Charlotte

Chapter Sixteen

A/N: Hey everyone! I'm really sorry my updates have slowed down! I got sucked into reading more Resident Evil Leon romances in between my fast-approaching college finals, kids, and pre-production of my t.v. show. We are close to the end of this book, and I'll be jumping in to work on Shadow-Kissed, which is where all the action happens, right! Hope to see some of you in the following chapters and over into the next book. Thank you for the comments and votes, it really encourages me to keep writing this!  

Some smut in this chapter, so be warned. It's my first time writing something like this, so feedback would be appreciated! I've written smut before, but not to this caliper. There will be plenty more of it, too, if I can get it decently written haha

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On account of Adrian Ivashkov being a spirit user, I was simultaneously relieved, and horrified. Lissa was a sweet girl and Adrian...was not. In fact, he seemed to pray on girls, whether they were sweet or not. I didn't really hang around people like him too much. He had charm to go with his dastardly good looks, and he knew how to use those assets to his advantage. Not to mention that he was an older guy, about twenty-one, who was a member of the royal family. In fact, Adrian was the favorite nephew of the Moroi queen-Tatiana. He could get anything he wanted, and I guess Lissa could too, but she was still a seventeen-year-old girl and if that didn't make her impressionable enough, up until now she thought she was the only one of her kind still alive. 

I watched as Lissa and Rose had a wordless sparring match. I knew Rose was just trying to take care of her best friend, and Lissa wanted to take care of herself. It ended with them all getting up and going their separate ways. Lissa gave Rose a wide birth, going over to Christian and Eddie, who was giving strange looks between us. Mason was over there too, approaching his own best friend, also looking lost on what just happened. I'd stayed where I sat, my blue eyes finding Adrian's as he gazed at me with interest. 

When he made eye contact, his lips parted to say something, but I beat him to it. "You use spirit." It hadn't come out as a question because I already knew. I'd seen it. His eyebrows rose in surprise, and he leaned forward, his elbows resting on his knees, much more interested in me than before.

"What do you know about it, miss human? Or better yet...how do you know about it?" 

"I have my ways," I say a little clipped. I didn't trust him. I didn't want to trust him with the information that was wrecking my life at the moment. "You're the same as Lissa." 

He nods slowly, glancing around us to make sure we didn't have an eaves dropper. I did the same, sweeping the room with my eyes, not really knowing if it was to scan for Rose-who was talking to Mia for some reason-or to hopefully catch that strange girl from earlier again. I looked back over at the prince, somewhat disappointed. "It's complicated," Adrian starts. "There seems to be multiple forms of spirit...different strengths within the magic, but essentially yes, Lissa and I are both the same." 

"How do you keep your darkness in check?" I ask, somewhat desperate for myself as well as for my friends. "I mean, are you on medication like her? To suppress your magic?" 

"No, I rather like using my magic," he says with a bitter kind of smile. It wasn't as easy going as the rest of his smiles had been. It was a shade darker, and his eyes unfocused a bit. He waved a hand and a waitress came over and he plucked up a glass full of the same fruity beverage Rose and I had indulged in earlier. She walked away and Adrian tipped the glass slightly to catch my attention to it, sending a clear message. 

"You drink? That's how you keep the darkness away?" 

"It doesn't really keep it away," Adrian says as he swallows the drink in two gulps. "But it makes it easier to live with myself. Calms my thoughts. Hardly go a day without it or a smoke."