“Watch this,” Keller says as she dips her fingers into the large lake. It’s a few days after the insane cliff dive and Keller has taken me deep into the forest at the far edge of Regency Mount Island.

I watch wide eyed as something forms on the surface of the clear blue lake, a pattern like fine white lace. Starting from the spot that her fingers are touching, then spreading out to the rest of the lake.

“What the hell …” I hear myself saying, but my voice sounds distant, even to my own ears because I’m too busy gawking at Keller freezing this lake over with just one touch.

“That’s amazing,” I add.

She stands back, surveying her work proudly.

“Know how to ice skate?” she asks.

Before I can answer, she gestures to my leather boots and I watch in astonishment as blades of pure ice materialize at the soles.

“Thanks for offering to help me out by the way.” I realize then that although we’re on our fifth session, I haven’t even bothered to thank her yet.

She waves her hand dismissively.

“It’s nothing. Call it me making amends for the part I played in all that crazy shit that happened at the beginning of semester.”

It feels like an age away now, but something occurs to me then.

“Isn’t Layla pissed at you for even speaking to me?” On my first day at Regency, I saw Keller walk into class with Layla and Dani was categorical about her description of Keller as one of Layla’s cronies. Although, after getting to know her, it’s difficult to imagine this girl being anyone’s lackey. She’s tough in a way that tells me she doesn’t take shit from anyone, Layla included.

“She can be as pissed as she wants, but she can’t tell me who I can and can’t speak to. I mean I’ve been friends with Layla since forever and she can be nice when she’s not being a bitch. But that doesn’t mean I can’t make other friends. I like you—you’ve got guts and you’re not scared to speak your mind. It’s a rare thing around here, when practically everyone is so caught up in social status and wealth.”

I’m surprised at her insightful response.

I follow Keller onto the ice then and we skate a few rounds before she stops me at the center of the lake.

“Here, try to create something from the ice—like this.” She sweeps her hand up and I watch as the ice beneath us extends upwards to form an elegant spiral figure.

“I can’t do that!” I reply.

We’ve worked on doing snow and wind the past few sessions and I managed to create some icicles last session, but this is entirely different.

Keller’s not taking no for an answer, though, and she’s not someone I want to argue against.

So, I focus on the connection to the ice beneath me and I sort of just lose myself as I begin to move. It feels like nothing I’ve ever experienced before, but at the same time, it feels so familiar—like the feeling of abandonment and calm that washes over me whenever I paint. I realize that it’s because I’m doing the same thing—I’m creating something. But rather than creating it on canvas, I’m using the element of ice itself, bending it to my will to form the beautiful sculptures.

I lose track of space and time as I move and when I stand back to look at my creation, I feel stunned.

Even Keller seems speechless, as we look up at the ice garden that I’ve spun—rose bushes, fountains, statues, intricate railings and terraces all made entirely of ice.

“Whoa …” I hear Lance’s voice behind me and I turn to see that he’s standing on the ice behind us with Raph. I wonder how long they’ve been standing there.

He wonders off to inspect my work and Keller follows him, still looking impressed and proud of her tuition.

I turn to Raph, and the expression on his face touches something in my core.

“That’s amazing, Jaz,” he says quietly. His voice is different than I’ve ever heard before.

“Thanks,” I reply, smiling shyly at him. Something flickers in his eyes as he watches me.

I feel the blush creeping on my cheeks, so I skate away towards the center of the lake where there are twin arches of ice and a canopy of delicate icicles hanging between them.

Raph follows me and I know that Lance and Keller are somewhere in the ice garden, too. But I feel like we’re the only two people in the forest, on this planet even.

“I think there’s one thing missing, though,” Raph says, as he moves closer to me in this sanctuary that I’ve created.

“What?” I ask, though it’s a wonder that I can speak through the pounding of my heartbeat in my ears.

“Snow.”

I look up to see the blanket of snowflakes falling around us. I close my eyes as I let the flakes of snow fall around me, feeling the cool kiss of the snowflakes against my cheeks.

I hear a sharp intake of breath and when I open my eyes, I see Raph staring at me. Like fully staring. The way he’s looking at me, reminds me of that first night in my bedroom when I told him about my past. The look has the same confusing effect on me now, as it did then. Maybe I shouldn’t be confused. Maybe I just need to see it for what it is. Because what it looks like is that he wants to kiss me.

I should be alarmed at that. The thought should make me run as far away from him as possible. This guy hated me not so long ago. He made my life a living hell. The hate is gone, but it doesn’t change who and what Raph is—so devastatingly beautiful, that it’s almost unreal, and he has an entire planet at his feet. He could have anything and anyone that he wants. I’m way out of my depths with this guy. I have zero experience with any of this and testing the waters with a guy who has the ability to shatter my heart into a million pieces if I let him anywhere near it, is a dangerous idea. One that I shouldn’t even be considering.

And yet … yet I can’t stop myself from looking up into those impossibly blue eyes as they look into me, through me. I don’t pull away when he draws closer, although I feel like the air around us is so charged, that I’m finding it difficult to even breathe.

