Twisted

TWELVE

AN HOUR LATER, MARY ANN found herself nestled inside The Wire Bean. The ridiculous name aside, she liked the place. The internet café was cozy, with plush couches and small round tables, as well as booths with multiple plug-ins right there on the side.

She pretended to sip a mocha latte—because actually drinking it would have made her sick. Human food was no longer hers to enjoy, only the magic and powers of others. Not that she was bitter. Except that she was freaking bitter!

Anyway. The drink had been “paid for” by Tucker.

His version of “let me get this” was casting an illusion so that the girl at the register—who’d smiled and flirted with him and Riley to an annoying degree—thought she’d been handed a twenty when in reality, Tucker had handed her a nice helping of air.

Riley had voiced a complaint. Tucker had looked at him and said, “Really, Rover? You stole Mary Ann a laptop, and you question my methods? Really?”

“Yes, really.”

“At least my victim isn’t going to cry all night about losing the first ten pages of his book report.”

“Well, aren’t you just the do-gooder,” the shifter sneered.

At one time—like, an hour ago—all of this bickering would have bothered her. Right now? Hardly a blip on her radar. She was busy.

Of course, then they’d argued about who got to sit next to her. Flattering, as well as insulting, since it was merely a pissing contest and not a true desire to be near her. Riley won. Barely. And only because he tripped Tucker and the boy fell face-first into the coffee-stained tile.

Now her shifter was leaning back, his arm stretched out behind her, and Tucker sat across from her, scowling at them. Mary Ann continued to pretend to sip and type, breathing in the delightful fumes while searching for answers about Daniel Smart’s brother, Robert.

“You know,” Tucker said. “I’m actually a pretty good guy when it’s just me and Mary Ann. You kind of harsh my mellow, Fido.”

“I’ll pretend that’s true.”

“It’s true,” Mary Ann said without looking up from the screen. “Just like I negate Aden’s abilities when I’m around him, I negate Tucker’s evil.”

“I’d argue the word evil,” Tucker said.

“And you,” she went on, ignoring the demon, “negate my negating ability.”

“Poor Tucker,” Riley sneered. “Having to deal with being a bad boy.”

“And don’t you care that I’m calling you by different dog names, Max?” Tucker said with an obvious sulk.

“No. And by the way, Max is my brother’s name.”

“Wait.” Tucker leaned forward, lips twitching into a grin. “Your brother is a wolf-shifter and his name is Max?”

“Yeah. So?”

“So you do know that’s, like, the most popular dog name of the year?”

“What are you, a statistical handbook?”

Frowning, Tucker ran a hand through his hair. “If you’re not gonna react to insults the right way, I’m not sticking around. First I called you Fido. No reaction. Then I called you Max, and you corrected me. You’re lame.” He slid from the booth. “I’ll be outside. Smoking. Maybe drinking.”

“Don’t stab anyone,” Riley said with a wave of his fingers.

His expression darkened. “Do you have anything to add to this conversation, Mary Ann?”

“That’s great,” she said distractedly, having already tuned them out.

He pushed out a sigh. “Find me when you’re done.”

“Sure, sure,” Riley assured him. Then flipped him off.

Tucker stomped out of the café, the bell chiming over the door.

“What a douche,” Riley muttered. “I’m going to kill him before this is over, you know that, right?”

“That’s great.”

“And you’ll be okay with that?”

“That’s great.”

“You’re not listening to a word I’m saying, either, are you?”

“That’s great.” Seventeen years ago, people had not Facebooked or tweeted their every thought, so finding Robert Smart was a little more than difficult. But she was finally getting somewhere.

She found a news story about him, and that led to another, and another and still another. Each one had to do with Robert Smart’s ability to locate dead bodies and communicate with the dead. But none of them mentioned raising the dead. More than that, there was no mention of his death. So, she might be getting somewhere, but it wasn’t doing her any good. Until—

Bingo! A story about his disappearance. Excitement rushed through her as she read the first few lines. He’d disappeared the same night his brother was killed. And…oh. Disappointment replaced her excitement. “His body was never found, and he never married,” she said. “He had no children, no relatives other than Daniel and Tonya.” Which meant talking to his family was out. Tonya was likely to call the police if she caught sight of Mary Ann again.

