© 2016 SilverStream22. All Rights Reserved.

~

  How deep is your love?
Is it like nirvana?
Hit me harder, again  

~

The party was only a few hours away, and I was doing to best to avoid Molly, otherwise she'd persuade me to dip into a dress and never let me take it off until after the party. Part one of avoiding her involved me forcing myself awake to attend my morning college classes. It was a pain, but it was worth it.

I could hardly stay awake in class, my head slipping from its perch on my palm.

"Faye," the person next to me, who I came to know as Michael, nudged me with his elbow. "Pay attention. You can't afford to fail this class- you've been a no show all semester, I'm surprised the professor hasn't tossed you out of the class after 3 consecutive absences, much less over ten."

I rubbed my tired eyes, blinking through bleary filters. "I have a 5.0 GPA, I'll be fine."

That's the answer I gave everyone who was concerned about my grades with all the college classes I skipped. Philosophy was the only one I didn't skip, only because it fascinated me so much.

I had no Philosophy class today, which had me sprinting to my dorm room before Molly walked in unexpectedly (she knew the Dean of Engineering and was able to get me into NYU on a free ride if I maintained my high GPA)

Fortunately, Molly wasn't there.

But a certain someone was observing my door art.

"Dios mio." I wheezed, straightening up after I had hunched over to drag in much-needed air. "Beau?"

He spun around, his dark brown flop of hair as shiny and sleek as ever. His sea green eyes sparkled against his tan skin. "Faye, holy hell- you scared the shit out of me."

I winced when I laughed, my sides hurting from running to my dorm room. "It's good to see you-"

He drew me into a hug, swishing me side to side when he lifted me up. "Damn right it is. How've you survived without me? I was half expecting you to be dead on the kitchen floor with ramen and coke coming out of your nose."

I almost snorted as I opened my dorm room. "I can function perfectly fine with you-"

Jazz and Draver were inside, sitting leisurely on the leather sofa.

I froze, slamming the door shut. Beau frowned, "What is it?"

Pressing my back against the door, I thought of a legitimate excuse, one that even Beau couldn't make his way around.

"I left my bloody pad on the floor!" I blurted out, hoping he would react as I wanted him to.

His nose scrunched up, just like it did when he came around pickles. "You could've left the bloody part out, you know?"

I gave him a tight-lipped smile. "Just give me a minute."

Entering my dorm room and closing the door behind me, I was met with the stone-faced twins, both clearly annoyed as they stood painfully close to me.

"What. Are. You. Doing?" I hissed, hoping they couldn't hear my erratic heartbeat that was brought on at the sight of them.

They both ignored me, Draver pulling me to him.

Jazz came up behind, curling his fist in my hair, tugging my head back until I met his eyes. "Why is he here?"

I scowled and struggled against their alluring pull- their insane intensity that drove me wild. "If you've been keeping tabs on me, then you know why he's here. Beau is my best friend, of course he'd come to my birthday party."

Draver's eyes darkened. "Sarcasm isn't the best card to play right now, Faye. We want to know why he's at your dorm."

When I pursed my lips, Jazz nipped my cheek. "Answer us."

"I don't know!" I exclaimed, frustrated that they wouldn't let up on this subject. "Now get the hell out of my dorm if you can't hide."

They met each other's eyes before blurring away, leaving through my window- blowing my curtains everywhere.

I straightened myself out and patted down my hair that was messy from Jazz's grip before opening the door to Beau's lopsided smile...and the twins' reflecting the sunlight that bounced off their aviators- probably meant to hide their unnaturally silver eyes.

"Mind if we come in?" Jazz asked, not really sounding like he would care about what answer I gave.

"Great, thanks." Draver sent me a vicious smirk as they both walked into my dorm room, shoving their broad shoulders against Beau, who was dwarfed by the twins.

I'm surprised that the doorknob didn't break under my tight grip.

~

If Beau was within an arm length of me, the twins appeared out of nowhere- scowling at him. If Beau was across the other room, then they would border me until I ordered them around to do something other than try to absorb me into their cells.

