My Immortal Lover

31

The next month passed quickly, our little game with Daniel and Alec growing into full blown war. Bianca and I were struggling to maintain a clear head since the boys had realized that talking to each other, or even to us while they stood less than a foot away, distracted us and let us pull ourselves back together.

It was taking a toll on all of us. The kids had started to pick up on the distress that we all felt. Daniel had even moved to a different room so that we wouldn't be in the same bed. Alec had held out longer, but eventually did the same and it devastated Bianca. I'd found her sobbing in the tub of my bathroom after dinner one night.

"Hey," I said and laid a hand on her shoulder. "Just because he moved out of the room doesn't mean he doesn't love you. He's just trying to keep his side of the deal, trust me."

"I know, but its hard Ana. He just left. I wish that we didn't have another month to wait though."

"Me too," I whispered and she sighed.

"Alright, help me up, I need to shower."

Nodding, I helped her to her feet and set a towel out for her. She closed the curtain and seconds later, herclothes came flying over the bar, and I grabbed them. I left and shut the door behind me, stopping by her room to drop her clothes off. Then, I went to get all the children ready for bed.

"Why can't we just give in?" I heard Alec's voice sound from downstairs as I dressed the kids for bed and tucked them in while Bianca was going to get dressed.

"Because they'd then make fun of us," Daniel said, exasperated.

"I know that, but I don't care too much if they do. I just want to be able to hold my mate!" Alec cried and I flinched, then crept towards the stairs for a better place to listen.

"I know what you mean."

"I just don't know what to do. I want to prove that we aren't the weaklings they think we are, but I heard Bianca and Ana back there as I walked downstairs. They're struggling too, but it hurt Bianca when I moved out of the room and I don't want to hurt her."

"We only have one month left, Alec. Just one month, then they're our wives and all this is over."

"It's too long Daniel! I want to just go and comfort Bianca, help her in any way I can and not worry about breaking the deal."

"I know. It's getting harder, and I can't stand watching Ana walk around in short shorts and tank tops, taking care of our kids. She doesn't even understand how hard it is for me to not take a step closer. It's like she's a magnet, and I'm being pulled to her, but in between us is the deal, repelling me and her, distancing us even further away."

"It's the same way with Bianca and me. Except that Bianca's pull is stronger than the repelling magnet and I find myself slowly inching forward, coming closer to breaking that deal, pushing that repelling magnet out of the way."

There was silence, then I heard the TV turn on and I figured that Daniel had agreed and they had nothing else to say to each other. I collapsed on my butt, leaning against the bars that wound around three sides of the hole where the stairs came up to the second floor, protection from falling down onto the stairs below.

"Ana?" Bianca asked and I opened my eyes to see her standing in fresh clothes, walking towards me. "I just finished. What are you doing?"

"I'm thinking about random stuff, and about what we had been talking about earlier."

"Oh, thinking about the deal?"

"Yeah," I muttered and she came to sit beside me.

"I don't know how much longer I can do this, Ana."

"Me either. It's not like we can just walk around glowing all the time."

"Even if it is fun watching their eyes nearly pop out of their heads," she said and we laughed.

"Even so, it's hard. I'm losing my mind."

"Well, we can be crazy together, because I'm losing my mind too."

There was a rustling at the bottom of the stairs and we looked at each other. 'The boys' I mouthed to her and she nodded, gesturing for us to continue the conversation and pretend to not notice them.

"Bianca, I'm getting tired of this, we can't keep doing this. Even the kids are starting to notice. Do you know how many times Todd and the quintuplets have asked me if I 'hated daddy'?" I said and sighed. "Of course I say no, because I don't. At all."

"The twins ask the same thing, and I just stare at them shaking my head. I can't even get my voice to work to reassure them that I don't hate Alec."

"It's so goddamn frustrating!" I exclaimed.

"Shh! You'll wake them all up!"

"Right," I muttered and leaned my head against the bars behind me. "Bianca, what if the kids start thinking that we're lying, that we don't want to tell them the truth?"

"They won't. Well, I hope that they won't think that."

"But what if they do?"

"I don't know Ana!" She said, throwing her hands up into the air, then let them drop back to the floor and I bit my lip.

"What are we going to do?" I asked quietly after a few moments of silence and my voice was laced with the sadness, stress and fear that were all pent up inside me.

"We could call off the deal."

"No. Well, maybe, if it becomes too much."

"It'd probably give the guys an ego boost to think that we gave in because we couldn't stay away from them any longer."

"But we'd always know the truth. It was just putting too much stress on us," I whispered and she wrapped her arm around my waist.

"Which is why we can't give in, we need to finish this, go through with it till the end. We can show them exactly how tough we are by not giving in to stress," she said and I nodded, leaning my head against her shoulder.

"See, this is why I love you, even if you weren't my sister."

We laughed and then sighed. I stood up, and pulled her to her feet too, and we walked around the railing. At the bottom of the stairs, there was a rustling and we froze at the top of the stairs and flicked our fingers at the noise. Faking surprise, we walked the rest of the way down the stairs, and glared at the boys who were frozen in the act of sneaking off.

"Were you two spying on us?" Bianca asked, and we snapped our fingers, unfreezing them.

"Okay, that's not fair. You can't freeze us," Alec said and crossed his arms defensively over his chest.

"Fine, we were spying on you two, but only cause we had just been talking about you and wondering how you were faring with this whole deal," Daniel admitted, his eyes boring into me, and I became suddenly very fascinated with a dent in the wood floor.

"How could you? Now you know how to manipulate us!" Bianca exclaimed, pulling Daniel's attention from me as she threw her hands in the air.

"I think it's time this ended," he whispered, glancing at me and I sank onto a stair, my knees giving out.

"No," I whispered and my hands balled into fists. All my exhaustion vanished and my palms burned, but I folded them against my stomach, my nails digging into the skin.

"Ana?" Bianca asked, taking a step towards me, her own hands glowing and she fisted them, dimming the light that burst from them.

"No," I repeated and looked up, right at Daniel. Standing, I walked to stand in front of him and glared up at him. "You made a deal, if you break that deal then the wedding's off. It was either the wedding or nothing."

Before he could answer, I wrapped my arms around myself, tremors rocking through my body and instead of the usual glow, I burst into blinding light. The wind whipped around me and I let it carry me off, to wherever it wanted, as long as it was not here.