-----------------------------------------------------------

The events of last night still lingered in my mind as I got into Ashton’s car the next morning. I glanced at him as I played with the ends of my hair. My heartbeat escalated when he turned towards me with that familiar easy going smile and my face was dyed in red.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, feeling my temperature. “Do you feel sick?”

I shook my head.

“Are you hungry? Because we can have breakfast before we leave,” he said, jerking his thumb back towards the hotel.

I shook my head and then pulled out one of the books that I had brought with me, but didn’t even get a chance to read. Ashton snatched it from my hands and studied me.

“Are you being shy right now?” he laughed.

“N-No,” I denied.

“Elizabeth, I’m the same Ashton from last night, nothing’s changed.”

“Yeah, but we’re… dating now,” I pointed out.

He smirked and leaned closer to me.

“What are you doing?”

“I want my girlfriend to look at me,” he said, emphasizing the word girlfriend. He was enjoying himself with this.

“I’ll let her know when I see her.”

Ashton pointed at my reflection in the mirror. “She’s right here, the beautiful one.”

“You can be so cheesy,” I laughed, slapping his arm.

“Well, you’re abusing me again so I’d say you’re back to normal,” he nodded.

“Just give me my book back.”

“No. If I can’t have your attention, then neither can this book,” he said, tossing it on the backseat.

I scowled at him, and then took out another book as he drove off. He casually reached over and plucked it from my hands.

“Hey!” I yelled, but he ignored me.

Fine then. I huffed and sneakily brought out my last book, but his sharp eyes caught me.

“Did you bring a whole library with you?” he asked incredulously.

I grinned at him and he just sighed and decided to let me be.

After a few minutes, I decided to check my messages. My parents had texted me every hour of the day yesterday and had called in the middle of the night to find out if I was okay, and how far away from me Ashton was. I informed them that I was sleeping alone, and they seemed satisfied with that.

Melissa had passed on the message to Trey that it was my birthday and he sent me an audio of him on the guitar singing the happy birthday song. Trey was honestly such a good guy. I was grateful to him for keeping her happy. She had high standards and he was able to meet all of those and more. She said she had some good news to share with us tonight.

Callie also passed on Daniel’s birthday wishes for me. I wasn’t sure how I felt about him, but it somehow felt natural having him back. Callie also said she had important news to tell us too. I responded to messages from the rest of my friends and family.

“Hey,” I said, poking Ashton’s arm. He ignored me dutifully.

“Hey, you,” I said, reaching over to stretch his pout into a smile.

I reached into the back seat to where he had tossed his sweater earlier. It looked super comfortable. I pulled it on over my outfit and grinned. I inhaled the sweet smell of Ashton and leaned back onto the seat.

Ashton glanced over at me. “Give that back.”

“Oh, so you’re speaking to me now?” I laughed.

“You involved my sweater. Return it.”

“Later. It’s so comfy.”

He laughed and reached over to ruffle my hair. I turned onto my side so that I was facing him.

“You didn’t mark me last night,” I murmured. “Your dad might be upset.”

“At this point, I don’t care what he wants anymore. I can withstand the pain that knocked me out now,” he grinned. “So unless he has something more intense than that, I’m going to do whatever the hell I want.”

“You can endure that?” I asked anxiously. “What are you a robot?”

“No, that would be my brother.”

“Still, this is serious,” I reminded him. “There is a lot at stake.”

“I know,” he said, looking over at me with a smile. “If anything, I’ll just tell him that I marked you.”

“Would that even work? He could always, I don’t know, look at my neck,” I stated incredulously

“As long as he doesn’t see you then he won’t know. If he sees you then he’ll be able to sense if you’re marked or not.”

I touched my neck instinctively. “So he doesn’t have to see the mark? He can just sense it?”

“Yeah, plus it doesn’t have to be your neck. That’s just the most common place to get marked,” he smirked. “Chest, waist, inner thigh… anywhere works.”

“You need holy water,” I scoffed at him.

“I just need you,” he said and I cringed.

“Anyways,” he continued. “He probably just wants me to mark you now, so that he can try and see if his mind control will work on you.”

“Is that possible?”

