Chapter 4

The boy with the familiar ice-blue eyes and dark hair stared at her. He was surprised by what he saw, the girl from his school, standing in front of her with her angel wing. His lips went dry when he thought of the upper hand that she had right now.

"Ah, Jack. I was looking for you," Lila said. "I want you to meet an old friend of mine, Jason Rivera, and his daughter Ivy Angelus."

Ivy regretted going to this party, she regretted agreeing on this. She tried to ignore how her heart was pounding in a panic only by the thought of how awkward this was going to be. It was clear that Jack enjoyed it as much as she did, not at all. The thought of him being more powerful than a human, made her nauseous, meanwhile, memories of them from the past year played up in her head.

"Good to see that you've grown up to such a fine man," Jason complimented and reached out his hand.

"It's necessary if you want to work for the Prostátis," Jack smiled and shook Jason's hand politely before he turned to Ivy. "Ivy."

"Jack," Ivy gave him a small nod.

"Do you two know each other?" Lila asked as she studied them both.

Ivy could see how Jack's muscles tensed. His eyes were on her, almost as if he was begging her to keep quiet. It would be funny to see what Jack was going to reply to his mother, but Ivy decided to spare him tonight. She wasn't in a mood for drama and long explanations, especially because she knew that it would involve more talking to him.

"We're classmates," Ivy replied and gave Jack, who relaxed again, a smile.

"How wonderful!" Lila squealed. "Why haven't I heard of her before, Jack?"

"We don't socialise that much," Jack admitted and shrugged as if he didn't know the reason behind why they don't socialise.

"Oh, Well I won't keep you here any longer. I'm sure that others want to have the opportunity to meet you," Lila said to Ivy and Jason. "It was nice to see you again Jason, and you too, Ivy."

"Likewise Lila," Jason agreed. "I'll see you around."

And then they went in different directions. Ivy threw a quick glance back just to see that Jack was looking at her, so she quickly broke the eye contact. Ivy and Jason went to the centre of the party, where everyone had gathered to celebrate the ceremony. There were a lot of creatures everywhere, some with unique features and others that looked normal. She saw demons with coloured skin and horn, and wizards that enjoyed showing off their magic.

"Jason Rivera," A new voice called through the crowd. They turned around and saw a big man standing with open arms and a glass of wine. He smelled like smoke and wine but welcomed them with a big smile. "How long has it been?"

"Two years, my friend. Two years since I saw you in Los Angeles." Jason laughed and hugged his old friend. "How are you, Gabriel?"

"I'm fine," Gabriel laughed. "What about you? I didn't see you during the last ceremony."

"Tough times," Jason explained shortly.

"Oh, I understand," Gabriel sadly shook his head. "She was a fine woman, Catrine was always a good witch."

As they talked, Ivy spotted something familiar in the crowd, dark blonde hair and hazel eyes with a tint of green. She excused herself before she started following the person. He was moving fats, which made it difficult for her to keep him in sight while apologising to all the people she accidentally pushed away. She saw him walking outside through a smaller opening and followed his steps. The night had come, and it made the air frozen. She followed him around the corner and made sure to keep a distance from him. She didn't want to get caught, yet. A part of her wondered if she might had confused him with someone else but didn't stop following him, not until she heard voices around the corner. She was aware of the fact that it was rude to eavesdrop on a conversation. but her curiosity got the better of her.

At first, it was just small whispers, but it got louder and louder until it was an aggressive argumentation. There were three of them, and they were talking about a mission, a guard mission. Whoever they guarded was here, that's what one of them said to the other. She could guess who one of the voices belonged to, and the other seemed familiar, but she couldn't figure out who they were. They were arguing about how they've kept secrets from each other and from the person they were guarding, without mentioning the name.

"I don't need your help," The first voice said. The voice of the boy she followed.

"It looks like you need our help," Another voice said. "She's here and you didn't even know that, what a guardian."

"As if you could have done it better," The first one said again.

"Maybe we should find her instead of wasting time arguing," A third voice said. This person was slightly calmer than the first two.

"And how exactly do you think I would do that?" The first one asked.

"I can't really say that the truth will be fun to hear," The second one gave away a small laugh. "Ivy won't be happy when she finds out that you've only been there as a mission to guard here and collect information."

Ivy flickered when she heard her name. When she thought through the conversation she realised that she was the one that they were talking about, the one they were supposed to guard. Having enough of this conversation, she stepped out of her hiding place.

"Am I only a mission?" Ivy asked, not even bothering hiding how hurt that sounded. "I was just some creature to guard?"

With the confusion came anger that was boiling in her veins. Had the only person she could trust been a spy? It was a whole year of lies. A part of her knew that she shouldn't blame him, she kept secrets from him as well, but for now, she was pissed off because he had lied to her. The three boys were staring at her, Luke, Jack and Aiden. She should have known that it was them. Luke was fumbling with words, trying to find a good explanation.

"I can explain," Was all that came out of his mouth.

"Save it," Ivy snapped. "For the moment I don't want anything with you to do."

She ignored the protest that came from Luke and the muttering sound that Jack made, she just walked inside again, where she could lose them in the crowd. Without knowing exactly what to do she headed to the table with refreshment and took a drink. She sighed as she looked at the diversity of the people in the room, there were couples dancing while others were fooling around. Ivy knew that she would have to deal with Luke later or sooner, for now, it was going to be later.

