*Maria*

 The halloween dance is my favorite dance every year and I love dressing up with faith she is going as a butterfly her dress is super cute. I grab the old necklace that abel gave to me when we were together and I smile that I was going to give it back to him tonight. I focus on Evie's makeup we are taking her trick or treating tonight with Elijah and then we are going to our dance my mom says they could help her hold down the punch bowl. She was going dressed as a unicorn and her costume is so cute I add alittle bit of sparkles on her eyes so the glitter makes her look mystical.

She giggles and she says "my brothers say i'm not aloud to wear makeup until i'm sixteen". I scoff and shake my head at her "that's no fun I didn't start wearing makeup until I was in eighth grade I was thirteen?". Faith nodds as she zips up her butterfly dress and she says "that's silly what if I talk to your brother tonight and maria can talk to jagger about it". Her face lights up and she says "I don't wanna wear it now but when I turn twelve or thirteen maybe?".

I smile at her and I nodd at her "we will ask them to lower the age we're not making any promises but we will try and talk them into it". She smiles at us and she says "I'm glad both of you are here now usually i'm the only girl and whatever the boys say goes besides valerie". I send her a sad smile and I finish her makeup and she runs downstairs possibly to show the guys her costume. I finish my makeup which happened to be dark eye shadow and a bunch of grey.

I smile in the mirror and slip on my madam steampunk dress it's a corset Victorian dress and was a high low and faith helps me tie up the corset. After the corset is tied up I put on the little hat on my head and faith pins it to my curly brown hair. After I check myself in the mirror and the sleeves was long and was hunter green faith and I walk down the stairs and I see jagger was in the same getup as I am he was dressed as a steampunk as well. Once his eyes fell onto mine his eyes told me that I took his breath away.

I smile at him as my mom takes our pictures and I smile at him and he whispers in my ear "you look absolutely gorgeous". I smile at him and I say to evie and elijah "ya'll ready to go trick or treating?" they squeal and evie hugs me and elijah hugs faith's leg and we get inside the truck and evie was sitting in my lap and we go from door to door and we were at about the fifth house and the kids pumpkins was almost full. I was holding evie's and jagger's hand and then I see 'Lucian' up ahead and he approaches my mom places a hand on my shoulder "he's still your father baby". I roll my eyes at her and I say "that's easy for you to say mama you've had to deal with it I haven't he can stay around us but he better not talk to me".

Jagger rubs my side and he says "I know the wound is still fresh love but I spent my whole life being angry at my dad after what he did to all of us and anger and rage it takes away alot of energy and it's not worth it i'm not telling you to forgive him overnight do it at your own pace". I smile at him and I pull him closer as the rest of the group starts to walk ahead of us and I say "do you have any idea how lucky I am to have you?". He chuckles and pulls me closer and I say "you tell me like it is that's how I know I can get the truth from you". He grabs my hand and we catch up to the group and I see elijah and evie didn't wanna walk up past a coffin in the yard and I grab her hand and I say "do you want me to go with you? me and you together I won't let anything happen to you".

She nodds eagerly at me and I grab her hand and we walk up the sidewalk faith and elijah right behind us and the coffin opens and out pops a skeleton and evie squeals and starts crying into my leg. Elijah throws his pumpkin at the coffin "don't scare my sister" I try to not to laugh and I see everyone including jagger laughing and so was ben I say "it's not funny jagger". We continue to go get the candy from the lady in the chair and elijah says "trick or treat". She hands him a handful of candy and we walk back to everyone and I pick evie up because she was still scared.

I rub her back and my mom pouts and she says "it's okay evie baby it's not real". She buries her head into my neck and lucian says "hey want me to open a can of whoop ass on him?". She nodds at him and he says "okay here I go bad skeleton" she giggles and she raises her head back up and I say "he's funny huh?". She nodds and she says "your funny mister" he chuckles and he says "just call me luke darlin".

