Aaron's Kiss Series Boxed Set (Books 1 - 7) (31 page)

Colin had practiced what he would say to Shade when he found her, and thought that he had done a great job so far. He had been articulate and calm when every part of him wanted to demand that she stop what she was doing, turn around, and talk to him. But he should have known that she would see right through him.

“This is a good job, you arrogant ass. And as far as you taking care of me, fuck you! I do just fine by myself. Now get the hell out of here before I blast your stupid ass out on my own. And where do you get off thinking you could demand anything of me? Huh?”

He felt her move through him, over him, her anger like heavy syrup pouring over every part of him. His anger for her spiked and he snapped at her. “
You will talk to me, damn it! I’ve had enough of this stupidity on your part. You’re hungry, cold, and you live in a hovel without heat or a proper door to lock. Damn it, woman, you’ll come with me now. I have a place you can stay at. Now, Shade, I want you to…”

He should have taken a deep breath before he spoke, stopped to think first. Especially in light of what had happened the other day. Thinking about what he was about to say would have been very smart, but hindsight was always twenty-twenty.

Her magic plowed into him, taking his breath away for the second time. He chanced a glance at her just before everything went black. She hadn’t even turned around or stopped what she was doing.

~CHAPTER ELEVEN~

Aaron had been regaling a story to the young Brent about the Civil War when he felt Colin’s distress. The story had been very true; Aaron had just made it slightly less gory for Brent. Although, Aaron suspected that Brent would have loved it told the true way.

“Colin is in trouble. I have to go to him!” Aaron had felt the loss of Colin’s connection throughout his entire body—it was immediate and profound.

The connection between the two men was very strong. Aaron was not only Colin’s master and friend, but he was also Colin’s maker. As soon as Aaron had lost the tight connection, however brief it was, he felt it as if it were his own heart that skipped a beat.

Aaron could sense that Colin was alive and not really hurt or in danger, but he had been rendered unconscious. The power that had poured into and over Colin had been strong, very strong, as it would have been for a vampire with his strength and age.

Aaron materialized just outside the kitchen just seconds after leaving the hospital. Colin was lying in a heap. His friend was being fanned with a dishcloth by a young waitress when Aaron entered the kitchen by the back door. He didn’t know what the girl, Shade, looked like so he touched Sara’s mind and found what he was looking for. He saw her standing over a sink full of pots and pans, not even looking at the man lying on the floor, seemingly unconcerned about Colin’s welfare. Aaron’s energy powered into Shade, hot and heavy. His terror for Colin’s well being made the force of his anger stronger than he had felt for some time. The only indication that she felt him was a slight stiffening of her shoulders.

“You will turn and you will look at me now!”

The command that demanded her compliance roared through his voice and into her head. Shade, however, gave no indication she had heard or felt him scream in her mind. She finished washing the large pan before she turned around and glared at him. What he saw tore through him.

She had been beaten, and badly. She was leaning on the sink, but he thought that it was more that she needed to, rather than to show defiance toward him and his order.

“Who did this to you, child?”
His voice now full of regret and concern; pity and sorrow gently moved into her. If anything, Aaron saw that his gentleness affected her more than his order.

“I don’t need your help or sympathy any more than I want it, Fang Face. I’m guessing that you can see what I don’t let the others. It is of no concern to you, or to him. I’m here to work. I need to work. Take your friend and go. No one here will remember either of you were even here; I’ll make sure of that. Tell him to stay away from me. He requires too much of my energy and strength to keep telling him no.”

Aaron could see what it was costing her to be defiant to him; she was weak and hurt, barely able to stand. He opened his senses to her and moved through her, taking inventory of her injuries. They were numerous and some of them very serious.

Shade had two broken ribs and three others that were cracked. There were several deep bruises in the large muscles that had to hurt her enormously. Shade’s nose was broken and there were two teeth loose. Several deep cuts to her arms and her torso had her losing blood at a manageable rate, he guessed. Aaron wondered how she was even standing. He had known grown men that would have been felled by only half of what she had to be enduring.

“You’re injuries could be healed by Colin if you would just allow him to help you, Shade. Just allow him to show you what he can do for you. Please, I cannot keep him away. You mean too much to him to walk away. Talk to Colin, please.”