He does something that surprises me, as he brushes those sensuous lips against my closed eyelids, the sensitive skin of his lower lip brushing against my lashes.

When I open my eyes to look at him, those blue eyes are so intense, that it’s difficult to keep looking without feeling like I’m falling through the sky.

“You had snow on your lashes,” he murmurs and he’s so close, that I can feel his words almost on my lips.

I realize that he’s going to kiss me. Oh God. Panic and something like fear races through me, but still I don’t move.

His mouth brushes against mine in the softest of touches, once, twice. It’s nothing more than the brushing of lips, but oh God, it’s everything. Everything I didn’t feel in that kiss with Baron—the fire, the flutters, the heat. It’s all there and it’s insane, because it’s not even really a kiss.

I can hear the sound of my own pulse roaring in my ears and my heart is pounding so hard, it feels like it’s going to come out of my chest.

But everything stops when Raph pulls back as if he’s just been burned. He looks at me in something like horror, and then I’m the one who feels like I’ve been burned.

He curses, as he takes another step back, and it feels like a slap to the face.

“Shit. That was a mistake. I shouldn’t have done that,” he says.

I take a step towards him, although I have no idea why, because it feels like I’m stepping into the path of an oncoming train.

“What—” I have no idea what I’m even trying to say, but Raph cuts me off as he holds his hand up to stop me and I clamp my mouth shut, feeling the humiliation wash over me.

His eyes take in my stricken expression, and he runs his hands through his hair in frustration.

“Dammit—I can’t do this with you.”

His face becomes shuttered, closed off like the first time I’d seen him on the beach. I can’t ignore the clawing that I feel in my chest or the feeling like someone has just stabbed me right in that same spot. When he speaks again, his voice is as cold as the ice surrounding us.

“This can’t happen.”

I’m saved from having to say anything as the delicate snowflakes falling around us turn to large droplets of rain, pouring down on us in what is an entirely appropriate representation of everything I’m feeling. Because I sure as hell feel like I might cry.

“Sorry to interrupt this touching moment,” Lance calls over to us from another section of the ice garden, which is now starting to melt. There’s a wry look on his face which is mirrored on Keller’s.

I tear my eyes away from Raph, who is still just standing there, stone faced.

Something like anger washes over me, and I focus on it because it’s familiar. It’s safe.

“You weren’t interrupting anything,” I call back to Lance, although I’m really speaking to Raph. Take that, fucker.

I walk away from him and join Lance and Keller on the edge of the lake.

I don’t bother to wait for Raph.

Keller walks ahead with me and is watching me in a way that tells me she can sense something is wrong. But I tell myself that there’s nothing wrong. No, in fact this is just right. What was I thinking?

That was a mistake. His words echo through my ears and I feel like screaming. But why should I be mad?

Raph probably realized, just as I should have realized, that whatever it was that happened, is wrong. He probably just remembered that he’s the future king of Eden and has the entire planet in his hands, whereas I’m a half human nobody who can’t even use her powers properly. But fuck him. Because he started this. He asked me to stay, he offered to help me learn how to use my powers, he was the one who started sleeping in my bed, sitting with me at lunch and in classes, touching me and making me feel like I was actually beginning to trust him.

Then I laugh at myself for my own naiveté. Because it’s my own fault for reading too much into things. Raph was probably being just Raph—flirting is like breathing to him. He’s charming without even trying, he can get girls to fall for him without even meaning to. So, the joke is on me. But I feel that familiar wall of stone closing around me because I will never let that happen again.

“Did something happen back there between you and Raph?” Keller asks, as we near her motorbike. Yes, that’s right, this kickass girl actually has her own motorbike.

“No,” I lie. But she, of course, doesn’t buy it.

“Well, it sure felt like it, because I haven’t felt so much awkwardness in the air since that time in sophomore year when Lance walked in on Baron balls deep in Lance’s Winter Ball date.”

I laugh at the mental image, despite myself.

Keller looks at me expectantly.

“It was nothing,” I say.

“I just forgot for a second who Raph is,” I add, after a moment.

Keller looks at me thoughtfully.

“You know, most people think that they know Raph—he’s got this perfect life and he’s untouchable. Every girl wants him, every guy wants to be him or is just scared shitless of him, etc.

“But I don’t think anyone really knows Raph. He puts on one hell of a front. That’s what being next in line to the throne does.”

I don’t want to hear anymore, because I was in a good place just a few minutes ago—resolved not to let myself get caught up in Raph’s twisted web again. I don’t want to think about the glimpses of him that I’ve seen beneath the self-centered and arrogant façade, the parts of him that I’m almost certain no one else has seen and all that it means. I don’t want to think about the fact that I know that his life isn’t perfect, that although our lives couldn’t be more different, he understands the loss and sorrow that’s plagued me for almost my entire life. That he understands it only too well.

But I don’t stop her when she continues.

“Even Layla never really knew Raph. But then again, it was never like that between them.”

I clamp my mouth shut but the question comes out anyway.

