without a guard. His protectiveness was as fine a quality as the six-pack on his stomach.
Victoria nodded stiffly. “You’re my soldier, you know. You’re supposed to obey my orders.”
“I know, but it’s my king out there. Sorry to tell you this, babe, but he now comes first.” With a final glance at Mary Ann, Riley spun on his heel and strode away, soon disappearing into the trees.
TWO
ADEN AWOKE WITH A JOLT, a shout of pain caught in his throat, wild gaze cataloging his surroundings. Bedroom. Desk. Dresser. Plain white walls. Planked floor.
Alive. He was alive, not burned to a crisp. Thank God. But…
Was he intact? He patted himself down while looking himself over. Skin? Check. Smooth and warm, tanned rather than deep-fried. Two arms? Check. Two legs? Check. Most important—was he now a girl? No. Thank God, thank God, thank God. He expelled a sigh of relief, sagged against the mattress and took stock of everything else.
Sweat soaked him. His hair was plastered to his head, and his boxers looked like they’d…like he’d… His cheeks flushed with heat. If Shannon, his roommate, saw him like this, he’d be teased about having a wet dream. Albeit good-naturedly. That’s just what friends did. Still. No, thanks. He—
Saw the bottom of Shannon’s bunk, and his eyes widened. There were deep grooves in the wooden slats, as if he’d clawed and kicked at his friend’s bed. Repeatedly. He glanced at his fingernails, and sure enough. They were ragged and bloody, with wood shards embedded underneath them.
Great. What else had he done while crashing on vampire blood?
“Elijah?” he asked. Time for roll call.
One down. “Julian?” The corpse whisperer, as they called him. A single step into a cemetery, and hello, walking dead.
Sweet. Two down, one to go. “Caleb?” The body possesser.
Rock on. The gang was all here.
Once, Aden had wanted them gone. He loved them, but come on. A little privacy would be nice. But then he’d lost Eve. Her name might have been Anne in her real life, but she’d always be Eve to Aden.
He missed her, his motherly time-traveler. Missed her terribly. Now he wasn’t sure he could deal with losing the others. They were a part of him. His best friends. His constant companions. He
As always, that line of thought made him feel guilty. They deserved their freedom.
Where Eve had gone, none of them knew. They only knew that she’d disappeared and hadn’t returned.
Well, Elijah did, but that was because Elijah was psychic and his visions were Aden’s. Tonight, last night,
“Vampire blood,” he reminded them. He couldn’t just think his replies because they couldn’t hear his inner voice amid the chaos. “We saw through two other sets of eyes.”
Victoria, he meant.
Before he could check the clock on his desk, his bedroom door swung open, and Seth and Ryder strode inside.
“—Shannon won’t mind,” Seth was saying. Seth Tsang. An Asian last name, though you couldn’t tell his race from looking at him. He’d streaked his black hair with red, and had blue eyes and pale skin.
Ryder Jones, who was behind him, arched a brow. He, too, had dark hair, but his eyes were brown. “You sure? You know how possessive that dude is with his stuff.”
Aden grabbed the sheets and jerked them over his sweat-soaked lower body. “Hey, guys. Knock much?”
They ignored him.
“So what’re you looking for?” he grumbled.
Again they ignored him. In fact, they didn’t even glance in his direction.
“Just check the desk,” Seth told Ryder, and the boy shuffled forward to obey.
Aden frowned. Once, these two had hated him. Once, but no longer. They’d reached a truce after their Treat-Everyone-Like-Crap idol, Ozzie, had been kicked off the ranch—and, as of this weekend, sucked dry by vampires. Not that they knew that part. They were as clueless about the “other” world as he had once been.
So why the silent treatment now?
“Where is it?” Seth muttered, crouching in the closet and rummaging through the clothes on the floor, wrist turning and revealing the snake tattooed there.
“Where’s what?” Aden repeated, sitting up.
Yet again, they ignored him.
Shirts and jeans were tossed over Seth’s shoulder, followed by shoes. At the desk, papers crunched under Ryder’s hands. Several minutes passed. Aden kept up a steady chatter—“this joke isn’t funny, try something original, will you just talk to me already?”—to no avail. He finally stood, sheet falling away, forgotten, and stalked to the desk.
With every intention of beating some sense into Ryder, he reached out. Except his hand wisped through the boy’s body.
No way. No damn way.
Aden’s heart pounded against his ribs as he tried again, shaking this time. Again, his flesh wisped through Ryder’s and he could only stand there, wide-eyed and reeling. How was that possible? How
No. No way. But… Blood freezing in his veins, he stalked to Seth.
“Found it,” Seth said, standing. He held a book triumphantly in the air. A book about vampires. Any other time, Aden would have floundered over Shannon’s chosen reading material. “Shannon’s weird, dude. He’s always reading this crap. Saves us a trip to the library, but, frickin’