As Ivy looked around the room she noticed how people were secretly staring at her, as if she was an exotic animal at the zoo. She knew what she was getting into when she accepted Jason's offer, but it didn't mean that she didn't hate it. Already at a young age, the Prostátis had found her fascinating and interesting to study. At some point, she got sick of it and Catrine had demanded privacy for her and her family.

"Hi!" Ivy snapped out of her thought and turned towards the person who'd just talked to her. It was Elisia, the Armstrong girl. She looked at Ivy with a beautiful and welcoming smile. At least she had enough courage to approach her, unlike everyone else.

"Hi," Ivy replied happily. "Elisia right?"

"That's me," Elisia said proudly and threw her hair over her shoulder. "I'm sorry, am I disturbing you?"

"Oh. no of course not," Ivy responded quickly, as she understood that she had seemed distant. "I'm sorry, I'm not usually this distracted."

"What's the problem?" Elisia asked concerned. "Is there something wrong?"

"It's nothing," Ivy assured. "I'm just not used to the attention, this kind of attention"

Elisia looked around and saw how people were staring and talking about Ivy, but they looked away as soon as they understood that people were looking at them. Elisia frowned with her eyebrows in frustration. She didn't like what she saw and didn't know how to fix it.

"Don't mind them," Elisia finally said and shrugged. "They're just not used to someone like you. People are curious, and you just happened to be the first angel creature they've seen in about eighteen years."

"What about the last angel?" Ivy asked. "The one we celebrate today?"

"He was dead when we found him," Elisia explained. "The snow was early, and my father and his friend found his body in the snow, someone had taken the wings. The guilty left no trace after him, and we don't know how he died exactly."

"That's terrible," Ivy said. " I can't imagine someone that could do such a cruel thing."

"The world is full of evil," Elisia sighed but agreed. "Some people say that the angels had done something even worse and this was their punishment."

Ivy didn't know what to respond to that. What if the rumours were true? Nobody is innocent in a war. What if the angels had done something far worse than murdering an entire race? She has heard many stories about the angels that were supposed to be her relatives, the story of their beautiful land and incredible power.

"Oh, I'm sorry," Elisia suddenly apologised. "It's impolite of me to talk about your ancestors like that. I didn't mean to offend you. I happen to be very interested in the Angels' history."

"It's okay," Ivy gave away a small laugh. "It's quite interesting. I have never heard their story from that perspective. I hardly believe that every angel was innocent, but there are so many stories to keep up with."

"Really? So what did you hear?" Elisia asked excitedly, and Ivy was about to answer when she suddenly felt a tap on her shoulder. She turned around and faced a familiar face, a boy with golden blonde hair and a pair of dragon wings on his shoulder.

"Isaac?" Ivy's eyes were wide open.

"Hello Ivy," He greeted with a grin. "I hoped that I would see you here."

"Wait what? You knew?" Ivy almost shouted. "How?"

Just when she thought she had the surprise of the day, this happened. It wasn't until now it hit her that everyone around her was nonhuman. The life she thought she lived among the humans had been among others of her kind, the magical kind.

"Well, I'm pretty good at seeing the difference between a human and a magical creature," Isaac laughed at her astonishment. "But I have to admit that I never expected you to be the last angel."

"Really? And why not?" Ivy looked up to Isaac with a frown face.

"You're not exactly pure and innocent," Isaac joked.

While Isaac answered, Ivy, noticed something., something important.

"You're eyes," Ivy whispered. "They're in two different colours."

Isaac stopped for a second before he smiled at her. His right eye was her familiar chocolate brown colour while his left was the same storm grey that she had on her right eye.

"Took you long enough to notice," Isaac laughed. "I guess you already know what that means."

"That we're..."

"Soulmates," Isaac finished. "A prince of hell and the last angel, this is going to be exciting."

Suddenly it made sense. How she always felt around him, how safe and relaxed she felt whenever he was around. The first day at school, her instincts automatically trusted him, because they knew that he was her soulmate.

"You don't seem too surprised?..." Ivy noticed.

"I'm too busy being relieved. I was preparing for the worst," Isaac explained and Ivy related to it.

"Why don't we discuss this later, I want to introduce you to someone," Isaac said and he gestured to a new boy that approached them.

It was clear that he was a demon and the storm grey eyes matched Isaac's. Ivy saw some similar features like the nose, they both had a medium refined nose shape and an aura that screamed power. The main difference between them was that the new boy had dark brown hair while Isaac had golden blonde.

"This is my brother Alex."

"Pleasure to meet you," Alex greeted with a nod.

"Likewise," Ivy replied. "I would like to introduce you to someone too. This is Elisia Armstrong. Sorry that I kept you waiting."

"It's okay," Elisia happily. "I was in shock anyway. There haven't been soulmates for centuries, this is huge."

"I know it's a lot to take in, especially for us two." Ivy nodded towards Isaac and then pointed at herself.

"I think we'll manage," Isaac gave her a supporting smile. "Now when I know that it's you, I can relax a little. And you should be overwhelmed that your soulmate turned out to be such an amazing person like me."

"Are you always this charming?" Elisia asked as she studied him up and down. "Or is it just temporary?"

"Always," Isaac replied.

"Temporary," Alex corrected, and everyone laughed, everyone except Isaac.