“That’s great,” Riley said, mimicking her. Then, without taking a breath, he added, “But he could be out there talking to the witches or the fairies, you know.”

And if he had no family, what kind of last wish would he have had? Not to say goodbye to them, of course, as Mary Ann’s mother had wanted to do with her. So, what had he wanted?

She needed to know. In order to leave Aden, Julian had to do what his human self regretted not doing. But the souls didn’t remember their human lives until someone reminded them. Right now, she was the only one who could remind Julian.

“Mary Ann,” Riley prompted.

Maybe if she printed out his (previous) life story and read it to him? Maybe then he’d remember. Or, maybe it was time to switch gears and spy on Aden’s parents. Yeah, maybe. The deed to their house belonged to Joe Stone. Paula, the mom, hadn’t been mentioned. Were they still together? Separated?

“Mary Ann?”

“What?” Oh, yeah. Riley had said something. Robert, witches, fairies. “Of course he’s not talking to the witches or the fairies. He’s dead.”

A long, drawn-out sigh had warm, minty breath washing over her. “I meant Tucker.”

“Oh. Then go follow him. Kill him. Whatever. Please. I just need a few minutes of peace.”

A beat of stunned silence. “Are you trying to get rid of me?”

“Yes. But for some reason, it’s not working.”

Wonderfully calloused fingers settled on her chin and turned her face. “Mary Ann?” His eyes glittered with amusement.

“What?”

“You’re sexy when you’re focused.” With that, he leaned over and kissed her. Right there in front of everyone, he slipped his tongue into her mouth. He was warm and wet and as delicious as she remembered. She’d never been one for public displays of affection, but she found herself leaning closer, wrapping her arms around him, sinking her hands in his hair.

He knew just how to move his tongue against hers. Just how to apply pressure, how to ease off, how to take her breath and give her his. And the warmth, she couldn’t get enough. She pressed closer to him, so close she could feel tendrils of energy flowing into her mouth, down her throat and swirling inside her stomach.

She knew that sensation.

Panic infused her, and she wrenched away. They were both panting, but Riley was glazed with a sheen of perspiration. Her heart raced as she gasped out, “I was about to feed off you.”

“I know.” There was no upset in his tone, which surprised her.

“And you didn’t pull away from me? You idiot!”

His lips quirked up at the corners. “I liked what we were doing.”

He was amused? Idiot was too kind a word for him. But, see? This was exactly why she’d run away from him. He didn’t take his safety seriously.

Scowling at him, Mary Ann dragged her legs between them and pushed him. Right out of the booth. He landed on his butt with a shocked humph. “Get out of here before I…before I…knee you in the balls!”

More quirking. He took his time standing up. “I’ll find a witch. If you’re hungry, you can—”

Her anger deflated. He was trying to take care of her. How could she stay mad at him? “I’m not.” And she wasn’t. Not fully. Not yet.

“You know what happens when you let yourself go without…eating. Just let me—”

“No.” Yes, she knew what happened. She hurt. Worse than she’d ever hurt in her life. “I’m fine.” She didn’t want him messing with the witches, possibly getting bespelled—although the impotency thing he’d mentioned to Tucker might do them both some good—and she certainly didn’t want to be responsible for another death.

“The witches were going to hurt you. Now you can hurt them first.”

Technically that was true. She could hurt them. When her hunger reached the point of pain, she fed without thought or intent. Witches first, fairies second, but one day neither race would be enough. She’d crave the others. The vampires, the shifters. Even humans. But as she was now, only partially hungry, she would have to touch the witch to feed, and she just didn’t want to get that up close and personal if she didn’t have to. For all the reasons she’d previously mentioned, but also because, well, she liked a few of them.

Two—Marie and Jennifer—could have killed her a dozen times. They hadn’t. They’d talked to her, instead, and walked away. She kinda felt like she owed them.

“Go find Tucker before I decide you’ll make a tasty snack,” she said. “Wait. First tell me what you meant about Tonya’s aura being black.”

