He held her gaze, his poker face not showing a hint of anything as his unfathomable eyes sharpened a little. "You will disappear for good once the sun rises if you don't do as I say." came his serious answer.

For a moment, Alicia's voice left her. She wanted to laugh it off but could not bring herself to. Probably it was because of his gaze and his voice as he said those words that told her he was not just teasing her but telling the truth.

"Give me a reason why I should believe you at all, Ezekiel." She lifted her chin in defiance. "No, explain to me why holding your hand would even make me not disappear in the first place. Would that really make a difference at all?" She did not quite believe that this statue of a vampire prince would suddenly be so kind to her and help her out now that she was running out of time. How would it benefit him at all if he did something so important like this for her?

"There are things I can't explain to you. Not right now, at least." He told her honestly.

She scoffed and rolled her eyes at him. It was not that he would come and voluntarily explain to her later anyway, right? At that thought, she gave an inelegant snort and clicked her tongue in irritation.

"Fine. If you won't answer that, then answer this. Why would you even stop me from disappearing? How would that benefit you?" she narrowed her eyes, "I was even expecting you to rejoice at my final disappearance. You can finally get rid of me. It must be hard for you to act as you did for every second of the past two weeks. I guess you've been so fed up with me that you decided to opt getting completely naked before me then dragging a woman to bed, huh? I have to admit, that was a really good move. Now you're offering this? I don't believe you are not getting something out of it. You're not that kind of a person." she shook her head, her smile bitter and resentful. "If you think you can fool me twice –"

He suddenly rose from his seating position in his favourite seat.

Alicia stepped back nervously, wondering if she might have said too much.

"I said come to me, and take my hand, Alicia." His voice now dangerously low. The multi layered mask of calmness filling his eyes seemed to have dissolved in one sudden blink and she could now see a beast's gaze staring back at her from within its depths. She had seen this gaze of his before. However, that had only happened in her memories that were inherited down to her by the previous with queens.

"You…" Alicia gritted her teeth, clenching her fists so tight. If she was not a spirit, blood might have already been dripping to the ground now from her palms that were punctured in by her own nails. "You already know why I'm here, right? You clearly know the reason why I was watching over you every second, minute and hour of the day, didn't you?" she asked the question that was painful to her, knowing that she had been played so thoroughly by him.

He did not bother to respond to her question that he already knew she had the answer to. But she knew that his silence was worse than him responding. Fury blazed like hellfire in her eyes and then her fading silhouette suddenly emitted silver lights. It was as if she was a silver star on its last legs that was about to explode. She felt as though she was a dying star that would soon go supernova and turn into a black hole.

Alicia's mind was in a complete mess right now. Desperation, extreme fear, worry, confusion… all of these… so many emotions just came together in a crazy mix and bombarded her all at once. But there was only one thing that was crystal clear in her mind now before she finally disappears from this world for good and turned into nothing and that was… to kill Ezekiel. She swore that this would be the last thing she would do before she vanished into nothingness!

She did not have any other choice right now that her time was already up. She no longer has the luxury to wait and see for another two weeks. And now she had also just found out that he was already aware about the fact that she had been sticking close to him and dogging right on his heels. This meant that he had remembered all the things from the past now, right? He must have already broken the curse! Damn! And they were so close to the time limit too.

The fear and desperation had consumed her in an instant, driving her to do the very last thing she could think of in protecting her own people from him. She would completely disappear from existence after this. But… she will be taking Ezekiel along with her.

She opened her mouth to utter a chant but before a single sound even leave her lips, Ezekiel was already standing right before her, as though he had teleported himself over. She was so taken aback that she could not react for a second. Sadly, it was a second too long for her as all it took was only that one single second of her inaction.

The next thing she knew, his bare hand was already curled around her wrist tightly, branding her like a hot searing flame while his other gloved hand had come up to seal her lips. She had been effectively stopped from uttering the spell within that one second.

Alicia's eyes stretched wide, unable to believe that she could now touch him. Or to be more specific, he could now touch her!

"I know you know my weakness, and I know you had just planned to kill me off just now," he bent forward and whispered in her ears, a wicked smile gracing his handsome face. She could not help but shiver a little in anticipation. But in anticipation of what… that she was not sure of. "But Alicia… it's not quite the right time for you and I to die just yet."

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A/N: Thank u for waiting hellbounders. Don't forget to leave a comment. Please use your Golden tickets on Spellbound.. I will update spellbound in a few hours as well.