by Jane West
“My servant betrayed me, calling your lover boy to come protect you from the big bad wolf.” Aidan sneered at Val. The Zop remained marble-like, keeping his eyes on point.
I wasn’t as controlled. Referring to a family member as a servant didn’t fly with me, despite Aidan’s dangerous nature. “Whoa! No one in this house is a servant. If you want something as little as toilet paper, you better learn how to fetch it yourself. No one is waiting on your pampered ass!”
“Don’t tell me what I can or cannot do.” Aidan sibilated. “I gifted you an exquisite lifestyle. Therefore if I dare to reference to someone as a servant or whore, I believe I’ve purchased the right.” I glimpsed over at Val. His jaw was flexing. The tension was like a toxic gas, lighting a simple match and everything would blow to the heavens.
I let out a down-reaching sigh as I raked my fingers through my uncombed hair. “Aidan, let’s not do this.” I asked. “Why don’t you get some rest. You look tired. When you wake up, I think you’ll see this from a different perspective.”
“A different perspective?” Aidan roared as he leaped to his feet in a fit of rage, knocking the table across the room and sending all the food and dishes crashing. I caught Val in the corner of my eye. Swiftly, he’d stepped directly in front of me, shielding me. My heart did a little pitter-patter for my hero, but still, I was a big girl. I could handle the madman and his temper tantrums.
Everyone else had scattered in different directions. By what I could tell, no one had gotten hurt except for a minor cut or two. Val remained steady, under Aidan’s blaze. There was no love lost between the two men. In hindsight, I feared the outcome if they went to blows. “That’s right, Zop. Step between us.” Aidan reminded of a lion defending his territory.
My knees were knocking. My stomach knotted. It was me that put my family in this dangerous position, letting Aidan stay in this house. Now it was left for me to get us out of this turbulence.
So I made my move.
Distracting Val wasn’t my intentions, but I had to touch him. He gave me strength in so many ways. I tugged softly on his belt loop and leaned my forehead gently against the center of his back for a brief minute before I pulled away. I had to fight my own battles. If Val got hurt in this whirlwind that I’d created, I would never forgive myself. Defusing Aidan’s unpredictable temper was like treading through a mine field. Any step could cost lives. I inhaled a deep breath, then I cautiously slid out from behind Val’s protection. Now I was an open target. I caught a sideways glimpse at Val standing in his warrior stance. Alarm lodged in my throat. I needed to think fast. “Aidan, this is between you and me. Let’s clear everyone out, and we can talk.” I forced a smile.
“Oh, come on! It’s all in the family.” He threw out his arms wide as if he was embracing the city. Reasoning with a drunk was insane, but I saw no other recourse. I learned that early in life with mom. I swallowed hard. So I engaged, needles pricking my neck. “They’re not part of this. Why should we bring them into our disparity?” From the corner of my eye, I caught Val ushering everyone out. A breath of relief eased into my lungs.
“Stop!” Aidan shrieked. The room stilled. He turned his icy glare on me. “Maybe they need to hear about the whore you have become.”
His words stung more than I wanted to own, but letting Aidan anger me was what he wanted. The way I saw it, I had two choices. Either I appealed to his softer side or knock him the fuck out. While cold-cocking him was a huge stretch, but an appealing idea, I had to keep it real, so I began to negotiate.
“Look. You’re right about being angry.” My voice softened. “You’ve been very generous to me to Jeffery and Dom too.” I reasoned. “Aidan, this isn’t you. Let’s sit down over a cup of coffee and talk through our differences. You don’t want to hurt anyone.” I hoped the sober-minded Aidan would overcome the drunk, radical Aidan.
“Do I?” he mused. “Don’t get self-righteous with me!” he leered. “How much pain can you be suffering when our child’s body hasn’t grown cold before you are in his bed?” Aidan cut his venomous eyes at Val.
“Aidan!” I took a step closer. “Don’t do this to yourself.” I choked back tears. “Please!” I begged. This hostile Aidan standing before me was a stranger to me. The swagger, the pride, the confidence had perished. Nothing made sense to me, and yet everything did. Ambivalence much?
