I woke up to find myself lying down on plush red velvet sheets. I was shirtless and I had no idea what the fuck had happened. Then I pictured Will, Lucifer, Dylan's bright red eyes and bloody mouth as he had bit into our dad's neck...

Crap... we had failed. Lucifer was free, and The House Of The Apocalypse had freed him. The end of all things was finally here.

Rolling over I saw Kian sitting cross-legged on the bed next to me, he smiled as I sat up and looked at my arm where I knew that Will had sliced into my arteries to release enough blood to free Lucifer. There was nothing there but bare skin. Not even a scar.

"Hey, how are you feeling?" Kian asked, his eyes full of concern.

"I'm fine," I lied "How long have I been out for?"

"Almost a week," Kian replied "It's Christmas Eve."

Shit... Christmas Eve already. Yeah, this is not how I had envisioned spending Christmas. I could feel my head start to pound. Damn headache.

"After Will and the others left their hold over us was gone," Kian explained "Victoria and Michael had been trapped in the office, they won't say what happened, but it can't have been anything good. We managed to get Dylan and your mum back to the dance floor and we teleported to The Brown House. Lucifer healed you pretty good, but the blood loss was a problem. You lost about five pints, luckily we were able to source some. Jekyll performed two transfusions, which helped."

"Harry's up and about?" I asked realising how much I had missed. A whole week.

"Just about, he still has a walking stick for support."

"And Dylan?"

Kian's eyes flashed as I mentioned Dylan. Had something happened? Did something go wrong? I wasn't sure that I wanted to know the answer. What had happened was bad enough, and I knew that we still had to confront dad's loss as a family, as well as Dylan's transformation.

It was not going to be easy. He might have been under Will's influence, but Dylan had still been the one to drain the life from our dad. As for mum, well, she now knew exactly what I was... and I had no idea how she was going to take that on top of everything else that had happened.

"Well, The Council sent a representative to assess Dylan's situation. I managed to broker a deal that they were happy with," Kian replied "He's going to be my last case as a Guide."

"Your last case?"

"Yeah, I was waiting for the right time to tell you that I was trying to get out of my contract with The Council," Kian said "They finally agreed, so, once I get Dylan comfortable and through his training then I'm free."

But I wasn't...

"You might be free, but..."

Shit... there was no easy way to break the news to him.

"I'm not," I carried on "When we were looking for you I needed to speak with Jonathan. He had the information we needed. The Council would only let me if I agreed to become a Guide for them."

"What?" Kian asked, his expression changing to pure confusion as he took in the information I had just dumped on him "So, you're telling me that not only did you get in the same room as that bastard who tried to frame you for murder... the same bastard who tortured me just for fun and killed Wesley, but you also agreed to sign your life away to The Council? How could you be so fucking stupid?"

I didn't have any other choice...

"Because I love you," I replied "And I had to find you, no matter what the consequences were, so, if that makes me fucking stupid... then I guess that I'm the biggest idiot on the planet."

Kian looked at me for a moment, his blood-red eyes seeming to drink me in, and I suddenly became very aware that I didn't have a top on.

"Well, you're my idiot," He smiled, his fangs flashing as he leaned in towards me.

I leant in to meet him and our lips locked together. As we did, I rolled on top of him, breaking the kiss only long enough to unbutton the navy shirt that Kian had on.

The moment was broken however as I heard the door burst open before I felt myself being tackled onto the floor. The wind was knocked out of me and as I regained my senses I looked up into blood-red eyes and a goofy smile complete with fangs.

Dylan...

He really knew how to ruin a moment. Only my brother could bloody burst in on me at a time like this. Damn him... and damn Victoria for not putting locks on the door. It was certainly something that I was going to suggest to her later.

"Your awake!" Dylan said happily as he jumped up, pulling me to my feet with him.

"Yeah," I replied, just about getting my breath back "I am now."

"This place is amazing!" Dylan said "The library has books on everything! Vampires included. Victoria said that she would teach me some magic if I do well in my training with Kian."

Victoria was going to teach him magic? She had never offered to teach me magic...

"That's nice," I replied, watching Kian awkwardly try to do his shirt back up without Dylan noticing.

"You should go and let everyone else know that your brother is awake," Kian said "We'll come and find you guys in a minute."

"Sure," Dylan smirked, "And I'll be sure not to mention the part where I walked in on you guys about to have sex."

"That's not... we weren't..."

For some reason, my words just refused to come out, and I felt a wave of heat rise up from my stomach.

"I'm thirteen, I'm not blind or stupid." Dylan laughed "I'll go and tell everyone you're up." he said as he walked out of the room, shutting the door behind him.

Sometimes he could be a real pain in my ass...

"That went well..." Kian said after a moment of awkward silence.

"Did it?" I asked, worrying for his sanity "Where the hell did you put my t-shirt?"

"It's over here," Kian said, heading over to a dresser where a pale pink t-shirt sat folded in a neat pile.

"Why did you take it off?" I asked as I took it from him and pulled it on over my head.

"You looked hot," Kian replied smoothly, with a dangerous smirk playing across his lips.

Flirt...

I grinned back at him and took his hands in mine.

"Let's go, before they send a search party after us." I said, "Or Dylan decides to tell everyone what we were doing in here."

Kian laughed and I couldn't help but smile as we headed out of the room.