by Tara Brown
Lucas flinches at her laughing and the weird harshness, "She's starting to lose it. She laughs at weird stuff now." He's kidding but his eyes don’t look like they got the joke.
Ari rolls her eyes and walks toward the door, "I'm just glad we're out of Alaska. I hate cold. I wanna go back to New Mexico and see my uncle and bask in the glorious sunshine." She walks out of the room, dragging Lucas with her, "Ben is downstairs. If you want to go meet him. He knows who you are."
My stomach feels funny. Ari is emotional and lost. I sit back on the bed when Lucas comes running back in, "I need to talk to you." He whispers.
I frown, "Is she okay?"
He swallows hard and shakes his head, "No. She's pregnant. She isn’t saying anything to anyone."
My eyes widen, "What? Congrats."
He shakes his head, "It's not good. Her kind doesn't do well with kids. They don’t even usually have babies, most can't. I'm scared. If something happens to her I need you there. I need her to live." His eyes look glassy.
I nod and press my lips together, "Okay. I'll do what I can to help her."
He grabs my arms hard, "No matter what. You save her."
I nod. I don’t even know how I would come close to it, but I nod.
He looks lost, "Thanks, O." He bends and kisses my cheeks and leaves the room. I stare at the floor and ponder it all.
Chapter Thirteen
Aimee
"Do you think you'll ever be in love with me again?" His lips look soft. I remember the feel of them.
I shake my head and look down at the concrete. I can sense the others. I know they line the rooftops of the alley I'm in. Just like last time.
He steps toward me, "Are we strangers now? We were friends once Aimes." My nickname hurts now.
I hate that I've lured him here in an attempt to get Jonathan to snatch O.
I don’t want to talk to him. I shake my head, "We'll always be friends."
He reaches forward and grabs my hand, "We live separate lives. We don’t hang out anymore. You made me this way and then left me."
My eyes burn. I feel the sparks. He drops my hand and grins, "Easy tiger."
I frown, "I never left you. You chose Marcus's way. There have been blood bag vampires for as long as there have been blood bags. Not the slutty downtown kind either. I mean the plastic ones."
He wrinkles his nose, "I don’t like it. It's the rest of my life, the world's life. I'm immortal. I don’t want to eat plastic food. Imagine an eternity of that?"
I cock my head, "Imagine an eternity together." I whisper it and hate they can all hear me.
He chuckles and melts the ice around my heart. His grin is killing me. "Aimee, I'm not giving up on you. I know you'll come back around." He comes closer and grabs my face. He presses his lips against mine. I gag and push back wiping my face, "I can taste the last person you killed."
He looks at me through his lashes, "Ditto." My stomach twists, just like it used to.
Marcus strolls up the alley behind him. "Aimee, how lovely to see you. We see so little of each other."
I feel my lips curl into a sneer, "I see enough of you."
He chuckles and crosses his arms across his broad chest, "So feisty. I liked you better when we first met. Of course it was the time before. Or was it the time before that? That Ari is a pain in my ass."
I shake my head, "She saved you."
Shane looks back at him, "I'll be there in a minute."
Marcus cocks an eyebrow and scoffs, "She isn’t giving you a minute Shane. She's doing something else in this alley. Look around you. The Roses are lining the rooftops. Something is up."
I narrow my gaze, "Go home Marcus."
He's in my face, his movements are fast. He slips a hand up into my hair and grips the back of my head. "I don’t take orders from girls."
I grin at him, "That's not how I heard it."
He laughs and grips the back of my head harder. I wince. "Tell Lorri the deal is off." His hot breath on my face smells exactly how it should, naughty.
"Tell me yourself." I grin at the sound of the boots in the alley.
He releases me and steps back haughtily, "The deal is off." He points to the roof where Henry stands, looking menacingly at us. "Let's not test our fates shall we? I feel fairly confident that I would win this battle."
Lorri growls at him, "The deal stands."
Marcus looks at her for a moment, "No."
"Stop being a child." She snaps.
"I WILL HAVE HER!" He screams and then he's gone.
Shane doesn’t even flinch. I grab his hand again and squeeze, "You don’t have to stay with him. You can come with us."
He shakes his head, "I'm royalty. I can't even walk past the guards. I tried."
I slide my hand along his face, "Don’t do anything I will have to come for you over. Shane it all seems like shits and giggles but we are over busting in blood brothels in Egypt tonight. We are taking the baddies down there because the African Roses are busy. We are on every other continent. I will know if you are part of it. I don’t want to have to kill you."
He bends and presses his lips against mine, "Stop making it so finite and difficult. We both know you love me as much as I love you."
I look down. "I don’t feel that way anymore Shane. I was a girl and you were a boy and things were simple."
He grips my hand roughly, "I heard that no matter what, you never chose me anyway."
