The man didn’t make a move, other than to shake his head.
And then, for the tiniest of seconds, I saw a bright flash of green light in his eyes.
Before I could have another thought about it, Aiden accelerated past them, launching us out through the driveway at enormous speed.
CHAPTER TEN
My heart was racing out of my chest. My fingernails digging into Aiden’s flesh, not quite the way I imagined, but happening nevertheless. Did I want off the bike? Did I want out of this journey? No, not really. Perhaps it was against better judgment, but I was kind of thrilled by this chase. I knew of course that one misstep or agitated twitch from Aiden could send the bike spinning handstands across the road, blowing both of us into a bloody fireball. Forever dead. Forever gone from the world. When your mind pictures that image and it doesn’t even seem like the worst thing, you know your young life doesn’t really have that much to live for in the first place…
“Are you okay back there?” Aiden asked gruffly.
“I think so,” I called back, watching cars sailing across the road to either side of us.
“Can you see if they’re still following us?”
“You want me to turn around?”
“If you can.”
I buried my hands into his body further, and then slowly twisted my neck.
I couldn’t see the bikes.
“They’re not there,” I said. “As far as I can tell.”
“Good.”
Aiden peeled us off the freeway and we took a turn down another broad road. To either side of us, dark trees surrounded.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
“Back to my hideout.”
“Well, can you drop me home first? I can show you how to get there.”
“You can go home when it’s safe to.”
“Tonight, right…?”
“Why? Afraid of what might happen if you stayed over?”
“Huh? I … What…”
“You don’t have anything to be afraid of, ugly.”
Oh great. Back to the name calling again. Jesus Christ.
Now I wish I didn’t have touch to him like this.
Not that I wished I was touching him in the first place. God – just what is wrong with me at the moment –?
We took another turn off this road with the trees and wound up in a busy suburban area. We went through a number of roads and side streets before we came to his ‘hideout’ – a double story house secured by an electronic gate. We stopped at the entrance and he fumbled at the bottom of the bike to produce a clicker to open the gate. We both looked back as he did so, half expecting the two bikers from before to show up, but it seemed they really were gone.
The bike descended down the driveway and then Aiden closed off the gate again. We both got off the bike and I removed the helmet by myself.
I handed it to him.
“So are you going to tell me what the hell just happened?” I demanded.
“Inside,” Aiden replied.
I gave an annoyed sigh and he turned to the staircase leading up to the front door of his house. I followed him up there and he opened the front door to the place.
Inside we passed a cloak hanger area and walked up an additional set of steps where Aiden switched on the light. To my left I saw a large balcony bearing the moon surfacing between the clouds, the shimmering waters of the distant ocean reflecting up to the starry sky.
This room we were in was furnished with a lounge and entertainment system on the balcony’s side, and a kitchen to the right. Two additional staircases led down to other areas of the house on opposite sides of the room.
“Sit over there,” Aiden said indicating to the lounge suite.
I walked over across the carpet and sat down, a little surprised by the expensiveness of everything in here. I hadn’t even moved out of home yet.
“Do you like, rent this place or…?”
“It belongs to a friend,” Aiden said reaching into the bottom of the fridge. He came back over with a bottle of premixed vodka in each of his hands. He tossed one to me. “I didn’t shake it up this time. Promise.”
I eyed him suspiciously.
Upon twisting off the lid, I saw he was telling the truth this time.
I put the bottle to my lips and drank.
“I have to call someone up and find out how my location was compromised tonight. If they knew where to find me at the wedding, they might know where we are now.”
“Who is they?”
“The less you know, the less danger you’re in,” Aiden said.
“Well, you have to offer me some explanation. Or are you just going to be a dick about that too?”
“We were fucking having fun before, weren’t we?” Aiden grinned. “But this is a whole new door you’ve just walked through. I need to get you out as soon as I can, but only once I know we’re safe here. So … sit tight, if you can. I have to make my call.”
He set his unopened bottle to the floor and stood up. He went down one of the sets of steps and disappeared behind a closed door.
I wiped my forehead.
Put my hand to my heart.
Still racing.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
A few more gulps of my drink, and I was feeling light headed. My mind drifted away to what had happened back at the wedding and how I had left it. Had I overreacted again? Would Lara and my stepmom hate me for it? I didn’t know. I could always say I was just getting some air after being humiliated, and Aiden made me come with him on his bike. He had made me come after all. It wasn’t my choice to be here … was it?
I stood up from my place and moved towards the stairs where Aiden had gone down. I could see a light in coming from underneath the door in the middle of the passage. His voice could also be heard. Muffled. I turned back to the lounge area and then looked out the glass door to the balcony. Darkness was just about upon on us.
