“Because,” he told her, nibbling at her neck, his teeth scraping deliciously on the sensitive flesh, making her knees weak and her heart race, before he added, “I’m the one about to do all kinds of wicked, wonderful things to you.”
“Oh,” she said, and the warmth of his breath might as well have been a touch. She felt it in the tightening of her nipples, the wet heat between her thighs. “Well, if you put it that way.” He laughed again and stepped away from her, and she could hear him undressing, and she oh so easily could imagine what he looked like. But she didn’t want to imagine. She wanted to see that long, hard body in all his naked glory. But the promise of that wicked pleasure he’d vowed gave her willpower to wait. She’d see him and soon, even if it wasn’t soon enough.
“Ready for me?” he asked, standing behind her – she could tell - but not touching her. She started to turn again.
He stopped her with his body, his shaft, hard and thick, pressing between her thighs. “I’m not done with you like this.” His hands caressing a path down her arms, until his fingers tangled with hers. He dragged her hands up her body, to her breasts, where he melded her palms. “How does that feel?”
“Like you’re teasing me and enjoying it way too much,” she said without hesitation. In some far corner of her mind she realized the directness she favored outside the bedroom had made its way inside it with Aiden. It was a first, and it was a good first. She knew he’d be gone soon, knew he wasn’t the stay around kind of guy, which meant she needed to enjoy every second of this freedom she felt with him.
And when he was suddenly on his knees, his hands and his mouth, exploring her legs, her cheeks, her hips, she was pretty sure that wasn’t going to be a difficult process. “Open for me, sweetheart,” he urged, his teeth scraping her back side while his hands nudging her legs apart.
Her bravado and daring, wanton self, slid into a moment of vulnerability over his dominant position. She had her back to him, her legs wide. It was terrifyingly erotic, and incredibly arousing. His fingers hooked forward and found her clit flicking it, even as he worked the wet, slick heat gathering around it.
“I’m going to fall down,” she whispered, holding onto the footboard. “Aiden I-” He moved and before she could figure out his intention, he had turned around so that he was sitting with his back pressed against the footboard. Still standing, her knees were weak with anticipation. She faced him now, her stomach erotically placed near his mouth. His mouth that she desperately wanted on her skin, her body, and in the most intimate of ways. He wrapped his arm around her backside, lowering his head, his breath warm on her clit, teasing her a moment before he gave her what she craved. Before that mouth closed down on her, the wet, wicked heat of his tongue swirled around her swollen nub.
“Oh…ah…” She wasn’t sure what she was trying to say. “Aiden I…” His fingers slid inside her, his tongue doing amazing, incredible things, and she was so already on edge, so ready to tumble into bliss.
Release came in a sudden intense rush that stole her breath, and then sent spasms through her core and delicious chills through her body. Time stood still, pleasure enveloping her, until slowly she began to slide downward, and the next thing she knew she was on top of Aiden, and he was holding her.
Their breaths mingled, their eyes locked, and even inside the darkness of the room, she felt that connection to her soul. This man was like no other before him, and perhaps none after. They didn’t speak, but they didn’t have to. That was part of what made him, them, so different.
He shifted her hips, and brought his thick arousal to the slick readiness of her body. She knew in some far corner of her mind that birth control was smart – and she was a smart person. Logic faded though, sliding into the feel of him pressing inside her, of their breaths mingling, as they seemed to become one. Slowly, she inched down the length of him, his shaft stretching her deliciously, until she had all of him. Until he was buried deeply inside her.
