After Leopold has gone, I sink down to the floor, my fingers trembling along with the rest of me. My chin is throbbing from the vampire's grip, blood still dripping down the front of my shirt in tiny droplets. My legs are jelly, my insides a twisted mess—I've just watched someone be murdered, the life slipping from them like sand through my fingers. If only I had seen it coming; maybe I could have done something, anything.

"Hey, hey, Gemma," Damien is saying, his voice soothing but gravelly. I feel his breath stir the hairs near my ear as he crouches down, pulling me up with a gentle but adamant grip. "Calm down, calm down—"

"Dame, what if he knows about Gael?" I ask, the volume of my voice low. I turn, hugging Damien to me, just because I need someone to hold me up. I nuzzle my face into his chest, used to the desolate iciness underneath. "I...I was right. The initiation was a bad idea...they sniffed him out, just like I thought they would, Damien."

"No, no we don't know that," Damien argues, unlatching my arms from around him and holding me at arm's length. He peers down into my face, eyebrows furrowed, gaze intense. "It was just a threat, Gemma, just a threat. He might know anything at all."

"That's not a chance I'm willing to take," I say. "We have to figure something out—something to keep Gael safe, somehow."

"The safest thing for Gael to do right now," Damien advises, taking my hand and pulling me out into the hall, "is to go about life here as he's been doing. If we don't give them anything to be suspicious about...it's likely they'll give up."

I stop walking, looking up at Dame, the question just as lucid in my eyes as it is from my mouth: "And if they don't?"

Damien gives me a small, toothless grin, then leans forward and drops a brisk kiss on my forehead. His eyes shimmer with admiration, respect. "Then we'll fight for him, just like we've always fought for everything."

I manage to survive the rest of the day without keeling over and giving up. We tell Sloane what Leopold ordered us to, that Meredith's death was a suicide, and say nothing more. I can tell Sloane's suspicious, and—as I always do—hate myself for keeping anything from her, but consider myself doing her a favor. If she's not involved, she can't get hurt. If we leave her out of this, so will Leopold.

The kitchen smells like coffee when I enter it, the earthy scent startling but comforting. Natural sunlight filters through the French doors that mark the end of the living room, and through the glass I can see Finn crouched in the grass, his tutor Alanis beside him.

Gael has his back to me, crouching down to get something from the lower cupboards. He really has become a part of our small family, if I have to admit; he knows where we keep everything, what temperature we prefer the air conditioning on, even how Finn likes his sandwiches. He has very specific taste, like the fact he wants two sides crust-free with the other sides left alone. Upon doing this for him once, he had almost thrown a tantrum, because the two sides I'd chosen that time weren't parallel.

I drop my bag near the island and poke Gael in the small of his back, and he grins, whirling as he stands up. "Oh, thank God," he breathes, pulling me against him and kissing me on the cheek. Blood rushes to the surface of my skin. "Being at home all day is not as fun as it seems. I was beginning to feel like a housewife, er, husband." Releasing me, Gael frowns. "House...boyfriend? If that's what I am now..."

He smiles down at me again, and I say, "I don't know what you are, Gael. There's just no name for someone so special."

"How cute," Gael remarks, producing the two mugs he'd been supposedly crouching for. He slides them onto the island, and I snake my arm around his torso to retrieve the coffee maker, the source of the smell that was so prevalent when I walked in. Pouring the hot drinks with one hand, Gael taps me on the nose with the other. "You're cute when you try to be romantic, Gem."

"That wasn't romantic enough for you?" I say with a laugh, draping myself over the island with my chin in my hands. Laughing is something I need right now, I realize, what with the events of earlier today. A smile, coffee, and Gael are all great remedies by themselves—but together, it's heaven.

"On a scale of one to ten," Gael says, pouring a boatload of milk into his mug, "it was maybe a five."

I take a seat at the breakfast bar, my knees bumping the base of the kitchen island. Warmth from the coffee presses against my palms as if I'm grasping sunlight, and I take a tentative sip. "Fine. How can I add five more points next time?"

Gael grins down into his coffee, stirring it until it forms a whirlpool, then watching it settle again. "One, candles. Two, roses. Three, kisses. Four, cuddles. Oh, and, it would be extra sexy if you whispered in a super low sexy voice."

"Let me just add that to my to-do list, in that case," I reply. "'Practice super low sexy voice.'"

"Good, and I'll practice mine," Gael tells me, glancing outside at Finn and Alanis. Afternoon sun outlines his profile like a work of art, the keenness of his jawbone, the elegant curve of his neck, his eyes silhouetted and his eyelashes like ink strokes. I'm suddenly glad to have the privilege of calling this artwork mine, signing my name on it like a promise.

"Gael."

His eyes flit away from Finn and back to me, narrowing. His tone and skeptical when he asks, "Yes?"

"Something...happened today," I manage to say, even if Leopold and what he did to Meredith have been the one thing I've been trying to avoid thinking about for the entire day.

Gael sets his mug down and comes around to the other side of the island, grabbing a seat on the barstool beside me. "Something bad?"

