A huge smile spread across Ben’s expression.
“Do you find what I’ve said amusing?” I asked.
“I do,” he said, sitting up against the wall in no apparent hurry to defend himself.
“Why?”
“I wonder what will happen to that newfound power when Aiden betrays you.”
I snorted. “He’s not like you.”
“He’s more like me than you realize,” he said, pointing behind me. “Why don’t you turn around and see for yourself?”
I glanced over my shoulder. Aiden walked toward me, dragging Drake’s unconscious body behind him.
“Aiden?”
“I told you to get out of here,” he said, his usually cheery voice turned stern and sour. His face contorted in pain as he underwent a complete metamorphosis. His strong, beautiful hands grew into talons, his full head of jet-black hair lengthened into long ratted locks, and his pretty pink lips turned chalk-white. When he opened his mouth, jagged rows of razor-sharp teeth snapped, and his tongue darted in the air as if it were alive.
“Yes,” Ben said, suddenly standing by Aiden’s side. “Isn’t he beautiful? The first vampyre fae to ever exist. I don’t know about you, but I can’t wait to see what he can do.”
For a few seconds, the Aiden I knew gazed at me. Regret filled his eyes, but he blinked it away. Anger sparked, and his tongue darted toward me, eager to satisfy his insatiable hunger.
AIDEN SLAMMED
me against the wall. He wrapped his right hand around my neck, cutting off my oxygen. He dragged the talons on his left hand across my chest, ripping my shirt. “I can smell your blood,” he said, towering over me. His tongue slithered toward me like a snake’s. “I’m so hungry.”
If I didn’t do something fast, I’d end up being his first meal. I struggled against his grip and kicked his legs, groin, anything my feet could connect with, but he didn’t flinch.
“Stop moving,” he complained, shaking me like a rag doll before dangling me off the floor. The arms that had held me close as he made love to me last night threatened to choke the life out of me today.
His face drew closer, viscous, black liquid dripping from his lips. His eyes were mad with hunger, but deep within his bottle-green eyes, I could see Aiden. My Aiden. He fought his compulsion to kill me, the same instinct that had forced him to see me not just as the warlock he made love to in the Arbor but as the meal he couldn’t wait to eat.
I had to reach out to the fae within the monster somehow. If I could get him to remember, to fight what Ben had turned him in to, we might still have a chance.
“Aiden,” I choked out. I stroked his arm. I didn’t see the white, withered flesh. In my eyes, the arms that restrained me were the same ones that had wrapped around me in the Arbor. The fingers that dug into my flesh were the same ones that had clutched me as he came inside me. The Celtic tattoo still circled his lean, muscled bicep. His lips were still pink and full of life. If I could see it, he had to as well. “Remember me. Remember us.”
“Give it your best shot,” Ben said, strolling away from us and over to the fireplace. “He’ll eventually kill you, but watching you attempt otherwise amuses me. There’s no stopping what will happen, though. A newborn vampyre only wants to feed. Nothing can prevent that.”
I couldn’t accept that. No, I
wouldn’t
accept that. “It’s me, Aiden. See me.”
“No!” he shouted and flung me away.
I crashed into the opposite wall to the sounds of Ben’s laughter. My head hit with such force, the world immediately went black. The waters of unconsciousness rushed through me, and I swam against the riptide. If I slipped beneath its surface, all would be lost.
I fought my drooping eyelids, and when I finally managed to get them open, Aiden stood above me, gnashing his teeth together.
“We can fight this,” I mumbled. My vision spun, and it was difficult to focus. “Together. Just like we said we would.”
“Oh, please,” Ben said from across the room. He stood directly in front of the hearth, chanting some spell. “If I didn’t have something more important to do than kill you, you’d be dead right now.” The roaring fire inside the fireplace flickered before blazing to life once again. Whatever he was doing, the magical flame was fighting back. “Just kill him already and be done with it,” he said, glancing over his shoulder at us.
Aiden reached down and yanked me to my feet. The intoxicating aroma of honeysuckle and cinnamon had been replaced by the acrid stench of rot.
I wrapped my arms around his neck, holding him tight. I pressed our foreheads together and leaned against him. Just like I had yesterday, I surrendered to his touch and to the emotions that lived within both of us.
