“No, listen. My body wants him, my heart’s connected to you.”

“Avery, it’s okay. We’re not in a relationship or anything. You can kiss whomever you want. We had a kiss, and you’ve had one with Adrian. I get it. If you want to kiss a bunch of guys, that’s your prerogative. I really don’t care, now run along will you?” he said.

It seemed like these last few days didn’t matter. He turned back into the jerk he had been before. So I did what I have always done in the past: I shrugged off his words as if they didn’t hurt and walked away.

Chapter Twenty-Three

I spent the night pushing the conversation I had had with Vlad out of my mind. Instead, I focused on what I needed to do to move forward with my plan. It didn’t matter if I was a Stavros. The show must go on. If anything, I had even more drive now. I knew I couldn’t lose sight of my mission.

With newfound determination, I raced to Adrian’s suite. His maid, Althea, opened the door to let me in, and like before, I found him naked and sprawled on his king-sized bed—except today, he was alone. The morning sun filtered through a crack in the drapery and stretched a pillar of light onto the thick grey covers covering the bottom half of his body.

“Adrian.” I tried waking him up. I tried again a little louder, but it still didn’t work. I would’ve shaken him, but I wanted to avoid any physical contact. If I had learned anything this past month, it was that physical contact with Adrian was proving to be dangerous what with all of my newly Awakened feelings. Then an idea struck me. I pulled out my phone and set the alarm before putting it on the nightstand. It worked like magic: the second the alarm rang, he abruptly sat up on his bed, blinking rapidly as his eyes tried to adjust.

“Montgomery?”

“Yes, the one and only.”

“What are you doing here?”

“I want to talk to you.”

“Can this wait?”

“Nope,” I said. “You’ve done this to me numerous times before. It’s only fair for me to return the favor.”

“But I’m naked.”

“And I don’t care.” When he was about to doze off again, I clapped loudly to regain his attention. “Adrian, I’m going through with the plan. We’re going to do it in three days. And you have to help me gather all the supplies we need to burn down the tree.”

He yawned. “Okay.”

“Also.” I breathed in and out. “After we do it, I’m okay if you come with me.”

“Are you serious?” He was awake now.

“Yes.”