D. Reynolds - Aden

“Jaclyn knows Ramiro Salvador reasonably well,” Bastien continued. “With all the cartel violence in Mexico lately, there have been multiple issues related to territorial security, and she’s met him several times. In her opinion, Salvador’s strong enough to hold a territory, although she was unaware that he had any designs on the Midwest. She’s never met you, my lord, and so had no direct comparison, but she did say Salvador was on a par with Jared. And Jared is more than commonly powerful.”

“He wouldn’t be a member of Raphael’s inner circle if he wasn’t. Has Salvador fought anyone else in the current challenge, or is he jumping right to the top?”

“A few minor skirmishes during the gala, picking off easy targets. No death matches.”

“Guess I’ll be his first then. Let’s get going. Don’t want to make him wait for his own funeral.”

ADEN AND HIS team parked very close to the house where they’d wiped out what was left of Klemens’s slave trade the previous night. Or so they’d thought. If Sidonie was right, there was still at least one significant outlier left to kill.

The neighborhood they walked through wasn’t bad, especially compared to Fuller Park where Sidonie had staked out Carl Pinto’s drug house. But it wasn’t somewhere Aden had ever anticipated visiting so frequently, either. He’d left behind this kind of poverty long ago. Contrary to Sidonie’s assumptions, not all vampires were wealthy, but most of them were at least financially secure. When one lived for centuries, one had a different view of life and necessity. And what vampires couldn’t earn for themselves, they persuaded others to give them. Once upon a time, they had simply taken what they needed and killed anyone in their way. Modern life demanded greater subtlety, but there were still ways of acquiring whatever one needed, or wanted. And a vampire’s life span put a whole new spin on long-term investment.

Freddy and Travis roamed ahead as they crossed into the park and entered the shadows beneath the trees, while Bastien walked at Aden’s side. Kage would probably be upset at missing the fight, but he was sitting on Sidonie, who, by all reports, had gone home and stayed there. But concerns about Sidonie were a distraction Aden couldn’t afford, not if Salvador was as powerful as reported, so he put her out of his thoughts. He hadn’t come this far to be undone by a female, not even one he actually cared for. There would be time for Sidonie tomorrow. Tonight, he had a challenge to survive.

Ramiro Salvador had been somewhat vague, when he called earlier, about the specifics of where they’d meet within the park. Aden assumed the Mexican vampire had scouted the area ahead of time and chosen ground that favored him, but they’d walked nearly all the way to the Hyde Park side before he finally felt the first twinges of the challenger’s presence.

Aden pulled Freddy and Travis back, wanting all three of his vamps close at hand before the fighting broke out. It was a common tactic to pick off an opponent’s vampire children in an effort to weaken him before the battle. Aden didn’t want the distraction, but he also didn’t want to lose any of his vampires. He loved them, if not as children, then as brothers. Never having had either, he couldn’t say which it was, but he knew their deaths would pain him greatly.

“Tighten your shields,” he warned all of them.

“Sire.” Three voices answered as one.

Bastien’s low-voiced warning presaged Salvador’s appearance from the darkness on the other side of a small clearing. Not that Aden needed the warning. To his vampiric sight, the Mexican vampire shone like a beacon, his power every bit as strong as reported. Maybe stronger.

“Ramiro Salvador, I presume,” he called out.

“And you are the great Aden,” Salvador responded with a sneer. “Your name was everywhere in the ballroom on Sunday. The fools are all saying you’ll be the next Lord of the Midwest.”

Aden dipped his head in acknowledgement, already bored with the theatrics.

“I even saw you kissing Raphael’s ass, making nice with his woman, for all the good it will do you. It’s not Raphael who will decide this.”

“Perhaps not,” Aden conceded, unconcerned. “But you’re a fool if you think he can’t affect the outcome.”

Salvador bristled at the sideways insult, just as Aden had intended. The Mexican’s power was lapping across the clearing in big looping waves, as if he was making no attempt to conceal it. It was as if he hoped that broadcasting his aggression would dissuade Aden from the challenge altogether.

Or perhaps he was more clever than that. Perhaps he thought that by making himself seem undisciplined and unable to control his own power leakage, Aden would assume he was weaker than he really was.

But Salvador was badly underestimating Aden, if he thought to fool him that easily.

For his part, Aden kept his power under a tight leash as always. Even knowing that Salvador might be only playing the fool, it was simply bad form to permit one’s power to slop all over like that. Besides, it would be much more fun to see the shock on his opponent’s face when he realized who, and what, he was really up against.

Salvador stalked out from under the trees and into the moonlight. He was of better than average height, with a wiry build, and his posture was stiff with hostility. His hands were clenched at his sides, his body leaning forward slightly, leading with his jaw.

Aden watched him come, then dropped a comforting hand on Bastien’s shoulder and strolled into the light himself. He let a mocking smile drift over his face and said, “Last chance, Salvador. You can still go home alive.”

“You should heed your own warning, cabron. Only one of us will be walking out of here tonight.”

Aden’s amusement fled. He liked to think, after more than 250 years, that he’d gotten over the fact of his illegitimate birth. But that didn’t mean he had to accept the insult from the likes of Ramiro Salvador.

He loosened the hold on his power just a little, letting it waft around the clearing like a gentle breeze, still only the smallest hint of his true strength.

Salvador grinned, putting his fangs on full display. “That all you got? One more chance, big man. Walk out of here.”

Aden bared his own teeth in a blatant challenge. “Too late.”

He released his power in a flood, his eyes hooded with satisfaction as he took in the wide-eyed realization on Salvador’s face. Deep inside Aden, the part of his Vampire gift that he rarely tapped and that very few knew existed came alive. It reached out, rolling in the scent of the Mexican’s fear, like a dog in something dead, drinking it in, drawing strength from it. The more rational part of Aden’s brain waited to see if Salvador would surrender, half-hoping he would. But that deep part of him, the part that was chortling with pleasure at his enemy’s dread, that part hoped Salvador would stand and fight . . . and die.

And that’s what he did.

Once Salvador had stepped into the clearing, there had been little chance of anything else. If he’d made the challenge and then surrendered without fighting, he’d never have been able to go back home, never have been able to face his Sire. For all Aden knew, Enrique was the kind of Sire who would execute his own child for embarrassing him.

But after his initial shock, Salvador stood his ground. He stopped playing games and immediately tightened his power around himself, creating a nearly impenetrable shield.

Aden had fought many challengers over the years, had seen his opponents’ power take the form of a variety of shields and weapons. But Salvador’s was something new. Most shields were either constantly in motion, or solidly immovable. Salvador’s was like a series of overlapping plates that were constantly changing, shifting position, freezing fractionally, then shifting again. It was a particularly difficult shield to overcome. One had to figure out when the shield was weakest, when it was moving or when it was realigning itself, and then time the shifts in order to anticipate a vulnerability. But, its very complexity made Aden wonder why the Mexican vampire hadn’t fought and won enough duels to make a name for himself. There had to be a weakness, a fatal flaw.