November 8th

A week had crawled by since Julia's mom had dropped the bomb about her true lineage in her lap. Julia was still coming to terms with the shocking revelations. She sat on her window seat, with a blank expression on her face, staring out at the woods and scrubbed at her eyes. They burned in protest to the plastic annoyance in them. She had to wear hard contacts, because soft contacts just weren't up to camouflaging her fiercely silver eyes.

Edrys had told Julia that it would be best to wear them all the time, so she wouldn't forget to put them on when she went out. Not that it would've mattered, her social life had been executed by her mother grounding her until further notice. Which she knew translated into her being under house arrest until she was thirty. Ren was also giving her space to deal with everything.

Julia only had two sources of relief to her boredom. One was the two hours she was allotted with Abby and Ella when they were allowed over and the second source of relief to her boredom was Damien. He visited her in secret for a few hours every night. And seeing as how Abby and Ella left fifteen minutes ago and Damien never popped by until 10:00pm Julia had resigned herself to yet another evening of utter-mind-numbing-boredom.

Even Alex was avoiding her. He hadn't shown up at her window since the truth came out. He was also skipping classes. On the days he had bothered to turn up to school he was too busy with Véronique to even glance Julia's way. It made her heart ache not being able to be near him, or touch him, or kiss him. He completed her and now that he was avoiding her; she felt empty inside and her heart throbbed all the time in his absence.

Not that she could blame him for avoiding her. It wasn't as if she'd made his life any easier. She kept asking herself why he would want to associate with someone related to the very person responsible for killing masses of his family members. And was surprised he even talked to her.

As for Véronique, she now had the excuse she wanted to vent her hate toward Julia. When Véronique wasn't telling Julia what an absolute freak she was; Véronique avoided her like the plague. Damien was the only one of them that seemed to still care about Julia.

She was grateful for his visits each day but, his attempts at trying to get her to take their friendship further were getting tiring. Julia didn't know how many times she could give him the I-just-want-to-be-friends brush off before she snapped and said something mean just to get some breathing space. Between Alex's cold shoulder, and the relentless voice in her head demanding she only have feelings for Alex, and Damien perusing her and her own mixed feelings about both boys she felt as if she was being pulled apart at the seams.

She huffed, frustrated by how her life just kept getting more and more complicated. I should've never tempted the fates by begging for something exciting to happen in my boring life. Figures they would have a damn good laugh at pulling the rug out from under my feet in the process of granting my request.

As if the fates were listening to her moaning and not happy that she wasn't thankful for their gift; a pair of bright silver eyes greeted Julia as Damien climbed on the roof by her window. He gave her a warm smile and reached through the window, stroking her cheek with his thumb. "Today I've come to rescue the princess from the tower."

She stifled a groan and looked up at the sky, seriously? You can't give me a tiny respite from complicating my life. Julia rubbed at her irritated eyes, wanting to tear the stupid contacts out and grind them into dust. Then tried to muster a smile to match his enthusiasm but gave up and let her lips slide back into their natural resting position. She desperately longed to see Alex and wished it was him crouching at her bedroom window instead of Damien.

"Oh, really and how do you propose to do that? My mom may not be in but she put this lovely collar on me, remember?"

She held up her right wrist, showing him the intricate black Celtic knot that looked like a tattoo. It was actually a powerful magical bind her mother had placed on her. Rosalie made damn sure that there would be no sneaking out, and between the hours of 4pm and 8am Julia was on total lockdown. The temporary tattoo was a leash. If she so much as set foot outside of the five foot perimeter around the house her mother would instantly know. Julia would receive a horrible crippling shock and be frozen to the spot, and her time under house arrest would be extended.

"I'd like to leave this house by the time I graduate," Julia's voice was despondent.

Damien gave her a grin; he grabbed her wrist and gave it a kiss. The part of her that still had a thing for Damien made her blush. Alex's face surfaced in her mind and she guilt flooded into her.

She took her wrist out of his grasp as he said, "Ye have little faith in my master skills."

Hearing this made her giggle at such a cheesy line and she shook her head. "I know how completely insane my mom can get when it comes to my protection. Sorry, but there is no way you are getting around this."

He tapped the side of his nose and gave her a knowing smile. "That's why I enlisted the help of someone who is more powerful and way more devious than your mother."

Julia shot him a questing look as Damien motioned to someone outside the window. A mop of bright green and black spiky hair came into view and she knew it was Ren.

Ren stood outside of the window and gave her a coy smile. She could tell he was still hesitant whether she wanted to see him or not.

Julia returned his smile as she recalled lengthy conversations she had with her mother over the week. It had given her time to calm down and see things differently. Rosalie had explained to Julia that Ren had been Rosalie's best friend when she was Julia's age. However, that relationship had ended a long time ago. And the friendship Rosalie had with Ren back then didn't even compare to the one Julia had with Ren.

Rosalie even admitted that she was a little jealous of how close Julia and Ren were. She even thought Julia and Ren may have had a romantic future. At that point in their conversation Julia couldn't help but burst out laughing so hard it made her cry; and she assured her mother that would never happen. Julia loved Ren with every fibre in her being, but it wasn't romantic in any way shape or form and it never had been. Not for either of them.