"I'm not the mitochondria to your prokaryote, give me space." I muttered to them. "Seriously."

Draver slipped his hands under my shirt, his thumbs stroking the skin just above my waist. My stomach fluttered and I elbowed him back. "I'm not joking- you guys need to quit, especially since Beau is around."

Jazz clenched his fists. "It's because he is around that we are doing this."

"Well lay off." moving past them, I made my way to the coffee table and set down all the honey tea I made.

Beau grimaced. "Apparently we've been apart too long if you've forgotten how much I hate honey-"

"You will eat what she makes and be grateful that she's giving you the time of day." Jazz growled.

I smacked the back of my hand on his shoulder. "Calm down, he's joking."

"He better be," Draver said in a low voice.

Beau accepted a teacup from me as I sat next to him, tucking one leg under my knee. "So how's Chicago treating you?"

He exaggerated a sigh. "Terrible without you, but I managed."

Usually I'd laugh along with him, despite the fact that I knew he was coming onto me, but with Jazz and Draver here I felt a bit more uncomfortable with his advances.

"So do you mind introducing me to these guys?" Beau downed his tea like whiskey.

I hardly knew them myself, so I wasn't sure what kind of answer I was supposed to give him.

"We're her mates." Draver declared, both of them sitting beside me.

"Ah, from Australia, right?" Beau grinned. "How is it there? What city- Melbourne, Sydney?"

Jazz narrowed his eyes. "Don't mock us. She is our's-"

I stabbed the end of my teaspoon onto his thigh. He showed no signs of pain, but kept quiet.

"Sorry, English isn't their first language."

"Latin is." Draver filled in, his expression visibly darkened. "Hopefully I won't have to say it in two languages to get it through your thick skull that Faye belongs to-"

I tossed the teaspoon to my other hand and gave Draver similar treatment as Jazz.

"What he means is that I belong to Ravenclaw and you're a Hufflepuff so we can't be anything." I let out a nervous laugh.

The twins seemed mildly satisfied with that answer.

Beau raised an eyebrow as he sipped his tea. "You have some interesting friends. Molly texted me saying that your party was going to be at the Valentino Hall. You must be going all out this year for her to book that big of a venue."

I groaned, massaging the bridge of my nose. "I don't understand her. Sometimes I think she does it for her own pleasure- she knows I don't do well in crowds yet she decides to invite half the city to attend my birthday party every year."

His was laugh musical. "Come on now, don't be like that. You know you love it."

I glanced down at my warm teacup, "Not exactly. But what can I do? It's Molly. If I went against her wishes I feel like I'm betraying her."

Downing the tea like a shot glass, I quickly stood up. "Alright, out. All of you. Leila is coming back soon to change for her shift and I so do not want her to think I'm the kind of girl who brings guys in our dorm room."

I gathered the empty tea cups and placed them in the sink before holding the door open for the three of them.

Beau was the only one who got out- Jazz closed the door behind him with a loud bang, surely hitting him in the process.

"Seriously?" I raised an eyebrow at them. "That includes you guys too, leave. I need to study. These grades don't come from chatting it up with-"

They both slammed a hand at either side of my head.

"I don't want him anywhere near you." Draver snarled, "I had to sit through it most of your life, but since you're of age today there's no way I'm going to deal with this bullshit."

I scoffed incredulously. "You don't get to control whom I speak to, especially since you haven't shown yourself for 14 years."

Jazz scowled. "That's hardly fair. We couldn't help it. The circumstances were extreme."

"How extreme?" I snapped, my voice cracking. "Huh? Extreme enough for making me think that you two abandoned me, just like my parents?"

Their piercing gaze softened and they stepped back.

"It's complicated." Draver cupped the back of his neck. "And it was not only for both of our species safety, but for yours as well."

I dragged the back of my hand across my eyes haphazardly.

Jazz snatched away my wrists, binding them with one hand while his own and Draver's wiped away gently at my tears.

"We didn't mean to cause you pain, believe me." Jazz whispered, pressing his lips to my forehead.

I sniffled, "Well you did. Both of you. I didn't know if you were dead or- or worse."

