She laughed. “No. He’s more like a brother. He irritates me, which is why I sneak away from him whenever possible. What of you and the girl I’ve seen you with? Mary Ann?”
“Friends only,” he said, though he wasn’t sure the friend part was even true any longer.
Victoria’s thumb traced his palm. “What kind of person is she?”
Before he could stop himself—not that he wanted to stop himself—Aden brought her hand to his mouth and kissed it. “Sweet. Kind. Honest. She knows about me. Well, knows a little about me. She watched me possess the body of a werewolf, so there was no hiding it from her.”
“Vampires and werewolves? What have you gotten yourself into? Werewolves are dangerous creatures,” Victoria said huskily. “Vicious killers.” Her gaze fell to his lips. “Beware of them.”
“I already am.” Maybe he’d go hunting, find that werewolf and get rid of it before it could hurt someone. Namely Mary Ann. Whether she liked him or not, she was a good person.
Closer and closer Victoria eased toward him, closing the small gap between them. “Before, you asked about the humans we drink from and why there are no reports of people being bitten. You saw the way my voice affected your friends, yes? Just as it affected you when first we spoke. Well, when we bite a human, we release a chemical into their systems that makes them even more susceptible to our suggestions. A drug, a hallucinogen, I guess you could say. Once we are finished with them, we send them on their way and they forget they were ever reduced to a meal.”
If he had to have strange powers, Aden wished they could have been more like hers. That voodoo voice would have made his life a lot easier; he could have sent certain people (cough Ozzie cough) away with no memory of him.
“Are you dead, like legends claim?” He’d lost track of who owed whom an answer. But then, trading information was no longer his goal. Touching her was. He wrapped his free hand around her waist and splayed his fingers on the small of her back. She didn’t seem to mind. “I mean, did you die and someone turned you into a vampire?”
“No, I am not dead. I live.” She lifted his palm to her chest and pressed. Her skin was as hot as before but underneath, he could feel the steady rhythm of her heart. It beat faster than his, faster than anyone should have been able to survive, racing to a finish line it would never reach. “My father, he was the first of us. You might have heard of him. Vlad the Impaler, some call him. During his first life, his human life, he drank blood as a symbol of his power. So much blood it…changed him. Or perhaps he simply drank infected blood. He has never been sure. All he knows is that he began to crave it until it became all that he could stomach.”
Talk about the ultimate punishment for his deeds. “How many of your kind are there now?”
“A few thousand, scattered throughout the world. My father is king to them all.”
King. The word reverberated in his head, making him cringe. “That means you’re a—”
“Princess. Yes.” She stated it so simply, as if it were the most normal thing in the world.
A princess. Suddenly Aden felt even more inadequate. She was royalty, and he was poor, stuck at a ranch with kids too wild for civilization. She was the daughter of a king. He was parentless and considered mentally unstable.
“I should probably go,” he found himself saying. Why couldn’t Elijah have shown him this? Knowing what she was would have saved him the trouble of caring for her—only to lose her.
Confusion darkened her features. “Why are you leaving?”
Did he really need to spell it out? “I’m a nothing, Victoria, a no one. Or should I say Princess Victoria? Should I bow, too?”
His sneering tone had her swimming backward, out of his reach. “You didn’t care that I was a vampire, yet my station bothers you. Why?”
“Just forget it,” he said, turning. His hands felt like ice blocks without her fiery heat.
Before he could blink, she was in front of him. Back in his arms. “You are beyond irritating, Aden Stone.”
“So are you.” He knew he should release her, but couldn’t force his hands to obey this time.
“Because I am a princess, I have spent most of my life sequestered. Rules and regulations are mine to follow, more so than anyone else, for I must always act with the decorum such a title demands. I must be everything the people want me to be: polite, polished and above reproach. Then you summoned us and we came to observe you. I saw how you kept yourself separated from those around you. I saw the loneliness in your eyes and I thought you would understand how feel. And then, when you first looked at me, every time you’ve looked at me, really, I felt your excitement. It causes your blood to flow so swiftly.” Her eyes briefly closed, as if she were savoring the memories.
