“Mr. Thomas is the weird one, my man. We’re supposed to write about how evil the bloodsuckers are, like they’re real or something. I can’t take that crank seriously, you know. I’ll probably fail, but ask me if I care.”
His shaking intensifying, Aden tried to wrap his fingers around Seth’s wrist. Nothing. No solid contact. Bile burned a path up his throat. His arm thudded heavily to his side, and he stumbled backward, black winking over his eyes, dizziness rushing through his head.
The answer to his question? Dead. He was really dead. That was the only answer that made sense.
The boys raced from the room, mumbling about stupid new tutors and dumb homework assignments. Aden just stood there. Doomed to live the rest of eternity as a ghost?
God, was this how the souls felt? Trapped, out of control, lost?
“Guys,” he whispered, not knowing how to begin. If he was a ghost, he couldn’t help them figure out who they’d been in their other life. And if he couldn’t help them figure out who they’d been, they could never be free of him. If that’s what they still wanted. “I think—I—This is—”
“Hello, Aden.”
The male voice came from behind him, and he spun. There, in the doorway, was the D and M’s brand-new tutor. Not for him or Shannon since they attended Crossroads High, but for all the others. Mr. Thomas had shown up the day of the Vampire Ball, and Dan had hired him on sight. Which was completely unlike Aden’s guardian. No background check, no intensive interview, just, “You’re perfect!”
Even weirder, the boys acted like they’d known him forever, already comfortable complaining about him. Aden hadn’t met the man officially, but Victoria had secretly pointed him out. Mr. Thomas, as it turned out, was not a let’s-all-learn-and-grow kind of tutor. He was a fairy and Victoria’s enemy, here to find out who was helping her.
The man didn’t look like Aden’s idea of a fairy—small, female and winged. Instead, he was tall, lean, his skin golden and even a bit glittery (okay,
And it was embarrassing as hell that Aden had noticed. Anyone found out, and they’d take away his man card or something.
“You can see me?” He gulped. “Hear me?”
“Yes.”
“Am I…dead?” Saying the word was more difficult than thinking it. And how could the fairy see and hear what Seth and Ryder hadn’t been able to?
A chuckle rumbled from the fairy, almost like a thrum of a harp. “Hardly. You’re…somewhere else.”
He wished he could take comfort from that. “Somewhere else?” When everything looked the same? “Okay. Where am I? How’d I get here?” He plowed his fingers through his hair. “What’s going on?”
Dread instantly filled him. Elijah’s bad feelings were, well,
“So many questions.” The man
What should have been a simple request struck Aden as a threat. And with Elijah’s wariness, he suspected a fight would soon break out. He did a weapons check. He had nothing on him, but there were knives hidden in his boots. Boots he wasn’t wearing and might not be able to touch. Boots that were…tucked neatly beside the bed, he saw.
“Sit, Aden.” Two words, both layered with authority.
This time Aden sat. Without going for those blades. He didn’t want to play his (potential) ace unless absolutely necessary.
“My name is Mr. Thomas,” the man said before Elijah could respond, walking forward and stopping only a few feet away from Aden’s chair. He anchored his hands behind his back and braced his legs apart. A war stance.
Aden knew it well. He’d stood that way many times—just before launching himself at the person threatening him.
“You want answers,” he said, wondering,
There were several beats of heavy silence. At first he thought Thomas meant to strike him for using his own tactics against him. With every second that passed, fury grew in those blue eyes. Fury and indignation.
Finally, though, the fairy said, “Your people would call this place another dimension, though it is the true realm of the Fae.” Despite his expression, his words were calmly stated.
Fae had to mean fairy. And another…dimension? Was that even possible? As soon as the question hit him, he wanted to roll his eyes at his own stupidity. After everything he’d seen and done recently,
“This constant need for reassurance is tiresome, so listen carefully, because I will not repeat myself again. You are very much alive.
If Thomas was to be believed, Aden wasn’t a ghost. He could return to Victoria, to his friends. “And you brought me here?” A croak.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Another tension-laden pause stretched between them. Clearly, getting answers was going to be like pulling teeth.
“Because,” Thomas finally said on a sigh, “I had met all the students—but you.”
There at the end, the fury had returned to the man’s eyes, this time blended with disgust.
“From a knife?”
“What do you mean, from a knife?” Thomas demanded.
He must not know of Aden’s reputation as the boy who always talked to “himself.” “Sorry. I wasn’t speaking to you.”
“Then to whom were you speaking?”
A question he’d been asked a thousand times by a thousand different people.
Caleb suddenly snickered, amusement momentarily obliterating distress.
“Quiet, please,” Aden snapped, and Thomas hissed in a breath.
“Do not speak to me like that, little boy.”
Rather than explain, Aden rubbed his temple to ward off the coming ache. “There was no reason for you to meet me. You won’t be tutoring me.” He couldn’t run, as Caleb had suggested. Where would he go? Plus, he wasn’t anxious. Yet. He still had those blades. Maybe.
“No.” Thomas started forward, one step, two, then paused, thoughtful. “But I will be killing you.” Okay.
“Do not even think of bolting, Haden Stone.”
“No one calls me that.” Not since he’d inadvertently butchered his own name as a kid and called himself