Aden (Vampires in America)

by D. B. Reynolds

  Sid nodded faintly. Somehow everything had gotten turned around. She’d started this to save lives, and now it seemed she’d cost them instead. Or Dresner had. But wasn’t she responsible, too?

  “I’ve been working with someone,” she whispered. Aden’s hand gripped her hip once more, his fingers tight. “She’s sort of an expert on vampire behavior.”

  “A human?”

  “Yes. She’s a professor at the university. She’s the one who told me about that bar where I met Travis.”

  “Her name?”

  Sid frowned up at him worriedly. “What are you going to do if I tell you?”

  “I’m going to talk to her.”

  “That’s all?”

  “Depends, doesn’t it? What would you humans do to someone who’d set up an ambush that resulted in several deaths?”

  “I guess she’d go to jail, conspiracy to murder or something.”

  Aden shrugged. “Vampire justice is somewhat less ambiguous.”

  “I’ll tell you who she is, but only if you take me with you when you go talk to her.”

  “You’re hardly in a position to make demands,” he growled, tugging her closer until she was flush with his hard body. And he was hard . . . all over. Damn it.

  “That’s my offer,” she said stubbornly. “Take it or leave it.”

  Aden regarded her silently, and Sid stared as his eyes seemed to glow, taking on a deep blue hue like moonlight on a cloudy winter night. His gaze skimmed her face, down to the swell of her breasts and back up again.

  “Oh, I intend to take it,” he crooned in that deep voice.

  Chapter Six

  SID SHIVERED. “That’s not—” she whispered, then had to swallow on a dry throat. “That’s not what I meant.”

  “I know,” he said smugly. “I just wanted my intentions to be clear.”

  He stepped back abruptly, and the loss of his heat, of his strength, was sharp.

  “So where are we going?” he asked.

  “I’m not sure where she is. But she knew I was meeting you tonight, so she’ll expect me to call. I can tell her I need to see her in person.”

  “All right. But watch what you say, Sidonie, because I’ll be listening.”

  “Stop threatening me,” she demanded. “I don’t like it.”

  Aden laughed again, but it was genuine amusement this time, not like before. “Just make the call,” he said. “And we’ll see what your professor friend has to say for herself.”

  As Sid dug her cell phone out of her coat pocket and brought up Dresner’s number, she considered the possibility that the professor wouldn’t want to talk to her. If Dresner had tipped off Silas about Aden, and if she knew the plan had backfired—after all, Aden was still alive, which clearly hadn’t been what Silas was hoping for—she might want to distance herself from Sid, at least for a time. But as it turned out, Dresner didn’t seem troubled at all. She was either secure in assuming Sid didn’t know anything about what was going on with the vamps, or she actually hadn’t been the one who warned Silas that Aden was coming.

  Sidonie was willing to consider both possibilities. Unlike Aden, she wasn’t prepared to hang a guilty sign on Dresner just yet.

  “Sidonie,” she said, answering the phone. “I didn’t expect your call until later. Was your meeting with Aden cancelled again?”

  “No, just the opposite,” Sid said, letting just a touch of anxiety flavor her words. She didn’t want to overplay it, but there had to be a reason for her to insist on a face-to-face meeting. “I have some information for you, but it’s… it’s pretty explosive. I’d really like to meet you on this one.”

  “Of course, but are you all right? You sound shaken.”

  “I guess . . . I didn’t expect it to be like this.”

  “Where are you? Can you come to my place?”

  “I don’t know where—”

  “I’m in Wrigleyville, on Lakeview. I’ll text you the address. How soon can you be here?”

  Sid looked up and met Aden’s dark stare. “I’d rather not take a cab this late. Is it okay if a friend drives me? We could be there in half an hour or so.” Aden’s sensuous lips curved slightly in what she supposed could be called a smile, if it hadn’t been for the cold calculation in his eyes.

  “A friend . . .” Dresner repeated hesitantly.

