A month had passed since the incident with Alex and everyone had settled into their lives happily. Gabe had put on a little weight now that she was eating regularly and Mia's fling with Dan the boy toy was over as far as I knew.

Jamie's attempts to pry Timothy away from Alex and his family had failed. I knew Jamie was getting frustrated and suspicious that there was more going on there than we knew about. But if Gabe knew anything, she wasn't telling us.

Gabe still disappeared three times a week and once again on Sunday's. Rose always dropped her off and picked her up again. Neither of them would tell us what Gabe was doing, they both claimed that they'd tell us when the time was right. I've added finding out their secret to my bucket list.

However Jamie insisted that we all go and see the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra this coming Friday night, which sounded like it could actually be quite a good evening. Rhys didn't have to work that evening and it appeared everyone else was on top of their projects at uni so it was decided it would be a night out for the entire household.

Things were also going well at school except Alex was more determined than ever to get Gabe alone. You could almost say he was desperate. So between Audrey, Leah, Mia and myself, Gabe never had to worry about having to deal with that abusive prick.

It was also becoming pretty obvious that Alex was becoming furious because Gabe was never alone. It made me wonder what their history was. On second thought, I probably didn't want to know. Knowing how badly Alex used people.

On Tuesday I came home still furious because Alex and I had fought again. He'd threatened to make Timothy, Gabe's brother, disappear if I didn't fuck off so I kindly informed him I'd tie him up and hang him upside down in a storm drain until there was a flood if he did. Neither of us got anywhere.

I must have been fuming mad with steam coming off me, because everyone left me alone in the kitchen to make my liquid gold, it's what I called my coffee, before storming off to my room to figure out how to kill Alex and hide the remains. Burning him and grinding the bones seemed like a good plan.

Ten minutes later I heard a knock on my door.

"Who is it?" I could have replied with a snappy 'What?', But I needed to remember that I wasn't angry at anyone here and I shouldn't take it out on them.

"It's me," Rhys's voice came from the other side of my door. "May I come in?"

"Of course, the doors open." I told him.

Rhys opened the door and made his way over to sit next to me on my bed, but not before shutting my door behind him.

"Do you want to talk about what happened?" I could only assume that Rhys was referring to my bad mood. I hadn't told him about the troubles I'd been having with Alex.

I sighed, "Maybe I should." I thought to myself then decided I would. I started to tell Rhys about everything that had happened regarding Alex. It was almost like word vomit, once I started I couldn't stop. Rhys just sat there and listened to the whole story without interrupting, the entire time.

By the end of it I was sitting on my bed with my knees hugged against my chest. I formed an almost perfect human sphere.

"Yup, he's an asshole." Was the comment Rhys made to that entire story. "But do you know what the thing about people like Alex is, Violet?"

I shook my head indicating a no response.

"People like that get bored after a while if they don't get the response they're after. I promise you." Rhys paused for a minute before he continued. "I've seen people like Alex go through the police holding cells regularly, just because he has rich parents doesn't mean he's going to make something of himself in this life. Maybe he already knows this and is overcompensating by being an asshole."

I had to smile at Rhys's reasoning. I'd missed having my big brother around while he was doing all those crazy shifts.

"But the more important question right now is how are you doing Violet?" Rhys asked.

I looked at Rhys puzzled. "What do you mean?"

"Well over the last three or four months you've had some pretty crazy stuff happen. For example, you found out that you're not of this world and instead belong to an ancient race of beings who seem to exist solely to eat us humans and on top of that, you've found yourself at the head of an Ethereal family. I don't care what anyone says, that must be stressful." Rhys explained.

"I must admit, I hadn't thought of it that way." I answered after a second. "But I promise you I'm doing fine. One of the perks of being Ethereal instead of a Royal is that the people in my family really do care about each other." I paused, not for effect but to get my thoughts in order. "And when I say family, I mean Ethereal and blood family. Yourself included."

I gave Rhys a smile and we shared a long overdue bear hug before I shooed him out of the room. But if I had to be honest, I felt better after his visit. Like some of the weight I didn't even know that was on my shoulders, had been lifted just by talking about it. Look at me being all grown up.

