Chapter 154

Hannah

I stared at the TV for a long while as Xander announced our disappearance to his entire kingdom. I looked over at Sebastian, who didn’t seem bothered, but he was also hard to read at times. Unlike Liz who just appeared straight-up worried. She was glancing between Sebastian and me with questions clear in her eyes.

“That’s not good,” she said in a mere whisper. “He has the entire underworld on the lookout for you.”

“Then we just have to make sure they don’t find us.”

“How do you expect to do that? You can’t make it to the palace undetected. You’ve seen how many are lurking on the streets. It’ll be impossible.”

“We made it here without being detected, didn’t we?” Sebastian asked, glaring at her.

“Well, yes,” she admitted. “But they weren’t on the lookout for you. Now they are purposely searching the streets for you. It’ll only be a matter of time before someone sees you.”

He thought about it for a while; he glanced over at me and saw the questions in my eyes as well. He sighed and looked back at Liz.

“Then, we will take the potion that hides our scent,” he told her. “You must have clothing around here that we can disguise ourselves in. Think you can help us become undetected?”

Her eyes widened and for a moment, I thought she was going to refuse. I wouldn’t have blamed her if she did refuse; Xander had this kingdom on complete lockdown. In the underworld, we were on his territory, and he ruled with an iron fist. He even had the TVs and remotes enchanted to be sure that nobody missed his morning news.

But then, Liz’s eyes changed into excitement. She clapped her hands together.

“I’ve been wanting to give you a makeover since I was born, Sebby,” she said gleefully.

He rolled his eyes.

“I seriously hate that nickname,” he muttered. He gazed over at me, and I felt my entire body heating up as I remembered last night. I bit my bottom lip to stifle a smile in return. He winked at me, and I thought my heart was going to explode.

“I can’t believe we are lucky enough to have him as our fated mate,” Nora breathed lovingly from inside me.

It was nice having her back and it was even better knowing that Sebastian was our fated mate and not just our chosen mate. I had to agree with her; we were extremely lucky.

We left the room, following behind Liz who sat us down in chairs. She started with makeup first. She placed powder on our faces to make us look paler; she was trying to make us look more like vampires so we would blend in. She put some red lipstick on my lips and some eyeshadow. She trimmed our hair to make it look perfectly even and flawless; all the vampires had perfect hair. She gave us normal vampire street clothing too.

Once she was finished, I hardly recognized myself.

“Perfect,” Liz breathed, staring between the two of us. “You’d never be able to tell that you didn’t belong here.”

“What about our scents?” I asked.

“Here,” she said, grabbing a small bottle of potion off the kitchen counter. “Take a sip of this and your scent will be gone.”

Sebastian took a sip first and then I took a sip. I didn’t feel any different, but I had to trust Liz if we wanted to pull this off. Liz walked with us back upstairs and toward the front door of her shop. I would be lying if I said I wasn’t nervous, but I had to get my brother and get back to our land. My daughter needed her parents; we couldn’t stay here any longer. But I felt sadness from leaving Liz behind. I wished there was a way we could bring her with us, but it was too late for her. Liz’s body was long gone over a decade ago.

Sebastian never got the chance to mourn his sister because when he returned from the underworld, his memory of her was gone. I wondered how this was going to affect him later. Sebastian turned to Liz and stared down at her for a long while. She had tears filling her eyes as she hugged him tightly.

“I love you,” she whispered. “And I’ve missed you every day. I hate that you had to be here, but I’m so glad I got to see you again, Sebastian.”

“I wish I never forgot you,” Sebastian said in return. “I’m so sorry, Liz.”

“Hey,” she said, looking up at him. “Enough of that. It wasn’t your fault. Honestly, there’s nothing you could have done. I’m glad you couldn’t remember me because I didn’t want you to mourn me. You had to take over the thrown and put all your focus on that. It was a good thing I wasn’t a distraction.”

“I wish we had more time,” he said to her. “But we have to return home.”

“I know,” she said, blinking away her tears. “I want you to go. Hug your little girl and make sure she knows that auntie Liz loves her so much.”

“I will,” he promised.

She smiled and turned to me; my heart was breaking for them. I hated that they had to part ways once again. This would probably be for the final time.

“I’m glad I got to meet your luna,” she said to him with a faint smile. “She’s beautiful, Sebby.”

He looked at me and smiled.

“Yeah, she is,” he agreed.

I felt my face redden at their words.

She came over to me and hugged me tightly.

“Please, take care of my brother.”

“I will,” I promised. “I always will.”

She pulled away from me and wiped the remaining tears from her eyes.

“Take the rest of the potion with you just in case you need more of it,” she told us. “Please, be safe. Both of you.”

“Will do,” I assured her as I took Sebastian’s outstretched hand.

We said our final goodbyes before leaving the shop; we were now out in the open. The air was unbreathable and felt hotter than it was yesterday if that was possible. Sebastian pulled me along beside him as we entered the crowded streets of Vamp City. There were wandering vampires and other creatures; they seemed to be mindlessly walking around. I knew it was because they had orders to find us and bring us to the palace. I was relieved that they couldn’t sense us and that we blended in.

Liz’s potion was working, they couldn’t smell us at all. We made our way through the naked woods; there were only a few vampires in there. They weren’t paying attention to us though, thankfully. We walked until the palace came into view and we both paused. The hole that we crawled under yesterday was still very much there.

“Do we sneak in through the library again?” I asked.

“Yes,” he answered. “I’ll go in first and you follow me.”

I nodded as we crawled through the hole and made our way to the palace grounds. We ran toward the side of the building where the vent sat. I watched as Sebastian crawled through the vent and then I followed closely behind him.

I was relieved when we got into the library and there was nobody there. However, there were a bunch of books on the ground and there were shelves knocked over. It seemed they were searching for us when they saw that we were missing. I wondered if it was Gabe that knocked over all these shelves or if that was the work of Xander.

I followed Sebastian up the stairs until we reached the door that led into the hallway. We remained quiet and snuck through the door. I could hear some murmured voices from nearby and my heart stilled in my chest. Sebastian pressed his finger to his lips to tell me to keep quiet. Soon, the voices got quieter, and I felt like I could breathe again.

We made our way through the many halls, staying in the corners and blending in with the darkness. The hard part was going to be sneaking upstairs to Xander’s wing. To get there, we had to get downstairs and find the grand stairs that lead to the chambers.

Just as we rounded another corner, I heard a faint whisper from nearby.

“Hannah?”

My entire body stilled as I turned and was faced with my mother.