His hand stroked through her hair. “Dangerous,” he murmured against her mouth, a moment before his teeth scraped her lip, and she felt the prick, the blood. He licked it off, then slanted his mouth over hers, kissing with a wildness she’d not felt in him before now, a wildness she’d known existed. Wildness, she realized in that moment, that she wanted to unleash. The sensual, slow heat of making love shifted into a frenzy of touching, kissing – fucking. Yes, he was fucking her, and she was fucking him – riding him hard, rocking against him, with a burning need she had to answer. She’d never in her life wanted love making to become outright fucking but it had, and the shift from one to the other, was hotter than anything she’d ever experienced. She wanted it to go on and on, but the pleasure – the pleasure was so good, so intense. Too soon, she felt the rise of release – felt her body clench at his cock. He shook with her, pumping hard and pressing her hips against his, and she knew she’d taken him with her. They collapsed together, holding each other. It was perfect, absolutely perfect, peaceful – right. That was until a loud, shrieking sound of male pain radiated from the outer edges of the house.
Aiden was on his feet in an instant, taking her with him. “Go the bathroom and lock the door.” She could hear him moving, getting dressed, and she blinked trying to focus. “What is it?” she asked, rushing toward the light.
He grabbed her arm. “No lights.” He tugged her towards the bathroom and shoved her inside. “Don’t even think about coming out until I come back.”
“What’s wrong?”
He shut the door. “Lock it.”
Unnerved by the darkness, Kelly ignored one of Aiden’s orders. She flipped on the light but quickly locked the door. “Aiden?”
No answer. He was gone. She drew in a breath, searched the room for clothes, and found an oversized robe. She quickly shoved her arms in it and tied it. Aiden had no gun. She would have known. Oh God.
He had no weapon. Why was that? Didn’t FBI agents carry weapons? She didn’t let herself think about the danger to herself, only that of Aiden and Troy, and she couldn’t let them die for her. That was when she heard another sound, almost like a pained animal, but somehow, not. It was…oh god – it was Troy.
Troy was hurt. She had to help, she had medical training. Another howl of pain echoed through the walls.
A horrible, pained sound. She fumbled with the lock, yanked open the door, and started running toward the sound.
Chapter Twelve
Aiden heard the shattering of glass, and the low growls that were coming from his brother, before he ever rounded the living room wall. The sounds a wolf made, not the sounds of a vampire.
“Troy,” he shouted, bringing a room filled with broken décor and shredded furniture into view, with his brother in the center of it all.
Troy whirled around to face Aiden, his eyes glowing a weird orange inside the blue, his fangs extended.
Aiden saw more a vampire with bloodlust than he did wolf in Troy. Why that offered any relief, he didn’t know, but it did. Bloodlust wasn’t something a vampire recovered from. Bloodlust made them killers, like the vampire who’d killed their family and everyone else in their village.
“Troy,” he said softly, taking a step forward. “Talk to me, brother. What’s happening?” Troy threw his head back and howled like a wolf in pain, like a wolf captive in a vampire’s body. Aiden charged toward him, determined to take Troy down, and confine him until this passed. Lord, he hoped it did pass. But Troy was as fast as Aiden, and that howl didn’t slow him down. They collided and went rolling onto the ground, after bouncing off what was left of Kelly’s couch.
Aiden was slammed onto his back with Troy on top of him.
“Aiden?!” Kelly screamed, the sound of her voice sending a blast of fear through him. Adrenaline surged inside him and Aiden flipped with Troy, putting himself on top of his brother.
“Stop, damn it!” he shouted at Troy, trying to make contact, trying to calm him. He couldn’t influence a vampire’s mind, but he shared a bond with his brother, a
nd he was desperate to reach him. “Whatever this is Troy, it’s not stronger than you are. Fight it, damn it. Fight it.” Troy flung Aiden across the room with a force that shocked Aiden, a force that defied their equal vampire age and strength. Aiden hit the wall with a jolt that rattled his bones. Kelly screamed again, and he turned toward the sound but Troy was already in front of him, grabbing his shirt. Aiden grabbed hold of his brother, as well, and managed to turn with him, slamming Troy against the wall.
This time Aiden found Troy’s eyes, trapped him in a stare. “Enough! Enough.” Troy snarled like a wolf at him, those strange blue-orange eyes melding with Aiden’s, in a silent standoff.
