by Gaja J. Kos
His autumn eyes lit up when they fell on me. “Gina!”
“I’ll be right back.” Aric touched my elbow, then left me alone with Pascal.
I scooted firmly back out into the hallway and hugged the half-Fae when he opened his arms wide. “Nice to see you, Pascal. You were great up there.”
“And you”—he narrowed his eyes—“were missing up front.”
“I know, I know. I just…” I shrugged, not really knowing how to put everything into words without dragging him into this whole Gina-gutter he really didn’t belong in.
Pascal surprised me by saying, “I understand.”
He flicked his gaze at the closed dressing room door.
“I’m just glad you two are working your shit out. I missed the normal.”
My heart did a little flip at the thought of Aric and me being part of Pascal’s “normal.”
Aric glided out into the hallway, indeed in a fresh T-shirt if the same pants, and turned to Pascal. “I packed the rest of my stuff and left it on the couch.”
“No worries, I got it,” Pascal said without a moment of hesitation.
Though the half-Fae didn’t necessarily look at me, he might as well have. The only reason he was playing attendant to Aric was to get me to go off with the vamp that much faster.
I ducked my head, grateful and oddly hot-cheeked at the same time, and scraped the sole of my boot against the floor.
“Can you tell the others I’ve split?” Aric asked, bringing his fingers to the small of my back.
“Sure thing. Just don’t expect me to defend your ass when Ewart tries to murder you for keeping Gina all to yourself.” Pascal winked, then said to me, “It was nice seeing you.”
I smiled up at him. “Yeah, you too. Give my love to Ewart and Leif.”
Pascal nodded like a man who wouldn’t dare to not fulfill my request, then took off toward the toilets.
When he disappeared out of sight, Aric’s graze branded my skin. “You ready?”
Was one ever ready for Aric Sutter? I didn’t think so. But I walked alongside him, out into the warm night regardless.
He unlocked the car and held the door open for me, then blurred around once I settled in. In the intimacy of the cabin, the quick glance he sent my way seemed a fuckload more charged than before. My chest rose and fell in utter defiance of how hard I tried to keep my breaths steady.
Because no matter how hard I tried to convince myself otherwise, this was Aric.
Handsome as fuck Aric Sutter, with that vibe of his that hit like a drug designed to ensnare my soul and spirit.
Johnny Cash’s “Flesh and Blood” undulated from the speakers when Aric put the car in reverse. He pulled up to the ramp that lifted automatically, then steered us onto the traffic-free street. Despite Cash’s voice, the silence within the car was palpable. I wrestled the stubborn, pride-stuffed-but-actually-embarrassed side of me that refused to make the first move.
Again, immature was right.
“So,” I started, “how was your trip?”
Aric slid his gaze to me, and those gorgeous eyes held entire volumes. “Good. I haven’t been to the south of France in a while. It was nice, revisiting old places.”
“That’s great.” I nibbled on the inside of my lip.
Unfortunately, starting the conversation made carrying it on no easier.
“What about you?” He hit the gas to catch the traffic light up ahead. “I saw the photos you posted from Italy.”
Saw them but didn’t press a single like.
Annoyed with myself, I shut off that particular trail of thought. “Yeah, Kerstin and I took a week off in the Dolomites. They have family there, and the scenery is something my wolf adores.”
“Nice.” His fingers shifted around the wheel.
By all the fucking gods, this was so awkward, following up on the impulse to jump out of the car seemed like a pretty good idea.
The stilted conversation dragged on in wretched intervals all the way to the parking lot in front of Aric’s building, giving us nothing beyond the glimpses into each other’s lives we’d already gotten through social media. The serenity of the night engulfed us when we got out, and the change in the atmosphere felt so good, so fucking refreshing, I considered just heading down to the bank and claiming one of the benches for our talk.
In all honesty, I couldn’t imagine us doing any better trapped within four walls than we had in the car. But when Aric marched up to the building, I followed without complaint.
He held the door for me, then ushered us both into the elevator. The second the door dinged shut, and Aric’s presence suffused the small space, jitters wreaked havoc on my insides and the doubts came flooding back in.
Was this really necessary?
A floor went by.
We could have just talked in the car.
Another.
But there was nowhere for me to go now except forward.
When we reached the top floor, I’d hesitated just for long enough that Aric stepped out first and looked at me over the shoulder. Why was it that every time I found myself in his proximity, I questioned how any of this could be real? Even the bad sides?
I blew out a breath, then followed, but before we made it to the door, a sharp sting of an unmistakable scent stopped me in my tracks.
I looked at Aric, whose jaw was clenched so tight I could almost hear his teeth grinding.
Fuck.
I closed my eyes.
Not again.
I swallowed, then, looking at Aric, asked weakly, “You didn’t happen to spill several bottles’ worth of blood, did you?”
Chapter 7
With every second we spent out here in the silent hallway, the sting of blood seeping through the cracks between the door and the frame seemed to intensify. Aric kept staring straight ahead, utterly immobile except for the tick feathering in his jaw on repeat.
“Aric?” I glanced down at the key in his hand.
