Bedburg Hills

113

JACE POV

Kira opened the last gift, the gift I had personally gotten her. She pulled out the box and looked at me before opening it.

"Jace you shouldn't have," she smiled. Her cheeks were a rosey color from blushing.

"Open it," I smiled, "come on I'm excited." She slowly opened the case and she gasped before smiling a smile I haven't seen in a while. Her eyes sparkled as she looked up at me, "wh-"

I stood up and walked over to her, kneeling down in front of her, "this is a promise to you. It's a promise to love and only you, forever and always. A promise to always be here for you, no matter what. Always." I reached in my back pocket, grabbing a matching ring and holding it up in front of her, "this is mine. Can I?"

"Yes," she nodded, "I love you Jace Emerald."

"I love you beautiful," I pulled the ring from the box and slid it onto her finger. She grabbed my hand before I could put mine on and took the ring from my fingers.

"And this is a promise to you," she was able to link with my mind, "to love you always. To protect you at all costs. A promise to forever make sure I'm your safe haven, a promise that you'll never have to run from me because I will always accept every part of you, even the ones you feel are bad." I didn't know what to say. I wanted to just... love her. I wanted to wrap her in my arms but I wanted it to just be us, ya know. I smiled and set my hand on the side of her face. She slid the ring onto my finger and I leaned forward, kissing her forehead.

"Okay," Esme coughed, trying to clear the silence, "we need to talk about what happened to you. I haven't gotten five minutes alone to just talk to you about you. It's been nonstop all day." Kira sighed and tucked her hair behind her ear.

"Okay," she cleared her throat. I could hear her heart already starting to race,  it's the full moon, Sarge, the leader, he came down and unchained me. He took me upstairs and outside. There were so many vampires, I couldn't count them all. I was to be set 'free' to run and if I'm caught, well, im caught. At this point I felt like I could barely move. When he dropped me, my body just fell into the ground. Others laughed around me and I just felt.. helpless and I hated it because I'm not. I'm not fucking helpless. So I got told that I had three minutes, which should have been plenty of time for me to get out of there and far away but it wasn't. I somehow stood up and started trying to make my way through the woods. I was going as fast as I could, which wasn't very fast. It felt like the three minutes went by in three seconds and they were on me." I started to rub her back as she explained, becoming more and more emotional, "I was taken back to the building where they strapped me in a chair and put me in the middle of a gym type area. Vampires crowded into the room around me and Sarge came up saying that with the full moon, they could feed on me. He said we needed to pay for our past mistakes and to drain me. So they just swarmed around me. At first I tried to fight it, I screamed and screamed. But then I just felt numb. I felt like I couldn't breathe, as if it was entering body but leaving through the bite wounds. When I heard you," she turned around and looked up at me, "when I heard you I thought I was dead. I really thought I was dying and your spirit was calling to me or something. I was scared." She turned and looked at everyone else, "like really for the first time I was scared. I don't know what I would have done or where I'd be right now without you guys."

"Well it was all Jace," Esme nodded, "he took off to find you first honestly. I didn't think it was a good idea. After a while we went and found him which led us to you." She looked back at me and I smirked.

"Are you guys hungry?" Esme questioned, "anyone?"

"I am," Kai raised his hand slightly.

"Yeah me too," Rowan spoke quietly.