“Please what? Please turn the other cheek while you fuck everyone, but me!” he wailed. My jaw dropped. All this time it wasn’t about our daughter’s death. Rather it was about me not sleeping with him. Anger, fear, regret gyrated through my mind. Still, I had to swallow my pride. The highly expositive problem had to be contained. My heart pounded against my chest.
“I get why you’re upset. Let’s get everyone out. Then just you and I pop a squat and talk.”
“What’s there to talk about? You turned your back on me with him!”
“It’s not like that, and you know it!”
“No, I don’t know it! I thought we loved each other? When did you stop?” His eyes mocked sorrow.
My heart went out to Aidan. Which prompt me to question if I still held any feelings for him? My stomach tightened. “I thought you betrayed me! When Sally came to the cottage that day, she played this elaborate scheme that the two of you were married. She was very convincing.” Aidan glanced over at Sally as she quailed under his stare. “I believed her!”
“You’d believe this lying bitch over me?”
“That day at the cottage, I first thought she had lost her mind, but then ”
“Stop!” he waved his hand to shush me. “This is foolishness. Your cousin had been acting on her own accord.”
“Sally wasn’t alone!” my voice rose. “She was standing in front of me while my captor seized me from behind, stabbing me with some unknown drug.”
“Did Sally not reveal her accomplice?”
“Yes. I suppose.” Cynicism laced my voice.
“What? You don’t believe her?” Aidan snapped, eyes piercing.
“No, I believe her.” I lied. “She claimed it was your uncle, Van.
“Aw! There you have it. It was my uncle.”
“You’re right.” I rolled my eyes. “How stupid of me.” I forced a tight smile.
Though I held my tongue, I sensed something was off—having said that, while my captor’s face remained anonymous, I caught a good look at my adductor’s ringed hand that hideous ring with the eye. Despite Sally’s claims, the hand I saw belonged to a young man, a hand I was very familiar with. I might’ve been hazy about a lot of things that transpired that day at the cottage, but one thing I was certain the hand of my captor looked identical to Aidan’s hand. All the same, I didn’t plan to share my suspicions with him, not until I’d gathered proof. Until then, my reservations about Sally, Van and Aidan continued to exist.
“You said you were drugged?” Aidan asked, drawing me back from my thoughts.
“Yes.”
“I’m sorry for your misfortunes.” Aidan mused as though he possessed a secret joke.
“Thank you.” I eyed him dubiously.
He laughed to himself.
“Excuse me?” my brows furrowed.
“Don’t you think if I wanted your family and associates dead, that you’d be dead as well? You must know, I am quite an accomplished Druid?” his arrogance beseeched him.
“I see that now.” Then I shifted the subject, slightly. “Where did you go?”
“Pardon me?”
“You abandoned me at the cottage. I found that lousy newspaper!” My voice cracked.
“Come again?” he shook his head as if he’d forgotten.
“The newspaper! My mother’s death! She was poisoned! Remember?” I shouted.
Val’s feet shifted. Glimpsing in the corner of my eye, I saw anger rising off his shoulders. I shivered at how this scenario could pan out if I wasn’t careful.
“Oh, yes. I recall.” He coughed. Funny, I thought. Such a human behavior for an immortal? �
�I left to see if there was any truth to the story,” Aidan drawled. “I was trying to prevent you unnecessary grief.”
“If you didn’t wanted to prevent unnecessary grief, then why didn’t you take the publication with you rather than leaving it in plain sight?”
“When I realized I’d forgotten the paper, it was too late to turn back.” Aidan smiled, but it wasn’t the warm fuzzy kind. Everything about him seemed to clash, his demeanor, his story. Or maybe my eyes were opening up for the first time?
I walked over to where the table had been thrown, now sitting on its side. I went to lift the heavy wood, but Aidan had taken it from me and sat it upright. He placed a chair beside me and took one for himself. We both settled at the table, seated across from one another. Dom handed Aidan a cup of fresh brewed coffee and left the steaming pot on the table.
