I was in Carina's hotel room as we caught up for a couple hours at most, but every time she would say something, I'd think of her brother. There was no way he could leave my mind. And then suddenly the door opened and Chase stepped in, dropped his head, and then got confused.

"Sorry, I didn't know you were—"

"I'm just gonna go check on Tori...and...yeah. I'll do that. Bye," Carina rushed before quickly leaving while Chase apologized about not knowing she'd be in here with me.

"I'm sorry," he said out of nowhere after the door had shut.

"For?" I sighed. I wanted an apology years ago, but right now it had confused me.

"I lied to you," he admitted. "I said I wanted to move on from my life and from you and it wasn't true."

I had to credit the man for inevitably falling back in line with his aged promises. I had found myself sitting down on one of the queen-sized beds while he sat at the edge of the other so he could play with the corners of the blanket.

"Please don't start this again," I mumbled.

"What?"

"Changing your mind and feelings at the blink of an eye," I clarified.

"Alright, that's fair," he said, "but I'm not changing like I used to. My mind and my feelings are clear and certain and unchanging and they've been that way for four years—probably five if I wasn't such an idiot back in high school." He preached. "I like you Alicia...a lot."

He likes me and I love him. Awesome.

"And I know you still like me back considering you spent your twentieth birthday on a plane flying to stop my wedding."

I don't like you. I love you, you idiot.

"Worst birthday ever, right?" I tried to joke.

"Hey," he whispered as if he was about to start something. He reached out to touch my knee and it tingled all the way up my leg. "I'm different than I was five years ago—or even four years ago. I've kept my word with everything because I meant it then and I mean it now. I'm letting you know how I feel. I'm not hiding it. And I will treat you right. All I need you to do is be my girlfriend. Then, I promise you everything will be alright. I promise that."

I had been anticipating this moment for so long that I almost thought I misheard it.

"I'll think about it," I decided as a way to get him to remember it was the same response I had given him when he asked me to prom. It was a buried yes in need of effort on his part before I would give in and I think he understood that. Instead of backing off like he did in high school, he leaned over and I felt his lips against mine. I kissed him back even though my body was tensed, but it quickly relaxed as my hands roamed over his shoulders. I thought he'd push me backwards onto the bed to pin me beneath him, but he pulled away at the perfect timing to make me want more.

"Keep that in mind with your decision," he whispered with his chocolaty breath hitting my lips. I wanted to pull him back down and give him my answer in a non-verbal manner but he only smirked as if reading my mind before leaving the room altogether.

Oh. I will be.

***

"Happy belated birthday!"

I opened my eyes and stretched on the bed as I saw the guys and girls standing over me with cake and balloons and birthday decorations. What the heck?

"We felt bad because we ruined your birthday, so we've decided to go back in time and celebrate it with you," Jackson said.

"You know that I don't really like celebrating my birthday," I reminded.

"Sweet. More cake for me," Nathaniel said before walking by Eli, taking the cake, and continuing his route out the door. I laughed.

"Just act like it's a normal day," I suggested.

"But—"

"Please?" I asked.

"Fine," Jackson pouted before everyone left. I laughed to myself and then noticed that I was still wearing the clothes from yesterday because I didn't really have time to pack in the short "grab-my-ticket-and-go" time frame before I hopped on a plane.

"Here," I heard a voice say. I looked up to see Chase leaning on the wall right after a pair of clothes hit my lap.

"Thanks," I mumbled. I held up the familiar Carina-owned pants and Chase-owned NYU t-shirt. But I was too lazy to change right now, so I flopped back onto the pillow.

"Hurry and get dressed. Let's do something today," Chase said.

"I'm too lazy," I whined.

"Too lazy to get dressed or too lazy to do something?" he asked.

"Both," I groaned, throwing a pillow over my head.

I felt warm hands on my waist and then he started to unbutton my shirt from the bottom and I removed the pillow from my face to hit him with it. He looked up to me as I gave him a warning look.

"If you're too lazy, then I'll dress you myself," he stated. "We have stuff to do today."

"Like what?" I asked. What's so important that he had to start to strip me in a rushed fashion?

"You'll see," he shrugged. I rolled my eyes. He started to unbutton another button, but then I flinched away because I was scared of the touch of familiarity instead of presumed discomfort. I shook my head at him before flicking his nose. "Ali, I've pretty much seen you in your underwear before. If you don't want me to dress you then go in the bathroom and dress yourself."

