by Mary Hughes
I inhaled chilled air. Finally prompted, “What happened?”
“One night…” His breath caught. “One night I burned supper. He’d drunk more than usual. He beat me to within an inch of my life. Grabbed me by the head and shoved my face into the burned food. It hurt, it hurt so much…”
Pain sheened his eyes. Pain beyond even burned skin. “Oh, Aiden. What did he do? What did that monster do?”
“He said…” His voice dropped to a whisper. “He said I couldn’t make a decent cook so I’d have to…” He sighed, a terrible tiny hiss.
I clutched him. Petted at his hair, blindly, because my own sight wavered with tears. “It doesn’t matter. Whatever happened, you lived through it. You’re past it now and you’re a wonderful, amazing man I’m proud to know.”
He was silent in my tight embrace. Finally he sighed again, gentler. “Nothing actually happened. He tried, but he’d drunk too much.”
I only held him tighter. “I’d kill him if he weren’t already dead.”
“Thank you,” he said softly. “I managed to fight him off. But that was why, when Nosferatu told me he’d take me away, I went. I believed anywhere else would be better. I wanted, quite desperately, to believe I was going to Paradise.”
“Oh, Aiden.”
“But it was hell, because Nosferatu’s training taught me to hate. I hated my trainers and I hated Nosferatu and most of all I hated myself but I didn’t know it then. I was determined to live through his horrors so that someday I could kill each and every one of them. Assassin training? I embraced it. I learned everything I could so that when the day came, I could not only kill them but make it hurt. My life became about death and retribution.”
“You had to survive.” My eyes burned. “I’m so very glad you hated him. Hated them. Because you survived.”
His breath broke. “It made me like him.”
“You’re nothing like him.”
“No? When Ric came, he seemed so—naive. Helpless. And stupidly, hopelessly optimistic. Damn kid.” He rubbed his cheek against my hair. It slid like it was wet. “That finally broke through my shell of hate. I knew that if only one of us lived, I wanted it to be him, because he was the best part of me. The trusting part I used to have. Keeping Ric alive helped me hate myself less.”
“You didn’t kill your trust, Aiden. Others killed it for you. People who should have nurtured you.”
“I should have fought back.”
“You couldn’t. You were a child. The adults controlled food, water. Shelter.”
“You really do understand.” He heaved a watery breath out.
I could picture it all too easily. Every abuse weakened his trust in authorities. As his trust crumbled, he began to live more and more in the shadows.
My poor shadow man.
He straightened out of my embrace to search my eyes. “Ric saved me. Without him I wouldn’t be the male you’re proud to know. You’d hate me almost as much as I hated myself.”
I said simply, “Then I owe Ric a debt of gratitude.”
He blinked glossy eyes. “Thank you. Eventually we escaped. Ric settled in Minneapolis. Founded a household, a family.”
“Why didn’t you…?” I shook my head, starting to see it. “The only people to earn your trust, Ric and Eloise, did it by living with you through hell.”
“I saw their true colors. Most people don’t want to go that far to earn my trust.” He took my hands in his, his grip desperately tight. “You have.”
“I’m honored. More people would be your friend, if you let them.”
“Why should I throw away behavior that’s kept me safe for two hundred years?”
He said it so simply, so regardless of the horrors he’d suffered, that I couldn’t help it. The prickling overflowed into tears.
“Why are you crying? It happened long ago.”
“You’re so beautiful. Even your dark side fights for life. For friendship. For love.”
His black eyes filled. He blinked. A single drop trickled down his honed cheek.
I reached out to wipe it away. “Why are you crying?”
“I don’t know. My mother used to say something like that. I lost her voice again. You brought it back. I feel better. I think…I think I’m actually happy. You’re healing me.” He shook his head as if he’d been punched. “I’m crying because you’re healing me.”
“Impossible. I’m a Ruffles. I put the Keystone in Cop, the Stooge in Three. Where there’s wedding cake, I fall into it. I fumble ineptitude to destroyer level. I don’t heal.”