“What do you mean?”

“It’s not for me to tell you about Raph’s business. I can only tell you what I see—and I’ve never seen anyone get to Raph the way you do,” she replies.

“I mean, like back at the beginning of semester—I’ve never seen him actually hate someone. He normally just doesn’t give a shit.”

“So you’re saying that you’ve never seen Raph hate someone as much as he hated me?” I say flatly. “Gee, thanks. That’s good to know.”

Keller rolls her eyes.

“No, I mean I’ve never seen someone get under Raph’s skin the way you do,” she says.

“Whether it’s hating you for blowing up his ride...” she laughs and I can’t help but laugh with her at the memory.

We stop in front of her motorbike and her grey eyes turn somber.

“... or whether it’s something else …”

I say nothing as I take the spare helmet that she hands to me.

“But I get that it’s Raph, and nothing about that guy is simple,” she says.

“So, just be careful,” she adds.

I nod silently, but something inside me already knows that the warning has probably come too late.

* * *

That night, I lock my bedroom door, although that foolish part of me waits to hear the sound of knocking. It never comes.

I tell myself that I should be glad. That it’s the smartest thing I’ve done since that night that Raph asked me to stay. But I don’t think I sleep a wink that night and the feeling like my chest is being shredded to pieces doesn’t go away.

* * *

“But you said that you were coming,” Dani’s voice pleads from the earpiece of my cell.

“I know I did, but I changed my mind,” I reply, as I stare up at my bedroom ceiling.

It’s two hours until kick off of tonight’s soccer match and I’m still firmly refusing to leave my room.

“Does this have anything to do with the way that you and Raph have been avoiding each other all day?”

I feel a pang in my chest at the reminder of the look on Raph’s face when he walked into first period trigonometry earlier. He wouldn’t even look at me. As if the sight of me alone was an unwelcome reminder of that mistake.

Unsurprisingly, he didn’t show at Dani’s and my lunch table and when I saw him in the hallway after classes, he turned and went the other way as soon as he saw me. As if he couldn’t get far enough away. I tell myself that I should be glad, but still, I can’t deny that I felt it like a knife to the chest.

Dani sighs then, interpreting my silence correctly.

“Look, whatever’s happened between you two, if you don’t show up to tonight’s game, it’ll look like you’re letting him get to you—and I know how much you’d hate that.”

Her words aren’t wrong, but I don’t think I can stand the sight of Raph right now without doing something stupid or embarrassing, like trying to kiss him again. For real this time. I stamp down on the traitorous thought. I remind myself that I should be thankful because this was exactly the sort of thing that I needed to avoid. I remind myself that not too long ago, I hated Raph, hated him with a ferocity which was beyond reason. What in the world would possess me to want to kiss him or to feel that stabbing in my chest, when he acted like he’d been burned by that almost kiss.

This is a mistake. His words play themselves over in my mind and I tell myself that he’s right—it was a mistake. Letting him draw me in was a mistake, letting him gain my trust was a mistake. Because Dani hadn’t been wrong when she told me that getting in with the Dynasty heirs was a dangerous game and no one came out unscathed. It’s good that this happened now because god only knows what would’ve happened if he’d actually kissed me.

Raph swore to me once that he’d break me if I didn’t stay away. I realize now how true that promise was, because I know deep down, that Raph St. Tristan does indeed have the ability to break me. But I won’t let him. I’ve lost too much already.

“He sort of kissed me, Dan,” I say finally.

I can hear Dani’s responding gasp down the line.

“What do you mean sort of?” she asks, once she gets over her initial shock.

“It wasn’t really a kiss, more like lip brushing,” I say, trying to find the right words.

“Lip brushing?” Dani repeats, incredulously.

“Like when two lips touch? That’s called a kiss,” she says flatly and I almost want to laugh, if it wasn’t so tragic.

“Okay, so you … lip-brushed. That’s great, right? I mean this is Raph St. Tristan we’re talking about. Every girl at Regency wants to lip-brush with this guy.”

“Yeah, except he acted like he was horrified and then told me it was a mistake.” I feel my voice waver as I say it out loud and I hate myself for it.

I love Dani, though, because as much as she seems to like Raph and has clearly been rooting for him, she goes into loyal friend mode almost instantly.

“Well, screw him. Who does he think he is? Raph St. Tristan is a loser.

“Okay, maybe not a loser because that would be impossible. But still, if he wants to act like an asshole, then he sure as hell doesn’t deserve you.”

“Thanks, Dan,” I reply, smiling despite myself.

“I mean I told you before that you’re like the hottest girl in Regency right now. You can have anyone you want.”

I don’t agree with her, but I keep listening.

“So, tonight, you’re going to go to that soccer game, act like you don’t give a shit about Raph St. Tristan and then go to the beach party after and enjoy yourself,” she says.

“Screw Raph St. Tristan,” she adds.

I agree with those last words. Screw Raph. It was a mistake. Fine. I can agree with that and tonight I’m going to show the asshole that I won’t be making the same mistake again.