She hops down from my arms and we go to a few more houses and their buckets were full and then we went to the dance. I walk into the gym and smile when halloween decorations were everywhere and the kids go to the punch table with my mom and lucian. I see harley and abel on the dancefloor and I see she's wearing my necklace I look down at the necklace that abel gave to me and a smile crosses my face. I walk over to them and I look at abel and I shove the necklace into his chest and I yank my green necklace off of her and I say "it looks better on my neck than it does on yours".

She scoffs and she says "fine whatever I only wanted it because you had it". I growl and I punch her across the cheek and she falls to the ground and I say "if you ever take something that doesn't belong to you the consequences will be alot worse than what I just did to you". I walk away from abel as he helps her up off the ground and I see faith smiling at me as she and ben dance to the song. Jagger approaches me and a slow song starts to play.

He holds up his hand for me and I take it with a smile on my face and he puts the necklace back onto my neck I wrap my arms around his neck and his hands go down to my hips. I don't look anywhere other than him he's the only guy that mattered to me right now. I look up at him and his eyes not once had strayed from me and I release a breath that I didn't realize I was holding and I say "how do you feel about growing your hair back out?". He chuckles and his forehead comes in contact with mine and he says "for you i'll do anything".

Then we are broken by one of our teachers telling us we were to close and I roll my eyes and jagger snickers and he says "don't worry love". I move further apart from him and I say "uh evie told me that you're not letting her put on makeup until she's sixteen?" he chuckles and he says "uh oh yeah it's one of our rules valerie couldn't put none on until she was sixteen". I send him a pout and I say "I didn't start wearing makeup until eighth grade I was thirteen or fourteen". I send him a raised eyebrow as he stares into my eyes and I stare into his and he says "I know I just wanna protect her she's my little sister she's my baby".

I smile at him as I move closer to him and I say "I know that babe but she's gonna grow up right before you know it she's gonna be going on dates she's gonna be going to school and doing beauty pageants and going to dances I told her i'd talk to you about the age just lower it to fourteen". He sighs and he says "okay she's only six so fourteen is still a while away". I giggle and I tease him "fourteen is gonna come quicker than you think baby". He snickers and he whispers "shut up" he kisses me on the lips and I kiss him back and I see wildfires whenever we kiss and his kiss sent my body into overdrive.

We break the kiss and after we danced the night away we walk over to the punch table and see my mom sitting and talking to lucian and the kids was sound asleep evie was beside my mom and elijah was beside luke. I stretch my arms and he says to me "nice necklace it's pretty" I crack a smile and I say "thanks jagger gave it to me it's supposed to tell me when I am in the presence of a vampire". He sends me a smile and he says "cool hows your training been going?" I nodd at him as I answer "good jagger and alaric have been teaching me how to harness my power so I don't give out as easily anymore".

He smiles at me and jagger says "well we better get the munchkins home and into bed huh?" I nodd at him and I pick up evie and she buries her head into my neck. Her arms tighten around my neck and jagger says "mrs thornhill can ben catch a ride with you to my house? I need to get these kids to bed". She smiles at him and she says "jagger it's cheryl we're family now" he smiles at her and I say "good night mom i'll talk to you tomorrow". We carry the kids to the truck and lay them down in the backseat and we get to his house and he takes elijah to his room and I take evie to hers and get her out of her constume.

I put her in her pajamas and I tuck her in and make sure she has her pink teddybear like jagger did and I kiss her on the forehead. I turn on her nightlight and I whisper to her "good night evie sweet dreams" she snuggles into her teddybear and I look up and see jagger leaning against the doorway and a smile on his face. I return his smile and as we shut her door I say "I need a favor to ask of you". He smiles at me and I ask "I need help getting out of this corset".

He dies laughing ans he says flirtingly "is that all you need help with darling?" I nodd at him and we go to his room. I grab my bag and he helps me undo my corset and once he got it undone I feel his thumb glide across my back. I feel shivers go down my spine and I release a breath and I grab a tshirt and some sweatpants. We ended up falling asleep on the couch just talking and that was the day I truly fell in love with 'Jagger'.