“Yet I feel better.”
“You’re wrong. I can prove it.” I paused. He’d hate me. But he’d told me everything. I could do no less. “I broke my brother’s leg.”
“A childish accident—”
“No. I broke it because I’m a violent monster.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Aiden wiped his eyes to study me. “A monster?” What he saw made him reach out and caress my hair. “When?”
“Kindergarten.”
“Why don’t you tell me.” His accepting silence, as before, invited me to fill it.
I started slow. “I was small even then. Nobody’s idea of a serious threat. I learned early I have three options to conflict. Walk away, be polite—or go nuclear.”
He shrugged. “You have one shot to disable your opponent.” Proving he was the one in a thousand who understood.
“Before he beats me to a pulp, yeah. It was recess and I was on the playground. A group of older bullies was harassing Dirk. My brother’s sweet-natured. Not too quick, but really nice. Fundamentally nice, you know? Down to the bone. He can’t be mean. More, he doesn’t recognize meanness in other people.”
“He’d be especially vulnerable to bullying.”
“Yes.” Heavens, this male was good. Perceptive. I’d crumple when his sympathy turned to horror. But he had a right to know. “Neighborhood kids were mean to Dirk, but nobody ever hit him. Until that day. He had a couple black eyes by the time I shoved the bullies away and yelled at them.”
“I can just see you,” Aiden said. “You’d have been a real pistol.”
“A six-year-old’s spunk. The bullies told me to get out of their way. I said I’d call the teacher. They laughed because the teacher had gone inside. They shoved me and told me to run before I got pounded into pavement dust.” I took another deep breath. “The biggest bully hit Dirk again. I tried to shove him away from my brother, but he was too big. I couldn’t and I…I went nuclear. I kicked and scratched and punched like a forty-two-inch tornado.” I couldn’t look at Aiden. “When I came to myself I’d broken the bully’s arm. He could dish it out but he sure couldn’t take it. He curled up on the asphalt, bawling.”
“Sounds like he got what he deserved.”
“He should’ve gotten the teacher’s discipline, not my rage. But it’s worse than that.” I shook my head, eyes closed, and tried to go on. My actions that day were a lump I had to swallow first. “The bully wasn’t the only one to get hurt. When I went nuclear, Dirk got caught in the fallout. I broke his leg. He was crying harder than the bully. I stood there like a block of stupid ice, my brother wailing in pain on the ground.” I opened my eyes, braced to see Aiden’s horror.
There was only sympathy. “You were scared. I’m sorry. But you don’t need to be ashamed. It was an accident.”
“You don’t get it. The bullies gave him a couple bruises—I broke bones. I’m his sister. He’s supposed to be safe with me.”
“Sunny, you stepped in. Saved him from worse.”
“Except I didn’t.” I heaved a watery breath. “The other bullies were pissed and attacked. They would have broken more than a few bones. Elena rescued us.” I remembered the moment like the sun breaking through clouds. “She grabbed two of the kids by their ears and yanked them off. Then
she stood there bigger and badder than anything, and the rest of the gang ran.”
“Ah. That’s why you hero-worship Elena.”
My cheeks heated. “It’s that obvious?”
He dropped a kiss on the top of my head. “Only to me. You’re no monster, Sunny. Only a little girl who did the best she could.” He pulled me into his arms.
My eyes leaked. “I should have done better.”
“At six?” He stroked my hair. “You had one option to protect your brother, and you took it. I’m proud you acted.”
I flinched. I hadn’t acted a few days ago, when Dirk’s life was on the line.
“Is that why you pretend to bumble, why you act like your brother and mother?” He continued to caress. “As a defense, so people aren’t threatened and you won’t have to face that nuclear option again?”
Scary smart. Even I hadn’t fully seen that one. I nodded against his chest.
“But don’t you see? It’s backfiring now. You’re a police officer. You need to be seen as a serious threat.”
