Hi angels, 🙋👼💕

This is kind of a depressing subject but I'll try and liven it up and lift the mood with emojis 🤔😜🤗

Voting on chapters is low. 😞💔💦

I realise most people don't vote because they forget.😓

Only 7% of readers voted in the last chapter 😢📖❌

So I'm going to try and incentivize you to vote by doing this...🤔💡

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It was 4000, but I think the notification system isn't working properly, so many readers are unaware there is even an update 😓

Long chapters take me several extra hours to write, so if you go the extra mile to hit the vote button then I will go the extra mile too. Otherwise you'll still get a chapter on Friday, but it will be the normal 1000 word chapter*💕🤗

And just to give you an idea of what that would be like, this chapter (excluding author's note and dream cast) is about 1900 words.✨✨

*Any crappy remarks about my chapter length will be deleted - I share the sensitivity about my chapter length as most guys do about the length of their you-know-what 😱😜

Votes contribute towards things like rankings and engagement levels. 👸🏅🏆

So please show your support by voting and in return I will show my appreciation by writing longer chapters 🤗😘💖📖

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A fresh and fabulous cast by Insomnia!

- Tyler Hoechlin 👱💖😚

- Adelaide Kane 👩👻🎀

- Sean O'Pry 🐒🕶😉

- Douglas Booth 💪👺🤕

-Candice Accola 💃💩👎

- Nyle Dimarco 😵👑👰

- Dean Geyer 🌩😡💕

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Seeing Casper standing there, challenging Luc, was a punch in the gut. In the midst of the chaos and revelation, I had forgotten about Casper and now he was standing in front of us, chest heaving and fangs lowered ready to fight his brother. Luc's grip tightened around my wrist and he protectively dragged me behind him.

I tried to protest but it was pointless. They were like two territorial predators that had run into each other and now they were both preparing for a fight to the death. Whatever humanity or reason they had possessed moments ago disappeared and was replaced by animalistic aggression... which was bad, especially for Luc.

The ground around us rumbled and Luc began to radiate blackness.

"You will not touch her. I will not allow you to harm my mate in that same way as you did our brother's," he said darkly.

"I've not come to harm her, idiot. I've come to save her from you," Casper snapped back.

"I am her mate. She belongs to me, murderer."

"I'm no murderer. And I'm also not the person Mia is screaming at to let her go. I'll only ask you once again brother - let her go. She does not wish to be with you anymore."

"LIAR!"

The concrete floor beneath us cracked and water began gushing up through it. I let out a cry of disgust as black stinking grave water began to pool around my feet. I tried stepping away but Luc jerked me back to his side.

Casper watched the spectacle and snapped, "For Christ sake, Luc, she's pregnant. Don't yank her about like that!"

"Shut up," Luc growled. "She's none of your concern."

"Like hell, she is," Casper yelled.

He lunges forward, grabbing one of the burning wooden torches from its wall holding, and swings it as his brother's face. Luc dodges the blow, and quickly releases me, but only so he can shove me further away from the fight. I stumble blindly forward, doing everything I can to avoid falling into the bubbling black water that is swamping the stone floor. Within a few steps, I hit the wall and instantly recover my balance. I turn to see Luc tackling Casper away from me. He grabs Casper by the shoulders and lifts him off the floor and slams him down into Louis' empty tomb. The stone sides crack and shatter under the force, filling the entire crypt with the sound of echoing thunder.

I instinctively cover my sensitive ears to protect it from the noise and watch in horror as Luc looms over his younger brother with murderous intention. I want to help but everything is happening so fast I don't even have time to think. Casper is down, lying dazed amongst the pieces of rubble. Luc's hand reaches out and clamps down on Casper's throat.

"Luc! Stop it," I scream.

Casper chokes and gasps for air as his older brother continues to throttle him. I run forward to help him but stop when his head turns towards and he gestures to keep back. I stand glued on the spot, indecisively wandering whether to intervene or not.

Luc catches Casper looking at me and yells, "Stop staring at her! You will never have her like you had Celia!"

Casper calmly averts his eyes away from me. I almost think that he has resigned himself to his fate when I notice his free hand fumbling across the broken tomb fragments. His fingers wrap around a large piece of broken stone and lifts it into the air. Luc doesn't realise what is happening until he feels the blow against the side of his head.

He fell sideways and Casper quickly rolled out from underneath him. Both men then staggered to their feet.

"I didn't kill Celia," Casper said.

"Don't lie to me. You killed her and now you want to kill Mia," Luc raged.

I spoke up and said, "It's true. He didn't kill Celia."

Luc turned on me, his eyes glowing black and spat, "Why do you believe him? Is it because he told you he didn't do it?"

"No! It's because Celia told me so. While you've been freaking out up at the castle, Casper and I have been following leads and trying to discover who the real killer is!"

"What," Luc breathed in horror. "You were alone with this monster."

"He found me when I jumped out the apartment window."

"And so you went with him, despite everything you knew about him."

"I didn't have much choice. He kidnapped me."

"So the truth comes out! He captures you then manipulates you against me."