He turned to me, face tight. “Is there any chance I can convince you to have that talk somewhere else?”
A spike of wariness pierced my gut. Of course the possibility existed that Aric was being evasive because, once again, external circumstances threw us off our charted course, but on the other hand…
His apartment reeked of blood.
No innocent person would ignore that.
Clutching the strap of my purse with both hands, I shook my head. Aric sighed like he’d known damn well that would be my answer.
“Open the door, Aric,” I said gently, though not without an assertive undertone.
For a moment, I thought he’d fight me, but then he slid the key into the lock and twisted his wrist. The coppery tang smacked me full-on. Aric leaned forward to flick the light switch, and as the darkness retreated, we entered the apartment.
I scanned the open space, but aside from the heavy aroma, nothing seemed visibly amiss. No scent of another person lurked in the air, nor could I hear anyone shuffling about either. I cast a look at Aric’s pinched expression, then let the blood lure me into the living room.
“Shit,” I muttered.
A pool of crimson spread across the once pristine floor. The rounded edges seemed to creep toward Aric’s guitars that rested on single stands, while the majority of the blood disappeared behind the elegant wide couch with its back to me. The damn thing obstructed most of my view, but, in all honesty, it wasn’t too hard to fill in the gaps.
I cut a glance at Aric, who looked like he was wrought of nothing but tension, then carefully circled around the lake of crimson until I found a spot beside a jumbo Gibson acoustic that laid out the entire scene bare before me. Although the coffee table had been pushed aside to create more space, two of its legs perched in the red stain that, I now realized, wasn’t a spill at all.
Swallowing, I ran my gaze along the broad, irregular ring encompassing a message.
A message spelled out in blood.
You can’t change the past. But the past c
hanges you.
Into itself.
You can’t run forever.
“Aric, what’s going on?” I pried my attention from the unsettling sight.
Lips thin, he dragged a hand through his hair, mussing the slicked-back strands. “You should go home, Gina. I never should have brought you here.”
“Like fuck I will.”
Whipping coils of anger hissed to life in my gut and chest. I marched up to him, giving him no choice but to face me.
“You have a message written in blood in the middle of your godsdamned living room.” I flung a hand out for emphasis. “And you don’t even seem surprised! What the fuck?”
Aric looked from me to the blood and stared at it for a good long while, saying nothing. Oh, no, I wasn’t having this whole shady crap again.
If the whole intention of us coming here to talk had been with the purpose of moving forward, I’d be damned if I didn’t apply it to all the fucking areas of our relationship.
“Tell me what’s going on, Aric, or I swear to all the gods, I’ll drag you down to ICRA and you’ll end up talking to an agent, not a friend.”
He flinched—a barely perceptible flinch, but it didn’t slip past me, watching him like a hawk as I did. He dropped his gaze to the floor, head tilted at an angle that made the light cast solemn shadows beneath his cheeks. Why was he still contemplating this?
Every moment that dragged by worsened the suspicion gnawing at me with its tiny, prickly teeth.
He was hiding shit from me. Those old newspaper clippings weighed heavily on my mind, and the ultimatum I’d uttered that had started out as an empty threat to shake Aric into sharing was beginning to look more and more like a necessary course of action.
But, fuck it all, it really wasn’t a step I wanted to take.
All my distrust, all the damn suspicion—yes, it prodded my inner agent, who knew on an instinctual level that this was something I had to look into, but more than that, it just plain fucking hurt that he refused to let me in.
No wonder I’d been trapped in a vicious circle of overthinking and damn immature behavior over these past months. After all, why would anyone make themselves vulnerable to a person who wasn’t willing to do the same?
This time, though, I wasn’t about to tuck my tail and run for safety.
No going back. Just forward.
“Aric…”
With agonizing slowness that threatened to shred my already shot nerves, Aric met my gaze. “This isn’t the first time something like this happened.”
Of all the things I’d expected to hear, the heavy resignation in his voice wasn’t it.
The instant I shook off the surprise, I touched my fingers to Aric’s arm and guided him toward the kitchen. The tang of blood had wormed itself into the air to the point where there was no escaping it, but at least in here, the message wasn’t staring him in the face any longer.
Aric leaned against the white kitchen island and rubbed his hands across his face.
“It started when I was in France.” Shadows darkened his brown eyes, and exhaustion seeped into the corners. “The exact same message. First written on the windshield of my car. Then on the balcony of the place I was renting.”
Even through the blood, his emotions colored the sharp aroma with dissonant depths, as if they had been filtered through a reverb pedal turned up to the max.
I slipped my purse off and set it on the counter behind me. A show for Aric that I wasn’t about to drag him anywhere, but also a distraction to disrupt my growing inclination to crush the distance between us and do…gods knew what. I just knew that seeing him like this was physically painful.
Thankfully, Aric braced his palms against the island and flicked his gaze to mine before my impulses could get the better of me.
“I reported the incident to the local police the first time it happened—and the other two times after that—but they were unable to discover who was behind it. When I came back to Berlin…” His cheeks puffed out before he exhaled. “Within fucking days I found the exact same message in my mailbox. I called the police, but again, there wasn’t much they could figure out.”
