“You’re not safe anymore,” Lucian stated, pacing.
“Please, I haven’t been safe since I met Darren,” Edana replied rolling her eyes.
“This is serious, Edana, you can no longer leave the house,” Gabriel told her sternly.
“What?” Edana screeched, jumping up from her seat in Prince Gabriel’s office.
“They know where you are, how important you are to my grandfather’s legacy, they will do anything to get their hands on you!” Lucian pleaded with her to understand.
“What about my friends?” Edana demanded. “I can’t just go back to ignoring them!”
Lucian and his father shared a look. They knew what should be done but also knew that Edana would not be happy about it and probably fight them every step of the way.
“You have to, Edana. If you keep contact with them you’ll just be putting them in danger,” Gabriel told her reasonably.
Seeing Edana open her mouth furiously, Lucian hastily added, “We would offer to let you invite them to stay here, but we can’t let anyone know what we really are and what with your training it will be nigh impossible to keep it hidden if they lived among us.”
Edana racked her brain for another solution, but came up with none. She sighed in defeat.
“Can I at least make one more phone call?” She asked desperately.
“No.”
“Fine.”
Lucian and his father looked at each other in shock.
“What do you mean ‘fine’?” Gabriel demanded.
“One quick phone call won’t hurt.” Seeing the look on his father’s face, he added, “It’s the least we can do after turning her whole life upside down.”
Gabriel looked like he might argue so before he got the chance, Edana pulled out thecellphone that Lucian had bought her soon after their trip to Bonfire and dialled Daniel’s number.
“Hey Ed,” he greeted after he picked up. Edana felt a pang of guilt at the smile in his voice, knowing she was about to lie to a best friend again.
“Hey Dan.”
“What’s up? You sound funny,”
Edana took a deep breath, “Uh – Dan – we have to go back to Lucian’s home country, I can’t tell you why but it’s an emergency and I won’t be able to contact home while I’m there,” she said all this in a rush hoping he wouldn’t be too mad.
“Ed, something very weird is going on with you and that family and this engagement and don’t even try to deny it!”
“Uh – okay look, Lucian’s family is part of some kind of organised crime thing. His dad is the leader and apparently some local gang thinks they’re encroaching on their territory or something and are threatening me. I know I could take any dumb gangsters any day but Lucian thinks it would be better to leave just to be sure until his dad can arrange something, and I can’t contact anyone ‘cause they might use you guys to lure me back.” Edana bit her tongue to stifle the guilt. Although, she consoled herself, it’s not really a lie: they were kind of like a gang and the Gaunts are threatening me.
Dan was quiet for a moment as he considered this, “Well at least Lucian is putting your safety first. I guess we should have suspected something like this, you would never a date a plain old rich boy.” Edana forced herself to laugh.
“Look, Dan, I’m really sorry but I have to go pack,” Edana told him, fighting tears.
“Okay, keep safe, Eddie. We’ll talk when you get back, okay?”
“Sure.” Edana hung up and turned to scowl at the two vampyres in the room with her. “I hate you. Both of you,” she stated with such conviction Lucian’s eyes widened a fraction.
*****
“Concentrate! You did it earlier so it should come easier to you now!” Edwin demanded. He was trying to get her to repeat her telekinesis feat.
“I told you! Earlier, I was furious; it wasn’t so much concentration as fierce determination!” She moaned exasperated, staring at the glass she was supposed to be moving. Her eyes were starting to water from how hard she was staring at it.
“Can you recreate the ‘fierce determination’ then please?” He asked irritated.
Edana thought for a moment before it came to her. She blinked a couple of times before refocusing on the glass. This time however, instead of concentrating on trying to move the glass, she thought of how much Edwin was irritating her and how much she would love it if the glass hit him in the face.
A second later, she was rewarded with a shout of mingled shock and pain. Edana grinned. Edwin scowled.
“It worked didn’t it?” She asked in her best innocent voice.
“Again!” He snapped.
Fifteen minutes later, Edana could hardly hear Edwin’s cries of “Stop!” he was piled beneath so many things that she had sent flying at him.
“This lesson’s over,” came his muffled voice.