...

Alex didn't show up at university for the rest of the week after our spat on Tuesday, a fact that I was very thankful for. Although it was probably too much to hope for that he went somewhere and sat on a rusty stake. I cackled out loud at the absurd image.

Leah questioned me as to what was so funny so I told her and Audrey who was also present. Audrey chuckled but Leah had to hold a wall to keep her balance while laughing.

"Easy girl," I said while helping her to stay on her feet. "It wasn't that funny."

"I know," Leah replied when she finally had some breath back. "But could you imaging Alex being attached to the head of an electric toothbrush and someone turning it on. He'd move so fast there'd be three of him."

This caused a fresh bout of irrepressible laughter from the three of us. We sounded like three hens in a hen house.

It was Friday and we were finishing up lessons for the week. Gabe had gone home early with Mia as her classes finished earlier on a Friday.

We got home to find Mia ready and dressed in a rather beautiful red formal dress. I'd heard that the event tonight was going to be formal but I'd just planned on borrowing something nice from my sister.

So it naturally came as a shock when I entered my room to find a beautiful, floor length midnight blue dress with a low back and diamantes all over it, giving it the illusion that you were literally wearing the nights sky. It was sleeveless and had small heels to match.

I realized that when Jamie had bought this, he'd probably imagined my red hair to look like the sun rising out of an eternal night.

It was stunning, just beautiful. I also did not want to see the price tag.

After I showered and shaved I did something I hadn't done for a very long time, I asked Rose to help me with my hair and makeup. Normally I wouldn't bother but this was a special occasion and a dress like this warranted perfection.

Two hours later and I was dressed and ready. I even had a little midnight blue clutch to match. I was wearing more make up and jewelry than I'd ever worn before but it was all done with proportionate perfection.

I descended the stairs to Leah gasping at the sight of me. In all her years of knowing me, she's probably never seen me dressed like this. Or even in a dress.

Jamie was waiting at the bottom of the stairs dressed dashingly in a black tux. Although something did stand out to me as I looked at him waiting for me with his arm offered.

I took his arm but before everyone could proceed to leave I blurted out. "Jamie, have you had work done? I swear you look younger."

Everyone stopped and look a good look at Jamie before shock crossed all there features. "You're right." came the response form Rose.

Jamie looked smug and chuckled. "I'm glad you noticed. One of the perks of being your Ethereal child is my age will modify somewhat to match yours. I'll never look like a teenager again but I'm likely to eventually go back to my late twenties." Jamie said gleefully.

"Can I become your child?" Rhys asked, earning himself an elbow in the ribs from Rose.

"Be careful." He complained to his wife. "If this Tuxedo crumples I'll be the laughing stock of our group. So Rose elbowed him again.

Jamie started to usher us all out the door before I stopped and asked. "Where's Gabe?"

"She's gone on ahead." Rose covered for Gabe. "She knows some of the musicians and wants to catch up with them before the performance."

I suppose that makes sense, Gabe is at university on a musical arts scholarship after all.

Waiting at the privacy gate to our house was a stretch limo. Which was just like a normal limousine, except longer. This one could comfortably hold all 7 of us and a bar fridge. Leah, Mia and Rose had all had a glass of wine before even arriving at the venue.

We arrived at the Arts Center in Melbourne, where the orchestra was performing, after a short ride in the limo. Banners on the path to the entrance were illuminated to announce that tonight's performance was Romeo and Juliet. This promised to be good.

We were shown to out seats, which weren't bad mind you, before I started to get a little worried.

"Where's Gabe?" I asked Jamie who was sitting beside me. There were no more available seats in this row after all.

"She's here and you'll see her really soon, I promise." Came the reply from Jamie as the auditorium lighting dimmed and a hush fell over the audience.

The conductor came out and said his piece as the orchestra took their assigned seats. I honestly wasn't listening to a single word the conductor said. My eyes were looking everywhere for Gabe, I was getting nervous.

I eventually found her, sitting in the orchestra. She was in the String section, holding a cello. A look of peace and concentration crossed her features as she readied herself to play.