Twisted (15 page)

R
AIN POURED ALL NIGHT LONG
.
Rain
still
poured at dawn and throughout the rest of the day. The sky was as black as an abyss, the clouds so thick Aden wasn't sure they'd ever dissipate.

At the appropriate time, he made his way to the backyard of his new home. A home he would not give up easily. He stopped at the edge of the warded circle, quivering with energy. He was shirtless, wearing only jeans and boots, already soaked to the bone.

On his finger perched Vlad's ring, filled with
je la nune
. At his ankles, his daggers were at the ready. Every vampire living in the home stood outside with him, some holding torches under the awning. Victoria stood with her sisters, wringing her hands together, bathed in flickering firelight.

They hadn't spoken since she'd left him yesterday.
She'd tried, she'd wanted to, but still he'd avoided her. His hunger for her would have deepened, and worse, he would have asked her to betray her brother.

He couldn't ask her. Not if he wanted to like himself when this was over.

It would be hard to like himself, though, if he was dead.

“Did you feed?” she mouthed.

He gave one clipped shake of his head. No, he hadn't. He'd tried. A few hours after dismissing the slave she'd sent him, without taking a single drop of blood from the girl, his hunger had overwhelmed him and he'd marched to the slave quarters, an area that was more like a harem than anything, where the humans could roam freely, even though they didn't
want
to roam.

As he'd stood there, watching them, listening to their idle chatter, he'd found his hunger actually dwindling. Even though the scent of their blood, the drum-loud beat of their hearts, had tantalized him. He'd left.

On his way to the throne room, where he'd sat and thought in private, again he'd been more interested in the blood of the
vampires
he'd passed, his hunger returning with a vengeance. Yet he'd opted not to partake, wondering whether he'd spend the next day seeing the world through their eyes rather than his own.

He'd almost hunted Victoria down, almost asked
her
to feed him. But still he'd avoided her. For all his other reasons and one more. Well, many more, but this one was the most important. She didn't want to feed him. The knowledge tore him up inside, even if the fault lay entirely with him. After the way he'd treated her…

An animalistic cry reverberated in the back of his mind. One he'd heard before, one he ignored.

He hadn't gotten to tell Victoria about his encounter with her mother, the dancing woman. He was now certain that was who he'd seen, that he'd watched one of Victoria's memories come to life. A memory of her mother trying to abscond with her, of Vlad catching them. Of Vlad punishing Victoria while her mother watched. A whipping, each of the cat-o'-nine tails laced with the same liquid in his ring.

By the time her father had finished, her back had reminded him of tattered Christmas ribbons. Vlad would pay for that.

And Aden would be the one to kill him, for real this time. Soon. He just had to take care of Sorin first.

Aden,
Elijah said nervously.

“Not another word,” he muttered. “You guys promised.”

I'm sorry, but I only just realized. Only just saw. You need to take your pills. Okay? Please.

“What?
Caleb and Julian demanded in unison.

“Saw what?”

Just take your pills. As you know, I've seen this fight end with several different outcomes and each one was worse than the last. Well, I just saw another outcome. The images were disjointed and distorted, and I'm not sure I saw things in the proper order, but I think you will walk away from this if you take the pills.

How could that be? “I don't have them with me.” If he failed to take them, would he have a vision of Victoria's past, midpunch? Would the souls distract him too much? “Besides, I need your ability.” He needed to know what Sorin planned to do to him before the bastard actually did it. Sorin was going for his head, no question.

Just…send Victoria to get them.

“Why?”

I told you. There's a very high chance you won't walk away without them.

A very high chance? “That's not good enough.”

Okay, let's look at this from a different angle. You know how cold you've been?

“Yes.” Kinda hard to forget.

Well, that's actually been a lifesaver for you. Right now, strong emotion is your enemy. The pills will help you remain unemotional.

“I don't understand.”

Yeah, me either,
Caleb said.

Just take the pills, Aden,
Elijah insisted again.
Trust me, emotion is not your friend.