I swallow. "I think the Commission might know about you," I tell him, "or are at least close to knowing." When Gael just stares at me blankly, I begin to relay to him everything that had happened in the room with Meredith and Leopold, including the threat from Leopold himself. I watched his expressions change from disbelief, to surprise, to fear, and felt my heart flutter. The last thing I wanted, especially now, was for Gael to be unsafe here. I can't stand to see him hurt.

"There has to be something we can do," Gael says. His green eyes are shadowy, no sun in them, as he looks down at the ground, tapping his fingers on his knees impatiently. "We could...negotiate, maybe...or tell someone—"

"Tell who?" I interrupt, grabbing up his wrist. His pulse pounds underneath my touch, his frown deepening when he raises his eyes to me. "Gael, anyone finds out what you are, and the whole nation will be chasing after you with pitchforks and torches. It's not worth it."

"What about Sloane?"

"No." I shake my head. "I won't bring her into this. She'll get hurt."

"Gem, you'll get hurt," Gael tells me, eyes wide. "If someone hurts you because of me, I'll never be able to forgive myself."

"It won't happen," I counter, relaxing my grip but not my scrutiny. Looking into his eyes doesn't dull the world of problems swirling around me, but it somehow makes it bearable. "I can defend myself, Gael, you know that—and Damien and I will defend you. We just can't tell anyone, because knowledge is dangerous right now, okay? You're right; there's something we can do. We just haven't figured it out yet."

Gael eyes drop to the floor again, his eyelashes folding over them as he does. His hair hangs over his forehead like dark, curling vines, and his shoulders are bent.

He doesn't have to ask for my comfort; I know he feels like this is his fault, and I'm here to tell him it isn't. I lift his head back up, cupping his cheek in my hand. "Hey," I say, my voice soft. Gael's fingers wrap around mine as he looks levelly at me, an ardent emerald flame. "I care too much about you to let anyone touch a hair on your head."

"I appreciate that," he says, his voice grave, "but who cares about me? Gemma—"

"Shh, shh." I hop off the barstool and scoot closer to him, pressing a delicate finger to his lips. He raises an eyebrow at me, but doesn't move away as I throw my arms around him, hugging him to me like he's the teddy bear I know he is. He exhales, his breath stirring my ear as he grasps me around my waist, pulling me closer to him.

"I don't even know why you're worried," I tell him, my hands linking around the back of his neck as I lay my head on his shoulder. My eyes shut, and I bask in the feeling of him holding me, of his chest rising and falling against mine. I wonder why I ever denied feelings for Gael; denial prevented moments like these, moments where you could lay everything down and give yourself to someone else. "They can't touch us. No one can."

"My warrior," Gael says, and he chuckles, pulling back and brushing hair behind my ear with a wholehearted grin. His fingers trail down my cheek, tipping my chin towards him, our lips inches from each other's. I can already taste him. "I'm lucky to love you—"

Both of us jump, hesitating, when we hear the French doors slide open. Gael's arm still swept around me, I look over his shoulder to see Alanis reentering the house, Finn holding her hand. He runs over to the couch, plopping himself down on it, as Alanis turns to shut the door behind her.

I detach myself from Gael and take my seat on my barstool again, my heart pounding so hard that it hurts. There are few words to describe the feeling of being so close to him, and then having to leave his side so suddenly. "So his lesson is done?" I ask Alanis, picking at a pull in my leggings. "That means you're leaving now?"

"Yes," Alanis replies, and I force my eyes up to hers, just as electric blue as her hair, both startling against the ethnic bronze of her skin. Her gaze is contemptuous, judging, as she looks at Gael and I, and that is why I have always disliked her—she often judges without past knowledge, without thought. "I don't imagine your mother's aware of the plaything you've been playing tonsil hockey with around the house, is she?"

My cheeks flood with color. "Gael is not a plaything," I say, "and yes, she's very much aware."

Alanis chuckles with a sneer, grabbing up her keys from the hook near the front door and gripping the knob to leave. She looks over her shoulder at us, her curtain of cyan falling to her waist. "I'd advise you not to get so caught up in puppy love, Gemma. Things like that never last long."

"Please leave," I say, and she does.

Once she's gone, I get up and go into the living room, crawling onto the couch with Finn, who sits himself in my lap and lays his head on my chest. Gael slides onto the other side of the couch, still looking dazed. "That's his tutor?" he asks me.

I nod. "Not the warmest person you've ever met, I know."

"Not the warmest? I'd say she's closer to an ice cold b—"

"Gael!" I yelp, pointing to Finn, who seems too observed in his cartoons to care.

Gael, as we both stifle laughs, rephrases: "An ice cold beach. I was going to say beach."

"Beaches don't get cold, silly," Finn contradicts, lifting his head off of my chest to see Gael better.

"Nope." I just chuckle, kissing my brother on the ear. His giggles rise in the air, lifting my spirits at a time when I desperately need it. "You're right, Finn. They don't."