Bleeding Shadows

Chapter 31

Alex was absent from university for four days. It wasn't until Friday that we heard he'd come back to campus.

According to the rumors he was just sick for four days and now he was even more cocky than he was before his disappearance. Oh great.

Although it was much to my delight when I ran into the asshole in the corridors of the campus and the cockiness that he'd always displayed vanished. The look of trying to suppress terror did not sit well on Alex's angelic face.

What gave me even more satisfaction was the look Alex gave me when he realized that Gabe was around me and my Ethereal children basically 24/7. She'd just clicked into our group so naturally.

Which honestly surprised me because I knew it couldn't be easy to be around a group that was as close to each other as the four Ethereals, Rose and Rhys were.

An example of this was Mia becoming more distant with us. It's not that she didn't like us anymore. It's just hard when you always feel like an outsider I suppose. Luckily she was gaining her own group of friends. The girl was a socialite and well loved by nearly everyone after all.

When I woke up with no pillow on Sunday morning and found Gabe sleeping on mine with a triumphant expression on her face from her dream, I got shitty at her and banned sleep overs from that point on.

That lasted a whole three days before we were back to watching movies and doing homework together before passing out, not even bothering to change into pajamas.

Leah is my best friend, but a lot of her time is taken up with Audrey these days. Rightfully so I might add. I guess it's just nice to have someone around whom I'm comfortable enough with to call a really good friend.

As for Gabe, she seemed to have gotten over any and all reservations she had about me being an Original vampire straight after I bit her. If anything it made our relationship stronger and she doesn't mind anything about me. I will admit, it's nice not having to put those damn contacts in just to hang out with Gabe.

"My mother would like to see you on the weekend." The voice of Alex pulling me out of reminiscing about the week that's just been.

"Sure, what day Alex?" I ask him while mentioning his name because I know he hates it.

"Sunday at 2 pm." Alex ground his teeth in frustration as he replied.

"See you later then Alex Lenny Davenport." I teased at him before linking my arm with Gabe's to add effect and wandering off. I could feel the anger radiating off of the Royal, even once I'd turned a corner and he was out of sight.

"You love teasing him, don't you." Gabe observed to me, not bothering to unlink our arms even though it made us look like we were in high school.

"Of course, everyone needs something to brighten up their day." I replied with a brilliant smile.

"Have you thought anymore about Rose and Rhys's request?" Gabe asked me, referring to them wanting to become my Ethereal children.

Gabe had been told about the request on Sunday and had quite surprised me with her answer. She had sat at the dining table and after thinking for a few minutes simply said, "It would be nice to know that you would always have a loving family to go home to."

I'm not sure where the girl that was deathly afraid of vampires went, but I'm glad she's dealing with us easily now. Maybe my virus that cleared all the scars on her entire body also helped clear some of the mental scars caused by Alex. I hoped so anyway.

"I haven't given it enough thought yet." I admitted to Gabe. "But I'm also in no rush, we have literally the rest of our lives to make this decision."