Blood Tied (26 page)

Drake, Mason, and Pierce sprinted toward the exit while I headed back to Aiden. I scooped up his limp body and cradled him in my arms. I couldn’t believe he was gone.

“You’ll never make it out of here alive.”

I stopped in my tracks and glanced over my shoulder. I watched in disbelief as Ben pulled out the icicle I’d jammed into his throat without flinching.

“What the hell are you?” I asked.

My brothers surrounded me, abandoning their escape in order to stay and fight.

“Did you really think any of this would kill me?” he asked, motioning to his body, which resembled a pincushion. “This hurts like a bitch, but it can’t kill me.” He snapped the end off the ice jutting from his chest before sliding off the projectile with a sharp inhalation. With a wave of his hands, shadowy tentacles shot from the corners of the room. They wrapped around the icy skewers and pulled them free at once. Ben let out a cry that rivaled the rumble of the quaking ground.

“You’re not just a shadow weaver,” I said. “You’re a vampyre too.”

My family gasped while Ben clapped. The wounds I’d inflicted began to close. “About time!”

As Otherworld convulsed around me, the last pieces of the puzzle slipped into place. He wasn’t Ben Crane at all.

He was a warlock who was a vampyre. He’d been imprisoned by the Conclave. He had the power of darkness. He held his father responsible for what had become of him.

There was only one individual in the entire history of warlocks who fit that description.

“You’re Ebenezer Kane,” I said.

“At last!” he shouted. Shadows exploded around him as his form changed. Chocolate brown eyes turned as black as those of a great white. His flesh grew chalky. His fingers sharpened into talons, and when his lips parted in his cocky smile, black saliva dripped from razor-sharp teeth and a long gray tongue whipped around in search of blood. “It’s so good to finally be noticed.”

This wasn’t good. Ebenezer Kane was the very first vampyre created through the
immortalitas
spell his father had cast to bring him back from the dead. That meant he’d been in existence for over three hundred years. Compared to him, we were in our magical infancy.

“We have to kill him,” Pierce said.

Mason nodded. “Now, while he is weak.”

Ben laughed. He lunged at my brothers. With one swipe of his claws, he sent them flailing backward. They tumbled over the ledge, landed on my ice slide, and slid to the courtyard below.

“Mason!” Drake screamed.

Before Ben could react, I uttered a spell that sent Drake floating off the floor and over the ledge, where he’d join my brothers.

“It’s just you and me,” I said, placing Aiden’s body on the floor.

“Finally,” Ben said. With the speed that his kind possessed, Ben leaped upon me and pinned me to the ground. He wrapped his hands around my neck as he lapped my cheek with his tongue. “I’ve been waiting for this moment for too long.”

“Why are you doing this?” I asked as Ben kneeled on my wrists, preventing me from forming any more icicles that would damage him.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” he asked. Spit rained down on me as the anger that roiled inside him came spilling out. “I’m going to bring the world the Conclave has built down around their heads, piece by piece. And when it’s been destroyed, when they are crawling through the rubble, I’m going to get drunk on their bloated bodies.” He caressed my cheek, the anger briefly replaced by what appeared to be genuine affection. “And you could have been spared. No, you
would
have been spared had you embraced what I offered you.”

“I’m going to kill you,” I said through gritted teeth.

“You’re not strong enough to kill me,” he said, patting my cheek as if I were an errant child.

“No, but I am.”

Fire slammed into Ben. He squealed and rolled off me, trying to put out the flames that scorched his body.

Aiden was behind us. He’d abandoned his fairy form and shifted into a vampyre. His tongue, which had once snaked its way to me, darted in the air toward Ben, and the hole in his chest had closed. “I can smell your weakness,” he said. He positioned himself between Ben and me.

When the flames were snuffed, Ben rose and growled. “How are you alive? I ran a stake through your heart.”

“A shadow stake, not a wooden one,” Aiden replied.

The grin on Ben’s face revealed he wouldn’t make that mistake again. “Still, you’re a baby vamp. You have no chance against me.”

Aiden grinned as fire erupted in the palms of his hands. “Guess again.”

Ben backed up, wrapping the shadows around him as armor. True terror shone in the depths of his cold eyes.

“We both know vampyren have a weakness to the fire of the fae,” Aiden said.