I thought about Aiden. My feelings about him. Had I forgiven him? Was I over his abuse already? I wasn’t sure. There did seem to be some good in him, for all the name calling and childish pranks. I didn’t know why I cared so much about what he thought about me. I guess I was after the validation he never gave me when we were younger.
He’s just toying with you, a voice cried inside me. He doesn’t think you’re beautiful. He’s just saying that to get under your skin.
And you’re not beautiful anyway, are you?
“Shut up,” I said out loud. I moved back to where I’d left my drink and picked it up.
Turning now to the balcony, I was given the fright of my life as I saw the young man who had led the chase against us, standing there, staring directly at me.
His green eyes blazing.
“Aiden,” I whispered. “Aiden!”
The man’s friend, now helmetless appeared behind him. He had a less attractive, rounder face.
The first man pulled a black pistol from his pocket and tapped the glass with it.
“Let me in,” he demanded.
CHAPTER TWELVE
I was paralyzed. Completely terrified and cold.
“AIDEN!” I shouted from the top of my lungs.
The man looked right at me, and shook his head. “You’re finished now.”
He pointed the gun at the window and fired a bullet into it.
I dropped to the floor and remained there as the glass shattered and he pushed through the remaining fragments with his arms.
His companion joined him as they entered the house, both walking slowly towards me.
The first man stopped where I lay and pointed the gun at me.
“Where is he?” he asked.
Before I could answer, our attention was redirected to the stairs Aiden had gone down. From the darkness, a pair of wide open, shimmering blue eyes moved slowly through the darkness.
A low growl came from the bottom of the creature’s throat.
“Oh my God!” I shrieked. “What is that thing?”
The first man turn
ed to his companion. “I think he wants to fight.”
The companion nodded.
He then, inexplicably morphed into the body of a wolf, and charged directly at the creature at the stairs.
I must be dreaming. I’m hallucinating or something. He put something in my drink. This isn’t real it can’t –
A giant bear ripped up from the stairs swinging his arms out to fend off the attacking wolf.
The wolf climbed on top of his lumbering mass and bit at his neck. The bear’s claws grasped hold of him and threw him – so hard he flew over our heads and shattered the window behind us, falling into the driveway outside.
The bear then omitted a thunderous roar at the first man who had his gun trained on me.
“Come on, Aiden,” he said. “Another step and I’ll blow her brains out.”
The bear lowered his hands.
Then he looked at me.
Those blinking, familiar eyes.
With a surge of resilience, I smashed my heels into the back of the gunman’s legs, causing him to cry out in pain.
As he fell to the floor next to me, the gun still firmly in his hand, I saw the dark emergence of the bear’s wide body descending upon both of us, with a deafening crash.
My body was knocked right across the kitchen, and my head smashed into one of the cupboards. It caused my eyes to immediately well up in pain.
I watched as the man tried to sit up and the bear just kept hitting him. Over and over again.
Once satisfied, the bear picked him up by the throat and sent him flying out the same broken window his friend had gone out.
I looked at the bear, wincing in terror.
“Aiden,” I tried calling. “Aiden where are you? Save me…”
The bear looked at me, a disturbingly confused expression its face.
Then it back away and descended towards the stairs to the front door.
After a moment of silence, I heard the it open and shut.
I reached up to the counter to pull myself up and then looked outside to where they had fallen.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
There was no sign of the bear. It was as if he had completely vanished.
Aiden emerged to the bodies of not one, but two wolves now, lying in the rubble. He stood over them, looking down.
I didn’t understand it.
How did he get there?
“Who betrayed me?” Aiden suddenly shouted at them. “Tell me who it was!”
He picked up a nearby stick and started hitting them with it.
Only one of the wolves moved. The other was either unconscious, or he was dead.
The wolf who moved rolled over and morphed into the form of the second man. As he tried to sit up, Aiden crouched behind him and put the stick underneath his throat.
“Tell me who it was.”
“I don’t know,” the man rasped.
“This is your last chance.”
“I … There was someone at the wedding. That’s all I know.”
“At the wedding? What are you talking about?”
“They’re working for the General. They were waiting for you to show up there. But I don’t know who it was. Only the General does.”
“Does she know where you are now?”
The man nodded.
“What is your window of report?”
“You have about thirty minutes.”
Aiden gritted his teeth together and then let the man fall back to the ground.
He stared up at the window where I was watching.
I quickly backed away.
Before I could get anywhere near the lounge again, the front door was open and he was trudging up the stairs.
He saw me there. Trembling.
“Come on,” he said. “We have to go now.”
“Where’s the bear?” I asked.
He walked across the carpet and stooped to picked up the fallen pistol. He tucked it in his pocket.
“Did you hear me?” I demanded. “Where’s the fucking bear?”
