I walked down the hallway towards the King's office, and as I turned the corner, Julian was walking from the opposite direction. He stopped in front of the large, wooden door and waited for me with his signature smile on his face. As I approached him, he arched his eyebrow.

"Couldn't get enough of me, princess?"

I shot him a glare. "I needed you in here when I talk to the King about my visions."

"You needed me?" He asked in a teasing tone as goofy grin played on his lips.

I pushed his shoulder, but his hard body didn't even budge. "Shut up, Julian."

He gave me another grin before opening the door, and I hurried in away from him. I didn't need him distracting me. King Gabriel stood at the opposite end of the room, taking a book from one of his large bookshelves. When we entered, the King shifted his attention from his book to us.

"Claire. Julian. It's nice to see you. Make yourselves comfortable," the King greeted as he sat at his desk across from us. We both took a seat in the brown, leather chairs across from him.

"I'm happy you were able to meet with me on such short notice, Claire. We have so much to discuss," King Gabriel remarked. His eyes glanced back and forth between us. "Although I wasn't expecting you, Julian, I'm sure you have something to bring to this meeting."

Julian nodded and I replied, "It's no problem, your Majesty."

"Great," he said as he leaned forward on the desk with his hands clasped together. "I just wanted to first say that I'm grateful that you have no problem being among us, and we wanted to thank you for not being upset about my speech last night."

"It's no problem, really."

He acknowledged my comment with a nod. "We meant to explain everything to you before hand, but we feared you might want to leave. We are sorry for that. We hope that you wouldn't mind staying here and help us out with our plans for coexistence." His eyebrows rose expectantly as if waiting for a "yes."

I paused for a moment before answering and glanced at Julian, "I would love to."

"Then it's settled!" He exclaimed joyously as he got out a piece of paper. "There are few things I wanted to run past you. If you are to help us out, we would need you to make an appearance at public events here at the castle and when we have important visitors. We want to show our race that coexistence is possible."

Appearance?

I wasn't so sure that was what I wanted, but the power radiating off of the King told me that I should think twice before telling him "no."

"That would be no problem. I would be happy to," I agreed to his terms.

The look on his face told me that I said the right answer. "Perfect! Now, Aurora told me that you and Julian needed to talk to me about something."

Now that it was time to speak, my hands began to lightly shake, and my heart accelerated. I was suddenly nervous about discussing everything with the King. I should've asked Julian what he told them about my visions first.

Luckily, Julian read my mind and started talking instead, "Your majesty, Claire wanted to talk to you about the visions she sees. I know we already discussed that she has had dreams about Tristan and Eretria, but they have been happening more frequently and are physically harming her."

The King looked intrigued, "Really? Tell me a little more about them, Claire. I can't promise I can solve the reasoning behind them, but maybe I can find someone who can."

"Um, well... Every dream I have, besides one, I am Eretria. There's one that I have a lot, and every time I have it, more details emerge. I'm Eretria, running in the forest, and every time, I am stabbed in the back and die. When I have that one, I usually wake up with a wound where I was stabbed in the dream. Most recently, I had a dream I was Eretria and I told Tristan..." I paused and cleared my throat. "...I was pregnant."

An emotion I couldn't decifer flashed in King Gabriel's eyes. Was it surprise? I couldn't really ponder on it too long because the look was gone just as quickly as it appeared. Julian tilted his head at the new information, and the King and Julian shared a glance before he addressed me again.

"Claire, I'm not sure you realize how...interesting this is. You're not having dreams. You are seeing Tristan and Eretria's past. When did these start happening exactly?" The King looked at me expectingly.

I thought back to the earliest I could remember. "I don't know...like around four or five? I just remember seeing Tristan until I got in a car accident when I was thirteen. Then, I started seeing things through her point of view."

Julian's brows furrowed as he looked at me and then looked down. I wished I could tell what he was thinking—what both of them were thinking, but King Gabriel was straight-faced, and he studied me for a few moments before he stood up.