“Tonight,” she continued, “you asked me to stay with you. You’re the first person to want to spend time with me, to talk and get to know me. Do you know how irresistible that is? Riley is my friend, but it’s his job to watch me. And with him, I can never forget who and what I am. But with you…1 feel normal. Like any other girl.”
Being normal. It was a desire he knew well. And that he made her feel that way was astonishing.
“You do the same for me,” he admitted. “But I’m—”
“Irresistible, as I said. I should stay away from you, but can’t. So now I will be the one to ask you not to go.”
He didn’t know whether to laugh or sigh. As long as she didn’t see him as a nothing, he would try not to, as well. “I’ll stay.”
Slowly she grinned, and it lit her entire face. “Good. Now. What were you saying about me? About the way I make you feel?”
“Just that I feel normal when I’m with you.” And I think you’re the best thing to have ever happened to me. He cleared his throat. “So what else happened when your dad became a vampire?” he asked, pretending they had never veered off course. Pretending, for them both, that they really were normal. Despite the topic of conversation.
She must have realized what he was doing, because her smile brightened. “He ceased aging, his body strengthened exponentially. His skin lost all remnants of color, becoming an impenetrable shield.”
Aden recalled the way she’d laughed when he’d mentioned cutting her with his daggers. I can’t be cut, she’d said. “Your skin can’t be broken?”
She shook her head. “Not with a sharp object, no.”
That would be both a blessing and a curse. A knife couldn’t hurt her, but no doctor could operate on her if needed. Was it ever needed? “Do you ever get sick?”
“Once,” she hedged, then sighed and released his hand to pluck at the fingers. Some contact was better than none. “Aden.”
Clearly, the newest question made her uncomfortable. “If your father ceased aging, does that mean you’re almost as old as he is?” he asked, and she relaxed. “No, wait. You can’t be. You told me older vampires can’t tolerate the sun and you can tolerate it.”
“Yes, I’m younger than he is. I’m only eighty-one years old.” She tangled a hand through his hair, clearly liked the feel, and did it again. “But don’t think I have looked as I do now all that time. My siblings and I age slowly, very slowly. Our mothers despaired of ever getting us out of the terrible toddler stage.”
He remembered the few toddlers he’d encountered at various foster homes. The tantrums, the “all mine” mentality, and the way they drew on everything, even his walls. “Where’s your mom now?”
“In Romania. She was not allowed to travel with us.”
He wanted to ask why, but didn’t want to have to answer anything about his own parents. So instead he said, “Eighty-one. Wow. You’re like my grandma. If I had one.”
“What a terrible thing to say,” she said, but was smiling again.
“In all your eighty-one years, you must have had a lot of boyfriends, huh?”
For some reason, that wiped away her amusement. She looked away guiltily. “Only one.”
Just one? And why the guilt? “Why so few?”
“He’s the only boy my father has ever approved of.”
Which meant her father’s approval mattered to her. Sadly, approval was not something Aden was likely to get. So how long did he have before Victoria gave up on him? How long before she left him, never to return? How long until she started dating someone her father did like?
As the questions hammered through him, a sense of urgency overwhelmed him. He had to show her how good it could be between them. Had to bring a vision to life—before it was too late.
“I told you I see the future, yes?”
She nodded reluctantly, probably confused by his sudden subject change.
A tide of nervousness swept through him. Just say it, tell her. “I’ve seen us together.” Good. Now for the rest. “I knew you’d come to me before you arrived.”
She stilled, frowned. “Wh-what did we do? When we were together?”
He didn’t mention that he’d seen her drink from his neck. He didn’t want to scare her away. She was skittish enough about being with him. “We…kissed.”
“You and me, kis…sing.” The last was uttered on a wispy catch of breath. “I want to, oh, God, do I want to. But I can’t. I’ll end up feeding from you, and I refuse to let you see me that way.”
Was that the only thing holding her back? “You’ve already tasted my blood, and you were able to walk away.”
“I almost didn’t,” she admitted.
“So what if you can’t this time? I can take it.”
“You can, perhaps, but I can’t stand knowing that you will have seen me behaving like such an animal.”
Victoria? An animal? “I would never think that of you.”
Her arms circled his neck, her elbows resting on his shoulders. Sharp white fangs peeked over her bottom lip. “Aden,” she said, then sighed. “What am I going to do with you?”