Was anything, anymore? “All right.” Elijah was never wrong. Or rarely wrong, he guessed he had to say now. If Aden needed the pills, he needed the pills. “I'll—”

Sorin materialized at the edge of the clearing, already marching forward, two of his men holding a banner that stretched over their heads, the rest holding torches of their own. Torches the rain did not affect. They were a collage of shadows and light, menace and redemption.

The wind kicked up, whistling…closer and closer…footsteps…

“It's too late. I can't send her now.” He would appear weak. Vulnerable. To vampires, appearance was everything, and if he appeared weak and vulnerable, he would lose this fight even if he won. “We'll have to find another way to bring home the victory.” Elijah groaned.
I was afraid that would happen. Just try to stay calm. No matter what. Okay?

“Okay.” Easily said. Probably impossible to do.

Then Sorin and his men were there, standing just inside the ward, and Aden could see each face clearly—as well as the faces of Seth, Shannon and Ryder, his human friends. They were bound with rope. Prisoners.

To their credit, they didn't appear to be scared. Seth, with his red-and-black hair dripping into his scowl, just looked pissed. Shannon's darker skin blended into the shadows, but his eyes…his eyes were so green they glowed. And they were narrowed on Sorin, throwing daggers of hate. Ryder was the calmest of the three. Maybe because he looked shocked to his marrow.

First things first. “Let them go,” Aden demanded. “Now.”

The rain slowed to an icy trickle. Sorin nodded, as if happy to oblige. “Of course I'll let them go. Their freedom in exchange for the crown. Simple, easy, and you don't have to die.”

He could accept, but as the new king, Sorin could later kill the boys anyway, and there would be nothing Aden could do to stop him. “Only a coward would offer such a bargain.”

“Is this the part where I erupt into a rage and attack you? Sorry, no rage from me. Call me whatever you like. It doesn't matter. Very soon everyone here will call me King.”

“Cocky.”

“Confident. But all right. You don't wish to save your friends. I understand. Callous of you, but let's see if you'll relinquish the crown to save your girlfriend.”

During Sorin's speech, one of his men had snuck through the crowd and closed in on Victoria, grabbing her by the back of the neck and forcing her to her knees. She tried to fight, but her strength was clearly no match for his.

“Before you ask, she can't teleport away,” Sorin said. “She came to see me last night, and I drugged her drink.”

Victoria trembled and gave her brother a look of cutting betrayal. Aden felt a twinge of betrayal himself. She'd left him and gone to see her brother, might have even told him secrets about Aden.

After the way you treated her, could you blame her?
Elijah said.

Way to help me remain calm,
he thought darkly. Not that the souls could hear him. “How can you treat her that way?” he asked Sorin. “She's your sister.”

A negligent shrug. “One thing I've learned over the centuries.
Everyone
is expendable.”

Victoria's chin trembled, and Aden knew she was fighting tears. He stiffened. No matter what she'd done,
no matter what had gone down, he
hated
the thought of her upset. Strong emotion? Yeah, if anything could cause it, he realized, she could.

Any questions he might have had about his feelings for her were answered in that moment. Aden didn't just like her, he loved her, and he would do anything to protect her. More than that, he trusted her. She might have gone to see her brother, but she wouldn't have done anything to jeopardize Aden's health. Just as, even at his worst, he had not jeopardized hers.

Aden,
Elijah began, nervous again.

“No,” he said. No more distractions.

“He's without his beast,” Victoria called, the last word emerging on a cry of pain. The man must have increased the pressure on her neck.

Elijah cursed as fury sparked to sizzling life inside his chest. In the back of his mind, he heard the plaintive cry of a newborn. Just like before. Only stronger this time, and as angry as he was. The souls began to argue, Caleb and Julian demanding answers, Elijah refusing to give them.

Aden tuned them out as best he could and focused on Sorin. He would pay for Victoria's pain. In blood. “Swords?” he asked, because that was the method the
warrior had chosen in every vision Aden had had of this fight.