"What do you think, Julian?" The King asked.

Julian sighed. "I'm not quite sure. It is very strange, but it is quite the coincidence that she's had them since she was a child and ended up here. I'm not one to believe in fate, but..."

With that, the King huffed and looked like he was processing this new information from me. "I understand how strange this must have been for you all this time. I'm going to look into it and discuss this with someone I know that might be able to shed some light. In the meantime, I'm going to ask the both of you to not discuss this with anyone."

"Of course. Thank you, your Majesty," Julian replied.

"Okay, thank you."

"You're welcome." King Gabriel walked around his desk. "Now, if you excuse me, I have another meeting to get to."

Julian bowed, so I followed suit with a curtesy and followed him out the door.

It's weird how everything is so formal.

You'll get used to it. Julian's voice echoed through my mind.

"What did I tell you about being in my head?"

Julian's lips lifted, and he ignored my scolding. "What are your plans the rest of the day?"

"I didn't really have any..."

"Well you do now. It's later," he declared.

"What?" I asked, confused.

"I told you I would see you later. It's later, so come on, princess." He jerked his head towards the end of the corridor.

I held back a grin as I thought about how his words earlier felt like a promise, and he kept it. I followed Julian down a few hallways before we reached doors I hadn't seen before. He pushed them open, and we were greeted with darkness.

"No witnesses."

"What?" Julian's confused voice filled the black void.

"You're taking me out here so there's no witnesses when you kill me, right?"

I heard him chuckle, "You know, if I were to kill a pretty girl, don't you think I would prefer to kill in her in the privacy of my bedroom?"

My stomach flipped and my heart fluttered in my chest at his jester. Julian must have sensed how flustered I was, because he laughed even more. I felt his fingertips brush across my cheek, giving me goosebumps. I couldn't see him with how dark it was outside of the castle, but I'm sure he could see me with some type of vampire vision. I could practically feel the smug look on his face.

"Where are you taking me?" I tried not to trip over my own feet, but failed. Julian, of course, steadied me before I face planted.

Julian replied, "Patience is a virtue, princess."

He led me through the darkness with the only light coming from the stars. The chirping of crickets filled the silence between us as we walked. A few minutes later, the moon began to peak from behind the clouds and radiated moonlight onto the small lake ahead of us. The sight took my breath away. Trees framed the back of the lake, followed by tall mountains in the distance.

"You like it?"

"It's beautiful. I haven't seen something like this is a long time," I replied as I admired the view.

It grew quiet as we stared at the beautiful landscape. Flashes of memories from my home town and camping trips with my family danced around my mind. I couldn't help but think how my dad would love this. It's had been awhile since I've thought of my family. While in the hospital, I tried to push them to the back of my mind. It hurt too much to think of them, and I was scared Dr. Carson would somehow find out that I was dwelling on the past.

I looked over and seen Julian looking at me with his jaw clenched. He looked like something was bothering him. He suddenly appeared directly in from of me and was dangerously close with his body only inches from mine.

"I'm fine, princess, but you're not," he whispered, reading my mind again.

I looked away, not wanting to meet his eyes. I knew he was upset because of what I was thinking about. His fingers lightly tilted my face back to his, and Julian's brown eyes lost their normal mischievious glint.

"What happened to you?"

I knew that I didn't have to tell him about my past because as soon as he asked, my mind was open to him to explore. My last thought was of Dr. Carson and the evil nurse trying to turn my brain to mush, and I seen Julian's eyes turn from their soft brown, to black again.

"Julian," I breathed and his eyes returned to normal. "I-"

Before I could finish my sentence, something hard knocked into me, flinging my small body to the ground. The impact immediately took my breath away, and like a fish out of water, I gasped for air. Through my blurred vision, I could see two shadows moving quickly and close to each other. Julian wasn't anywhere near me, which meant that he had to be one of the shadows.