Draver swept my legs out from beneath me and sat on the leather sofa, his hands stroking my sides while Jazz let me lean against his chest in the corner of the sofa.

They both brushed away a tear before it got a chance to run down my cheek until I calmed down, fingering the hem of my shirt.

"Where were you guys?" I hiccupped.

"All over. Mainly Sicily. A good friend of ours, Stark Xerxes, asked us to help look after a werewolf girl's pack. Stark had some baggage, so when he and the werewolf girl, Katya, found out they were mates, there were people who wanted to tear them apart for their own purposes. Vampires. We had to go through a lot to make sure that the war that was brewing between the vampires and the Lycans didn't get out of hand. Jazz and I would normally shy from participating in this, but those vampires planned on expanding their control to humans. So we helped them defeat the vampires."

"And that took 14 years to do." I shook my head.

"No," Jazz admitted. "But it took four years for us to settle things; Katya got pregnant and remaining vampires were trying to come after her baby. Stark was practically comatose after the fight so we had to take care of and protect her. Not to mention Lux was a premature baby- born with a curse too. And we still haven't figured out her curse. That itself took 4 years. By the time we were completely done, you were already 12 and Molly made us swear to stay away until you were 21. By werewolf law, we weren't going to do anything to you- we just wanted to be around you."

Draver's hand settled on my thigh. "But apparently Molly did not have much faith in our self control. Which is understandable. Keeping one werewolf from his mate is hard enough, but two Lycans? She was obviously concerned after we explained what we were."

I sat straight, moving my legs off Draver's lap. "I'm glad you told me. It clears up a lot of questions I had."

I felt Jazz kiss my shoulder. "But there's something else you want to ask us, isn't there?"

I quickly stood up, turning to look at the lounging twins.

"What exactly are you guys? Just explaining the terms isn't enough. Tell me everything- the process and such. Take for example, were you both born this way?"

They shook their heads and I gestured for them to elaborate.

Draver dragged a hand down his face. "I'll go first. When I was seven, mind you this was a long time ago, my father shoved me in a kiln by 'accident' or so he used to like to say when people asked what happened to me. I was a werewolf at the time, both of us were. We were both born as werewolves. But the Moon Goddess who created werewolves, brought me to the Sakurai family household in Japan. The head of the house, a woman by the name of Tsubaki, bestowed me with the power of heat. And that's how it works. Traumatizing past + relation to the first werewolf = the ability to become a Lycan."

I stepped back. "What?"

He rolled his tongue across his teeth. "It's easier to show you."

Draver pressed his hand flat out on the coffee table, the palm on his hand turning orange like glowing embers. When he pulled back there was a burning impression of his hand in the wood.

"Oh God. I'm going to faint." I whispered softly.

"I'll save my backstory for later." Jazz stood up along with Draver. "There's someone coming."

"Probably her room mate." Draver rolled up his sleeves before he cupped the back of my neck, drawing the olive column to his mouth.

My eyelids fluttered as he placed a warm kiss just under my jaw line. As soon as he pulled back, Jazz gathered me to him, pressing his lips behind my ear.

"See you soon," he murmured before they vanished through the window once more.

Leila opened the door and walked over to me, waving a hand over my eyes. I snapped back into reality, shaking my head disbelievingly. Those boys knew just exactly how to make me turn to putty in their hands.

"Oh my fucking God, Faye, what the hell happened to our coffee table!" she wildly gestured to Draver's handprint.

I was still in awe of his power. Now I was curious as to what Jazz's power was. Would it be fire as well?

Leila wiggled her phone in front of my face. "Ms.McAllistair texted me saying that your party is in one hour. She wants to know where you are so she can put you in the dress-"

A sharp knock rang at the door of our dorm room.

Please tell me it's not those two... I thought as I moved to open the door.

It was even worse.

Molly stood there with her phone in her hand, panting heavily with a goddamn dress in a plastic wrap.

Shit.

"IF YOU DON'T CHANGE RIGHT THIS INSTANT I'LL HAVE YOU REMOVED FROM NYU!"

_____________________

Chapter 4 and 5 are up on Radish now!