Intertwined

“He’s jealous of you. Besides, I’m not supposed to be here and had he known where I was headed, he would have stopped me. I had to come alone.”

A thousand questions seemed to rush through his mind at once. Someone was jealous? Of Aden? Why? And why wasn’t she supposed to be here? In the end, he asked the one he felt had the greatest chance of being answered. “How did you get me here? You spoke and I was forced to obey.”

She lifted a delicate shoulder in a shrug. “A little gift of mine, you could say. These are yours, I believe.” Steps measured, she approached. When she reached him, she stopped and extended the daggers.

Aden was proud of himself. He didn’t flinch or even crouch to attack.

Who is she? Eve asked.

I have another bad feeling, Aden. Elijah sounded panicked all of a sudden. I think you should leave.

“Quiet,” he mumbled.

“Don’t tell me what to do,” the girl snapped. The more she spoke, the more he detected an accent. Not English, but close.

“I wasn’t talking to you.”

Confusion washed over her lovely features. She gazed around the forest. “Who, then? We are alone.”

“Myself.” In a roundabout way.

“I see,” she said, but it was clear she didn’t. “Here. Take these.” She placed the weapons in his hands before he could take them…touch her. “I’m sure you will need them in the coming days.”

Nope, she had never meant to hurt him. He looked down at the sharp metal, fingers curling around the hilts. “You aren’t afraid I’ll use them on you?”

A laugh escaped her, the sound like bells tinkling. “It wouldn’t matter if you did. They cannot hurt me.”

Oh, really? “Sorry to be the one to tell you this, but no one can withstand a blade.”

“I can. I cannot be cut.” Absolute confidence radiated from her.

His arms fell to his sides. “Who are you?” What are you? He quashed the second question before it could escape, not wanting to offend her. Again.

Besides, the answer really didn’t matter, he supposed. He was glad she was here, whatever she was.

“My name is Victoria.”

Victoria. He rolled the name through his mind. Soft, lovely. Like her. “I’m Aden.”

“I know,” she said, voice now hard.

“How?”

Again using those slow, measured steps, she circled him. “I’ve been following you for days.”

Days? No way. He’d only seen her that once. You’re not always the most observant of people, he reminded himself. “Why?”

In front of him again, closer than before, almost brushing against him, she said, “You know why.” Her breath was a lick of heat against his skin, like a bonfire on a winter day.

He liked it. A lot. But he would have given anything for actual contact. “I don’t.”

Her gaze met his, as hard as her tone had been. “You called us.”

On the phone? “I couldn’t have. I don’t even have your number.”

“Are you trying to provoke me?”

“No. I honestly didn’t call you.”

She pushed out a frustrated breath. “A week ago, you somehow overwhelmed my people with energy. Energy that was so strong, it left us writhing in pain for hours. Energy that latched onto us and tugged us to you as if we were tethered with rope.”

“I don’t understand. Energy? Sent by me?” A week ago, the only thing he’d done was kill a few corpses and meet Mary Ann.

With the thought, his eyes widened. The first time he’d seen Mary Ann, everything had ceased to exist before the world had seemed to explode in a burst of wind. Could that be what Victoria meant? And what did that mean for him and Mary Ann if it was?

“Who are your people? Where do you live?”

“I was born in Romania,” she said, ignoring his first question. “Wallachia.”

His brow furrowed as he considered her claim. A tutor had once forced him to do a report on Romania. He knew that Wallachia was north of the Danube and south of the Carpathians and that Wallachia was not what the town was now called. He also knew there was no way the wind he and Mary Ann had generated could have reached a place that far away. Right?

“Were you there when the energy hit you?”

“Yes. We move around a lot, but we had just returned to Romania. So what game do you play with us, Aden Stone? Why did you want us here?”

Us? No, he’d only wanted her. “If I was the one to send that energy, it wasn’t intentional,” he said.

She lifted her hand and rested her fingertips just below his ear. He closed his eyes for a moment, savoring. Finally. Contact. Her skin was burning hot, static, like lightning. Down her nails raked, gentle, so gentle, stopping at the base of his neck where his pulse hammered.

“Intentional or not,” she said, “my father was angered. And believe me, his anger is a terrifying thing. The stuff of nightmares. He wanted you dead.”

Aden was too entranced by her actions to be scared of her words. “Is that why you brought me here? To kill me?” Then why had she given him the blades? “You’ll understand if I don’t lie down and take it, I’m sure.”

The harshness of his tone must have jarred her because she backed away until she was no longer within easy reach. I should have kept my mouth closed, he thought darkly. What would it take to make her return?

“I said my father wanted you dead,” she admitted softly, gaze falling to the ground. “He no longer does. I convinced him to wait, to study you. We still feel the hum of your power, after all.”

One part of her speech intrigued him more than any other. “Why?”

She didn’t pretend to misunderstand. He wanted to know why she would seek to help him, a boy she knew nothing about. “You…fascinate me.” Her cheeks brightened with pink. “That was stupid of me to say. Pretend I said something else.”

“I can’t,” he said. Nor did he want to. “You fascinate me, too. I’ve thought about you since the moment I first saw you.” He didn’t tell her that had been months ago, in a vision. Didn’t tell her that sometimes she’d been the only thing in his life worth living for. “And when you visited me while I was sick…don’t try to deny it,” he added when she opened her mouth. “You took care of me, I know you did. I’ve wanted to spend time with you ever since.”

She shook her head as he spoke, tendrils of hair slapping her face. “We cannot like each other. We cannot become friends.”

“That’s good, because I don’t want to be your friend. I want to be more.” The words rushed from him, unstoppable. What he felt for this girl was different than what he’d ever felt for anyone else. It was more intense, consuming.

Maybe he should have kept that information to himself, as he’d told himself earlier, at least for a little while. But because of Elijah’s death-vision, he knew his days were numbered.

“You wouldn’t say that if you knew…” Her eyes narrowed on him. “Do you have any idea of what I am, Aden? Of what my father is?”

“No.” And it didn’t matter. He had four souls trapped in his head. Like he could really complain about someone else’s heritage, whatever it was.

Before he could blink, Victoria was once again in his face, pushing him backward until he slammed into a tree and lost his breath. He’d wanted her near him, but not like this. Not angry.

Her lips pulled back from her teeth, revealing sharp white fangs. “You would be running in terror if you knew.”

Those fangs…“But…you can’t be. You stood in sunlight. I saw you.”

“The older we are, the more the sunlight hurts us. The younger ones like me can stand in it for hours, unaffected.” There at the end, her voice rose. “Do you understand now? We use your people for food. Our mobile meals. Our blood on tap. And if we like that food enough, we drink again and again until that human becomes our