“Yeah. Since the badge’s not magic.” Hot shame threaded down my cheeks. “I’m an idiot.”
“Oh, Sunny.” Aiden hugged me tight. I burrowed into his strength.
His phone rang. He ignored it.
“Shouldn’t you take that?” I straightened away from him, sniffing, rubbing my raw cheek.
“You need me. They’ll call back.”
That warmed me like nothing else could. “It’s okay. I’m good for now. It might be Ric.”
He shook his head. “Not Ric’s ringtone.” The ringing stopped.
Only to start again.
“Whoever it is must really need to speak with you. Maybe it’s Strongwell with news about Ric.”
That got to him. He pulled out his phone, checked the readout and frowned. “Unknown number.” He pressed speaker and thumbed it live.
“Aiden Blackthorne,” a dry voice rasped. “You are a dead man.”
Nosferatu.
Aiden glanced at Sunny’s angry face and wished he’d gone outside to take the call. He was achingly aware that a threat to his safety was one of the things that could trigger her feared meltdown.
So he sought to nip it quickly. “We’ll talk later.” He reached for call end.
“Now.” The word rang with command, not as potent over the phone but still Aiden hesitated, just a moment too long. Nosferatu hit him with, “You reneged on our deal, Blackthorne. You and Holiday found Eloise and didn’t tell me. Instead you invaded my home and sought to destroy me. Your punishment will befit the crime.”
Aiden chilled. Nosferatu’s punishments were sadistically inventive.
“I’m gathering an army of Lestats to march on Minneapolis. I’ll violate your home and crush you and Holiday under my feet. And when you are helpless pulp, I’ll bleed your family and friends and torture you by making you watch. Only then will I shovel your lumpy remains into the sun where you will blaze in a fire of pain, your humans mine to do with as I please. I will do all that and worse.”
“You’re punishing the wrong person. Eloise planned everything.”
Silence. Then, “Don’t try to play me. Such a sweet girl is incapable of so heinous an act.”
“It’s true. Eloise—”
“You will not defile her name!” The words spat against the phone’s speaker. “I’m coming. Prepare to die, Blackthorne.” The call ended.
“I’ll kill him,” Sunny said viciously.
“Thank you.” He cupped her neck and pressed a soft kiss to her forehead. “You’re a true protector. I’m sorry I didn’t see that at first. He won’t do it.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“He won’t do it, at least not right away. He’s both arrogant and a coward. He called to strike fear.”
“He’s a bully, then.” She growled. “I hate bullies.”
A dinner bell rang from somewhere in the B&BS. Her stomach growled. He became aware of the smell of frying meat and toasted bread. “You should eat.”
“We need to plan. How long do we have before he attacks?”
“A few days. He’ll gather as many Lestats as he can, hoping to overwhelm us and make us give up before he gets hurt. We have time to plan a cogent defense. Which means you have time to eat.”
“I am hungry,” she said reluctantly. “It was a long day.”
“A long, active day.”
She blushed. He thought she was adorable. She got to her feet and started dressing. “It’s a smorgasbord. Can we discuss Nosferatu with other people around?”
“As long as we’re careful.” He dressed too, in his jeans and a thick guest robe from the closet to cover his bare chest. They headed down. Her footsteps were quick and eager, and he knew he’d done the right thing, insisting she eat.
The buffet was laid out on tables dressed in snowy white cloth. Silver chafing dishes filled one, and iced bowls of fruit and heaped pastries smelling of sugar and butter another. One guest scooped eggs from a chafing dish. An older couple sat staring into each other’s eyes like newlyweds.
A woman built like a tank rolled through on her treads, replenishing already-heaped dishes.
“Guten Abend, Mrs. Stieg.” Sunny picked up a plate and started down the line. Aiden took a plate too. He wouldn’t eat the food but needed to pretend, to preserve the masquerade.
“You’re an officer of the law now, Sun-Hee.” The woman’s voice was as robust as her build. “An adult. Call me Ottowina.”
