Happy valentines lovelies xox

As an avid reader and extremely impatient person I will let you in on a secret. I have several chapters done and I can't be bothered to hold them back and wait between each update so the next few chapters are probably going to come through *rather* quickly one after the other. If you would rather I wait (which I wouldn't really understand as if I was in your position I wouldn't want to have to wait longer between each chapter) then please voice your concerns. If not then I shall be updating when and if I please. Because you know...I can.

Enjoy,

Emma xox

25th August 2010

Once more motley crew found themselves heading for Gloria's bar. Nik was adamant that the search must continue - each extra step between him and his final goal was annoying to say the least be he was determined.

But first a quick detour, with Stefan nowhere to be seen Rebekah, Grace and Nik took the car to the warehouse. At first Grace thought that perhaps Nik might be putting his sister back under but apparently he still needed her awake - she still had a part to play in his master plan.

Not sure what she was meant to do while Nik took care of his business Grace stood awkwardly off to the side, Rebekah was quick to join her. The silence only lasted a few seconds.

"I thought you were Nic's pet." Rebekah announced, giving a nonchalant shrug.

"What do you mean?"

"Well at first when I saw you, eyes glazed over, I though perhaps you were gazing off into nothing as humans often do."

"Maybe I was lost for thought."

"Or brain dead, you know when you've had enough blood drunk from you it can get a bit crazy."

Grace gave her a look, but she pressed on evidently undeterred.

"Now then I realised you've had your eyes fixed on a coffin of another brother of mine." She said, coming closer to Grace before following her eye line.

As Rebekah pointed out her fixation, Grace tried to take her eyes away - she had only just realised what she had been doing. Eyes trained on the coffin of Elijah, it had seemed that Rebekah had misconstrued anger, seething and general confusion for something of a more intimate longing.

"No," she whispered turning to meet her, definitely not. "And I am not Nik's pet."

"No? Then what are you Grace?"

"Not his pet?"

Saving Grace from the conversation, Nik clapped his hands announcing that he was done and that it was time to go. Rebekah practically skipped back to the car, though the look on her face was still sour she seemed to be in a better mood than the others. Grace hadn't even been really thinking about why she was staring at Elijah's coffin. Her mind was still trying to wrap itself round the revelation that what had happened to her and her parents was no accident, that people had been looking for now. Not just that, they had been waiting for her - searching for her before she had even been born. Grace had been unable to share this with anyone else, how could she? It was a thought she couldn't even process let alone formulate into words.

Stefan arrived at the bar shortly after they did, his presence proving to be distracting enough for Rebekah to Grace's relief - she didn't want anymore prying questions.

"You left us." Rebekah simpered.

"Yeah, sorry." He shrugged in return but offered no explanation. Instead he looked to Gloria. "What is she doing?"

It was certainly a sight to see, she was seated at a tale her hand hovering about a large tome surround by candles.

"She's failing." Nik snapped, his patience evidently nonexistent.

Gloria's eyes snapped to Nik. "It's hard to find something when you don't have anything to go on."

"So use me." Rebekah offered, as if it were the obvious answer. Rolling her eyes she raised her brows. "I only wore it for a thousand years."

"See?" Gloria smiled sarcastically at Nik. "Now this one offers a solution."

Rebekah eagerly perched herself on the table, she was just as impatient to get this necklace back as her brother was to use it. It obviously had sentimental value to her, in the same way it would be a function and asset to her brother. It was her mothers so that did make sense.

"All right, give me your hand, sweetheart," said Gloria, beckoning for her hand which she quickly handed over

"She's, uh, she's looking for the necklace, huh?" Stefan asked confused - magic was evidently not his area of expertise.

Still holding onto Rebekah's hand Gloria's eyes searched for something that was beyond the room they were in. Suddenly her eyes narrowed focusing.

"I can sense something."

Stefan seemed to tense up, but everyone was so focused on tracking down the necklace that she was the only one. Rising from the bar stool she occupied she moved over to his side. Hers gaze caught his, asking a sublet and silent question and his reply was as expected - he meant to reassure her that he was alright but he wasn't convincing in the slightest.

Gloria's hand curled tighter around Rebekah's hand. She had found something.

"Anta Cotis Syrum, Anta Cotis Syrum..." The chant rolled off of her tongue like syrup, it was viscous and heavy - the magic pulling Grace into a trance like state. Not only could she hear the words but she could feel the power and it was intoxicating.

Gloria dropped Rebekah's hand, shooting to her feet and snapping Grace from her musings.

"I found it," Gloria declared.

"So where is it?"

"It doesn't work like that, doll." Rebekah looked angered, but she also knew enough about magic that was often the way these things worked. "I get images. There's a girl with her friends..."

"Yes, a dead girl with dead friends, if I don't get my necklace back."

"Well, I'll have to dive back in to get the details," said Gloria.