Our connection was strong enough for Aiden to break Ben’s blood tie. I only hoped I could awaken the fae I saw fighting within.
“I’m falling for you, Aiden,” I said, clutching his back and nuzzling my cheek against his. “And you’ve fallen for me too. I know it’s soon. Far too damn soon. But I don’t care. I’m done with being careful. I’m finished thinking things through. For the first time in my life, I’m making decisions my heart wants me to make, and damn it, it wants you. Whether you’re a fire fairy or a vampyre. It’s you, Aiden. Only you.”
I did the only thing left to do. I pressed my lips to his.
He went rigid as I delivered every feeling, every emotion I’d ever denied myself into our kiss. Magic purer than the fairy energy I’d briefly wielded flowed out of my trembling lips in wave after burning wave.
I cast aside every reservation, every fear I’d held on to like the scared little kid I was, and I became the warlock I’d always intended to be.
Aiden let go of my shoulders and pushed me away.
His chest heaved, and though the desire to cut my throat open still crouched at the edge of his vision, the Aiden I’d come to know stepped forth. “I can’t fight this,” he whispered. Guilt strangled his words as he continued to battle his newfound instincts. He closed the distance and placed his hands on my waist. His touch was gentle and loving. Whatever I’d done was working. “You’ve got to do what you made me promise to do.”
I shook my head. There was no way I was going to kill him.
“You… must,” he said through gritted teeth. He gripped my sides, not in anger or as a threat, but in pain.
I hooked his chin in my thumb and forced his gaze to mine. “No. We can fight this together. The way we have since the first moment we met.”
“This is more powerful than either of us,” he admitted. The tone of his voice changed. It grew harder, more like sandpaper than the usual lyrical quality of his pitch. The vampyre within surged forward again.
“Nothing is more powerful than us,” I said. “I’m betting my life on it.”
Aiden’s eyes grew wide, and black liquid gushed out of his mouth and splattered all over me. What the hell was going on now?
“Oh shut the fuck up already,” Ben said from behind Aiden.
I glanced down and noticed a shadowy stake jutting from Aiden’s chest. He clutched it as Ben slowly withdrew it from Aiden’s body.
“Aiden!” I shouted. He fell to his knees as black pools of blood sprayed my clothes and the marble floor.
The advancing monster that had almost overcome him drifted away, and his form returned to the fire fairy I’d first seen in the woods in Havenbridge. Except the black blood had reverted to fairy red, and a gaping hole now existed where I’d once laid my head.
Even though he had to be in tremendous pain, a smile wider than I’d ever seen before stretched across his lips. “And I’ve fallen for you too,” he said collapsing onto his knees and then over onto his back.
I rushed to his side, tears blurring my vision. “No, Aiden. Don’t go. Please don’t leave me.”
“I won’t,” he said. “I promise.” His expression went slack, and his gorgeous green eyes closed.
“Not exactly what I wanted,” Ben said, wiping Aiden’s blood from the weapon he’d formed. “But I couldn’t listen to that shit one moment longer.”
His lips cracked into a satisfied smirk.
After that, the world turned white.
A BLIZZARD
I didn’t remember summoning filled the room. Ice and wind whipped around us, creating a whiteout. Though I stood only a few feet in front of Ben, he obviously couldn’t see me. He squinted, scanning the area and holding up his hands to block the icy barrage.
I had no trouble seeing. This was my storm, and it responded to my will.
I commanded the ice to form into sharp needles and sent them barreling toward Ben. When they struck at thirty-five miles per hour, he howled in pain as salvo after salvo of tiny frozen daggers pierced his skin.
I would make him suffer for what he did to Aiden. Then I would kill him.
“Don’t hide behind your storm,” Ben screamed, trying to be heard above the roaring gusts. “Face me like a warlock.”
“I am,” I replied, making sure the wind whipped my voice around the room. That would make it difficult for him to find me. He swung his arms madly, sending shadowy tendrils blindly out into the room. They struck open air, not coming any closer than a few feet from where I stood. “I’m using your tactics. Letting my magic do the dirty work.”
Ice formed along his skin and stung his eyes. As quickly as he wiped it from his face and mouth, more gathered on his flesh, working its way up his nose, where I hoped it would suffocate him. I wasn’t just going to encase him. I planned on freezing him to the bone.
