Intertwined

even stay away from her, to protect her from such a fate. She’d done the right thing; his anger drained.

“Next time, give me a little warning and I’ll play along. So who is he?”

“A vampire,” she hedged. “Because of him, I have now been forbidden to leave home at night.”

Her sudden bitterness matched his own. “Is he another of your bodyguards?”

“You could say that, yes.”

He could say that, but she wouldn’t? “What’s his name? Did he hurt you?”

“His name is Dmitri, and no, he did not hurt me physically.”

Emotionally, then? He was beginning to learn her nuances, Aden realized. She didn’t want to lie to him, therefore she skirted the edge of the truth with omission. Smart. He did the same with Dan.

Aden wanted her to trust him completely, utterly, no secrets between them. That would take time, though, because he wasn’t going to push her the way his doctors had often tried to push him, using promises and assurances. Actions were the true test of a man’s integrity. One day she would realize that no matter what she told him, no matter what she did, he would love her.

Love?

His heart skipped a beat, his ears suddenly ringing as blood pumped through his veins. He’d never thought to feel such an emotion himself. He’d always tried to guard himself against it, really. As quickly as he was sometimes taken from foster homes, he’d learned that goodbyes were less painful if he didn’t care about the people he was leaving.

This entire experience in Crossroads had been different, though, right from the start. Imagining Dan as his father, befriending Mary Ann and Shannon, then Victoria (and maybe kinda sorta Riley). Wanting more from Victoria than he’d ever wanted from another, halfway in love with her before he’d ever even met her.

“Are you all right?” she asked, clearly concerned. Could she hear the rush of blood in his veins? Feel the way his heart skidded out of control?

“Yes,” he managed to croak out. “Fine.” He did. He loved her.

Eve would object. A few of the others, too. But he couldn’t help his feelings. They were there, and they were strong. He wanted Victoria safe, he wanted her with him, at night, during the day. He wanted to know everything about her.

She was smart, beautiful, warm. She’d fought for him when no one else ever had. She’d never looked at him as if he were weird or different. No, she’d always looked at him as if he were perfect, even lovable in his own right.

“What are you thinking about?” she asked.

He couldn’t tell her. Not yet. How deeply did her feelings for him run?

“About your death?”

He tensed at the reminder.

“It’s all I’ve been able to think about since you told me.” Her chin trembled as if she were fighting tears.

Those tears both delighted and sobered him. To cry for him, she must feel deeply for him. But they didn’t have much time together. Maybe there was a way to save himself, he thought, though he knew better. He just wasn’t ready to give her up yet. “Can I be changed to vampire?”

“Oh, I wish. But unlike what your books and movies portray, it has never been done successfully. Our blood is different than yours, and humans simply cannot tolerate the amount needed to make the transformation. They go insane.”

Then there was no better candidate to give the blood to than Aden. According to his doctors, he was halfway there already.

Victoria sighed, and it was a wistful sound. “The first were created in my father’s time. When he realized what he was, what had become of him, he forced his elite soldiers and the females of their choosing to drink as he had done, as his pets had done. Some of them changed, some did not. Over the following years, many others tried to change additional humans, but all died.”

“Seriously? Not a single survivor?”

“Correct. The only new vampires are those that are born from a vampire mother.”

“But it stands to reason that if vampires were created once, they could be created again.”

“True. But no one knows what recent attempts are lacking. Either the tainted blood my father and his men consumed is no more, or human bodies have evolved, becoming resistant. Sometimes, for reasons we haven’t yet figured out, the vampire involved even dies with the human.”

So that was out. He wouldn’t risk Victoria. He sighed. What was he going to do, then?

“Turn left here,” she said.

He did, and soon found himself meandering along a dirt road on the outskirts of the town square, the backs of buildings facing another strip of forested land. Gravel crunched under the tires, and the car bounced. No one was in sight. Only a red corvette.

“Park here.”

He eased to a stop and turned off the car. They unbuckled simultaneously, and he peered over at her. She wore a black T-shirt, as usual, and was clutching the hem. Seeing her fingernails reminded him of the polish in his backpack.

Aden reached to the back of the car, unzipped his pack and dug inside. When his fingers curled around the small, cool glass, he tugged it free, praying it was as pink and glittery as John had promised. It was. Thank God.

“Before you show me whatever it is you plan to show me, I wanted you to have this.” Gulping, suddenly nervous, he held it out to her. “For you. Well, your toes.”

She looked down at it, up at him, then down again, her mouth opening and snapping closed several times. “Me?”

Did that mean she liked it? “You mentioned the colors inside Mary Ann’s house and well, I thought maybe you—”

“I love it!” she said, throwing herself into his arms and raining little kisses over his face. When one of those kisses landed on his mouth, she stilled. Her smile fell away. She pressed another kiss to his lips, this one soft and slow, her tongue slipping inside.

He was cut and bruised, and the kiss hurt, but he wouldn’t have stopped her for anything. He just wrapped himself around her and held on, savoring the contact. He inhaled deeply, drinking in the floral scent of her hair, enjoying the heady flavor of her. All that heat…

There was a tap at the window.

They jumped apart as if burned. Aden was reaching for his daggers when he spotted Riley’s harsh, intense face. Mary Ann stood behind him, paler than he’d ever seen her.

Frowning, he opened the door and emerged. The cool interior of the car gave way to the heat of the day. One thing he hated about Oklahoma was how one day could be bone-chilling and the next a sauna.

He hadn’t heard Victoria move, but suddenly she was beside him. “Well?” she asked.

“It’s only getting worse,” Riley said.

Victoria stiffened, and Aden wrapped an arm around her waist.

“What is?” he asked. He was finally here. Someone needed to tell him what the hell was going on.

“Come. I’ll show you.”

Aden ran his tongue over his teeth. Would no one give him a straight-up answer?

Riley turned, took Mary Ann’s hand and stalked through the alley between two of the buildings, remaining in the shadows. “We shouldn’t have brought you here at all, but we needed you to see what’s out there and be able to identify the different species at a glance.”

Confused, Aden followed, never releasing Victoria. He remained on guard, ready to attack anything that moved. To his surprise, nothing leapt out at them. Also to his surprise, he saw only crowds of people walking in every direction when he reached the front of the buildings. More people than he’d assumed lived in this small tri-city area, sure. But where was the harm in that?

“See that woman?” Victoria pointed to an average-size female with plain brown hair, plain features, a brown top and faded jeans. She would have blended into any crowd, unnoticed, completely forgettable.

“Yes.”

“She’s a witch and she’s cloaked herself in magic. What you see is not what she truly looks like.”