“But you’re a vampyre,” he uttered. “How can you harness the flame?”

“Like you said, I’m the first vampyre fae. Not even I know what I can do.” He paused, letting the information sink in. “Yet.”

The encroaching shadows swirled around Ben before swallowing him whole. When they disappeared, Ben was gone.

Aiden turned to face me, reverting to the man I knew, the man I was falling in love with. “Are you okay?” he asked, helping me to my feet.

I fell into his arms, clutching onto him and fearing I’d never be able to let him go. I thought I’d lost him forever, that I’d never feel his skin against mine again. “Of course I am,” I said between tears of joy. “You’re alive.”

He pulled out of the embrace and held me at arm’s length, regarding me with sad, wet eyes. “But I’m not,” he said. “Ben killed me and turned me into a vampyre.”

“What’s your point?” I asked, fighting against the muscled grip that refused to allow me into the embrace I required. “You’re here. That’s all that matters.”

“No, Thad. It’s not.” He squeezed my shoulders once before letting go and stepping back. “I’m a danger to you.”

“That’s ridiculous,” I said. I pushed my way past his protesting arms and pressed my body against his.

He tensed and refused to hold me. His arms remained slack at his side. He was pushing me away, trying to save me from the threat he believed he now posed. I didn’t buy it. No matter what Ben might have done to him, he was still Aiden. That would never change.

“I’m a monster now,” he whispered.

“No, you’re not,” I said, pulling out of the one-sided hug. I cupped his cheek, flitting my fingertips across the creamy flesh that brought love, not fear. “I see only the man who took my breath away. The one who made me feel again.” I grabbed his hand and placed it on my chest. “The one my heart beats for.”

He withdrew his hand from me and averted his gaze. He swallowed hard and shuddered as if he were fighting an inner conflict I knew nothing about. “You can’t see me that way anymore. That’s who I was.” He shifted in form and stood before me as a vampyre. “This is who I am now.”

I didn’t see the talons, the razor-sharp teeth, or the tongue that searched the air for blood. All I saw were the rich, emerald eyes that had entranced me from the first moment I’d seen him. That was where the true Aiden resided.

“How you look on the outside doesn’t matter to me,” I said, spanning the distance he had created between us. I stood impervious to the nightmare he clearly believed he was. And to anyone else, that might be what they saw. I wasn’t anyone else.

I was Thad Blackmoor, and I was in love with Aiden Teine.

Aiden used his vampyre speed to sprint to the other side of the room. “Stay away from me!” he warned as he sniffed the air and moaned. “I haven’t eaten, and I’m starving. It’s taking every ounce of control I have not to rip open your throat.” He threw his hands in front of his face, mortified by the impulses that threatened to take over.

“But you are controlling yourself,” I said. I uttered a spell that sped me to his side before Aiden could move. He jumped in surprise when I wrapped my arms around him and held him tight.

“Are you crazy?”

“Yes,” I said. “For you.” Though he tried to step back, I didn’t let him. I clung to him, refusing to let go.

He gripped my waist as his urge to hold me won out against his need to feed from me.

“I trust you,” I said, nuzzling him into the crook of my neck.

He jumped back and pulled away. “What are you doing?” He sniffed the air and groaned. “I told you I haven’t eaten, and you smell delicious. I could kill you.”

“You could, but you won’t.” I’d never been more certain about anything in my life, and that was more than wishful thinking. That was pure logic talking.

“How do you know?” he asked.

“Because I know you.”

“That’s not good enough.”

“Fair enough,” I said. “So how about this? Ben said there has never been a vampyre fae before, and no one knows what you’re capable of, right?”

“I know what I’m capable of,” he said, shutting his eyes. “Because everything inside me is telling me to slash open your neck and eat.”

“Not everything,” I replied, stroking his cheek.

He opened one eye and glared at me, clearly unconvinced.

“If everything inside you was telling you to kill me, you would have done it by now. I’ve had enough experience with vampyren to know that. But that’s not what you’re doing. You’re not only controlling yourself, but you fought against Ben. Other vampyren wouldn’t have been able to do that. He created them the same way he created you, yet you resisted that urge to join him in favor of protecting me.”

“I had to,” he said. His defenses were falling. “I couldn’t let him hurt you.”