"So dive." Nik instructed her.

"I need more time," she replied. Not wanting to waste anytime Nik walked over, resting his hands on her table and work space. His overbearing evidently wasn't appreciated.

"And space." Gloria gestured broadly to the table and then to Nik. "You're harshing my ju-ju."

"We can wait." Nik folded his arms stubbornly.

"I'm sure you can. But that's not what I asked."

"Hey. Hey, you know, why don't we just come back later." Stefan said, stepping in to defuse the situation. "I'm hungry anyway. I'll let you pick who we eat."

It took Grace a second to realise that it wasn't a slip of the tongue and they were talking about who they were going to eat and not where. He didn't wait for a reply, instead looped his arm around Grace nearly dragging her to the door. Giving them a glaring look, he motioned for the other's to follow.

Nik gave Rebekah a glance but nothing really seemed amiss so they followed. In the continual forwards and backwards they ended up back at the warehouse. They had gone hunting although it seemed more like flirting - dangling bait of physical attraction in front of the poor unsuspecting humans before they fell hook line and sinker - with the vamps literally sinking their teeth into the jugulars and various major arteries of their catches.

Grace curled up with Zeus off to the side, having not want nor need to participate in their bloody feeding ritual. Stefan sat in a chair draining the life and blood from a girl perched on his lap and Nik occupied a sofa with another girl. Rebekah had chosen one of the small shipping crates - her choice hadn't lasted long, she had muttered about iron and fainting too early.

In Grace's head she just naturally assumed that Rebekah had this misfortune of picking a rather anaemic man and the blood loss had put him out for the count - the iron deficiency making his blood taste strange. That was the story that she had played out in her head and it had served as a distraction from watching Nik wrap his lips around some random girls neck and her writhe in both pain and pleasure on his lap.

"My girl's dead." Rebekah moaned, her feet spinning childishly. She craved attention from her brother and apparent ex, something neither of them were offering her. "I'm bored."

Nik and Stefan shared a look, before Nik looked more closely at the girl Stefan was gripping.

"You weren't kidding about being hungry."

"Yeah." He sighed. "It's been a long day."

"Try being related to her." He laughed.

"You're being mean." Rebekah declared, crossing her arms she turned from her brother to Stefan. "And why are you being mean? You used to love me."

The puppy dog pout was too much. Even at his worst little Zeus didn't look half as desperate as she did now.

"It's been ninety years, Rebekah." Nik jested. "Give him a minute."

"Why are you taking his side?" She snapped, sending him an evil glare.

"Because, my dear sister, I feel pity for any man who doesn't give you what you want."

"Will you stop making me out to be a brat? I am not a brat!"

Grace had to swallow her chortle, but Nik noticed. His eyes trained on Grace, a ghost of a smile crossed his lips.

"A thousand years of life experience says otherwise." He may have been chastising his sister but his eyes didn't leave her.

"Well, you're no picnic, either." Stefan retorted, but Grace was hardly listening anymore. Nik had slid the girl off of him, wiping the blood from his mouth he made his way over to Grace. There eyes were still locked and while she was trying to get a read on him was rather hypnotised by her.

Hovering awkwardly by her side for a second he relented, sliding down to the floor by her side. Rebekah and Stefan were still bickering but paid them little attention.

"I'm surprised we aren't back at Gloria's." Grace rolled her eyes, wringing her hands like she often did when she was unsure of what she should be doing.

"Why is that?"

"Because you want to get this necklace." She sighed. "You are obsessed with this necklace and Gloria is the one that can tell you where it is."

"I'm not obsessed with the necklace love. I need to ask my mother some questions."

"Sorry, you need to commune with your mother so you can mass produce hybrids - your true obsession."

"There is no need for that tone."

"And there is no need to chastise me, I know you treat your sister like a petulant brat but you don't need to do the same for me."

"Where is this coming from Grace?" Nik asked confused. "This isn't like you."

"How would you now? When was the last time you sat and actually talked to me?"

"Grace!"

She opened her mouth to continue but her words faltered, he was right - she didn't know where it was coming from. Her emotions may have been mounting against her but she hardly meant to offload them onto him they way she had done.

"I'm sorry."

"You should be, just because I want something doesn't mean its an obsession - it doesn't mean I have neglected everything..."

"Not about that. I'm not sorry about that." She whispered. "It is an obsession Nik you must see that, but I shouldn't have told you that way. As for neglect as you put it - you have made the fragility of human life abundantly clear to me."

He turned back to see the bodies, the now dead girls they had been drinking from. The look of pure shock still lingered in the glazed over eyes of the girl that he had drunk from. Grace couldn't look for too long - the way her hair fell and the colour of the girl's eyes was too similar to her. It was unnerving to say the least.

A crash drew both of their attentions to Stefan, he had dropped the now dead girl he had been reading on. Her body hit the floor with a dull thud and it made Grace just the smallest bit queasy.