Val remained on alert, taking a stool at the island. Jeffery joined Val while Sally scurried upstairs. Dom dallied around as though he was busy cleaning the kitchen.
Apart from Sally, they all stayed. They were wary of Aidan’s state of mind and leaving my side to face him alone. Obviously, I sensed the risk too. I hid my trembling hands under the table, hoping it went unnoticed.
“Why did you not return to the cottage?” I held my voice even.
“I returned, only too late. They had already taken you.”
His tale had holes. Everything that Aidan did was precise, down to scratching his ass. He didn’t make mistakes, and he sure as hell didn’t forget. I clutched myself with great caution. “Did you try to find me?”
He shifted in his seat. “No. I didn’t,” he admitted too easily.
I bit back a snap. His admittance stung. “Did you not worry where I had disappeared to?”
“Yes, of course. I sought my uncle out. He informed me of your condition.”
“Condition! You knew I was pregnant?”
“Yes. How could I have not known? We discussed your pregnancy that morning at the cottage.”
“Of course. I’d forgotten.” I rested a moment, thinking. “So, you spoke to your uncle?”
“Yes.”
“What did your uncle say?”
“He explained he’d arranged for you to stay at a resort in Switzerland.” It was as if Aidan was reciting a well-rehearsed play.
“So you just believed him, just like that?”
“Of course. Our child was the Family’s destiny.”
I leaned in closer. “While I was pregnant with your child, they discarded me like I was a bag of trash! Have you ever heard of Haven?”
“No. Matter of fact, I haven’t.”
“You should. The staff are such a delight.” A wave of disgust welled up from my stomach.
“I presumed you were safe and happy. ”
“That’s rich.”
“How bad could it have been?” his blues raked over me. “You look pretty healthy to me.”
I nearly went for his throat. But the glint in Val’s eyes halted me. Instead, I bit out, “how perceptive of you, Aidan.”
“Contrary to your belief, I do understand your feelings. I know our family can be harsh. Our traditions seem extreme to outsiders.”
I scoffed. “More like evil.”
Aidan paused, his blues sparkled. “Something you don’t understand our child, the firstborn, had to be conceived on All Hallows’ Eve in order for her to receive the purest source of the Fifth Essence.” Aidan pushed his coffee to the side. “We had been planning this for centuries.” Our eyes locked. “That was the purpose of your creation.”
I sat back blinking back the shock. And there I had it. It never was about us protecting ourselves against the family. “I never was in danger of losing my life was I?” my mind began spinning.
Aidan shrugged, staring at me openly. His answer remained nonverbal as I gazed into his cold blues, but I understood his truth.
“I see.” I thrummed the table with my fingers, holding back the vile that knotted my throat. “Did I ever know the real you?”
“No,” he simply said with no emotion in his voice. “What was the point?”
Heat from my cheeks began to surface. “I was nothing more than a duty!”
“You must understand, our moment of love making was for the greater good. I had no other choice.”
I couldn’t believe my own ears. “Choice!”
“Sorry to displease you.” Aidan seemed stiff like a robot—remote.
“So basically the purpose was never about ridding the world of wars and disease.” I choked over the words. “Rather instead, I was to produce a child so the Family could open her up like a flayed fish and take her life source?” it all seemed clear his distance toward our child’s death. He had been removed, unattached all this time.
He leaned his head to the side, as if we were having a conversation about the weather. “Unfortunately, the end did not justified the means.”
“It was all a setup?”
Aidan reached to clasp my hand, but I jerked away. I shuttered over the thought of him touching me.
“Up until Dawn’s death, yes.” he leaned back into his chair relaxing. There were no signs of remorse.
“I remember the conversation you had with your uncle, Van. The two of you were scheming to take my essence. You mean to tell me”—I poked myself with my index finger— “that my listening to your conversation with Van and… and that discussion was staged? It was all a game to get me in your bed so you could get me pregnant.”
