Shadow followed Emily and her brothers as they all walked out of the Academy building. Most of the guests had already left and they were one of those who had stayed till late and were now finally taking their leaves.

"There are only two minutes left before the clock will hit twelve and once it's midnight, there won't be any more restrictions on us from entering your side of the city, right?" Rylan suddenly questioned as he looked at Domenic, patiently waiting for his response.

Emily watched as her brother slowly nodded his head and hmmed a 'yes' in reply while he looked at the Second Young Master Sullivan with a little bit of curiosity visible in his emerald eyes.

"Good."

That's all Rylan spoke next before he suddenly took hold of Leo's hand and dragged her baffled youngest brother towards one of the black SUVs that were parked on the opposite side of the lawn.

"What the h-"

"Don't!"

Emily immediately stopped Crist from chasing after Rylan who had successfully made Leo sit inside his car.

Crist turned to look at her with confused eyes but then realized that Dom and Daniel were also looking calm about the entire situation. Was no one worried that Rylan could have possibly kidnapped Leo?

There was a frown on Simon's face while Mark was staring at his shoes which succeeded in hiding his expression.

"Why?" He questioned Daniel, making sure to not talk to Emily even by mistake. There was no way he would be losing the bet after torturing himself for the past several days by keeping his distance from her. Since he had already succeeded in staying ignorant towards her for so many days, he would better not give up until the end.

"Why are you acting like he just kidnapped Leo? Rylan just wants to look at your side of the city and he probably needs someone to guide him. What's the need for overreacting like this?" Shane was the one who responded with an eye roll to emphasize exactly how stupid Crist was acting. The young man waved his hand in Emily's direction before making his way towards his car.

Crist wanted to point out that the boy could have waited till morning and he could always have asked Emily to accompany him considering they were best friends unlike Leo could not even stand Rylan's presence in the same room. However, before he could have the chance to speak, Kaiden had successfully pulled everyone's attention towards him.

Emily looked up at the handsome man in front of her who was clearly not happy to see her brothers giving him a hard time.

"Is it alright if I drop her at her apartment?" The question was undoubtedly directed towards her brothers.

"Sure, why not!" Crist replied with a sweet tone as he turned to give his brothers a known look which only made Domenic shake his head before he walked away towards his car.

The smile that immediately bloomed on Kaiden's lips also made Emily shook her head with pity for the poor man. He really wasn't aware of how cruel her brothers could be.

She noticed Simon walking towards her and the next thing she knew she was sitting in the back seat of Mark's car along with Shadow, Simon, and of course, Mark.

"Wait! Didn't you just say that I can drop her off? Then why are they..." Kaiden was clearly confused and also a little bit irritated though he tried to hide the latter emotion.

"Yes, you can always follow their car and make sure that she's safely inside her apartment. We won't stop you at all in that matter." Crist replied with a huge smirk on his lips before hurriedly moving towards Daniel's car and hoping inside.

Emily watched as Kaiden stood there with a shocked expression on his face while all their vehicles started moving towards the main gate of the academy.

Though she was feeling a little bit bad for him, she knew that he deserved all this for creating the scene at the party. He purposely created a situation where there were so many people as witnesses. Also, the fact that there was no guarantee that her brothers would have agreed to his proposal in the first place, only worsened his timing and choice of place.

The only good thing according to her that was happening at the moment was that because of Kaiden's stupid idea, Mark, Crist, and Simon were now finally giving her a little bit of their attention.

She was already happy and feeling contended at the moment. She had a great feeling that the camping trip on the coming weekend would help her in having a great time with her family and friends.

***

The silence inside the car had started to suffocate Leo but he tried to stay still and not jump out of the car.

Their car was parked at the entrance of the Residential Estate where the Alessandro Mansion was located and the two of them had been sitting inside the car in silence for nearly last ten minutes or so.

Leo kept his eyes trained on the huge Iron gates ahead and tried his best to keep himself calm and collected which was definitely proving a difficult job as he could feel Rylan's gaze fixed on him.

Another couple of minutes passed in that same awkward silence and it was finally too much for Leo to bear.

"If you have satisfied your curiosity, I would love to take my leave. I'm too tired to accompany you any longer." His voice came out too low to sound demanding or anywhere near it. This only made Leo curse himself inwardly.

His attention was suddenly grabbed by the man sitting beside him on the driver's seat when he heard him taking off his seat belt before turning his body to face him.

"Leo..." Rylan called out his mate's name and felt his wolf enjoying the way it sounded like beautiful music to his ears.

Leo immediately took off his seatbelt and moved to open the car door but Rylan's sudden tight grip on his arm stopped him.

"Stop! You are not allowed to leave yet. We need to talk about it. About us and... about what happened back then." Rylan spoke as he kept his hold on his mate's arm, once again feeling extremely happy to find himself so much closer to him.

A small smirk appeared on Leo's lips but it was deprived of any kind of true humor as he spoke, "There's nothing for us to talk about. There's no us since you have already rejected me six years ago."