"I need to go," said Stefan, his declaration was followed by him getting up and walking away.

"Where's he going?" Grace asked, turning back to Nik. She only realised how close he was when their eyes met.

"To write a name on a wall," he whispered back to her, he eyes locked into hers. "It's a long story."

"Well I need another drink, I am out of here." Rebekah declared loudly, storming from the building. She wasn't taking the lack of recuperated feelings very well. It was late and she would likely be able to bag a snack or too from the people as they poured out from the clubs, perhaps she would be able to find herself someone to spend the night too. The company might do her a world of good.

These were all thoughts that Grace would probably be contemplating if she wasn't completely lost looking at Nik. He was enchanting - always had been. He held this power over her, it wasn't something she felt threatened by. It was more that the mystery of it made it so intoxicating intriguing.

"What are we doing," she whispered.

"What?"

"I can't snap at you one second and then get lost in your eyes the next." She didn't really understand what she was saying, the words simply slipped from her lips.

"Why not? Who says you can't."

"It isn't healthy, or good or useful. I don't even know what it is." Her voice wasn't even a whisper anymore.

"Trust me when I say it is a lifeline at the moment. With all that is going on it centres me, you centre me."

"Nik we have been all over the country chasing this life, this pack that you have always wanted and I am left knowing even less about myself."

"You practically begged me to take you that town Grace."

"I'm not blaming you." She whispered, turning away from him and back to Zeus. He reached out and took the hand that wasn't tracing circles on the dog.

"You can, blame me that is. I would."

"For what?"

"All of it."

Turning back to him she chuckled.

"Now that would be unfair." Grace gave his hand a gentle squeeze. "It is all just so strange, not all of it makes sense but everything I find out something I think will help it muddies the water instead of giving me a clear picture."

"That is often the way it works." He sighed, copying her action but instead comforting the dog her turn her hand over and traced the lined of her palm. It was an entracing patter and she couldn't draw her eyes away as his fingered hovered over her hand scarcely touching. "Don't assume that time is your friend, you don't know more the longer you send in this world - you just get better at accept you know nothing."

"That doesn't sound very nice."

"Time gives us opportunities though - circumstances change and we can do things we never thought possible. I can do things I didn't think I could."

"What do you mean?"

"For the first time , possibly ever, I am in a position where I can find and make more like me - I can have my own people, my own pack. I don't know if you realise what that means."

"Nik of course I know how important it is to you, I just don't think that blood is what ties people together. You pack is people that are close to you, people that have your back - not people that are the same as you."

"No one is the same is me, that is the problem Grace."

"Nik you aren't..."listening. But she stopped herself. "My mum and my dad were my people, my family, my pack. There are a thousand words for what they were to me, but they chose me - we weren't the same. We didn't share blood or heritage or the same people. They were American and Bulgarian - I don't know what my blood is but knew who my people were. Do you understand what I mean?"

"Who are your people now Grace, where is your pack?"

"I don't know Nik."

Maybe I thought you could be my pack.

"But you have that longing so you understand why finding this necklace, talking to my mother and finding how to make hybrids that don't die is important to me."

"I understand why you think it is."

His brow creased in confusion.

"I have more questions then answers I am sorry," said Grace. She nodded toward the coffins. "And that is one of them."

He gave no answer but his finger stopped tracing instead his hand stated, closing hers in-between his.

"Surely your siblings that have roamed this earth for a thousand years with you are your people?"

"They do not understand me if that is what you mean to say. Perhaps once they did, but I do what I can to protect them."

She smiled, a small chuckle - not at his words so much as her lack of understanding.

"You see what I mean, your answer only leaves me more confused."

"I overheard you and Bekah earlier."

"Really? What part do you refer to - when she asked if I was your pet or insinuated I may have feelings for your brother?"

"Both."

"Well if you were listening you obviously heard the answer to the first. To the second - thats part of my dilemma." Nik's face clouded in confusion but she quickly corrected herself. "I certainly don't have any feelings for him but I have questions I guess."

"For Elijah, I was under the impression you weren't that well acquainted with him."

"As was I but it seems I was mistaken."

"And so you have questions for him?"

"Perhaps." She wanted to explain, or perhaps try get into words what she meant but she interrupted herself with an unflatteringly large yawn. The end of the day had crept up on her, the long had long since set and it had been an emotional and physically draining day to say the least.

"Come here," said Nik, at first she didn't know exactly what he meant but then he opened his arms to and beckoned her forward. Sleepily obliging she shuffled forward along toward him, curling up into him. Zeus let out a yip of discontent, repositioning himself burrowing into her side as she rested her head against his chest. His hands wounded round her and held her tightly. The steady rise and fall rocked her to sleep and she didn't fight it. Yes she may have lots of questions but the one thing she knew for sure was that she felt safe and at the moment that was more than enough.