“It should be.” He gave her one final shake, then released her, doing his best to appear unaffected. “One day, it
“But for now, it isn’t.” She couldn’t stop her smile. Putting the bane of her existence in his place was like finding a chalice that never ran out of blood. “You are still answerable to my father.”
He bared his sharp teeth in a scowl. His fangs were so long they cut into his bottom lip. “That will not always be the case.”
“That sounds like a threat. You know the penalty for that, yes? Even for you, a prince in your own right.”
Dmitri stared down at her for a long while. Finally, he said, “Go. Have your fun. Enjoy your chaos. It will end soon whether you want it to or not.”
Victoria remained in place as he stalked away, breathing in the night to calm herself. Finally, when he disappeared, she leapt into motion, racing, the wind in her hair, free to be herself, to enjoy. Buildings whizzed past her, then trees. On and on she traveled, worries falling away from her as the leaves fell from their branches. The scents of the night drifted to Aden’s nose, dew and dirt and animal.
Only when the D and M came into view did she slow. There, up ahead, was his window. Open for her. Two heartbeats were beyond it. She recognized both: Aden’s, a little faster than normal, and Shannon’s, slow and steady. One was lost in a vision, she would bet, the other sleeping peacefully.
Almost there…She glided past the glass.
Warm hands banded around Aden’s shoulders and shook him. He blinked open his eyes, surprised and disappointed to find the bedroom coming into focus. Even though he should be relieved his blindness had ended, he wasn’t ready to leave Victoria’s head. He marveled anew at her strength. She had lived through that, had stood toe to toe with Dmitri and hadn’t backed down.
Aden had wanted to leap between them, throw the vampire male to the ground and cart Victoria away.
“Aden,” she whispered.
Like the first time he’d seen her, she hovered over him, hair cascading around his face and enclosing them in a dark curtain. Unable to stop himself, he reached up and traced a finger over her cheek. She closed her eyes, black lashes casting shadows over her cheeks.
“Shannon is—”
“Sleeping,” she told him.
Yes, he’d known that. Because of Victoria, he’d even sensed his friend’s heartbeat for a moment. “Thank you. For everything.”
She regarded him, unsure, but she didn’t pull from his touch. “What did you see?”
He didn’t pretend to misunderstand. “You, feeding. You and Dmitri talking.”
“Everything, then.” She sighed. “You’re probably wondering how that’s possible.”
He nodded.
“Once a vampire ingests human blood, it enters our system and…transforms, I guess is the word. It becomes alive with all that we are. Our thoughts, our emotions, our very essence. The small portion I gave you healed your injuries, but it also linked you to my mind.”
“Will I be able to see things through your eyes again?”
“I don’t know.” A butterfly touch caressed the side of his now healed eye. He felt the fire of her skin and loved it. “While I’ve heard of a few others doing so, I’ve never shared my blood with another. Well, I do share droplets to close the puncture wounds, as I told you, but because it isn’t ingested, the humans never link to me.”
So she’d given him what she’d never given another. His love for her grew, spread. “Who is Dmitri to you?” The guy had spoken as if he owned her, and that had burned Aden up inside.
Her gaze lowered to his chest, and her fingers soon followed, playing over him. “He is someone I despise very much. Someone I—” Her ears perked and she straightened. “Riley is here. His heart is racing.” Her brow furrowed, her head tilted and she frowned. “He needs us right away.”
Aden rose without hesitation and glanced down at himself. He was dressed in the clothes he’d worn all day, wrinkled and dirty from his work in the barn. “I need five minutes.”
“Very well. He says we will be gone all weekend and has even ensured no one will miss us,” Victoria said. “Pack a bag and I will take care of Dan and the boys. They’ll never know you left. I’ll meet you outside.” With that, she was off.
He showered quickly, dressed and packed a bag as she’d suggested, throwing in a pair of jeans, a few T- shirts, his toothbrush and toothpaste. Bad breath was not something he wanted to have while around Victoria. Already her senses were better than most.
As promised, she was waiting for him outside. Wet as his hair was, the cool night air gave him a chill and he had to wrap an arm around her to warm back up.
Riley and Mary Ann had a new, probably stolen sedan parked about a half mile from the ranch. Riley stood outside it, tugging a shirt over his head when they emerged from the shadows.
“Get in,” the shape-shifter said. “We’ve got a lot of ground to cover.” He slipped into the driver’s seat, and Mary Ann leaned into him, head remaining buried in a notebook.
Aden and Victoria claimed the back. Victoria rested her head against his shoulder. Not because she was sleepy—Aden hadn’t sensed fatigue in her and wasn’t sure she even needed rest—but simply to be near him. He was glad. A part of him feared he could lose her any moment, that someone—Dmitri perhaps—would rip her away from him and he’d never see her again. Did she fear the same thing?
“We won’t be parted,” he assured them both and she nodded.
Elijah sighed.
Yes, he had. Aden had run full speed ahead anyway, and he still couldn’t regret it.
“Where are we going?” he asked.
“I’ll let Mary Ann tell you,” Riley said.
Mary Ann just mumbled something unintelligible under her breath and kept reading.
Aden let it drop, not wanting to interrupt whatever had the girl so entranced. He soon regretted the decision, though. A long while passed in silence, Mary Ann never looking up from that book, Riley concentrating on the road and Victoria lost in thought. Curiosity pounded him.
Aden closed his eyes. With as little rest as he’d gotten lately, his body constantly wired and ready to fight, a nap might do him good. In and out he breathed, forcing the tension to leave him with every exhalation.
After a while, he thought he heard Riley say softly, “You have to tell him, Vic.”
“I will,” Victoria replied just as softly, her words barely audible. “And don’t call me that.”
Tell him what? He waited for their conversation to continue, but it never did. “So what’s going on?” he asked, straightening. Victoria jumped, hand fluttering over her heart.
“Oh my God,” Mary Ann said, preventing the others from replying.
“What?” they all asked in unison.
Mary Ann turned and faced him, watery eyes rimmed with red. “You’re not going to believe this. Our mothers—wait.” She rubbed at her temples. “I think I need to start at the beginning. Otherwise, you’ll never believe me. First, our birth certificates came, and it turns out I have two moms. The one who died after giving birth to me and the one who raised me. Second…” She showed Aden the two birth certificates. His eyes widened as he noted their matching birthdays and the exact place of their birth.
“What does it mean?” he asked. “About you and me?”
Her gaze was solemn. “I don’t know, but I’m going to find out. All I know right now is that my mother, my real mother, could time travel like you until she got pregnant with me, and that she lived next door to yours. Look here.” She held up the certificates again and pointed to their addresses. “I missed it the first few glances because I was so hung up on our birth date and the hospital thing. Actually, I don’t think I would have realized it at all if not for my mother’s journal.
“In one passage, she talked about her neighbor Paula, who was pregnant, as well, only two weeks ahead of her. She talked about how she’d felt calmer when she was around Paula, after an initial creep-out—her words, not mine—so she talked my dad into giving up their apartment and renting the house next door to Paula. But the more advanced her and Paula’s pregnancies became, the more the creep-out feeling returned until they stopped hanging