Casper shakes his head and snipes, "You're delusional, Luc! Paranoid and delusional!"

Luc ignores him and yells at me, "He's a liar and manipulator, Mia!"

"Luc, please," I reply softly, reaching out and touching his arm. "He's not our enemy."

My words are lost on him. He stares darkly at his younger brother and growls, "I will never forgive you for turning her against me with your lies."

He turns to face me and roughly grabs me by the shoulders and starts pushing me back into the corner of the crypt. I struggle against him. "No, stop it Luc!"

Casper charges forward to help me and shouts, "Leave her alone!"

Luc immediately wheels around and seizes Casper by the throat. A dark aura engulfs Luc's body and black water around him starts to boil. The air seemed to crackle around him and the appearance of strange black veins became visible across his skin. I stood paralysed to the spot, remembering everything Henrietta had told me about Tuta. I had never seen Luc's darkness this visibly strong before.

He slowly lifted Casper off his feet and violently catapulted his body against the far side of the crypt. I screamed in panic as Casper smashes literally into the wall. His body embeds itself into the wall, and he hangs there, unconscious and unknowing of the fine cracks starting to splinter through the wall around him.

I watch in dismay as black water starts gushing through the cracks and the wall starts to groan. In frozen panic I see the cracks widening until suddenly the whole wall collapse. Soil, black water, and several coffins now came rushing into the crypt like a tsunami of death and decay. Casper unconscious body is carried several feet by the wave until it stops and engulfs his entire body until only his head it visible.

I stand at the edge of the destruction and see Luc picking up the torch Casper had attacked him with earlier. He no longer seems like Luc anymore. His physical appearance is no longer recognisable to me. The black veins now cover his entire body and I can no longer see the whites of his eyes. I observe him as he snaps the long wooden torch into two jagged pieces and walks towards Casper.

Oh shit, he's going to stake him.

I run forward and put myself between Casper and the Prince of Darkness. I try to stop him but he keeps walking forward, his eyes transfixed on his brother.

"Please stop this," I beg him and snatch a hold of his arm.

He impatiently swats me aside and walks to where Casper is buried. He stands over his unconscious brother and with the wooden stake raised up high and ready to split his once beloved brother's head in two.

"That's your brother!" I scream at him. "Luc, you love him, you practically raised him, and deep down you know in your heart that he is innocent!"

The tension in his body seems to waver and an ember of hope starts to glow inside of me.

"Luc, please listen. Casper is innocent and if you kill him now then you are going to be devastated when you find out he was wrongly imprisoned for a crime he never committed. Please, Luc. He never killed Celia."

The stake in his started to tremble and the black veins across his skin started to recede. The cold hard expression on his face had melted way into lost confusion and he cast the stake aside.

Raggedly he breathed, "I don't know who to trust anymore – I don't even know if I can trust myself."

"I know how that feels," I said softly. "It's scary not knowing who to trust. I thought I was losing my mind when I started hearing and seeing Celia."

"Then why didn't you come to me?"

"I didn't know if I could trust you. Henrietta warned me not to tell you, or anybody else. She said that vampires with my kind of ability were hated and killed -"

"So you immediately thought I would kill you?"

"I didn't know what to think. On some level, I knew you wouldn't kill me, but I couldn't be sure, so I figured I would hide the truth from you until I either knew more or I knew you better."

"And it's only now that you've decided to trust me?"

"I tried to tell you earlier in the apartment, but then Louis happened."

"You should've told me straight away!"

"Why?"

"We're mates, Mia. We should never hide secrets from one another!"

"Oh shut up about the stupid mate thing! When we first met you were just the crazy asshole who kidnapped me on Halloween and forced me to marry him! You can't expect me to understand concepts that are natural to you but alien to me. Besides, you can't argue that my distrust of you was totally misplaced. You weren't exactly thrilled ten minutes ago when I finally got round to telling you the truth."

"I was upset because necromancy is illegal in this city. Do you think I want to be in the position where I'd have to exile my own wife?"

"And would you?"

"Never," he replied approaching me. "I love you Amelia Hayden, and I never want to be away from you again ... even if you think I'm a crazy asshole."

I groaned impatiently. He always had this way of sneaking up on me and snatching my heart when I wasn't looking. I hated that feeling or rather I hated not being in control of that feeling. Even after everything he had done, he could still capture me with a simple 'I love you'.

"Luc," I sighed, "I know we're messed up. We have this love that swings like a pendulum from distrust and fighting to complete and blissful love. It's screwy and stupid, but I wouldn't want to be messed up with anyone else but you."

A smile crept across Luc's face as he stood in front of me. He leaned down and brushed a kiss against my lips. It was sweet and light and momentarily made me forget all the ugliness that had just happened.

"I love you, my messed up Mia."

"I love you too, but I don't want you to think that I'm complacent about the level of dysfunction in our relationship. After this, we are going to counselor -"

He cut me off mid-sentence with another breath stealing kiss. He then pulled back and said, "Okay. I'm ready to listen. I want to know everything that you've been hiding from me."

And with that I began to tell him the whole story about everything that had happened...

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