“Exactly. That tells me your fae nature is just as strong as your new vampyren instincts.”

As he mulled over the possibility, the vampyre gave way to the fire fae as he changed forms once again.

“See what I mean?” I said.

Aiden glanced down at hands that were no longer talons. “I’m me again,” he said, surprised.

“You’ve always been you,” I replied. “I never doubted that for a moment.”

This time he pulled me into his arms and held me tight. “You’re not afraid?” he asked. “Because I still want to eat you real bad.”

I leaned back and grinned. “Oh, you can eat me if you want.”

He laughed. “Sex jokes? Really? At a time like this.”

I pressed my forehead against his. “We’ll figure this out. I promise. And we’ll do it together.”

“Are you sure you want to risk it?”

I molded my lips to his as my answer.

AIDEN FLEW
us out of the castle keep when another tremor shook the land. The towers and walls of the kingdom collapsed in on themselves, turning the once-glorious kingdom into a mound of red brick. We spotted the fire fae a few feet beyond the castle walls, where they had gathered. They wept at the sight of their destroyed beloved home, but as we drew closer, their gazes snapped to us.

Their keen abilities no doubt had already sensed the change in Aiden.

When we landed, we were met with drawn fire swords.

“He’s a vampyre!” one of them shouted, inching forward.

Aiden hissed at the threat. He drew me closer, putting himself between the weapon and me. My brothers, who were clearly confused, regarded Aiden before settling their gazes on me. Their arched eyebrows asked if what they’d heard was true.

I patted Aiden on the shoulder, motioning for him to put me down. When he did, I stepped in front of him and the angry faces. “No matter what he is now, he’s still Aiden.”

My brothers’ jaws hit the ground, and if Drake’s eyes could have grown any wider, they would have popped out of his head.

“It can’t be,” King Oberon muttered. He inched forward, gazing into the green eyes that resembled his own. A woman who I guessed was Queen Una stood behind her husband. She had hair as thick and black as Aiden’s.

“It’s true, Dad,” Aiden replied. He shimmered, taking on his vampyren form.

“Holy shit!” Pierce mumbled.

Everyone else shared my brother’s sentiment. The flaming swords they had drawn were quickly snuffed out, and tears fell from their eyes. What further atrocities would their kind suffer today?

The queen strolled up to her son. She cupped Aiden’s cheeks in her hands. “How is this possible?”

After I told them what happened, no one spoke. King Oberon stood in silence as the fae waited to see how their liege would react.

Queen Una couldn’t hide behind the veil of nobility. She was a mother first and a queen second. Tears poured down her cheeks as she took her son in her arms. The only thing that obviously mattered to her was that her son had been hurt, and she gave Aiden what he needed—a mother’s love.

Aiden wept in her arms, reverting back to his normal form. He clutched her as his grief fled him in violent spasms.

I had hoped for the rest of his kind to follow suit, but they did not. His people eyed him suspiciously. They trusted him about as much as my brothers did. From the looks on Pierce and Mason’s faces, they were clearly planning the most effective way to kill the man I loved.

“What’s the matter with you people?” I asked. My tone was sharp, and I intended it to cut deep.

The fire fae flinched in response while King Oberon regarded me with regal indifference.

“This is your prince, not some deranged killer you’ve come across. The real bad guy, the one responsible for all this mess,” I said, gesturing to the shattered landscape before taking Aiden’s hand in mine. “That guy is gone because Aiden fought him off. He almost killed the shadow weaver, who forced each and every one of you to do his bidding. It’s because of him you are all still alive, and you dare to look at him as if
he’s
evil.”

I turned my anger on my brothers and Drake, who still weren’t convinced. “You should all be ashamed of yourselves.”

“You can’t be serious,” Mason said. “We both know what his kind can do.”

“And what about you, Shadow Weaver?” I asked. “I think we all know what your kind can do too, don’t we?”

That shut Mason up. His only comeback was a scowl.

“You know what Mason’s tryin’ to say,” Drake said, coming to his boyfriend’s rescue. “The vampyren have been tryin’ to kill us for weeks now. Hell, they killed my aunt Millie and turned her into a vampyre. She loved me before she turned, but she tried to kill me. Why is Aiden any different?”