Sunny smiled. “Everything looks and smells wonderful, Ottowina. As usual.”
“Try the sausage scramble. Country sausage and sharp cheddar fresh today from the Wurst Und Käse store.”
Sunny dutifully scooped a yellow, orange and brown concoction that stung his nose with pepper and onion.
The woman eyed Sunny’s plate with a frown. “More. You need meat on your bones, ja? Take some sweet rolls too. There is cheese and cherry along with Apfelstrudel.”
“Apple strudel, yum.” Sunny grabbed tongs.
After they’d heaped their plates to Ottowina’s satisfaction, they sat at a far table, beyond the long reach of the sun just winking out over the horizon.
“How many Lestats?” Sunny whispered as she set a crisp napkin in her lap. “An army he said.” She forked up some eggs. Closed her eyes in bliss as she chewed. He’d definitely done the right thing.
“Well…” He didn’t want to worry her, but he’d promised to treat her as an equal. “A thousand. Two if he taps the Lestats gangs in Springfield, Gary and the western Erie basin.”
Her eyes opened wide. “That’s a lot.” He thought he’d done what he hadn’t wanted to do, scared her, until she said, “How’s he going to move all those troops from Chicago to Minneapolis?”
He saw where she was going then. He was an imbecile. She was beautiful not only in body but in mind and spirit. “He could march them. But he won’t. We’ve laced the back country with traps specific to my kind and he won’t risk running into them. He’s also going to want to slap us down as fast as possible. I’d guess trucks. Intel will confirm.”
She tapped her fork on her lip. “Which means the Interstate.”
He shook his head. “We can’t booby trap the Interstate. Too many civilians of my kind use it. The timing would have to be too precise—”
“That’s not what I meant.” She called up a map on her phone and showed him, tracing routes as she spoke. “He has to go either I-94 through Milwaukee or I-90 through Madison. Bo is master v-guy for the Alliance in Meiers Corners, right? Like you and Ric head Minneapolis? Why don’t you just form an alliance with the Milwaukee or Madison masters? Won’t they be as eager as you to repel Nosferatu?”
She was thinking like a human. “That would be brilliant. But it doesn’t quite work that way.”
“Oh?” She st
abbed a sausage.
“The Alliance is an aberration. My kind is not generally cooperative. We’re more like tigers, solitary except when nurturing young. Kings of our own range.”
“But Nosy isn’t solitary. He has an army.”
“They’re his conquests, not his equals. Only Elias builds alliances like a human.” Strange, when he thought about it. The oldest among them behaved most like he’d kept his humanity.
“Okay, then just let Milwaukee and Madison know. They’ll catch Nosy in their territory and keep him from ever reaching you.”
“Neither has enough troops.”
“Explain?”
“For most of us, ‘turf’ means our household, and maybe a bit beyond. Ric is master of the biggest household in Minneapolis, but I wouldn’t call him master of the city. There’s a master who controls large portions of Milwaukee, and another in Madison, and they’re powerful, but they don’t rule their cities. They’d command, at most, several hundred. Not the couple thousand Nosferatu could bring.”
“So you’re back to needing an alliance.”
“And I’m back to tiger. Aggressive and alone. Even if Milwaukee and Madison can muster the forces, they aren’t going to want to come to Minneapolis’s aid. That’s one reason Ric and I went it alone when we knew we’d have to deal with Nosferatu a couple years ago. My kind doesn’t work that way.”
“Be an outlier.” She sipped coffee. “Forge an alliance.”
Forge an alliance. It called to something buried deep inside him.
He frowned. He was a loner, trusting but a few. He took a sip of his own coffee to cover his confusion. Strong and rich, it soothed him. “I suppose we could talk with them. Emphasize that Nosferatu will be taking his army through their cities. You’re right, the masters won’t like his breaching their territory.” He set the cup down. “I’ll see if Ric’s up to it.” He hit the only speed dial on his phone. When it connected, he said, “You’re on speaker, in public.”
“Aiden?” The voice answering was female.