“No. No, no, no! Do all bloodsuckers have a problem with that word? It isn’t that complicated, just two letters. No. I don’t want to talk to him. I’m...I don’t...”
She turned slightly away from Aaron, tears forming in her eyes that he could see glistening on her cheeks even from across the room.
“I’m damaged, and a freak. I want him to stop trying to do whatever it is he thinks he needs to do. I...I have failed enough people to last several lifetimes, many more than you’ve lived. Becca died because of me, tell him...yes...tell Colin yes, that he was right, I did kill her. Now, I want you to leave here before I lose my job, something I can ill afford.”

He nodded to her once; Aaron was overwhelmed by the emotions Shade had let him see. It tore at his soul, very much like Colin had done so many centuries ago. He felt his beloved mate touch him, sending her love and concern for him and for the girl. Sara knew what Shade had said to him; her link with him was so strong.

Aaron gathered up his friend, picked him up and slung him over his shoulder as if he didn’t weigh nearly three hundred pounds of pure muscle and bone. With a single wave to Shade, he disappeared. After Aaron had gone, he swept through her mind once more.

“I will send a car for you to take you home tonight. Then tomorrow evening, the same car will pick you up again and bring you to me at my estate. You will not run, nor will you evade me, Shade. If you try and defy me, I am someone who you will learn very quickly knows the meaning of the word punishment. We’ve tried it your way. Now we shall do it mine. Until tomorrow, Shade Doe.”
He nearly turned back when he heard her cry, but knew that he needed to let her have her dignity, as well as get Colin home.

~~~

Hours later, when Shade came out of the restaurant, there was indeed a car waiting for her. If you could call the monstrous thing sitting there a car. It also seemed to come equipped with it a very big man who was standing next to it. The Hummer was made to go through snow, which was a good thing since it had started snowing again. There were already seven inches on the ground and if it continued the rate it was currently coming down, there would be another seven before sunrise.

She looked up at the flakes that floated down to the ground; they swirled about as though they were without a care in the world. Shade shivered deep within her coat. Even though she was glad for its protection and warmth, she knew it wouldn’t be warm enough come really deep winter, which was still a month away. Ohio winters were cruel and unforgiving at the best of times. One night it would snow for hours on end only to have the next morning dawn bright and warm, melting it all off again.

She wordlessly made her way into the seat of the car, her body aching and hurting from the beating she had gotten earlier last evening just before she had shown up for work. Shade had tried very hard to keep the moans to herself, but the seat was just too high for her to make it without a groan or two. When the vampire—were all the people she met going to be vamps?—asked her if she needed any help, a simple glare made him step back, his hand turned out to show her that he would not interfere.

It took her a good five minutes to navigate the seat and another couple to manage the seat belt into a locking position. He had left the vehicle running, so it was nice and toasty warm, for which she was grateful.

The pains and the bruises were so worth it, she thought, because they ensured that Brent would be safe soon from his nightmare. She knew that Brent could not go back to his mother’s “care” or Brenda would kill him. The local alpha wolf, Bradley, whom she had met through David Wolff, had agreed to help her get him to safety. Bradley and David were also brothers; brothers of the same blood, not by pack.

Shade had contacted David Wolff the day she was released from the jail. She had met him for coffee at the local Starbucks. He said that he would set up an interview with his brother for her. David assured her that she would have a ride to and from the meeting place and that he would pick her up himself.

Later that same day, he reached out to her mentally to let her know that he would pick her up at the restaurant where she worked. It had startled her at first, his ability to communicate with her, but he told her that she had opened the doorway when she had searched his mind first. The open path, he also told her, was a two-way street if she should ever need him. David also said he would also make sure she got back to wherever she needed to go as well.

The private meeting had gone well. Because of the involvement of one of their own, the wolf that had committed a rape of a human and caused the death of another, Bradley readily agreed to help Shade with Brent and get him into a safe environment. She’d hoped it would go as smoothly as the alpha had seemed to think it would.

An emergency had come up with the police department at the time David was to pick Shade up. He had been called away with a disturbance by a human problem. That was why she had been walking home instead of riding in the nice safe cruiser after her meeting.