Ashton nodded. “When I mark you, you’ll be able to use telepathy to communicate with me and the other nobles in the kingdom. As long as you’ve met them at least once, you can use telepathy to contact them. So, he might be able to use it on you.”

“The telepathy sounds cool and all but the mind control kind of sounds like a deal breaker.”

“Don’t worry, so far it only works on me and Cav. Although he has been trying it on Jun a lot lately. I don’t know if it only works on certain people.”

I frowned. “Don’t you think you guys are a little hard on Jun sometimes? He just turned thirteen. You should make him feel more comfortable as a kid.”

“We can’t afford to do that,” he frowned, shaking his head. “We want Jun to enjoy his childhood as much as the other kids his age, but he’s different. He was handpicked by the king and when he sets his eyes on you, he won’t stop until you’re of some benefit to him. Jun has to become stronger so that he can learn to deal with that on his own.”

I understood his point, but I kept feeling sorry for Jun and Micah, who were being deprived of youthful bliss. It just didn’t seem fair. But then again, that was how life was sometimes.

----------------------------------------------------------

After we got back to my house, it didn't take much to persuade Ashton to check out my new car. My mom gushed with questions about how the date went, while my father glared into his soul, but didn’t seem to find any corruption.

“I trust you treated my daughter well?” he asked.

Ashton smiled over at me. “Only the best for my girlfriend.”

My mother beamed and I glared at Ashton as he inconspicuously informed my parents that we were dating. He smirked at me and my eye twitched in irritation.

Well, now they knew. My mom didn’t seem to mind and my father was torn between his fondness of Ashton and his desire to keep me single for the rest of my life.

“What a nice young man,” my mother smiled after Ashton left. “You agree, don’t you, honey?” she asked dad who did something that was a mixture of a nod and a grunt.

“Ready to go for that drive?” I asked, trying to distract their minds from Ashton. It worked.

I sped down the highway, feeling the wind in my hair. Driving felt so good.

“Lizzy, I think you might get pulled over,” my dad remarked.

“Am I going too fast?” I asked worriedly.

“Just the opposite, I feel sorry for everyone stuck behind us,” he chuckled.

I glanced at the speedometer and flushed. I picked up the speed a little.

“I thought we were going to make it here in time for dinner,” mom laughed as I pulled up at the café where we would be having brunch.

“I was hoping to get there this year,” dad joked back.

I pouted as they made fun of my driving. I’m sure it wasn’t that slow and at least it was safe. We spent a good part of the afternoon eating and laughing and just talking about all the things that had happened throughout the years.

I felt blessed to not only have amazing friends, but an incredible family. My parents weren’t Origens, but I could tell they were soulmates. They were the perfect persons for each other.

We went around to visit some places that we hadn’t been to since I was a child. My mom was into photography recently and she wanted to take as many pictures as possible.

“Mom, I have to get home. Mel and Callie are going to be there soon,” I complained as the sky darkened.

“Don’t worry, you still have some time,” she said as she ate her sundae. She snapped a picture of me as I bit into mine with a pout. Dad did the bunny ears sign behind my head. I couldn’t help but laugh at that.

“We want to spend time with you, Lizzy,” he said to me. “You’re going off to university soon and we might not get to chill like this for a while.”

“You did not just say chill.”

“Ashton said it meant to hang out,” he grinned. “I know your teen slangs. Let me holla at you. Ayo!”

“Ayo!” my mom chimed in.

“No one says that,” I guffawed. “And it’s not like I’m going far away. I’ll still be in the kingdom.”

“Yeah, but you’ll be living on dorm,” mom sighed. “The house is going to feel so empty without our little girl.”

She hugged me and kissed the top of my head. “We’re going to miss you.”

“I could just live at home instead, you know.”

“I know, but it won’t be very convenient for you to always drive so far every day.”

“That’s if I get in,” I sighed. “There are only five hundred spaces and everyone wants to go there.”

“You getting in is a given,” dad stated confidenly. “Everyone else has nothing on you.”

I smiled and snuggled back on the bench with them as we ate ice-cream. I still had time before the girls got to my house. Right now spending time with my parents was what I needed.

----------------------------------------------------------

!