I wouldn’t stop until his blood crystallized and his skin split and cracked. All I would have to do after that was punch him once and shatter him into a million pieces.
“You’re just as pathetic as your fire fairy,” he spat.
“Fuck you!” I screamed, and the fury of my storm intensified. The winds blew well past forty miles per hour, creating snowdrifts around him. He stumbled over them and slipped on the ice that covered the floor. He had no solid ground on which to fight.
Now was the time to strike.
With one upward gesture, the ice upon which Ben stood exploded in a bloom of sharp icicles. One pierced his right forearm and another tore through his left thigh. Two more ripped through his right foot, but the most damaging of them all was the largest one, which was at least six foot high and one foot wide. It impaled him from the back and jutted out of his chest.
Blood poured down his body and turned the ice around him scarlet.
I drew in a deep breath and called off the storm.
“There you are,” he said, a gurgle of blood escaping his mouth. “Impressive.”
I made a looping gesture with my hand, and the icicle embedded in his chest twisted forty-five degrees.
Ben wrapped his hands around the icy blade and screamed.
“Holy shit!” someone said to my right.
It was Mason. He and Pierce were awake, and the red bands of energy no longer coiled around them. They had been freed from Ben’s blood magic.
Drake brushed away the snow that had collected on my younger brother’s face as he gaped at Ben’s mangled body. “That’s fuckin’ badass.”
“I know,” I said with a nod.
“How the hell did you do that?” Pierce asked. He stood up, using the wall for support.
I locked my gaze on Ben’s. Even though he had been mortally wounded, it hadn’t wiped the shit-eating grin from his lips. Why did my gut tell me this wasn’t over? “It was Aiden,” I finally answered.
My brothers glanced at each other before staring back at me. Before I could explain, the ground violently trembled.
“What’s goin’ on now?” Drake asked.
Another earthquake shook the world. Pierce fell onto his back while Mason and Drake were brought to their knees. They clutched each other as the walls of the castle keep swayed.
As if my feet were anchored to the floor, I stood my ground, glaring at Ben. Even though he continued to cough up blood, his smile never faltered.
“What have you done?” I asked.
He didn’t answer. Instead he shot me a big grin as another tremor grabbed hold of the land and thrashed it.
Pieces of the roof crashed to the floor as the marble tile cracked and buckled. From the courtyard down below, the screams of the fire fae echoed off the walls.
“Still two steps behind me,” Ben uttered.
I gestured again. Two more icicles sprouted from the patch of ice. One pierced his right hand while the other penetrated his armpit before tearing out of his shoulder. “Tell me,” I commanded. “What have you done?”
He shook his head in disappointment. “Look around,” he said. “What do you see? Or maybe I should ask, what do you
not
see?”
My gaze immediately shot to the hearth. The roaring fire had been snuffed out. Only the charred furnace remained.
“No!” I said. I ran to the fireplace, placing my hand along the bricks that had once been too hot to touch. They were as cold as the ice I’d created. The Hearthstone had been inside the flame. “Where is it?”
“Where’s what?” Mason asked, straining to be heard over the death throes of fairyland.
“It’s gone,” Ben said. “The Hearthstone is mine.”
I stormed back to Ben, an icicle forming in my hand. I raised it to his throat and pressed the sharp point into his flesh. A trickle of blood coursed down his neck, coating the emerald pendant he always wore on the chain around his neck. “Give it to me. Now!”
He blew a kiss at me. “Kinky,” he said with a wink. “But no.”
“I’ll kill you right now if you don’t.”
“You can try,” he replied.
I shoved my weapon into his throat, and his eyes went wide in surprise. He hadn’t thought I would do it.
“What’s happenin’?” Drake asked. The fear and uncertainty was evident by the tremor in his voice and the exaggerated drawl.
“He’s destroyed Otherworld,” I answered.
As if to verify my statement, another violent quake rattled the land. The far wall of the keep crumbled, sending tons of brick to the courtyard below. The columns supporting the roof groaned and split. In a few minutes, the entire structure would crash to the ground.
“We have to get out of here!” I gestured toward where the wall used to be and created a huge ice slide to the ground below. “Go now!”