Julia explained to her mom how she and Ren had talked about their feelings one night, after Julia had her heart stomped on by Scott Macland, a jock warlock. Julia had gotten up the courage to tell Scott she liked him. To which he humiliated her in the cafeteria with the whole school watching. Shouting there was no way in hell he would ever be interested in the town reject.

That night, following her public humiliation at the hands of Scott, Ren consoled her as best as he could. She'd asked him why it was they could love each other deeply and still not be in love with each other. She was convinced there was something wrong with her. When Ren told her he felt the same way she did, it helped. He also told her there were many kinds of love and theirs was the strongest, because the messy craziness of the heart would never get in the way.

Almost two years had passed since then and with all the crap she was going through with Alex she could fully comprehend what he meant. They would never break up or get bored with each other or have any of the insecurities or hang-ups that came with romantic love. Instead, she knew no matter what happened or what either of them did; when the dust settled, they would still love each other no matter what.

Ren fidgeted outside her window, seeing him unsure about how she felt about him sent a sharp pang through her heart. Julia wiped a few stray tears from her eyes and opened her arms to Ren. "Why'd you stay away for so long you idiot? Life's been dull without you."

He squeezed her back and said with a chuckle, "I'm sorry, Jules. I thought you needed some space. Also, I wasn't sure if you had calmed down enough, not to snap me in two with your little finger. You know; now that you're even more freakishly strong."

She let out a laugh; it felt like a lifetime since she'd laughed that freely and it was good to have him back. Whacking him on the shoulder she looked at Damien and mouthed, 'thank you'. "How exactly are you planning on springing me from my jail cell?"

Ren gave her a devilish smirk. "I believe this is my best plan yet." Abby, Ella and Kuro hopped up onto the roof and came in through the window. Then Ren said to the twins, "Which one of you wants to go first?"

Ella stepped forward. "I'll do it." Giving Julia a grin, Ella's pixie length hair started to grow at a rapid pace down past her shoulders and the deep copper morphed into a golden caramel brown. Ella also shrunk down a few inches and her hips and cheeks filled out a little to match Julia's slightly rounded figure as Ella transformed in to her. "I'm getting better at copying you."

Julia stared at herself, hearing Ella's voice coming out of Julia's body was a real head-trip. The twins had only shifted into her once before and it creeped her out so much they promised never to do it again. Julia looked Ella up and down and stopped at her chest, which had grown two cup sizes. "Hey! Those are not mine."

Kuro chuckled and said, "I'm not complaining," as he wrapped his arms around Julia's doppelganger and groped her.

"Eww! Kuro, get your grubby paws off me. Thanks a lot, Ella. I can neverscrub that image from my mind," Julia moaned.

Ella laughed and wrapped her arms around Kuro giving him a sloppy wet kiss and then said, "Oh lighten up it's not that bad."

Julia's eyes bulged out of her head, she wanted to scream at them to get a room and get out of her body. Even though Kuro was gorgeous Julia had no romantic feelings for him; and watching him paw at her was disturbing.

She couldn't take it anymore and pried the pair apart. "That's enough! Gross Kuro; keep your hands off me." She gave Ella a pointed look. "Ella, get rid of the rack. Gods, this is freaky enough without you two taking it to a whole new level of twisted." Julia looked at Abby. "Please make sure he keeps his hands off me while I'm gone."

Abby laughed. "No problem."

Ren took Julia's wrist with the mark on it and Ella's right wrist and held them side by side. As he held his hand over the tattoo, it started to get hotter until it was almost painful. Wincing, Julia gasped when the tattoo lifted off her wrist and hovered in the air under Ren's hand and then came to a rest on Ella's wrist.

With a proud grin Ren said, "My best plan yet. Your mother is one smart cookie. She made it so I couldn't just wipe the bind away. She also made it so the mark has to be on someone. But there are loopholes to most spells you just have to know how to find them."

Julia and the others were awe-struck by Ren's advanced magical knowledge.

"Dude, remind me never to piss you off," Kuro said cutting the silence.

The girls laughed and Ella elbowed him in the side as she said, "You guys are always pissing each other off. He'd have to remind you twenty times a day. You two are like an old married couple."

"We should get going, Ren," Damien said.

Ren hooked his hand in Julia's and pulled her out of the window then poked his head back in. "Rosalie is on patrol all night. We should be back by midnight, okay?"

Abby waved her hand at him. "Yeah, yeah our parents are out all night. No need to rush back on our account."

Damien joined Julia and Ren on the roof and they jumped down to the ground. Ren scanned the woods before they headed to the front of the house. As they reached the five foot perimeter around the house Julia hesitated. Not that she didn't have complete faith in Ren's magical abilities she just knew how insane her mother was and thought Rosalie may have added some other magic to the perimeter to keep Julia from escaping. Taking a deep breath Julia took a step outside the barrier and when nothing happened her body relaxed as she released her breath in one puff.

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