Knock. Knock.
No answer.
Knock. Knock.
Again. No answer.

"Is this going to become like our thing,  Caesar?" I yelled. "I can LITERALLY hear 'single ladies' blasting through your speakers out here."

The door opened to reveal a very annoyed looking Caesar.
"What is your issue? I told you I'll tell you if I find something about the Ware-", his eyes then shifted to Alec as he panicked and tried to cover up his mistake, "about the whereabouts of your lost....... Penguin?"

I slapped my hand over my forehead after I heard his lame attempt at a cover up.

"Penguin? Seriously?" Alec chuckled.
"I expected better from a high warlock."

C raised an eyebrow after he heard Alec speak of the mystical world.
"What the hell have you done and who the hell is this boy?" he sneered.

Before I could answer, though, Alec did.
"I'm Alec Henderson," he said and put his arm forward for me to shake it.

Caesar, surprised to hear this, asked, "Alec Henderson? As in your mother is-"

"Yes."

"And your sister-"

"Yes. Exactly that one."

"Bella, what are you doing with a boy who is hunter royalty?" Caesar asked me.

"EXCUSE ME? Hunter Royalty?!"
I looked at Alec in shock.

He shrugged his shoulders and replied, "Its not really that important to me hence I didn't mention it."

"Not important?! Alec, I thought you told me everything related to all of this and now I come to know that your family kills evil supernatural beings for a living?!"
"Everything? Bella, we just met. I'm not going to tell you my entire life story on the first day itself."

I huffed in annoyance and folded my arms across my chest.

"Now if you kids are done arguing, mind telling me what the hell is going on here?" asked Caesar.

It took me about twenty minutes to fill him in on everything Alec had told me and by the end of the 'story', he didn't really seem pleased.
"Don't take offence when I say this kid," he said looking at Alec, "but I find all of this pretty shady. You expect us to work together but I cant go ahead with that until and unless I have done a thorough background check of you. Oh, and I will also have to speak to Isabella's mother about this."

"No, C, don't tell mom -"

"I wasn't asking for permission, Bella," he said as he gave me a pointed look. "There are only so many things I can hide from her."

I complied to what he said eventually, knowing there was no way out of it.
Turning towards Alec I asked him, "Well now what?"

"Now," he said, "There is only one thing we need to keep in mind to get through this unscathed."

"And what's that?"

"Survive," he said.

***

Turns out, survival was going to be much more difficult than I thought. The two of us got a taste of what a terrible team we were when we were training together in my backyard. Mom had gone over to Caesar's. He was going to get her to sit and explain everything to her calmly. Mom had a reputation of being really scary when she got upset.

And as for our training.....Yeah, we sucked.

"What the hell is wrong with you?!" I said as I scrunched my face. "That fighting stance is totally off."

"Says the girl who keeps her stronger right hand for defence," Alec replied, rolling his eyes.

"Hey! A strong defence is a good offence."

"A strong offence is a good offence," he said as he walked towards me. Alec then put his hands on my waist and turned me around so that my right side was ahead.
His hot breath fanned on my face as he whispered in my ear, "You give your attackers a winning chance by putting your weaker side in front. Don't do that. Project your right side as your fighting side and then only do one last thing."
He tightened his hands on my waist and said as softly but dangerously as anyone ever could, "Rain hell."

Those two words of his got me out of the trance he had momentarily put me in. I gave him a hard push and said, "Hands off."
Alec raised his hands in surrender but he had a smirk on his face.

"How about we have a friendly contest?" he said. "The two of us fight each other and if I win, you go out for a date with me."

"How about no?" I replied.

"Oh, come on!" he said with a chuckle. "There must be something you must want in return too if you win. Or don't you trust your fighting abilities?"

"I trust myself enough to kick your ass."

"Do you now?" he said with an amused expression.

"Yes. And if I win.....actually, when I win, I want you to stop flirting with me," I said with confidence.

"Now see that's never gonna happen," he said boastfully as he removed the black leather jacket he was wearing to showcase the blue t-shirt he was wearing inside that covered his toned arms and threw it on the grass.

"Oh, it will. It will happen when I defeat you just now and prove you wrong," I said and got into my fighting stance.

"Sweetheart," he said with a smug smile. "I come from a family of hunters. The only person who is going to be proven wrong from the two of us is you," and with that he charged towards me.

I deflected his first punch easily and moved towards the left. With my left hand, I punched him on his ribs and then moved my right leg in to kick the jerk right on his face. He was quicker than I expected though, since he got a hold of my ankles before I could hurt him and he pushed me back.

After the first initial punch, I had a hard time getting in any other punches. Frustrated at not being able to defeat the boy in front of me, my left hook ended up being really sloppy and before I knew what was happening, he had turned me around so that my back was pressed to his chest and both my hands were tied behind my back in his hold.

I had underestimated his strength, since he easily released one of the hands holding me and kept me in place with his other right hand in a grip tight enough to not let me go but not hard enough to hurt me.
Using his free left hand, he ran his fingers across my bare arm and said in a low husky voice, "Hmm. So, I was thinking about dinner for our date. You like Italian or Chinese? If you don't want to go out for dinner, though, I don't really mind you coming over to my house for the night. We can-"

His nonsense chitter got to me and all I wanted to do was defeat this annoying jerk who barely broke a sweat while fighting me. With my competitive side taking over, I kicked his right leg so hard that it caused his hold to break and made him stumble down on the grass. I then removed the knife I always kept with me and got on top of him as I held my it to his throat.

"Well, this is an interesting position," he said with a smirk and pulled me further down. "If all you wanted to do was get on top of me, you should have just asked Bella. I wouldn't have said no."

"I said Hands Off," I replied with gritted teeth.

"That'll be a little difficult considering you are practically sitting on me."

I made a disgusted face as I replied, "At least your flirting will stop now that you lost."

"If you call 'cheating' a win sweetheart, I wouldn't really call it my defeat."

"I didn't cheat."

"If I remember clearly, using knives wasn't something we had agreed upon," he said, smirk still intact.

"And if I remember clearly, not using knives wasn't something we had agreed upon either," I retaliated.

"Working and fighting alongside you, Miss Isabella Crawford, is going to be really fun," he said as he leaned in a little towards me.

"And its going to be a nightmare for me," I said, not really moving from my spot.

"Well, isn't this quite a scandalous position you are in, honey?" my mom's voice broke me out of the daze I had gotten in the second time today. I quickly got up to see a sarcastic smile on her face with one hand on her hip as she stood besides Caesar.
Alec quickly got up too.

"This is just great," Caesar said with a sigh. "After looking at that, your mom is never going to believe the 'Alec is like a brother to her so don't worry about your daughter's safety' theory I just bullshitted to her a while back. Great going kid. Now face the wrath of your mom."

One look at moms furious expression and I knew I was in for trouble.

Oh boy, why do I always get myself into such messes?