I pull back but he's gripping my arm.
"Don’t make it so hard Aimes." He whispers and releases me. He's gone before I can reason with him.
"Well that was a bust." Lorri says quietly. "Fucking Marcus." She looks up at the rooftops, "Sam, go to her. Make sure he doesn’t find her. Do what you have to."
Sam beams and then he too is gone.
I see the icy blue eyes watching me for a second. Something about him still makes me question everything. How could I ever choose him over Shane?
I flash to the rooftops where Ari is standing next to O. "He never came then?"
She shakes her head, "Something else must be different."
Ari looks sick, "No. It's got to work." She looks like she might lose it. Lucas growls and rubs against her. His green eyes are full of worry. I scratch his head. He snarls at me. I put my hands in the air defensively, "What? God. You’re all fluffy and soft. I can't help it."
Ari crosses her arms, hugging herself. She looks like she's talking to herself. She grabs my hand and shows me a picture. It's the desert. I wink us there without consulting anyone. The vampire blood-drugging house is below us. The air is cool as the sun has set, but the desert isn’t completely dark.
"I'm pregnant Aimes." She whispers.
I look at her, "What? Is that even possible?"
She nods, "It's rare. Usually it's angels and Fae impregnating humans. Not Fae impregnating Nephilim." She looks at me with tears making her black eyes like pools of despair. "I need your help."
I nod, "Anything. You know that."
Her lip quivers, "If anything happens to me, you make sure Lucas doesn’t remember me."
I scowl, "What? Why? What's going to happen?"
She shakes her head, "That’s just it. I don’t know." She looks off into the distance, like she's lost. "I haven’t talked to Dorian. I think he'll be mad."
I frown, "Yeah. He's going to be the oldest grandpa in the world."
She looks at me and smiles, "I can't imagine him as a grandpa."
I laugh, "No. Certainly not."
Her smiles fades, "If something happens to me, you make one of them make him forget me."
"No. Ari. That’s so wrong."
She shakes her head, "No. You make him raise the baby and be at peace with my death. He'll hurt himself if I d-die."
I grab her shoulders, "You're immortal. No baby can kill you."
Her eyes grow haunted, "I'm not entirely certain of that. I'm loosing pieces of me everyday. My mind, my heart, my sanity, my soul." She whispered the last pa
rt.
"It doesn’t make any sense." I mutter.
She shakes her head and continues to look off in the distance, "I know. I just feel it. Something isn’t right."
"You should talk to Dorian and Lorri."
She shoots me a look and then looks down at the ground, "No."
I know her mother died when she was being born. I know why she's worried. "You're not human like she was Ari. You're special. You'll be fine."
She smiles and I can't help but see the fakeness of it.
"Let's kill shit."
I grin and nod, "Alright." I take her hand and flash us to the opening of the door at the back of the large home.
"Ready?" I ask.
Her eyes fill solid black, eating up all the whites. She smiles a twisted grin, "Yup."
I open the door and slide against the wall. I don’t know how many there are. We did sloppy reconnaissance. We tend to get over confident.
The hall is silent. Ari's buzzing with the strange electricity she controls.
We creep along quietly. Watching for movement. It's all so familiar to me.
I glance back, "Have we done this before?"
She shakes hr head and laughs, "No. But we did it in Rio a few times. You probably just remember that in the weird déjà vu way."
I nod, "Great. Love that Déjà vu."
Her laugh is almost silent. I open the door to the right of us in the long hallway. The room is empty and dark. It's a small sitting room with strange chairs and sofas. They look exotic, like a genie would live in there. I close the door just as Ari opens the one on the left. She closes it, "This is weird."
We walk to the end of the hall where it forks.
Ari points right and walks left. We know each other like the backs of our hands and honestly, she knows me better than I know me. I creep along the hallway, until it opens in a fancy kitchen with marble and granite and stainless steel everywhere. It's stunning. I slip past it to another hallway. There are few windows but many lights so it feels like daylight inside. At the end of a hall with no other doors I feel a twinge of something. My powers are completely with me, so much so, that when I touch the handle of the door it burns it's so cold against my searing flesh.
I stop turning the handle midway. A panicked feeling inside cripples me. It's foreign and only because I was human so few years ago does my body register it. It's fear. Real fear. I look back to where we parted ways and break into a winking run.
"Ari!" I shout, trying to keep my voice down but I can't. I pull my cell and snap a photo of the lovely kitchen and send a mass text instantly, 'HELP!'
I called out, panicking and looking, "Ari!"
Kicking and tearing the doors down, I leave each one open. The house is empty. All of the floors are empty. She is gone.
I hear the others arriving behind me on the stairs. I look back. I know horror and terror have taken over my face. I'm gasping for air. I try to avoid the green eyes when I speak, "She's gone. It was a trap. They took her."