  “He lives here in Chicago. We work together.”

  “Oh.” She hesitated, and Sid thought maybe she’d overplayed it, but then Dresner continued. “I suppose that’s all right. Don’t ring the bell, though, just knock. The neighbors complain about my late-night visitors.” She hung up without saying good-bye.

  Aden took the phone from Sid’s nerveless fingers and pressed the button to disconnect before saying, “Very good, Sidonie. Is lying one of the skills you learned as a journalist?”

  “I didn’t lie.”

  He didn’t say anything to that, just raised a skeptical eyebrow. “Are you still determined to go along?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then get your coat. We don’t want to keep the good professor waiting.”

  IT TOOK EVEN less time than Sid had expected to get to Dresner’s house. Aden’s driver seemed to know where he was going, and this late at night—it was after midnight in the middle of the work week—there were few traffic tie-ups. Having a driver at one’s disposal helped, too. No public transpo for Aden. Sid didn’t worry about money, but she didn’t have a private driver at her beck and call, either.

  “Are all vampires rich?” she asked, sitting next to Aden and trying not to think about what was going to happen when they confronted Professor Dresner.

  Her question seemed to amuse him. He stretched a powerful arm over the back of the seat behind her, dropping one finger down to toy with a lock of her hair. “An interesting question,” he said. “Are all humans rich?”

  “No, of course not.”

  “Then why would all vampires be?”

  “I don’t know,” she said irritably. “But you’ve got this big truck—”

  “A Chevy Suburban, hardly exotic.”

  “—and a private driver,” she persisted, determined to make her point. “And your supposedly temporary office occupies two entire floors of some of the most expensive square footage in Chicago.”

  “One must make an impression.”

  “Only if one can afford it.”

  His smile widened into something almost genuine, but Sid found herself irked all the same. She didn’t want him to be amused. She needed him to take her seriously if he was going to help her destroy Klemens’s network.

  “Just answer the question. Are all vamps rich?”

  His smile vanished, replaced by a haughty stare. That wasn’t a word she thought of often, but Aden did haughty really well. Maybe he’d been born to money back when he’d been human. Maybe he’d always been rich.

  “Were you like a prince or something back in the day?” she asked and knew right away that she’d made a mistake. His fingers stopped toying with her hair, and his expression went cold and distant, the look in his eyes so far away that it was as if she was suddenly all alone in the back seat.

  Morocco, 1756

  ADEN RACED through the halls of the palace, bare feet slapping the cool marble floor as he dodged silk-clad ladies and ignored the frowns of overfed gentlemen. The former only tittered in annoyance, but the latter would have swatted him to the ground if they’d dared. His father owned this particular palace, although Aden was a bastard and would never inherit a single copper falus. Still, his mother was the favorite among his father’s concubines, and one could never be certain what standing young Aden had on any given day.

  That same uncertainty made Aden wary, however, and he made a point of avoiding the better-traveled corridors whenever possible. On this particular day, however, he’d been summoned to see his mother, which was unusual enough that he hadn’t wanted to waste any time getting to her. Not that he didn’t see his mother often. After all, he was still very
much a child and so lived in the harem. But his time with her was heavily dependent on his father’s presence in the palace and his taste for female companionship on a given day. Not to mention the considerable amount of time his mother spent on efforts to maintain her beauty and fitness in order to maintain a pleasing appearance.

  Aden’s mother was a rare flower in the harem. He’d heard her described that way by the harem’s matron, and not without a certain amount of bitterness either. Which made him think it was true.

  His father called his mother Aini, which meant flower in Arabic, but her real name was Aileen, and she was a slave. A pampered one to be sure, but a slave nonetheless. She’d told Aden the story of how she came to be living in this palace, how she ended up in a land where five-year-old Aden spoke the native tongue far better than she ever would.