“Why didn’t you go to ICRA?”
Aric shrugged. “This isn’t the kind of shit your agency deals with.”
Or, more likely, he didn’t report it to the Agency because he didn’t want me to get involved.
ICRA usually took on higher-level cases, true, but threats written in blood and aimed at a vampire who’d been part of our murder investigation not long ago… We would have jumped to work on the case without hesitation.
But I’d let that slide. For now.
“You want me to call it in?” I asked, but Aric shook his head.
“I got it, Gina. This isn’t your mess to handle.”
He phoned the police and gave them a quick rundown of events, then hung up. “They’ll be here in fifteen.”
He set the phone on the island with a loud thunk. His impulse to try to send me away singed the air, but I was having none of that.
“I’ll wait with you,” I offered, though there was nothing truly optional about it.
Aric tensed for a heartbeat, then nodded. He walked over to the cupboards, pulled out a bottle of whiskey, then seemed to think better of it and stashed it back. I watched him rummage around before finally settling for coffee, noting the way the muscles in his shoulders screamed with unease.
Worst of all, I couldn’t be sure whether that was because of the message itself or me seeing it.
Backtracking a few steps, I peered into the living room.
You can’t change the past. But the past changes you.
Those damn cut-out articles burned a hole into my mind. They were the only thing I knew about Aric’s life before he’d founded the Whiskey Jet Preachers. And whenever the subject of any conversation as much as brushed against his past, he either shut that shit down at once or diverted it like a pro.
The doorbell rang, and Aric moved past me to the intercom to unlock the elevator to his floor. After another minute, two officers stepped into the apartment.
The older of the pair caught sight of me, and his eyes widened. “Brent, you’re working this case?”
Aric glanced between the salt-and-pepper-haired human and me.
“I’m not here on official business, Lautner,” I said, well aware of my form-hugging dress and the time of night. “The scene’s all yours.”
I retreated into the kitchen to give them space—and to escape any further comments. While Lautner wasn’t the kind to gossip, he also wasn’t the type of person to just let an opportunity to poke you slide. If circumstances were different, I would have welcomed his brand of teasing. He’d certainly made a shitload of interactions with the PD better, thanks to it. Right now, vanishing was my top priority.
I grabbed the coffee Aric had made, then sharpened my ears. Lautner delved into interviewing Aric while his partner snapped photographs of the scene. After a few seconds of back-and-forth, I inched closer until I was able to peer around the corner.
Lautner’s partner had just started collecting blood samples off the ground, but what drew my attention was Aric. I narrowed my eyes. If I hadn’t known him as well as I did, and dealt with a shitload of suspects over the years, I would have missed the small, evasive tells.
Oh, yeah, Aric was definitely acting cagey.
Which meant he was lying his ass off to the police.
His words might have rung true, his recollection of events a word-by-word play of what I’d witnessed firsthand, but that was like dangling the gleam of stars in front of someone so they wouldn’t see the dark of the universe.
Once the officers had wrapped up their job and left with a promise to be in touch as soon as they had any news, I backtracked to my earlier spot mere moments before Aric sought me out in the kitchen.
I set the mug down on the counter behind me and crossed my arms. “Do you know who’s behind this?”
“Don’t you think I would have a
lready told the police that if I did?” he said with an agitated bite to his tone.
I snorted, the sound tumbling into an unpleasant laugh. “I don’t believe you, Aric. I think you know damn well who’s responsible and are, for some reason”—those damn, wretched clippings invaded my mind again—“protecting their identity.”
Aric’s nostrils flared. Bingo.
“The message alludes to your past,” I pressed on and marched toward him. It wasn’t easy to confront a man nearly a whole head taller, but I’d been in this job for long enough to make it work. “Even if you don’t know who, precisely, is leaving the bloody notes for you, you do know what they’re referring to.”
He ground his teeth. “Yeah, the whole ordeal with Zierke and his failed setup. This is why I had to get away. People don’t just forget shit like that.”
I wanted to point out that there had been barely any news surrounding Aric’s arrest back when he’d been our main suspect. Very, very few people would have even known about what had actually happened unless they were close to the case or went out specifically in search of information.
A fan dying at a concert had been the single thing to make the headlines.
Kind of a large leap for Aric to make.
As if sensing my incredulity, he placed his hands on my shoulders and softened his act. “When you’re in the public eye, every incident drags on. People like to make up their minds about how crap went down even when there’s proof that shreds their theories to shit staring them right in the face. It could be someone from Zierke’s camp. Or someone who thinks I’m a murderous fuck for some reason only they understand.”
A sardonic laugh punched from my lips.
Aric released me—without even meaning to, I suspected—and I reached behind me to grab my purse off the counter before looking him in the eye.
“You’re such a fucking liar, Aric.”
I shouldered past his momentarily stunned form and made for the door.
Despite my inner turmoil at the concert and on the drive over, I did come here ready to talk things out. Ready to fucking forgive him for ghosting me. Even apologize for the part I played in our radio silence. All to let us move on in whichever way we both chose. Acquaintances, friends, lovers, or more.
