That entire evening, I was high on adrenaline. I kept touching my lips, that tingled softly with a reminder of Vir's kiss. He had flushed a deep red after we had parted, out of breath, his chest moving up and down quickly to be able to get enough oxygen in his lungs.

I smiled happily at the memory of the bashful look on his face when our lips were no longer locked together. His eyes, light blue, swirling with all kinds of positive emotions. My hands on his chest, feeling his erratic heartbeat, as I looked into his eyes with a warm smile.

Vir was called away as soon as we'd gotten to his office on some official business with the Board of Management.

I tried arguing that he was technically still on bedrest and that he should perhaps rest a bit after our trip to the coffee house, but he simply countered that the Board would never accept an answer like that. No one was supposed to know that he hadn't been his best the last couple of weeks, so he should just pretend to be completely fine and meet them.

"Besides," he'd said, "I can tell them that we have made significant progress in solving the chaos-related problems. That should hold them off for a while longer after that."

So after Vir had gone to away to meet the Board, somewhere on the seventh floor of the Headquarters, I just walked to my own room, deciding I would eat something there. So I'd gotten inside of my chamber after our mind-blowing kiss, my cheeks still feeling warm, my heart still beating out of my chest, I wanted to tell Allison about this progress.

However, when I tried calling her, she did not reply, even after three tries. I sighed, but couldn't stop smiling either way, as nothing would be able to ruin my mood.

'WE KISSED!!!!! ASLKJGFDSKL!!!' I opted for sending her a text instead. Hopefully that would portray my feelings about this situation more than enough. The app showed that Allison had last been seen two hours ago, but contrary to most girls our age, Allison was not best friends with her phone. Often, she just left her phone in her bedroom, and then went about her day. Maybe she would see it today still, but it was more likely that she would see the messages I'd sent somewhere tomorrow morning.

Even though I knew that, I kept watching my phone to see if she had texted me back.

Not being able to sleep, replaying our kiss in my head every few seconds, I danced around my room for at least half an hour. I ordered a greasy pizza, which in hindsight tasted awful, since it was soggy, dripping with oil, and not cooked properly. As I was hungry, however, I didn't really care.

The next morning I woke up before the sun was well up into the air – which wasn't weird, as it was nearing November now, and the sun would only show its face after eight in the morning – by a muffled sound close to the door. Quickly glancing around the room in high alert, I tried seeing if someone had entered my place during the night.

Everything was still in place, my stuff laying at the place it was supposed to be. No one had been here. And if they had been here, they had been very careful not to leave behind any tracks, and they had left already.

I breathed out in relief, and rolled out of bed. Crouched down – I don't know why, I guess I still wasn't feeling completely comfortable – I moved throughout the room. The alarm clock next to the bed showed it was barely past six in bright red numbers.

I was almost confident I was being silly, and that nothing was going on here, when I saw something white on the floor.

A perfectly white envelope without any creases. Livia Devoe it said, in a swirly handwriting, written with a black ballpoint pen.

Frowning slightly, I walked over cautiously, curious what it might be. The envelope was surprisingly heavy, something inside in the shape of a droplet. When I opened it, there really was nothing in there besides said metallic droplet, except for a small piece of paper, seemingly a piece of scrap paper.

Placing the envelope on my bedside table, I sat down on the covers of my unmade bed and took out the tiny letter, before turning on the torchlight on my phone.

I don't know why I was being so secretive, refusing to turn on the main lamp in the room, but maybe I sensed something wasn't right. As soon as I read what was on the piece of paper, I knew why my gut told me that.

You have but seven days, miss Devoe... Tick Tock.

Seven days.

To some it may seem like ages, a long time. Plenty of time to set up a scheme to alter the destination coordinates of the train moving from Sapientiae in the direction of Iustitia. The train, holding wagons full of high-technology weapons, defence systems and surveillance gadgets.

But for me, the knowledge that I had to cross the Sapientiae Pack in seven days, I was scared. Seven days would never be enough. To deceive my newfound friends here, I would need more time. To betray Vir, my soulmate, my other half, no time in the universe would ever be enough.

I suppose I had had quite some time already to set this up, it had after all been several weeks since the Iustitia Ambassador Montgomery had contacted me last. However, with everything going on as of late, I didn't think of it as much. I had other problems to focus on, one being the health of my soulmate. Now, the time to act was near.

But did I even still have a reason to do this?

Montgomery was trying to blackmail me by saying he would out me to the entire pack, would let everyone know that Vir and I were soulmates. Would scream on over the rooftops that I wasn't as smart as I wanted everyone to think. That I wasn't intelligent at all.

Even though Vir and I were in a good place now, Vir obviously wasn't in a good place himself. With the board still being suspicious of his capabilities and the chaos in the pack slowly increasing, more and more Sapientiae Pack members were contemplating whether or not he should abdicate his position. I had seen the polls that were popping up online, and at least 23% thought that he was unable to lead the pack in a time of crisis, in a time of need. That was at least ten percent points higher than any other Alpha had ever gotten before.

The people didn't trust him to solve these problems.

Why wouldn't they trust him even less when they learned he was fated to someone from another pack, mated to someone that could never even dream of having half the intelligence of the average Sapientiae Pack member?

I couldn't, and wouldn't, add to his issues by refusing to redirect the train. Sure, maybe he would have some extra trouble with the board because of the altered destination of the train containing mass destruction weapons. Yes, these mass destruction weapons could be fatal were they to fall in the wrong hands, which they likely would.

But he would be forced to resign as an Alpha would it become known that he and I were soulmates. He would no longer be able to do what he loves most, leading. He would not be able to remain in Headquarters. I would have to leave Sapientiae and return to the Fortis Pack forever if he couldn't keep me here any longer.

We would be separated and Vir's life would be destroyed.

I couldn't do that to him.

So I made a decision. I would find a way to go through with this insane plan. If Vir ever found out, he could very well hate me, but that would be a problem for later. I just had to do it in such a way he would never find out. That way I could keep us both safe. For now.

I sighed to myself and bit my cheek, the soaring pain helping me concentrate. I didn't have a lot of time, but I would have to figure something out. That train would have a different destination somehow. I just hoped that no one would get hurt in the process.