  Her father, Aden’s grandfather, whose name was also Aden, had been a sea trader in a place called Scotland, which was far away from this palace in Morocco. But it wasn’t so far that pirates couldn’t raid there, and they did so regularly, looking mostly for slaves—sailors like his uncles and grandfather, and women like his mother. She’d been lucky, she’d told Aden—although he didn’t see much luck in being stolen from her life and made a slave. But her pale skin and blond hair, not to mention her intact virginity, had caught the eye of the slave master who’d known his own master’s tastes very well. He’d made a private bid, thus sparing her the indignity of being auctioned on the block.

  Aileen had been sold into the harem of the wealthy merchant who called her Aini, and some months later Aden had been the result. She’d learned after that to use herbs to prevent pregnancy, which ensured her continued favor with her master.

  As for his father, Aden never saw him at all, unless by accident, and had never spoken two words with the man. Bastards were frowned upon by wealthy men and their families. They complicated lines of succession and made wives—particularly wives who’d been unable to produce male heirs—unhappy.

  Aden scooted past the harem guards. They were used to his comings and goings and barely registered his passage. Once inside, he slid along back hallways until he reached his mother’s rooms. He ducked through the curtained doorway.

  “Mama,” he whispered excitedly and raced over to her. She held him off when he would have embraced her, and he swallowed the small pang of hurt. Sometimes she was already dressed and perfumed and couldn’t risk his dirty little boy hands messing her up. She always kissed him on the cheek after telling him such things, so he knew she loved him.

  “Sit, Aden,” she said, touching his cheek and leaving behind her flowery scent.

  He plopped down obediently at her feet and was surprised when she took one of his brown hands in her own pale fingers. He had his Scottish grandfather’s name, but his Moroccan father’s coloring. There seemed to be little of his mother’s Scottish blood in him, except for his size, which already made him bigger than any other boy his age, and several of the older ones, too.

  “Aden, mah sweit son, you love your mama, don’t you?”

  “More than anything, Mama,” Aden said quickly, ignoring the little pang of unease that tightened his chest, despite her use of the endearment. She never asked him if he loved her. It was assumed. Of course he loved her. She was his world.

  “You’re young,” she continued in her soft voice. “Probably too young to understand what I have to tell you, but I need you to understand.”

  Aden nodded, more alarmed than ever when he saw the tears blurring his mother’s blue eyes.

  “Your father . . .” She looked away, then down at their joined hands, brown against white. “He’s given me a command. You’re big for your age, much bigger than the other boys. Someday you’ll be a big man, like my father and brothers, and I hope the fates are kinder to you than they were to them. But, Aden . . .” She sighed, still refusing to look at him directly. “I must choose. I can take you and leave the harem—”

  Aden’s heart swelled with excitement.

  “—to become a common slave in some other household, or I can stay here as your father’s favorite for as long as my beauty lasts—which is many years yet—and then perhaps become matron to the harem and serve him that way.”

  Aden frowned in confusion. Surely it would be better for them to remain here? Why should there be any question?

  “But if I remain, then you must go.” She lifted her head at last, and Aden saw her decision in the sadness of her eyes. “You will leave tonight to begin serving your new master.”

  Aden stared, not quite understanding what she was telling him. A new master? But… “When will I see you, Mama?”

  “You won’t,” she said, firming her lips. “It is not unlike the fostering that my people used to do. Children were often sent to live with families far away, never seeing their parents again until they were grown.”

  “Will I see you when I am grown?”

  “Perhaps.”

  Aden was no longer a baby. He knew what perhaps meant. He swallowed the knot in his throat and stood, pulling his fingers from his mother’s soft grasp. Apparently, he’d gotten more than size from his Scotsman grandfather. He had his pride. She had chosen her master over her own flesh and blood. So be it.

  “Insha’Allah, we will meet again,” he said simply.