Slowly, too slowly, he felt the tension in Troy ease ever-so-slightly. Troy began to ease down the wall.
Aiden followed him, squatting in front of his brother. “Whatever this is, we’ll beat it. We’ll call Marcus-”
“No,” Troy snarled, his hand twisting in Aiden’s shirt. “They’ll lock me up and throw away the key.”
“Marcus-”
“No.” He pushed to his feet and Aiden went with him.
“Okay. No Marcus. You have my word. Evan-”
“No, damn it,” Troy snarled. “Don’t pull him and his woman into this. I’m fine.”
“You aren’t fucking fine.”
“The worst is over,” Troy said, his voice raspy but more like his own.
“Holy shit, you say that like this has happened before.”
“I thought I’d learned to control it.”
Aiden cursed. “How many times before this one, Troy?”
“Four. Two…” He squeezed his eyes shut, hissing through extended fangs. “…two other close calls.” Pain radiated through his features. “I fought them off. I thought…oh God - my head.” He shoved Aiden away. “Have to go. I have to go and…”
“No. No you are not-”
“Run,” Troy growled. “I have…to run it off.”
“Yes,” Kelly said from the kitchen. “We need an ambulance. It’s some sort of reaction to a drug we think-”
Aiden went completely still as realization hit him. Kelly was on the phone and this was not good news.
Aiden was in the kitchen in two seconds flat, grabbing the phone from her hand. “We don’t need an ambulance. My friend didn’t know that my brother has seizures. He’s recovering fine and we aren’t paying for an expensive ambulance ride he doesn’t need.” He answered a few questions and ended the call.
Kelly’s eyes went wide and she started to back away. “Aiden, that wasn’t a seizure. That was…I don’t know what that was but it wasn’t a seizure.”
He could wipe her memory. He could do it now, and the council would dictate he do so. But this was Kelly and he couldn’t undo a memory scrub or the damage to her trust if she ever found out. “We need to talk, Kelly.” And he needed to figure out what he was going to tell her.
A sound from the living room drew his attention and he cursed. Aiden ran toward the living room, arriving to find the sliding door open. Troy was gone. Emotions roared inside him. He couldn’t lose Troy.
He couldn’t.
“Aiden?”
Seconds passed while he forced the storm raging in him back down, knowing control was the only way to keep her safe. “I’ll pay for the damage,” he said, turning to her.
“I don’t care about the damage. I care that your brother is not only sick, but he might hurt someone.”
“He won’t,” Aiden said, knowing his brother, and hoping there was enough of Troy left to be true of that knowledge. “He’d kill himself before he’d hurt an innocent.”
“What the heck is going on Aiden? What aren’t you telling me?” He scrubbed his jaw and inhaled. “If I tell you, you’ll be in danger.”
“I’m already in danger.”
“You don’t understand. More danger. Much more.”
She curled her fingers by her side. “Make me understand. Damn it, Aiden, we just had unprotected sex, and that realization is freaking me out more and more by the second. I need to know what I’m into here.
What you’re into.”
“I can’t have children and I’m, well, I’m not like you Kelly. You can’t catch anything but a little piece of hell from me.”
She shook her head, her hands in the air. “What does that mean? Because if it was supposed to be comforting, it’s not. I just saw Troy morph into something out a monster movie, and I have a substance in my lab that’s the common denominator in six murders. If those two things are related, I need to know, and I need to know now.”
“It wasn’t Troy. He didn’t kill those women.”
“I want to believe you. I want to believe you more than you can imagine, but you have to explain this to me. You have to give me a logical answer for everything that’s going on here.” He realized then that she wasn’t going to let this go, and she was too smart to accept any foolish excuse of an explanation he might give her. He had to tell her the truth, and he’d have to scrub her memory later.
But the truth was all that could save them now.
“If I tell you,” he said, his chest tight with emotion, with the idea of telling her what he was. What he would always be, “you’ll think I’m crazy.”