Lynne Wolff—and how appropriately named for the vicious creature that she was—the alpha’s mate, had taken exception to Shade contacting her husband. Lynne had gotten it in her head that for some reason Shade was there to take Bradley away. Lynne had attacked Shade, hidden as a wolf just as Shade was making her way back to work in the driving snow that night. The she-bitch had torn into Shade’s flesh, biting and tossing her about as if she didn’t weigh anything, which she supposed to a full grown wolf, she had not. Shade had landed hard a couple of times and had lost consciousness briefly more than once. Lynne had probably hoped that when she left, Shade would die. Shade didn’t fight Lynne back. Her temper was very short to begin with. She did not want to have this woman’s death, no matter what she had done to Shade, on her head as well.

Shade only spoke to the driver, Billy Todd, to give him the address of the warehouse she was currently hiding in. She was just too tired and sore to make the effort to make conversation. And she had never been very good at small talk—or any kind of talk for that matter.

The warehouse was about two miles from the place Shade was working. With the snow, it took about an hour to walk to and another to walk home every day. When she needed to go into the city, she tried to get everything at once to cut down on the walking time.

“My master sent you some food; I have it here for you. It’s still hot. If you’d like something different, I have instructions to stop anywhere you want and get it. Although, I haven’t a clue where that would be, but hey, I’m just the lowly driver.”

She didn’t answer him. She was afraid of crying again if she opened her mouth; the pain was intense and profound. Billy, probably less than a century old, she thought, was polite, but his tone indicated he’d rather be doing anything else at that moment. So would she, she thought with a grimace.

Shade turned her head and looked out the window of moving vehicle. It was pretty, the way the flurries made everything look so clean and surreal. She knew that in a few days, probably less, it would be dirty from the trucks and other cars driving through it on their way to someplace else.

“Miss?”

“No. I don’t want it, thank you.” She turned again to watch the snow fall against the house lights as they drove slowly past them. Shade wondered what the people inside would think if they knew what was driving by their house at the moment. She never felt sorry for herself, and brushed angrily at the tear chasing the others down her cheek.

“Would you like something else then?”

She glanced back at him with a small grin. Okay, now that sounded a bit snarky, but still just this side of polite. “No, thank you.”

“Okay, then what do you want me to do with this food?” Billy had a tone that said that he was frustrated with her, but still didn’t want to piss anyone off she might know. She simply didn’t care. With a small touch in his mind, Shade found that Billy thought she was a worthless human. Well, that all humans were worthless, she more than the others at the moment because Shade was the closest to him. Well, so did she, but it was not any less insulting for him to think so too. And it wasn’t like she had asked him to “cart her ass around.” She was following orders too, damn it. And her temper flared to life that quickly.

“You know, Billy, I don’t give a rat’s ass what you do with the food. You can use it to lure your next meal to you for all I give a flying fuck. I don’t want you to cart my ass around anymore than you want to. So if you don’t mind, just take this worthless human to her dwelling, and leave me the fuck alone.”

She hurt, she was hungry, and she was angry. Fuck the whole bloodsucking bunch of them. She wiped furiously at the tears again. Just what she needed, frozen water on her face on top of every other flipping thing that had happened.

The silence in the vehicle stretched for several minutes before Billy spoke again. She could hear the awe in his voice and a little fear. Good.

“Listen, lady, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to take it out on you. Really, I’m sorry. Okay?” She could feel that he was indeed sorry and she felt bad that she had taken her pain and frustration out on him, but only just a little.

“Please, just take me home. I’m okay...just...I just want you to take me home.” She could hear the begging and woefulness in her own voice, but was beyond caring right now. She just wanted to go back to her hidey hole and lay down. Dying sounded preferable to how she was feeling right now.

The rest of the drive was made in silence, each of them seemingly lost in their own thoughts. Billy pulled up in front of the address she had given him. Before Shade could struggle getting out, Billy flashed himself around the front of the vehicle and had her door open before Shade could get the belt undone. Flipping the sack of food onto her lap, he picked her up and carried her to the front opening of the warehouse, almost like a groom carrying a bride over the threshold.