“Where do you think?” Aiden shouted back, tears in his eyes. “I’m the bear, you idiot. I’m the Goddamn bear.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
I nodded even though I didn’t really get what he was saying. What I’d seen didn’t make sense. How could it? Then again, I guess I wasn’t one to say I knew everything about the world. I just didn’t think something like this was possible.
“You can’t tell anyone,” Aiden said. “Not Mom or Dad. Not Lara. Nobody.”
“Well, aren’t you going to tell them?” I replied.
“No!” Aiden shouted. “No one can know about this!”
I took a step towards him. “How did it happen?”
“Does it matter?” he shot back. “You weren’t there. None of you were there.”
“Was it … something to do with military school?”
Aiden sniggered. “You still think I went to military school? After all these years they never told you the truth…”
“What truth?”
“It was a research lab. They wanted to find out what was wrong with me. Except there wasn’t anything wrong – I was just fucked up because I didn’t have my real father to look out for me anymore. You must know what that’s like at least. To lose a parent.”
I nodded. “Go on. What else happened?”
“For the first six months, it was fine. But then there was a personnel change. People from the government came in. And they started doing experiments…”
I took another step towards him. The blue eyes of the bear inside him flashed out at me.
“Do you know why they’re after you?”
“Why do you think? No one wants their secrets getting out.”
I was standing right in front of him now. I reached out and touched his chest. “Why did they do it to you? What are you for?”
“I’m a new kind of soldier,” Aiden whispered. “But I don’t want to fight his war.”
His eyes lowered. Looking down at me.
“I’ll never see you again after tonight,” he said.
“Never?”
“Ever.”
He suddenly grabbed a hold of me and pulled me into his body. Every fiber of my being was stunned, but in retrospect I should have seen it coming.
This was something that was always coming.
His firm hands found my backside and he squeezed my buttocks gently.
My lips parted, about to say something, but he shook his head at me.
No.
No words will do.
He pulled my dress up from underneath me, all the way over and off my head. A spine-tingling rush surged through my veins, and then he placed his left hand to my throat, and his right through my hair.
I let my eyelids close.
I felt him pulling me upward. All the way to his mouth.
Then he pressed down.
And we kissed.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Ooh…
This isn’t right. This can’t be good.
What am I doing here?
But it was him doing it to me. And it didn’t start with him stripping me down and forcing my lips to his. This had been going on for so long. The love-hate relationship we were playing. We even did it back then, years ago. He was such a bastard to me. But that’s the only way he could get my attention. The only way to make me think about him. And imagine things.
The imagination can certainly be, a wonderful thing…
As our kiss ended, I was sure for a minute that that was going to be it. Wow. What a mistake we had just made. What were we thinking? Were we out of our minds?
Then his jacket hit the floor and he ripped off his shirt.
His body was so hard. It was like a machine. My fingernails, gently weaving lines all over it, feeling every indentation, every curve. He must have gone through so much pain to get as strong as he was. So much endurance. So much torture.
His head dropped to my waist and he began kissing my stomach – softly, softly, softe
r…
Then hard.
He ripped my underwear away with his teeth and jammed his tongue into my clit to give me a moment of stimulation. My fingers fell into the short bristles on his head. Sharp at the ends. But so gentle side to side.
He picked up then in both of his hands and dumped me on the rug in the middle of the lounge.
I helped him with his jeans as he staggered down on me, and afterward my bra was removed.
The eyes of the bear watched me as we lay naked together.
But Aiden’s eyes watched me too.
His face twisted, as if conflicted with an instance of hate. For a moment the look frightened me.
But then it changed, and I saw the lust over take him. He rammed his cock into me without any shred of restraint, and it went deeper into me than even he expected, because I was that wet.
I won’t deny, it was a feeling I’d had like no other. I wasn’t a virgin exactly, but this was the first extra large sized cock I’d taken. Every part of me was filled, and he still had more to give. I was taken by the feeling, crushed by his passion over me, but there was no way I could shake the notion that it was he, Aiden that was fucking me.
And I knew as it was happening, that I still didn’t fully understand his heart.
For one small smile to touch his lips, one wicked stare out his peripherals, and I knew that this too was all part of his game over me. To fuck with my head. To make my life hell.
But at the same time, he could have loved me in the way my heart wanted to love him.
It was just the not knowing that really defined us.
We weren’t friends. We weren’t enemies.
He was my brother.
I was his sister.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Just when it was getting really good and awesome, and both of us were getting closer to our own orgasms, bright white lights moved over the kitchen window. I looked into Aiden’s eyes, his expression one of confusion because he had yet to see them.
“Stop,” I whispered.
Stepbrother Bear: The Complete Set Page 3