  His mother glanced up at him in surprise. But whether it was due to the casting of his fate to Allah rather than the Christian god of her youth, or his quiet acceptance of her decision, he didn’t know. He didn’t care. All that mattered now was that he’d been sold, that he’d wake up tomorrow in a new household. He would no longer be the bastard son of anyone, whether rich or poor. He would be only a boy, a slave with no friends in the world.

  Aden turned and left the way he’d come, taking the slaves’ hallways, which was only appropriate, since that’s all he was now. A slave.

  Chicago, IL, present day

  “SHALL I COME with you, my lord?”

  Bastien’s question brought Aden back to the present with a jolt. He’d never seen his mother again after that day. He hadn’t even thought about her in a very long time, and it didn’t please him that he was thinking about her now.

  “Dresner’s not expecting a crowd,” he told Bastien. “And I’ll need an invitation into the house. Sidonie and I will go alone.”

  “What if she recognizes you?” Sidonie asked, staring nervously at the brownstone they’d parked in front of. “She knows who you are.”

  “I’ll stay to the shadows.”

  “She has a porch light.”

  Aden slanted a look at her. “Don’t concern yourself,” he said shortly. “Just get us in the door.”

  “Fine. No need to get snippy about it.”

  Aden reminded himself that he needed this woman to get close to Dresner, that Dresner was probably the one who’d betrayed him to Silas. He also promised himself that in the very near future, he would lay Sidonie Reid out on his bed and leave his mark on every inch of her pale skin. That alone made it worthwhile to put up with her disrespect.

  The attitude was something he’d come to expect from modern women, something he didn’t consider to be a change for the better. But he was also minded of Raphael’s recent admonition, that some women had skills to contribute to an investigation, or, as in this case, information and contacts.

  So, he didn’t take Sidonie over his lap, pull up her skirt, and redden her ass like he wanted to. At least not yet.

  SID SNUCK A sideways glance at Aden as they made their way up the walk. Wherever he’d gone during the last few miles of their drive here, he was fully back with her now. She could feel his awareness of their surroundings like a faint electrical charge in the cold night air. He fairly buzzed with energy as they stepped up onto the covered porch. It was like the static charge one got on a hot, dry day. She expected to see blue sparks shooting off of him. Plus, she didn’t know how she was supposed to keep Dresner from seeing him once the porch light came on. It wasn’t as if he could hide behind a
potted plant, after all. He was nearly as big as the whole porch.

  Okay, so that was an exaggeration, but knowing that didn’t give her any better idea of how to conceal . . . oh.

  She stared at the place where Aden used to be, seeing nothing but shadow, even though she could still feel the static electricity of his presence. Frowning, she reached out and touched a hard-muscled arm.

  “Aden?” she whispered, her eyes straining to see what her fingers told her was there.

  “Control yourself, Sidonie,” he said drily. “Your friend is about to open her door.”

  Sid snatched her fingers away. He was such a jerk all the time. Well, maybe not all the time. He’d seemed almost human for a while back there in his office. Better than human, actually. She’d never met a human male who was as seductive as Aden, much less one whose seduction she’d so willingly succumbed to. But then he’d turned off the seduction like a switch, which made her think it had all been a pose, just a game he played to see if he could get away with it. She figured he must have lots of notches on his bedpost. Maybe hundreds if he was as old as she thought he had to be.

  The porch light came on, and the door opened, forcing Sid’s attention back to their current problem, which was Dresner. The prof was standing in her open doorway, giving Sid a curious look.

  Remembering the ruse she’d used to arrange this late night visit, Sid painted a nervous smile on her face and said, “Professor, thank you for letting us come over so late.”

  “You seemed upset,” Dresner said absently. She tilted her head and leaned to one side, trying to get a look through the screen door at Sid’s supposed friend. But the shadows Aden had wrapped around himself were too thick, concealing him while appearing to be nothing more than the natural shadow thrown by the yellow porch light.

  “Could we come in?” Sid asked, nudging Dresner cautiously.

  “Of course,” the professor said at once. “Where are my manners, leaving you out in the cold? Come in, both of you.”