He frowned as he slid back into the booth. “Usually that means the person is going to die. But hers was an old black, kind of faded to a gray. I’ve seen that kind of aura a few times before, but usually on people who had somehow cheated death through magic or been cursed for a long, long time.”

Was that what would happen to Aden’s aura, then? Slowly fade, maybe rot? “So her life was saved through magic? Or she was cursed? Which one?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t get a magical vibe off her.” He shrugged. “But that could just mean the curse is so much a part of her, like her lungs or her heart, that no one can sense it. Or it could mean that magic wasn’t used.”

“So what you’re telling me is that you have no freaking clue?”

“Correct. So what you’re telling me is that you don’t want me to stay with you? Because after that tasty snack comment, I want you to—”

“Go, you nympho!”

Laughing, he stood and blew her a kiss, then stalked from the shop. Mary Ann forced her attention to return to her laptop. Her hands were shaking as she typed. And what do you know? She typed without thinking and ended up with a search on Aden’s parents. Again. Maybe her subconscious was trying to tell her something.

Fine. She’d go with it. And another thing. Her next ward, she decided, was going to prevent boys from muddying up her thoughts and ruining her concentration. But somehow, she doubted even that could protect her from Riley’s appeal.

ADEN SURPRISED VICTORIA. Rather than walking into the throne room, where his “guests” awaited him, and demanding answers, rather than feeding himself, he first prepared himself for the possibility of battle. A task that caused several tension-filled hours to tick by, morning giving way to afternoon.

She listened to a one-sided conversation he had with Elijah and knew Aden was upset because the soul hadn’t predicted this, and he hadn’t prepared. She listened as he spoke with the councilmen, then Maddie, learning what he could about the nine warriors awaiting him. She breathed a sigh of relief when he placed guards and lookouts in every room in the house as well as outside. She watched as he armed himself, looked away as he changed into a new T-shirt and jeans, and waited with him for the wolves, already tired from patrolling, to come in from the forest.

There was no time to think about their kiss and his anger over her lack of virginity, which was out of character for both past and present Aden. Did he suspect the boy’s identity? Would he hate her when the suspicion was confirmed?

Okay, there was time to think about all of that, but she couldn’t allow herself the luxury. She needed to focus, to be at her best. Just in case Aden wasn’t. He still hadn’t eaten, and she didn’t know why.

Something else she didn’t know—why he had stopped what he was doing, twice, to announce that he wasn’t going to dance.

Now he marched along the scarlet rug, Victoria just behind him, wolves flanking him, and a handful of his strongest vampire warriors behind them. Vampire citizens lined the walls, watching him, forming a hallway that led straight to the throne room.

Victoria caught whispers like “just appeared,” “trouble” and “war,” and each caused dread to work through her.

Whoever the warriors were, they could obviously teleport, since they had not stormed through the house but had “just appeared” in the throne room. And to appear somewhere, a teleporter had to have been there before. Which meant Vlad had once entertained the warriors.

As Aden approached the throne room, two of his sentries threw open the tall, arched doorways. Without a pause in his stride, the new and as-yet-uncrowned vampire king entered the room. Victoria expected more whispers, something, but the only thing to be heard was the thump of multiple pairs of boots and the scrape of wolf claws. Then Aden stopped, as did everyone behind him, and there wasn’t even that. Just silence.

The newcomers—taller and stronger than Victoria had imagined, and she’d imagined very tall and very strong—formed a backward V. A war formation. Too many times to count, she’d seen her father act as the center of just such a V. It was a pose meant to intimidate, to show unity. A kind of “you mess with one, you mess with all” thing.

The man in front tilted his head to the side. There was no deference to the action, of course, just an I-am-the-scientist-and-you-are-the-lab-rat surety. “At last. You arrive.” He didn’t sneer, but the insult was there, an implication that Aden was a coward for having made him wait.

The old Aden might have ignored the implication. The new Aden raised his chin and said, “At last, I honor you with my presence.”

A fierce scowl. “We are not your subjects, and we are not honored by you.”