“Precisely.” He smiled like he’d butchered his first pig.
All of a sudden I burst into laughter. I couldn’t help it. “You must have no confidence in your skills?”
Aidan’s eyes narrowed.
I amused. “I think an accomplished lover as yourself wouldn’t need such great ploy to nail a lowly girl as me?”
His jaw flexed. “I had a mission. We were in a bit of a time crunch.”
I belted out more laughter. This time it was more hysterical. “So do tell.” I scoffed, testily.
He squirmed in his seat. “When one belongs to the Family, one must be aware that there are expectations for such privileges.”
“Such as?”
“Such as infusing our spirits.”
I folded my arms. “Did you lie about that too?”
He flashed a wicked grin. “Actually dear, that is one that not even I could fabricate.”
My brow arched. “So it’s true? There’s some weird cosmic force between us?”
Aidan paused for a minute, locking his dark blues on me. “Yes. It’s true.” Then briefly he glanced over at Val, then back to me. A sardonic glare waxed his face. “You’re as much a part of me as I am you. Sorry, toots. Looks like you’re stuck with me.”
My voice became steely calm. “That’s where you are wrong. I have a choice. I will never choose you. How could I? I blame you for Dawn’s death!”
“Some things are beyond our control. Even our daughter’s fate.”
I flinched from his words.
“How much time did you have with Dawn?” I asked.
“A year?” I stared into his empty blues.
“How did you find her?”
“Find her? I’ve never lost Dawn.”
Jolted by his answer, I just sat there, speechless.
“The Family informed me of her caretakers.”
“You knew for nearly two years where she lived, and you never bothered seeing her?”
“I did visit her once on her last birthday.” The blue-eyed stranger who looked like someone I once knew, sat there with a blank stare as though he was becoming bored.
Suddenly I remembered the video. “I saw it. Helen showed me a brief take of you helping Dawn blowout her candles.” My voice turned sour. “I’m guessing that was all for show.”
“Hmm… Helen must’ve stolen the clip from my phone.”
Funny how he had an answer for everything. I moved on to the next obvious question. “How did Mustafa get his hands on Dawn?”
“You know the answer to that.”
I bit down on my lip, not to snap. “I want to hear your side.”
Aidan sighed. “I was apprehended after I’d left you the letter. They took Dawn and hauled me to the dungeon.” He confessed. “That was the last time I saw her until ” he dropped his sentence.
“Were you a participant with Mustafa?”
His eyes narrowed. “I would never agree to take the life of my own daughter.”
“Is that true? I saw the look on your face when we entered the chamber. You are not a stranger to Mustafa.”
“I know him.”
“I don’t believe Mustafa acted on his own.” I paused, staring the devil in his eyes. “If you didn’t help him, then tell me who did?”
“You know I can’t reveal their identity.”
“I deserve answers.”
“Life doesn’t always give us what we deserve, toots.”
“No shit! Dawn is dead, and I believe you had a hand in it.”
Aidan slightly rose from his seat as his face turned beet red. I spotted Val planting his feet to the floor as if he was ready to spring. “I’ll tell you this once!” he snarled. “Listen carefully. I do not intend to say this again. I am not guilty of Dawn’s death or throwing you in a mental hospital. End of this charade of interrogation.” By his riposte, I sensed he was on the brink of exploding.
I spoke up quickly, hoping to eschew any outburst. “Okay, I believe you.” My breath became notched. “My mistake.”
Aidan settled back down in his seat, sneering.
Quiet wafted into the air, momentarily.
Finally Aidan counterstruck. “Your father is the blame for this mishap.”
“My father?”
Suddenly a dark brow arched. “You don’t know.”
“Know what?” what did he mean?
“You are utterly in the dark.” He mused.
A tingle began to spread over my body. I feared whatever was next.
“You don’t know about your mother ” Was he stating a fact or asking a question.
“I’m not following you.”
“I see that Sara kept you in the dark.” He reminded me of a fat cat that just ate a rat.
