“Go.” With a push from Riley, he was stumbling toward the open window.
Chilly air enveloped him as he climbed out and strode toward a dark blue sedan the pair had hidden a few yards from the ranch. Stolen, no doubt. They didn’t own a car, so Victoria “borrowed” one when she needed to be driven somewhere. Or rather, have Aden driven somewhere. All the while, crickets sang and wolves continued to howl.
“Goblins out tonight,” Riley explained as he settled into the driver’s seat. “Though they’re thinning out, and should be contained soon.”
Goblins. Little monsters who liked to eat human flesh. Aden hadn’t met one yet, but had heard the stories about sharp teeth ripping through human bodies like a knife through butter. Little wonder he wanted to put off that introduction as long as possible.
Aden and Victoria had claimed the backseat. She had tried to sit in front, in the passenger seat next to Riley, but Aden had grabbed her hand and tugged her back with him. She could have fought him, but allowed the restriction, silent.
Once they were on the road, she withdrew a cologne bottle from the center console and sprayed him from top to bottom. Soon he was choking on the scented mist that clogged the air.
“Enough,” he said, waving his hand in front of his face.
“This is necessary. Believe me, you don’t want to smell like the Fae when you face my people.”
“So I still smell like him?”
“Yes,” she and Riley said in unison.
Great. Not at his best mentally and he reeked. What a night. “So where’s Mary Ann?”
“Home,” Riley said, and there was all kinds of fury in his tone. The kind of fury Aden had been expecting since the wolf’s arrival. Which meant Aden had just opened a big can o’ crap. “There’s no reason for her to be involved in this. Plus, she checked out some books at the library and is currently reading them, hoping to learn everything she can about the witches. And speaking of Mary Ann—” his voice rose with every word “—why the hell were you shoving her around today?”
Yep. Crap. “I’m sure you asked her, and I’m sure she explained that I was teaching her to defend herself.”
“No, I didn’t ask her. I figured the defense thing out on my own, thanks, but I wanted to chat with you about it first. Did you have to be so rough? She’s only a human.”
“I’m only a human. And yeah. I had to be rough. That’s the only way to learn.”
“No, it isn’t. In fact, I’m taking over her lessons.”
Oh, really? “Sorry, but she didn’t ask you. She asked me. So I’ll be the one continuing with her lessons.” He could have relented. Wasn’t like he cared one way or the other. But allow Riley to boss him around? Multiply “hell, no” by “dream on” and divide by “suck it,” and the answer was “the wolf could bite the big one.”
That earned him a thick and heavy silence.
Aden sighed and dropped his head against the seat rest. He needed Riley on his side tonight. More than that, he had a thousand questions he needed answered. How was this meeting going to go down? What was expected of him? Was there anything he should or shouldn’t say? Anything he should or shouldn’t do? But as he sat there, peering up at the car’s roof, mind drifting, churning, he could only make himself care about Victoria.
She’d sat through his exchange with Riley, stiff and too quiet, as if she didn’t dare breathe because she might miss something. Was she jealous of the time he spent with Mary Ann, as he was often jealous of the time she spent with Riley? Or was she still hurt about earlier? Or both?
Either way, he didn’t like it.
He’d dreamed about her for six months before he’d actually met her, and in that time, she’d become the most important part of his life. A part he needed, craved. Like Mary Ann, she accepted him for who and what he was, and had from the beginning. Even though her own people considered him unworthy—not to mention his own. She understood what it felt like to be considered different. She was a princess, set apart. And hadn’t he vowed just today to only ever make this princess laugh?
“Just so you know,” Riley gritted out. “If you hurt her again…”
“You’ll call me a bad name?” Aden retorted. “Or maybe tell your friends not to like me?” He knew he shouldn’t provoke the wolf. Riley’s claws could rip through bone in a blink. But again, bite the big one, wolf.
Riley growled from low in his throat. Expected. What wasn’t expected? Victoria laughed, an honest to God laugh.
“I’m sorry,” she said when Riley tossed her a dark look. “But that was funny. You know it was.”
“Whatever,” Riley replied, but there was now suppressed amusement in his tone.
Aden’s chest puffed up. He’d done that. He’d caused that reaction without even trying. But then Victoria’s laughter subsided, and she once again refused to look at him.