“Of course you are.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

“Why, you little—”

The warrior to the speaker’s right placed a firm hand on his shoulder, and he pressed his lips together in an obvious bid for calm. The second man said, “We are not the ones who wish to speak with you, Aden the Beast Tamer.”

At least they acknowledged his power. Names were important to her kind, identifiers of personality, skill and conquest. Vlad the Impaler. Lauren the Bloodthirsty—which was saying something among a horde of vampires. Stephanie the Exuberant. Victoria the Mediator.

“Who, then?” Aden demanded.

A pause, the eye of the storm, before another male teleported to the head of the V, and every person in the room, save for the newcomers and Aden, gasped in astonishment.

“Me.”

“Sorin,” she breathed. She’d known he would come, yet seeing him live and in person still managed to astonish and amaze her. Her brother was here. Her brother was actually here!

The little girl she used to be wanted to run to him, to throw herself in his arms. They’d never before touched, never spoken, and they’d only met gazes a total of six times. Yet still, the forgotten part of her wanted to do those things and more.

“You know him?” Aden asked her, but didn’t wait for her answer. “I think I know him, too.” His eyes darkened, then lit back up, going from violet to black, black to violet, as he looked through her. “Is there a way to stop him?”

“Stop…Sorin?”

He frowned, shook his head. “I don’t believe you, Elijah.”

Of course. The souls were bothering him, but sadly, they were not helping him.

Victoria reached out and twined their fingers, offering what comfort she could while trying to bring him back to the here and now. He blinked, the black gobbling up his eyes and remaining. He gave her a reassuring squeeze, comforting her.

Sorin snorted. “I heard you were insane, human. I am glad to see the gossips can get things right every now and then.”

Aden’s grip tightened, but he did not reply.

“Has Elijah…has he predicted something terrible?” she whispered.

A muscle ticked under his eye. Again he remained silent.

Was he lost to a prediction even now? Trembling, she returned her attention to her brother. “He is not insane,” she said. Maybe she could convince these boys to get along. “Underestimating him will get you killed.”

Sorin met her gaze. Seven, she thought, keeping score in her head, just as before. His hard expression did not change or soften. Did he even remember her? He’d been gone so very long.

Vampires aged much more slowly than humans. While Victoria was eighty-one years old, she was the equivalent of an eighteen-year-old human. Sorin was just over four hundred years old, yet he looked to be in his mid-twenties, with pale hair and eyes as blue as hers. He was taller than Aden by almost a foot and packed with more muscle than any football star.

“Sister,” he said, bowing his head in tribute. “I also heard you were dating the insane human king, but I did not believe it until this moment. And do you really think he could harm me?”

Her first thought: He remembers. Her second: Have I ever been so happy? Her third: There is going to be trouble. Her last: He remembers!

“Do not anger him,” she said, pleased by the evenness of her voice. No matter what happened, no matter what was said, she had to remain emotionally distanced. If there was one thing Riley had taught her during their many self-defense training sessions, it was that emotions ruined perspective and rationality. “Your beast will not like it and will punish you for it.”

A muscle began to tick under Sorin’s eye. Interesting. He must have experienced his beast’s displeasure already.

Sorin’s gaze left her to rake Aden up and down. “You do not look like a vampire king.”

“Thank you,” Aden replied with a nod of his head. Good. He was back in the throne room and out of his head.

“That wasn’t a compliment.”

A pause. A sigh from Aden. “I’m to tell you that what you’re planning will not end well.”

Victoria’s stomach rolled.

“And exactly what am I planning?” Sorin asked, unconcerned.

“Why spoil the surprise for everyone?”

“Very well. Let’s not. Let’s just get started.” With that, Sorin advanced, reaching up and clutching the hilts of the blades peeking above his shoulders. Metal whistled against leather, then the silver tips were gleaming in the light of the chandelier.

Aden stood as still as a statue until the wolves erupted in a chorus of growls and snarls. He held up his hand for silence. They obeyed, but their bodies remained taut, the hair on their backs standing on end. And though he didn’t order any of the vampires to fight, though he shouted for them to return to their formation, several of them rushed forward, closing in on her brother.

