Breaking and Entering?

Li tried and failed to dissuade me from what I planned on doing tonight.

I only wanted to know where Elizabeth was. I just wanted to see her face and make sure she was okay.

This would also be my official statement in case I was caught, and getting caught was a high probability. 'unclaimed vampires', or were they the 'claimed' ones that became purebloods' slaves? Well, one of those two should be swarming the place where three pureblood vamps lived, right?

I seriously needed to get this so-called tabooed world terminology understood already.

Getting familiar with the coven would also benefit our overall plan, the one that we agreed on discussing during the upcoming two days of the weekend.

Having all this drama on a Friday was a stroke of pure luck.

Liam offered to tag along, but that was out of the question, I hated dragging him to see vamps, and I had the perfect excuse for putting my foot down, we couldn't just leave Sophie all alone in our place after all. He didn't argue too much and said he'd have 'eyes' on me. I secretly pleaded with the universe not to have the Johnson twins on my tail while I was on my way to her place.

THEIR place, actually.

Unfortunately, the girl along with her father and Arthur were sort of a packaged kind of a deal.

Thanks to the three days of no rain, I planned on taking Raven for the ride, I headed to the garage where she sat, bored for sure.

"Raven." I greeted my bike.

I had to check its individual components, making sure the chain is at the correct tension before I took it to the highway. Once I made sure she was ready, I wore my helmet, tuning into the helmet's Bluetooth headset, preparing to listen to some music while I rode. I got on and checked the headlights, hit the ignition and then I was off.

***

I joined the highway on a slip road, carrying out a blind spot check before merging onto the lane matching the speed of the vehicles on the left hand and smoothly integrating with the other road users. I tried my best to stay in the left lane, keeping my following distance long enough and moving faster than traffic, as that was usually the safest option.

Yeah right, lie to yourself smoothly.

Truth was, I wanted to see her a moment earlier if possible.

I was following the directions my brother gave me. When I asked how he knew where she lived, he explained that because of the treaty of the mutual territory, purebloods and werewolves knew much about each other in case they needed to come to one another's rescue, in the face of external danger, that is.

I laughed at the idea of such creatures being wary of danger. What was scarier than vampires and werewolves out there anyway?!

I should be arriving at her place soon now. So I sped up some more.

If the culprit behind my mother's disappearance was Arthur, then I needed to penetrate them from the inside, I was no match for his mind tricks right now which meant that direct confrontation would only be in his favor. I promised myself one thing right then and there.

"As this road is my witness, I will surpass him one day."

***

It was past midnight when I finally arrived, the surroundings were too dark and too quiet.

'That's one intact cliche about vampires,' I thought to myself.

I stood there, a bit overwhelmed, watching the place Elizabeth called home from the shadows of the forest surrounding it. As my eyes took all of it in, I couldn't help but admire the architecture.

It was a freaking mansion.

The property was about an hour's drive from my place, but it looked nothing like the rest of the houses around here, the mansion had to measure in at around 17,000 square feet, completely secluded in the Chugach Mountain of Anchorage.

It would be impossible for me to go through the front gate and remain unnoticed.

I decided to try to look for a side or a back entrance so I changed my location, swiftly lurking in the shadows, making little to no sounds as I leaned against the scattered trees whenever I reached one and re-estimated my bearings.

But where were all the guards?!

The thought had not disappeared from my head yet when I saw two figures in long crimson cloaks.

Did Arthur have a subscription with a cloak-producing company or something? Or was it any other vampire thing to favor that particular look?

I studied the men in their cloaks, calling them men was not right, really, I couldn't miss how unnaturally yellow their eyes were, both having the exact ominous shade to them – that was the only feature they had in common with each other.

"Hao tianqi," one of them said.

"Sahih! Ajib alaysa kathalek?" The other one agreed.

Creepy.

The vampires continued their chit-chat, one of them was speaking Mandarin, while the other replied to him in Arabic. and I understood both of their remarks about the weather tonight, plus, I knew the name of the languages they spoke.

Creepy, but it made me want to hit them unconscious a bit less than before. I'd try to break in completely unnoticed if possible.

The only two guards I was able to locate went out of sight.

I decided to climb the tree I leaned against to get a better view of the mansion's surroundings, it took me a few seconds to reach a high branch. I was dangling by one hand when I turned my head at the sound of footsteps approaching.

My breath stopped. That was when I saw her.

Her hair was dark and wild around her pale face that was somehow paler under the moonlight, she was wearing a long sleeve wrap dress in black, it stopped above her knees, and she was in Tall Boots.

her face had lines of anger; her full lips slightly pouted as she reached the tree I had climbed – she took my breath away.

"Are you done playing thief now?" she demanded, looking up at me.

Yes, she was angry.

"How did you…?" She held her hand out, stopping me.

"Know you're here?" she clarified my question. Tapping her head twice. "Purebloods see each other, it's built in, and yours is red."

"Mine is red?"

"Your dot," She sighed, "Just until when are you planning on postponing the whole awakening thing?"

Was she implying that I was a slowpoke?