More. He had to have more. “Victoria,” he began. “About what happened—”
“I know,” she said on a trembling exhalation. “I already figured out your reasons for ditching me at the ranch.”
Oh, God. Was she going to cry? “I didn’t ditch you, I swear.”
“Well, I know that, too.”
He shook his head, confused. There’d been no trembling that time. “Wait. You just said I did, in fact, ditch you. So…you’re not mad at me?”
“I was at first, but then I wasn’t. Don’t you see?” Grinning, she clapped, clearly proud of herself. “I’ve been teasing you since we picked you up. I was using exaggeration. Like a human. Did I do good? Did I fool you?”
His lips twitched in relief and pleasure. They had a lot to work on in the humor department, but he said, “You did real good.” And she had. She was trying to drop that ever-somber air. For him. “You look beautiful, by the way.”
“Thank you. So do you. Practically edible.”
His lips twitched again. Edible—the highest form of praise from a vampire.
Her hand slid over his and their fingers twined. As always, her skin was hot, smooth. Perfect. “Thank you, by the way. For what you did with the fairy,” she said, suddenly serious.
“You’re welcome.”
“I wish I could reward you, but instead, I’m taking you into a potential war zone. Are you scared?”
“No.” But he should be, and he knew it. “The drugs have made me a little detached.”
“Perhaps that’s a blessing. Fear can be smelled, and most vampires really like the taste of it.”
He snorted. “Baby, even if I was afraid, I doubt anything can be smelled except my perfume.”
Another laugh bubbled from her, bells tinkling together, and he grinned. Twice in one day. He couldn’t have been prouder.
“As I told you, my sisters are in town,” she said, then explained something about a fourteen-day waiting period. He didn’t tell her that he’d met her sisters already in the vision. Not that he recalled much more. But with that thought, another formed. There was something he needed to tell her. Something urgent. For the life of him, however, he couldn’t remember what it was. “Lauren is…”
“Hardcore,” Riley finished for her.
Victoria rolled her eyes. “She is not. He says that only because they used to date, but Lauren broke up with him. Anyway. Lauren is strong, opinionated and determined not to like you. She’s a warrior and one of the fiercest among us. She’ll come around, though. Stephanie, my other sister, is very humanlike. She used to sneak out of our home, to my father’s fury, and socialize with the food, as he would say. She might just be your biggest supporter.”
“Good to know I have one. Has your mother arrived yet?” Aden knew her mother had been locked away by her father, a punishment for revealing vampire secrets to humans. Upon Vlad’s death, though, Aden had decreed the woman free. His first act as king.
The title had him shaking his head. Weird, and not at all suitable for him. He could barely manage his own life.
“No,” Victoria replied. “She can’t teleport like me, and so she would be traveling by human methods if she had agreed to come to Crossroads. But she didn’t, preferring to stay in Romania.”
In protest of Aden’s rule? he wondered.
“Nothing like this has ever happened before, you know. My father has always ruled us. He was the first of us, after all, and he believed humans were good enough to be food or blood-slaves, but nothing more.” Victoria tapped a finger against his chin. “I’m sorry, but that is the mindset you will be up against this night.”
The car slowed as a tall iron gate came into view, the bars opening to welcome them. Two wolves sat at the sides, watching. Guards? Further up, a five-story, sprawling mansion consumed acre after acre. The black brick and black-shrouded windows pandered to every eerie stereotype there was, but perhaps that had been done on purpose. A way to keep humans at bay.
The roof dipped and rose into several points, knifing into the sky, where the moon seemed to have shifted away, looking elsewhere, as if afraid to peek inside the home. That was probably for the best.
Last time Aden had been here, a vampire had tried to murder him. That same vampire had murdered an acquaintance of his. He wondered what awaited him inside this time.
EIGHT
I WANT YOU to stay home tonight.
But I want to go with you. Be with you. I want to help Aden.
I’d rather you were safe.
And that’s how Riley had left it. He’d called, dropped the “stay home” bomb and hung up before she could protest again. Now, at close to eleven, Mary Ann paced through her bedroom. Each of her walls was painted a different color—pink, blue, green, red—and those colors blurred together. Half of her wood floor was covered by a multicolored rug that somehow managed to clash with the walls. A decorating scheme her mother—her real mother—had loved and her aunt, the woman who had raised her, had carried on.