**Ch 324: Blinded By Love

"Truth be told, my dear sister, I was never the player because I have a destined mate. Unlike my twin, who never had one," Alejandro admitted.

"How could you not have cheated? I saw you with different women daily." My chest heaved as the vampiress beside him laughed too.

"I'm a chameleon vampiress," she verified as her face changed into several different feminine faces. Each face I recognized was with Alejandro. In plain sight, she was there the whole time without me knowing for seven years.

"I must say, keeping this secret for all these years has certainly spiced up our marriage," she giggled flirtatiously and twined her arms around Alejandro's nape.

They kissed romantically for a second until Alejandro whispered, giving her a nose kiss. "I've always been in love with the face and the natural blonde hair color you were born with."

While they were seemingly captivated by their weird kissy romance, I asked. "How could you do this?"

"Why don't you ask Kai?" Crystal hissed her fangs. "Or better yet, his father!"

"Easy Crystal will get there," Orlando hushed his temperamental cousin.

"Why did it take you this long to confess this?" I tried not to sob as I dug to get more answers.

Orlando replies, "This starts from when we first started dating. It was hard to get you interested in me, but once I got your heart, things sailed quite smoothly, but then you found Kai. He hid the truth quite well, so I couldn't tell if you knew about vampires, and by Vampire Oath, I couldn't ask you or trammel with your decisions in life as a human because you aren't rightfully mine. Unfortunately for you, Kai's enemies told me the truth during the campus memorial."

Of course, now it makes sense as to why the Collin Coven's enemies were at the campus that night.

"Not to mention, everything else we tried doing didn't work either." Zach brought it up like he was deeply thinking.

"What are you talking about?" I exclaimed, exceedingly confused as answers were getting pieced together.

Orlando explained as he thought back. "At Mr. Jones's fundraiser, I provoked Kai's anger for him to hurt you. I knew blood is his weakness, so I was hoping to expose him to you. But that backfired when he knocked you out. Nevertheless, I still used it to my advantage to manipulate you into thinking he was being abusive. However, it still didn't work because you refused to come back to me."

"Don't forget about the excavation site in Egypt too," Alejandro rejoined the conversation once he quit smooching his wife to remind him.

"Oh, that's right." Orlando chuckled. "We owned the ancient city's farmland from behind the ancient city Kai rested in. On the news, we purposely had you watch it when you stayed with me. I knew it would trigger your time-gap gift. We were hoping it would reveal the truth about Kai too."

"Although, we didn't think you'd have a seizure and end up hospitalized," Crystal added.

Alejandro laughed as he stated, "But it wasn't a total failure because our dad still made sure you wouldn't leave us when you tried to find an apartment. He purposely paid those landlords off to up the price or lie about the living conditions so you would back down."

I couldn't believe love had blinded me this badly from seeing the truth all this time. Orlando was the love of my life. Crystal was my sister. Alejandro and Zach were my brothers. Like my Professor, the Mill family was my first family too. My blinded love for them blocked me from seeing the truth.

Lastly, Orlando concluded. "Yes, but anyways, after learning Kai kissed you, I knew it was only going to be a matter of time before I lose your heart because you'll start feeling a connection with him. That's why I've been trying to figure out if you knew the truth about vampires or if he told you the full truth about you being his destined mate. Because, after you turn into a vampiress, I'll no longer have your heart."

"Consider it lost now!" I snapped, and they laughed before he stepped closer to me, and he pinned me between him and the cargo.

"It wasn't that hard for me to get you to kiss me at the memorial," Orlando whispered, inching closer to my face.

"Don't touch me!" I pushed him away.

"You've always been feisty!" Orlando laughed, enjoying himself too much. "Maybe you'll feel different once I bite you."

His fangs enlarged, and my heart was striking my chest so forcefully that I couldn't breathe properly.

"I may not be a Hunter species, but I'll give you a head start to run if you can," he proclaimed, laughing with everyone else.

"One. Two..."

I got the heck out of there.

"Five!"

Yet I still heard him counting as I ran into the old warehouse. Inside was dark, but the moonlight shining through each square glass window gave enough lighting to see it was dusty and corroded. There were tons of long tables everywhere, and on the floor were huge thick treaded tires that were leaned up against the tables. Also, the place was filled with old abandoned construction vehicles, and one rusty metal chair was randomly placed across the front door at an angle. Hearing footsteps outside, I started to walk faster with a lighter step to search for a hiding place. Out of time, I heard the squeaky door knob twisting open, so I crawled under one of the tables and eased my panting breath as I heard heels clanking closer and closer to where I am.

"Victoria..." Crystal's voice sang out like an alluring lullaby. "Come out, Victoria..." Her whispering song was haunting. From underneath the long line of tables, I crawled quietly on the dirty floor. Thankfully, the line of tires hides me out of sight.

Metal was getting thrown around as I heard Alejandro say in a taunting tone, "We know you're in here, so just come out."

For a moment, I stopped crawling as a mouse scurried around my hand to get away from me, and it ended up squeezing its body between the gap space of two tires resting upright on each other.

"Victoria..." Crystal's voice lingered out like a song again, and my heart stopped dead to hear her heel boots striding alongside the tires. "I can hear your heartbeat Victoria. I know you are close by. Come out, so we can have some girl time."

Louder resounding noises of large metal were getting thrown around and crashing elsewhere in the warehouse, so I peeked through the cracks of the tires and saw Zach was pushing metal barrels over. Not too far from him, Alejandro was checking a neatly stacked pile of timber to find me.