𝙲𝚄𝚁𝚂𝙴𝙳 𝚃𝚆𝙸𝙽 ~ ᴛᴡ & ᴛᴠᴅ [2]

Prologue

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Nyra's POV
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IT HAD BEEN MONTHS since the sacrifice... and since I lost both my mom and my birth father.

Grief clung to me like a second skin, no matter how far I tried to run from it. I'd spent the summer in France with Allison and my dad. The distraction helped — croissants, espresso, and cobblestone streets have a weird way of numbing the ache — but nothing could fully lift the weight sitting on my chest. That heaviness... it lingered like a shadow. I think it always will. For me. For my sisters.

Now I was back in Mystic Falls.

And it was the end of my first week home since Damon took the cure.

Right now? I was fast asleep, dreaming away peacefully... beautifully... magically... basically, every word that ends in -ly. And in this blissful little REM cycle of mine, Dr. Jackson Avery from Grey's Anatomy was my attending physician.

We were definitely engaging in an inappropriate (but very welcomed) patient-doctor relationship.

"That's right, Jackson... take off your shirt, that's—"

BAM.

A beam of sunlight shot through my curtains like a sniper's bullet aimed straight at my face.

"AH! What the hell?!"

I flipped over with a groan, yanking the covers over my head. The sunlight backed off a little, but the damage was done.

"Much better," I muttered.

Then came the voice. That chipper, all-too-familiar, morning-person voice I dreaded.

"Wakey wakey."

I cracked one eye open. Elena stood in the doorway with her hands on her hips, looking far too smug for someone who had just committed an act of domestic terrorism.

"How can I help you, O Glorious Sun Summoner?" I asked, sarcasm thick in my voice.

"Get up."

"No thanks."

"I said get up."

"I heard you. Still no."

"Nyra."

"Elena."

"Come on."

"I don't want to!" I groaned and buried myself deeper in the sheets. "Close the curtains on your way out, will you?"

"Up!"

"We don't go back to school until next week," I mumbled. "Let me enjoy the sacred beauty of sleeping in while I still can."