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I groan as I get slammed to the ground once again and jagger says "it's okay love you'll get it". I tighten my ponytail and then elijah says from the porch where he's sitting on my moms lap "go maria you can do it". I blow him a kiss and he tries to wink at me but fails miserably and jagger says "hey paws off mate she's my girl". I giggle and I say to jagger "that's a mr steal your girl moment" I hear faith start to laugh from behind me as she trains with ben.

I stand in front of jagger and he says "okay you can't always depend on your magic maria you gotta know how to handle if someone ever tried to kidnap you". I push my hair over my shoulder and I say "how do we know that anyone is coming after me? I mean lucian said they don't think I exist". He groans and crosses his arms and he says "this is just a precaution is all if someone ever found out about you" I shrug and lucian says "i'm gonna apply for a teachers position at your school so I can keep an eye on you and faith". I raise a eyebrow at him on my back porch and I ask "since when are you a teacher?" he sends me a smile and he says "I got my teachers degree when I was younger maria I wasn't always this dashing looking warlock".

I snicker and shrug and continue to train with jagger and then I grab a throwing knife and he says "your strong point is knives". I grab one off of the table and I throw one at him and it hits the porch behind him a smiles crosses his face and I hear ellie giggling in luke's arms and I hear alaric whisper "she's good". I see a luke start to smile and he says "done for the day" I nodd at him and I throw the other knife down. Everyone goes inside the house and jagger does his head towards the woods and I follow behind him and for the first time since abel I was able to look at jagger and see how gorgeous he was.

He always made me wanna break the rules to live life on the edge as we reach a clearing he turns back around and looks at me. I take a step towards him when his eyes flash a bright yellow I raise my hand to his face and my thumb glides across his cheek. He makes me feel like I was in a dream like he is to good to be true I lean forward my forehead coming in contact with his he pushes my brown hair away from my face. Then out of nowhere his lips collided with mine it didn't catch me off guard I wanted him to kiss me.

I hate to say this but abel's kiss held no justice to his I wrap my arms around his neck and his go down to my hips abel's kiss sent me into overdrive yes and a part of me never felt like this with abel. I feel the air surrounding us and starts to assimilate around us it's like my powers always go into overdrive whenever i'm around him our relationship he was my first serious boyfriend and my first heartbreak but my relationship with jagger paled in comparison. Jagger pushes me against a tree and I run my hands through his soft brown hair as I feel the butterflies enter my stomach I feel the air starting to pick up even more. Finally we break for air and I gasp when he leans his forehead against mine once again and he whispers.

"Maria Thornhill, You Truly Are An Amazing Woman".

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As I was standing beside faith and my mom as we cook dinner my green necklace that jagger gave to me starts to burn I scream in pain and try to pull the necklace off my neck but it won't come off. I hear faith say "maria what's wrong?" I rip the necklace off and leave it on the counter and I see a burn mark on my chest and I say "it burned me someone was trying to track it". I grab it and it sizzles in my hand and I focus on the power of the glowing green necklace. I try to reverse the spell and try to find out who sent the tracking spell. I take a deep breath and focus on the power and I realize i'm not strong enough and I say to faith "I need help give me your hand faith".

She nodds and grabs my hand and our powers lace together and I say "focus on the necklace faith" we continue trying to find who did it then I felt hands touch my shoulders and I hear luke's voice say "you got it faith keep going". I growl and I think of a spell "the strength of evil is as good as none when stands before three hearts as one". I hear my mom gasp and she grabs my hand holding the necklace and she says "the strength of evil is as good as none when stands before four hearts as one". I take a deep breath and I continue with the spell power in my voice "the strength of evil as good as none when stands before four hearts as one".

I gasp when I get a mental picture of who was trying to track my necklace so she trying to track me huh?. My eyes flash bright green and abel asks "did you see her?" I look at the necklace and I look at jagger as he stands off to the corner. I walk over to him as everyone lets go of me and I say "it was her jagger" his eyes flash with confusion and my hand glides over his shoulder. My eyes soften when I see realization hit him like a freight train and I say out loud to everyone.

"Temperance".