I changed in the bathroom just because I knew he wanted to dress me himself.

"Ready?" he asked. I gave him a look before looking down on myself.

"You need to shrink," I said, considering that even though Carina was taller than me and caused me to roll up the pant leg, I had to tie much more slack of his shirt back.

"Maybe you need to grow," he retorted. "Aren't you, like, the same size as you were in high school?"

"Aren't you?" I teased.

"Well—"

"Exactly," I interrupted, not wanting to hear his true answer.

He rolled his brown eyes playfully and started walking out. I grabbed the keys before he could, so he grabbed my hand and backed me into the door with our bodies pressed together.

I already knew I was gonna lose, but I didn't back down.

"I know you don't have a car and insist on stealing mine back in the States, but you're not driving my car here too," he whispered. He opened my hand and I released the keys.

***

"What the hell?" I asked with amazement as I looked into the night sky. After hours of showing me around Moldova and cramming in what I had to believe was four years of dates into one day, Chase brought me to a place with the most extraordinary views of the stars. Strings of lights hung off the trees, so I knew it was someone's property. Whoever's it was, was lucky.

"Like it?" Chase asked as he walked ahead of me and looked up.

"You remembered."

It was all coming back—the meadow back home, our comfort in being there. That was our place. We both ran away there. We had interesting memories there.

"Of course I did," he shrugged. We reached the edge of a cliff that was guarded with an elaborate railing. I looked over the cliff and into the dark city of nightly creatures that somehow made it all brighter. I'm surprised they even had a city like this embedded in our human world. I had learned that there was only a select few outside of this region knew about the real goings on (in terms of supernatural activity) if they were human—now, I was one of them.

He wrapped his left arm around the back of my waist and pulled me into him. He leaned on my head. Soon enough, I was leaning against the pole as Chase's arms were wrapped around me as his big hands were on the railing besides mine. Some part of me wanted to hold his hands though...

He leaned his head on to the crook if my neck. It was a tender moment even though days ago I wanted to wring his neck for assuming he had tried to kill Torrance.

"I want to thank you," he whispered against my skin.

"For?"

"Everything," he answered. "I don't deserve much, but I'm gonna prove to you that I do deserve you. I hate myself for putting you through all of the drama over the years."

"Well it was—"

"Who's there?!" a strong voice yelled.

"Play along," Chase muttered.

"What?"

He moved away from me and we both turned to see a man in dark colors walk up.

"Oh. Hello Sir Chase," he greeted with an accent and a smile. He added a hand to his chest. "Or should I say Prince Chase?"

"Hold your horses, Hernandez. You can save the Prince until next Saturday," Chase laughed while shaking the large man's hand. Hernandez quickly said a foreign word to Chase that warranted a "thank you" from him before he turned to me, but then gave me a weird look. He cleared his throat and right as I would introduce myself, Chase stepped up.

"I was taking a walk and found her out here," he said. What? How did he think that was true when surely people would've seen us all around town together all day? What reason did he have to lie?

He began speaking in Moldovan and I had no idea what he was saying.

"Come again?" I asked, which caused his dark eyes to glance down at my very American shirt before realizing I spoke English.

"You're trespassing on royal property," the man informed in English.

Trespassing?

"But I'm with—"

"Okay, okay. We know each other from high school and I saw her tour bus passing through town for her study abroad and thought we could catch up here," Chase expanded the lie. Um, hello?

"You know the rules Chase," the security man reminded.

"Yes, yes," Chase agreed before saying something in Moldovan that I couldn't understand any more than the reasoning behind his lies. But whatever he said had apparently worked because he was suddenly escorting me in a different direction than where we came. This way led to an amazing gold palace.

***

I was now sitting on a big bed swinging my legs back and forth, waiting for the clock to strike eleven o'clock after I had been escorted into the giant castle through what seemed like a back door in order to be put in a vacant room. I was able to hear the clock from the town square ring eleven times before I quietly left my guest room and tip toed around the palace. I remembered Chase telling me to wait until eleven—when all the staff would be gone and everyone else asleep—in order for me to sneak around the huge residence and somehow navigate my way to Chase's room across the estate. I basically had to scale part of the building to land on his balcony because I had gotten lost in the corridors, but saw him pacing from his window. I landed on his balcony and as soon as my feet hit the concrete, he had opened the back door.