“Try me.”
He walked to the sliding glass door.
“Aiden! Don’t you dare walk away!”
He pulled the door shut and turned to her. “I’m not going anywhere.” He motioned to the shredded couch.
“Let’s sit down.”
She shook her head. “I’ll stand.”
“Very well,” he said, using his superior speed to close the distance between them in a mere instant.
She gasped at the unexpected action, but he was already touching her, already reaching inside her mind, and playing back his history, letting her see who and what he was. Letting her see how it had happened.
Chapter Thirteen
Suddenly Kelly was in Aiden’s head, a different Aiden, a younger Aiden, though not in body. It was just a sense she had of him, a feeling. She gasped as she brought his face into view, as her eyes followed his.
And then she knew. This was the man before the pain of a lifetime, and she was watching it happen, watching the ache that filled him in present day be created in his past.
He stood over the bodies of three people she somehow knew they were his parents, his sister. Beside him were two men, his brothers, but Troy was different—dark haired, and without the edge he possessed now, without the darkness. There was just pain. His pain, and the other men, all three of them – she felt their pain as well. But it was Aiden’s suffering, his anger, his fury, that carved her inside out.
“Why!” Aiden shouted at the heaven above, dropping to his knees to hold the pale, lifeless body of his sister Anna. She was bloodless, drained dry by the monster that had killed hundreds in their village, that he and his brothers had been hunting.
“Well hello, my little pretties.”
Suddenly, out of nowhere, a woman with long raven hair, and extended fangs, appeared, blood dripping from her mouth. She wiped it. “I’m ready for desert and you three will be lovely.” Aiden pushed to his feet, drawing a long blade from the tan animal skin pants he wore. “Come and get me!”
“Come and get us,” Troy shouted, stepping to Aiden’s side, knife drawn.
“Run,” his older brother Evan shouted. “Run now!” He lunged to the front of Aiden and Troy, shouting,
“Come and get me witch!”
“No!” Aiden shouted, knowing his brother had just ensured his death, knowing one man against this monster could not survive an attack. But it was too late. Evan fell at Aiden and Troy’s feet, his throat ripped open.
Aiden charged at the monster, aware that Troy was by him, that Troy’s blade sliced at her as his did. She moved too fast though, and was behind them in seconds. Pain sliced through his neck, his shoulder and everything went blank. Time faded away into shadows, into screams for his family. Something coppery touched
his lips and a sudden hunger ravished him. Desperately he drank of the substance. Slowly, he became aware of the impossible, of Evan leaning over him, of his mouth on his brother’s arm. He was drinking…blood. Aiden scrambled away from the mirage, the trickery that must be that of the monster, to see Evan standing well and strong, alive.
“Evan?”
“Yes,” his brother said. “It’s me.”
Wildly, his gaze searched the area in front of their family cabin, finding the dead bodies of his family and a leather clad blonde man leaned over Troy, dripping blood into his mouth.
“The monster is dead.”
Troy came awake suddenly, shouting and scrambling backwards as well. The blonde man stood up, moving to stand beside Evan. “What Evan means is that the vampire is dead. I killed it and I can teach you how to hunt and kill others like it.”
Kelly came back to her own mind for a mere instant before an onslaught of images overtook her. The brothers fighting together, side by side, driven to save lives, to kill monsters. And then…then there was Aiden running towards Troy in a dark alley, desperate to get to his brother before the wolf did. The wolf.
Oh God, a werewolf. Suddenly she was standing over Aiden where he knelt on the ground, holding Troy, feeding his brother his own blood. The pain, the anger, the fury, of the day he’d lost his parents and sister, blasting into Aiden, and bleeding into her. Bleeding like Troy’s throat.
Kelly blinked the room into focus, gasping. She sat up, realizing that she was somehow on the ripped couch, with Aiden beside her. She stared at him, searched his face, thinking of the pain in him when he’d held his sister’s body, the fear when he’d known Evan would be killed.