A moment passed as Sorin unraveled the meaning of his question. There would be no surrender. They would fight. Surprised flickered in those blue eyes before smoothing into eagerness. “Let's make it sort of fair. Hand to hand.”

Aden nodded, surprise flooding
him.
Nothing was happening as he'd seen. What did that mean? What had caused things to change? The fact that he hadn't taken the pills?

“If anything happens to Victoria or my humans, I'll kill your men when I'm done with you,” Aden said to Sorin. And he meant it.

“Now who's the cocky one, hmm?”

“I want your vow. No harm will come to them. Now, during or after. No question, no matter the outcome.”

Sorin nodded. “You have my word.”

The ease with which he offered the concession made Aden think he'd never planned to hurt the foursome. That wasn't going to save him, not now, but it did defuse the hottest threads of Aden's fury.

With a shrug, the black robe draping Sorin's shoulders fell to the ground, leaving him as bare-chested as Aden. Difference was, Sorin's torso was covered in fresh wards.
There was not an inch of pale skin visible. Only black ink on top of black ink, circles on top of circles. Aden briefly wondered what the guy was warded against before clearing his mind. He had to concentrate.

Together they approached the center of the metal ring, then stopped, only a whisper away from each other. Aden had been in more fistfights than he could count, but they'd always been spur-of-the-moment, his mind lost to whatever emotion or insult that had brought him to that point. He'd never coldly, calculatingly planned to brawl like this.

“I think I would have liked you in other circumstances,” Sorin said. Just before drilling his knuckles into Aden's eye socket.

His arm moved so quickly, Aden registered only a blur before tumbling
backward,
pain exploding through his head. He managed to remain on his feet as the entire world went silent, black. There was no rain, no crowd, no souls. No…anything. Not even time. He was deaf, dumb and blind, his brain completely shut down.

Aden just stood there, lost, barely breathing, until he saw a sudden flash of white. A return to black. Another flash of white, one that lasted a little longer. Black. White. Black, white, as if someone were playing with a light switch inside his head.

Then he heard a little whoosh of noise, the only precursor to the sudden
boom
as the world slammed back into focus. He heard, he knew, he saw, but there was no time to react. Sorin was on him, fists pummeling like a jackhammer, over and over again, raining down, never stopping.

Come on, come on. Get in this thing.
Using all of his strength, Aden kneed him in the balls. And if Sorin
had
still possessed his beast, the creature would have come roaring out at exactly that moment in a bid to protect Aden from further damage, because Sorin hunched over and screamed with unholy rage.

The down and dirty action gave Aden a necessary reprieve—and time to jerk his knee up, slamming Sorin under his chin, sending him soaring to his back.

Aden raced to him, intending to pin the guy's shoulders with his knees and just start whaling, but Sorin pulled up his legs, rolling with Aden's weight before kicking. This time, Aden was the one to soar to his back. A blink of his swelling eyes, and Sorin was on him.

Punch, punch, punch.
“Any time you want to give up, all you have to do is kneel before me and proclaim your loyalty.”

“Go screw yourself,” he managed between blows.

“Original.”

“Appropriate.”

Punch, punch.
Several of the bones in his face shattered. His nose might have snapped in half; some of the cartilage definitely shifted to one side. Adrenaline shot through his veins as if he'd injected it, warming him up, strengthening him. But was it enough?

Calm. You have to stay calm.

Elijah's voice.

Ignored.

With a roar that matched the one in his head, the one growing, growing, growing in volume, Aden threw a punch of his own. Then another and another and another, until Sorin stopped hitting him to save his own face from a battering. A golden opportunity. Aden reached up, grabbed him under the arms and shoved, flipping the warrior over him. He didn't release his hold, but allowed himself to flip, as well, so that he was finally the one on top.

He spit blood and what looked to be a Chiclet—a tooth! Then he held Sorin's face with one hand and rained down the fury with the other. Boom, boom, boom, so fast he couldn't see even the blur. Or maybe his eyesight was too cloudy, his lids desperate to glue together and (hopefully) heal.