He had a worried look like he knew he was in trouble so I walked under his arm and into his giant room. I sat on the couch and glared at him.

"I know you're probably mad at me right now but—"

"Mad is an understatement."

"Let me explain," he started. I rolled my eyes. "It's either I lie about you or you get followed around all the time for being with me."

So we can't just say we're friends? Why must he choose the hard way of things?

"You're the one that wanted me to be your girlfriend," I reminded.

"Oh about that..." he said. "Is that a yes, or...?"

"What do you think?!" I yelled.

"Look. We had to tell the Council that Sharon hexed away any idea you had about werewolves and vampires when you got shot and when you got kidnapped, okay," he began. "We told them you still dated Wes to throw off Riley and that you still broke up because of April, but we didn't tell them anything about you knowing about us being mates. Just that you were still friends with us because you dated Wes and I dated your sister. They think that we haven't really talked or anything since high school considering I really did leave you all that time ago. But I'm gonna tell them tomorrow that you're my mate and we can just start over fresh with a relationship before all of the mating and royal bullshit."

"So instead of just saying 'oh hey, this is my girlfriend Alicia whose been my mate all along, but I wanted to give us time to date before throwing her into a world of werewolf bureaucracy,' you make up a bunch of lies?" I scolded.

"To be honest, most of it was Wes," he muttered, receiving a raised eyebrow from me. "Trust me, it's easier this way. If we don't ease into this, it's gonna be chaos and paparazzi and—please, Ali." He looked down to me before kneeling. "I know I said I'd be honest, but honestly I promised that to you, not them. I just don't want to hide my feelings from you as painless as possible since it'll literally be out in the public. Please trust me on this," he whispered. I looked from his eyes to his lips and then he did the honors by leaning in to kiss me. The feeling of forgiveness washed over me, causing me to pull away.

"No," I declined. He kissed me again. I pulled away. "No."

"Alicia—"

"I said no, Chase," I groaned. He placed his hands on my waist and pulled me up to him.

"Fine. What if I tell them that we recently met back up and you are really my girlfriend so I've been trying to drop the whole 'I'm a lord' thing on you before the werewolf thing?"

"But I'm not your girlfriend!" I reasoned.

He connected our lips.

"You sure?" he smiled. I kept my face as stern as possible.

"Yes," I lied plainly. He frowned.

"Your loss," he shrugged.

"Thanks," I said, starting to get up. He pulled me down.

"I didn't mean it like that," he said.

"Right..."

"Please?" he asked me again. I looked down and barely saw his eyes in the darkness. Stupid bond...

"Fine," I rolled my eyes. He kissed my cheek.

"Alicia. I owe you!"

"Hell yeah you do," I agreed, standing up.

"Where are you going?" he asked, confused.

"Um. Didn't we just meet up for the first time since high school? I can't get caught leaving the prince's room on the first night here. What kind of girl do you think I am?" I humored.

"Well, I'm not a prince yet so..." he tried to joke, causing me to roll my eyes and begin to leave before I thought of something else.

"Chase, what the hell am I supposed to do with my college classes?!" I yelled. He shrugged.

"The pack will handle it. Jasmine and April are there and can probably do your work--they're in college for a reason, right? Plus, I think your professors will be lenient if you say you're taking care of the whole Torrance thing," he answered. I hated using Torrance's condition for Chase's antics. I didn't even know how long this would take. Regardless if Chase and I were together or not, I still wanted to be back in New York to at least spend some time with Torrance in his final months.

"We won't be here that long," Chase notified as if he knew I needed the reassurance. He nodded his head over and I reluctantly retreated over and he placed his hands at my waist. Now that I was looking in his eyes, I was actually seeing a familiar tint of green around the rims. He reached a hand up to my face. "Just stick this out so we can get our affairs in order and then we'll go back to New York so we can both finish school. I promise we'll be back so we can go home for Connecticut for sure." I had no choice but to trust him. After all, I had no ability to do anything else. He pressed his lips to my forehead and I figured I would at least relish in the fact that he was maturing things between us even if he was taking the long way around with outsiders.