Lorri growls, "For Christ's sake, when will the two of you stop doing these rogue missions. I know it gets stale at times, but this wasn’t one of those times. We have a ton of shit to do. Why would they take her?"
I glance at Dorian and lower my gaze. Lucas leaps up the stairs at me. His fingers bite into my skin, "Where is she Aimes?"
I flinch, holding back my powers. "I don’t know. There was no one here. It should have been full of drugged blood bags."
Lorri paces on the stairs. I look at them all. The worried looks change depending on the faces I glance at.
Dorian looks savagely at me, "How could you let them take her?"
I fight tears, "I didn’t even see them. I didn’t hear them. I-we separated. We always do. She has the holding thing." I clearly have no excuses.
Giselle steps forward and grabs my arms from Lucas who looks like he might eat me.
"You guys suck." She takes my hands and smiles, "Everyone knows Ari is badass and can kick anyone's ass."
Ben grabs his brother's arms, "I agree. This isn’t Aimee's fault. We need to stop blaming and start looking."
Aleks shakes his head, "We don’t need to. We know where they took her. Ophelia's at Lydia's safe and sound. They took what they could. She's in Alaska."
My heart sinks. I remember the details of the last time.
Lorri is already gone. Dorian points at me, "Lydia's now. We need to talk." He flashes him and Ben away but Lucas breaks free before he's also taken home. He grabs my hands, "I didn’t mean it. It's just, she's not been herself lately."
His face is breaking my heart.
"I know. She told me." The tears win over. I lose control. "I'm so sorry. I should have made us go home when she told me."
He shakes his head, "She wouldn’t have let you."
I snort through the tears and put my hands out. Giselle and Lucas take them and we are in Lydia's kitchen.
Sam glances at me, "Leaving now then I guess huh?" He knows already.
"Yup." I wipe my face and sit down.
"Miss Aimee, you's been a bad girl. Lord suffering Jesus, you and that Miss Ari always been so naughty." Annabelle hands me a cup of cocoa. I sip it and smile. I can't help it. She makes me feel loved.
"I know Annabelle."
Lydia storms into the kitchen, "This isn’t so bad. They have Ari, now we have a reason to go there and attack and get the ball rolling the way it was before."
Sam shakes his head, "No. Ari is in a situation."
"Sam." I say before I can stop myself.
He shakes his head, "Everyone needs to know Aimes."
"How do you know?"
He ignores me, "Ari is pregnant."
Lydia gasps. Dorian chokes his cocoa down, spraying a bit of it across the room. He flashes and grabs Lucas by the throat. I see the spark. I leap across the room, knocking my cocoa across the kitchen too. When I grip Dorian's hand, I wink. I'm lying on top of him in the forest close to home. I don’t know why I flashed there but I did.
He screams in rage.
I hold him. I wrap my legs and arms around him and hold him tightly.
When he's done, he closes his eyes and sighs, "You knew? You knew and you took her there?"
I shake my head against him, "I never knew. I never knew until we were in the desert. Too late to turn back."
He sighs, "Fuck me. Fuck. FUCKKKKKK!"
His slow heart is beating harder than I could imagine it would go.
I whisper, "She'll be fine."
He grabs my arms and throws me off of him. He throws me with such force I don’t have time to wink. I slam into a tree with a thud. I gurgle from the broken ribs I'm sure I have and searing pain in my spine. His black eyes burn and his nostrils flare with every breath. He looks savage but I can't get my breath to talk him down.
I lie limp in the soft moss and ferns.
He looks at me and covers his face. He winks and leaves me alone in the woods. I wink to Lydia's, broken and bleeding. I land on the back grass and whisper, "Aleks."
He's there within seconds. He somehow always knows when I need him.
"Hey, what happened?"
I cough as the rib pulls away from my lungs and starts to heal, "Dorian. Pissed." I whisper.
He picks me up and flashes us to my bed. He lays me down and lies beside me.
Ophelia walks into the room. "You okay?"
I shake my head. Aleks stands up and shrugs, "She'll be fine. Her kind heals fast."
"What happened?"
He shakes his head, "Dorian did something to her."
I'm struggling to get my breath, still winded. "Slammed me into a tree." I say breathlessly.
Ophelia looks disgusted, "You don’t want to defend her?"
He frowns, "I don’t like getting involved in Roses business."
She growls, "I've had just about enough of this. She snaps her fingers and grabs his face before he can move away. She holds his head. His eyes roll back inside his head. He drops to his knees. I'm g
asping in horror, she's killing him. She drops her hands after a second.
He scrunches his face up. He looks up at the ceiling and screams. When he lowers his head his white eyes are on fire. He grabs my hand, "I'll go talk to him." He winks before I can talk him out of it.
