do you know if he has hired anyone else if you fail?'

'No.'

'Where did this man approach you?'

'At the school that I work at, I caught him snooping around.'

'Did you tell him you are a vampire?'

'No, he knew already.'

'Do you know why he was at the school?'

'He was looking for Stephanie Collins and Eve Gilmore.'

'Did he tell you why?'

'No.'

'Did he say anything of what would happen if you failed?'

'He said that he would find me and kill me.'

'Lucky you.'

'That is not my opinion on that subject.'

'Of course not.' I try not to laugh. 'Have you seen anyone suspicious hanging around lately?'

'No.'

'Where is the real captain?'

'Locked in the cupboard in the office.'

'You didn't kill him?'

'Wasn't in my instructions to do so.'

'Yes it was, remember, kill all that try to board the plane?'

'He hasn't tried to board the plane.'

'Survival on a technicality.' Evie chuckles. 'How lucky for the pilot.'

'Everything ok?' Ethan cautiously asks from the plane door.

'Everything is great; I am going to die.' the man says a little too cheerily.

'Aww.' I pout at him 'No one here said that.'

'He did.'

I follow his line of sight to the dark figure at the corner of the building, a tall figure in a cloak, the hood hid his appearance. It begins to fly towards us, I ball a power shot, a quick and effective way to take down anything. It was a spell designed to be created quickly for use only in an emergency because it would drain me. It flew out and hit the figure, the redness swirled and sizzled the figure, little lightning strikes repeatedly hit the body. The surge made the body shake and shudder, stopping it a few metres from us. I became weak very quickly, the power shot had taken it out of me. Evie cast a spell that sent the figure up through the roof of the hanger, rocketing into the sky. The sound of the metal roof being split was deafening.

'My saviour.' I whisper as she helps me into the plane.

'Told you I would save your arse.'