She knew why they did so. Their beasts. Chompers was going crazy inside her head, banging against her temples with enough force to hurt, wanting out, wanting to stand guard over Aden. Every bit of her strength was required to keep him inside, to keep her own feet in place as his failure to escape drove him to try and control her body.

She watched, shaking, as Sorin spun—and there went someone’s internal organs. He spun again—and there went a head. He went low, and a leg separated at the knee, each piece falling in a different direction. Gruesome, but all Victoria could think was how good the spurting blood looked. Not just to Chompers, who finally stopped fighting her as he focused on the substance he so craved, but to her. And if it looked good to her…

She glanced over at Aden. He was licking his lips, and his eyes were electric, crackling with lightning. Was he entranced? If so, there would be no saving him.

Sorin stopped just in front of Aden, who continued to watch the blood. He was. He was entranced.

I should have forced him to eat before coming here. Now he might dive for one of those puddles. Might lie there and lap up every drop, leaving his body vulnerable to attack.

“Get the bodies out of here,” she shouted, fearing Aden’s ability to raise the dead would kick in, and the walking corpses would attack.

Vampire soldiers rushed to obey her.

“Aren’t you frightened?” her brother demanded. The tips of his swords were pointed toward the floor, blood dripping down, down, down, sliding so perfectly. She had only to crouch and stick out her tongue, and the flavor would explode through her mouth.

What are you doing? Trembling, she directed her attention to the boys. They were still nose to nose. She must have squeezed Aden’s hand with every bit of her strength because she’d cut off circulation in her own fingers. They were tingling. Relax, just relax.

Aden cleared his throat, somehow pulled himself out of the entrancement as only an older, practiced vampire could, and straightened. “Frightened? Of you?”

Sorin grinned slowly. “Of death.”

“Why would I be? I’m already dead.”

That gave her brother pause, wiping away his amusement. “You were told wrong, were you not? So far, this has been very good for me.”

“I never said this wouldn’t end well for you.”

A confused shake of that pale head. “You, then?”

“No.”

“Then why—never mind.” Sorin met Victoria’s gaze. Eight. “Is he always this cryptic?”

The fact that her brother was speaking directly to her again thrilled her, and she couldn’t deny it. In fact, she was so thrilled she couldn’t think up an intelligent reply. She could only stand there, staring at him, open-mouthed and sputtering like a fool.

“Just say what you have to say,” Aden commanded, “so that we can get started.”

Get started? With what? Fear replaced her pleasure.

Sorin sucked in a breath. “Very well, then. I came to tell you that your allies are dead. I killed them.”

“Killed them? When Aden only just took the throne?” she gasped out. Finally. Words.

An impish shrug. “I’ve been knocking them off for the past decade, striking at Vlad every chance I could.”

Father had never told her Sorin had turned on their clan. You’re shocked by that? He’d never told her anything. “I don’t understand,” Victoria said. “Why would you do such a thing?”

She was ignored.

“I know your secret,” her brother said to Aden.

“I know you do,” he replied evenly.

So frustrating. What secret?

“His strength grows daily, you know. He will return one day soon. He will attack.”

His. Sorin knew Vlad still lived. No one else knew, but if they found out… They won’t connect the dots, she assured herself before she could work up a good panic. For all they knew, Aden and Sorin were discussing Dmitri. Or someone else, someone they didn’t know. Yes, that worked. Please, yes.

“I know that, too,” Aden said. “I also know you want to be king. You want to be the one to destroy him when he reappears. You’re willing to challenge me to get what you want. Even to the detriment of the clan.”

“Insane yet clever. You are correct, Aden the Beast Tamer.”

“No.” Victoria shook her head violently. “Maybe we can talk this out. Maybe we can compromise.” Vampire battles of this magnitude were bloody and sadistic, and she couldn’t bear the thought of either of them hurt…or worse. And after witnessing Sorin’s skill, she wasn’t sure even Aden’s ability could save him.

Aden knew it, too. Hadn’t he predicted this wouldn’t end well? And yet still he said, “I accept your challenge, Sorin the Vicious. We fight for the crown at sunset tomorrow.”