Intertwined

whisper.

“Thank you.” His relief was palpable, he was sure.

“It’ll be hard, though,” she added. “His old files are in storage. And those he’s actually put in his computer are in password-protected archives.”

“All I ask is that you try.” He pushed to his feet, his legs a bit unsteady. Victoria kept her arm around his waist. He didn’t need to, not to remain standing, but he leaned against her. “What time is it?”

“Seven-eighteen,” Victoria said.

“PM?” He almost moaned. “I need to get back. Dan said my chores and homework had to be done before bed. Otherwise, I’ll never be allowed to go anywhere after school again.”

“I’ll go with you,” Victoria said. “I’ll change his mind.”

Riley sighed, flicked a regretful glance to Mary Ann. “That means I have to go, too.”

Victoria gazed at him pleadingly. “I’ll be fine. Promise. Besides, you need to look after the human.”

With another look to Mary Ann, Riley shifted from one foot to the other, popped his jaw, then finally nodded. “Fine. You’ve got one hour to return for me.”

“Thank you,” she said and ushered Aden forward. “Hurry, before he changes his mind.”

They quickly reached the line of trees that separated neighborhood from forest. This far away, even someone with Riley’s supercharged hearing couldn’t detect their words.

“Thank God he stayed behind.”

“I know,” Victoria said, grinning. “I expected him to balk. As he is charged with my protection, if something were to happen to me, he would be executed.” Without breaking her graceful glide, she bent down and picked up several fallen acorns. “He must like Mary Ann more than I realized.”

For the first time, Aden was glad about that.

Victoria glanced around. “We have an hour before I have to return. Want to spend it here?”

“Dan—”

“Don’t worry. I’ll take care of him.”

“All right.”

She stopped, the acorns balanced perfectly in her hand, not even rolling. Aden stopped, too, facing her. Waning sunlight filtered through the treetops, a haze of pink, violet and gold that worshipped her pale skin.

Skin that couldn’t be cut, he recalled. “What could happen to you that would cause Riley to get into trouble?”

“I can be kidnapped,” she said, dropping one of the acorns. “Held for ransom by someone who dislikes my father.” Another acorn fell. “And I can be hurt.” The rest slammed into the ground, forming a pile.

He didn’t like the sound of that and found himself skimming his gaze through the surrounding area, searching for any threat that might be lurking nearby. But as usual, even the insects were quiet, perhaps sensing he and Victoria were more than human and thereby dangerous.

“I want to know how you can be hurt.” That way, he, too, could learn to protect her from harm.

She backed away from him to lean against a tree trunk. “Telling anyone of a vampire’s weakness is punishable by death, for both the vampire who tells and the one she confides in. That is why my mother was left in Romania. She spilled our secrets to a human and is now locked away until my father decides how best to slay her.” There at the end, her voice trembled.

“I’m sorry about your mom. I don’t want anything like that to happen to you, so please don’t tell me.” He didn’t fear for himself, but for her. He’d find out some other way. Through Riley, maybe. They had their moments of civility.

Strangely enough, his companions didn’t react to her pronouncement. They’d been silent since he’d woken up in this new present, actually. Yes, they normally remained silent after a trip into the past, but not for long. By now, they should have been back to their normal selves.

He could feel them, so he knew they were in there. Why weren’t they talking?

Victoria peered down at her feet. The slipper shoes were gone, exposing her black-painted toenails. Black. Huh. She enjoyed colors; he remembered her wistful smile while she’d gazed around Mary Ann’s home. He wondered if colored polish was against vampire rules. If so, had she gotten in trouble for dyeing sections of her hair blue?

“I didn’t tell you the punishment for sharing vampire secrets to scare you,” she said, “only to warn you what can happen to us if you tell anyone else. Even Mary Ann.”

“Seriously. You don’t have to tell me.”

“I want to.” Deep breath in, out. “Vampires are vulnerable in our eyes and inside our ears,” her hand moved to each place as she spoke, “two places our hardened skin cannot protect.” Now she held out that hand to him. “Let me see one of your daggers.”

“No way. I don’t want a demonstration.”

A laugh bubbled from her. “Silly human. I’m not going to poke out one of my own eyes.”

Then what was she going to do? His arm was shaky as he handed her the blade.

“Watch.” Gaze never leaving his, she raised the weapon and struck herself in the chest.

“No!” he shouted, grabbing for her wrist and jerking it back. He was too late, and he expected to see blood. All he saw was a torn T-shirt. The skin underneath bore not a scratch. Didn’t matter to his nervous system, though. His heart was racing uncontrollably, and sweat was beading on his skin. “Don’t ever do that again, Victoria. I’m serious.”

Another of her carefree laughs drifted between them. “You are sweet. But there can be no stake through the heart for one such as me, so worry not. A blade such as this is nothing to me.” She held it up and he saw that the middle was bent. “To kill us, though, to burn through our skin and reach our sensitive organs, all an enemy needs is this.” She dropped the knife and lifted her hand, the opal ring she always wore glinting.

Keeping her palm flat, she slid her thumb over the jewel, pushing the opal over the gold and revealing a small tumbler filled with a thick, bright blue paste.

“Je la nune,” she said. “This is…well, I guess the best way to describe it is to say that it is fire dipped in acid then wrapped in poison and sprinkled with radiation. Never touch it.”

The warning was unnecessary. He’d already backed up a step. “So why do you carry it around?”

“Not all vampires follow my father. There are rebels out there who would love nothing more than to hurt me. This way, I can hurt them.”

“If it’s so corrosive, how does the ring hold it?”

“Just as there are fire-resistant safes for human valuables, there are je la nune resistant metals. Not many, but a few. My nails are painted with one of those melted metals to keep them from burning off.”

She dipped a long, square-shaped nail into it, closed it, then raised her other arm and slashed her wrist. Flesh sizzled and blood instantly sprang free, trickling down her arm. She was grimacing, pressing her lips together to silence her moans.

“Why did you do that?” he snapped. “I told you I didn’t need a demonstration.”

A moment passed before she was able to speak, panting as she was. “I wanted you to see. To understand its power.”

He wrapped his fingers around her wrist, holding her arm steady for her. “Will you heal?”

“Yes.”

He could still hear the pain in her voice. The skin remained broken and torn, the blood still leaking. That blood was redder than any he’d ever seen, brighter, with what looked to be tiny little crystals that caught the fading sunlight and sparkled. “When?”

“Soon.” Her eyes closed—but not before he’d seen her gaze stray once more to the pulse hammering in his neck. Her teeth clenched together, sharpened.

Still she continued to bleed, to pant. Why would—Realization hit and he scowled. She’d never planned to tell him. Would have just suffered until they separated. “You’ll heal when you drink, won’t you?”

She nodded, lids slowly opening, gaze finding his, locking. A shuddering gasp left her. The force of her hunger was like a living thing between them. Thankfully, her resistance was crumbling; he knew it was. Finally.

He released her arm to cup her cheeks. “Drink from me, then. Please. I want you to.”

Those sharpened teeth sank into her lower lip. “Don’t worry. I can feed later tonight. I’ll be fine.”