Gena Showalter - Twisted

Aden’s eyelids popped open. Bright red, no longer any hint of his humanity.

Control herself, yes. She could. She would. “Aden, please.” Save him, yes. She would try that, too. He meant everything to her. “I know you can hear me. I know you don’t really want to hurt me.”

A pause, heavy and laden with tension. Then, miraculously, another flicker of amber, deep in those beloved eyes. “Can’t hurt…” he said. “Don’t want to hurt.”

Tears of relief pooled in her lashes, leaked onto her cheeks. “Let go of my hands, Aden. Please.”

Another pause, this one lasting an eternity. Slowly, so slowly, he uncurled his fingers from her wrists and lifted his arms away from her. He straightened until he was straddling her, his knees pressing into her hips.

“Victoria…sorry, so sorry. Your poor, beautiful neck.” The dual voice, one his, one the beast’s, tendrils of sympathy and smoke, blending together, wafting over her.

She offered him a soft smile. “Nothing to apologize for.” I did this to you.

I…need…you must… Caleb couldn’t quite catch his breath—and suddenly, Victoria couldn’t quite catch her breath, either. Something’s happening…I can’t…

Listen to me carefully, Caleb, Elijah lashed out. We can’t go back to Aden yet. We’ll be killed.

Killed? Caleb gasped. Figures. I knew we were going to die.

What do you mean, killed? Julian snarled.

I mean, we’ll be fine unless you two keep this up! Your panic is going to drive us out of Victoria, and we can’t leave Victoria. Not yet. So you have to calm down like I told you. Do you hear me? We can return to Aden later. After the…just after. So, Caleb, Julian, are you listening to—

His speech ended abruptly. Caleb screamed, then Julian screamed, the sounds blending with Elijah’s sudden groan of distress. No, they hadn’t listened.

Neither had she, apparently. Victoria was the next to scream, and the sound of that busted her eardrums. Loud, loud, so loud. Hurt, hurt, so hurt. Then, she didn’t care. The pain left, and her scream softened into a purr.

Somehow, some way, absolute power was birthed inside her, blasting through her, fusing with her. Now, a part of her. Good, good, so good.

Throughout the decades of her life, she had drained several witches. A bad thing for vampires. Witches were their drug of no-choice, and once sampled, it was difficult to think about anything else. She knew that very well. Though years had passed since her last bender, some days the cravings hit her, and she’d find herself running through the woods, searching, searching, desperate to find a witch. Any witch. And that was reason number one why witches and vampires usually avoided each other.

But, oh, this sudden burst of power…it was witchlike, intoxicating, warmth and sunlight, yet cold like a snowstorm. Dizzying, overwhelming, everything and nothing. She floated on clouds, swept away from the cave. She dozed on a beach, water lapping at her feet. She danced in the rain, as carefree as the child she’d never been allowed to be.

Such a beautiful eternity awaited her here. She never wanted to leave.

She thought she heard the souls crying, soft, almost childlike. Where they not experiencing this, too?

A roar cut through her euphoria. That roar stretched out wispy tentacles, and those tentacles wrapped around her, surprisingly strong, tugging her away. Frowning, she dug her heels into the ground. I’m staying!

A second roar inside her head, louder now, threatening, causing a chilled, clammy sheen of perspiration to coat her….

In a snap, she was jerked back to the present. And just like that, her sense of tranquility vanished. No. No, no, no.

Oh, yes. The souls were no longer chattering, screaming, crying, anything, and the sense of power had evaporated with the tranquility. More than that, Chompers had returned, and he didn’t want her to hurt Aden.

Before, each time her beast had returned to her, she had experienced a sharp lance of acknowledgment. Nothing more. Then he’d left her again. Then returned. An endless cycle as she and Aden endlessly drank. But this…this was something different. Something stronger. A passing of energy, perhaps. Or had that been a final break of the ever-changing cycle of possession?

Chompers’ hunger blended with her own, familiar, yet utterly unwelcome because he would not allow her to do anything about it. He never did, not with Aden.

Victoria blinked open her eyes, gasped. She had never left the cave, but she’d been busy. She was on her feet, her arms outstretched. A golden glow radiated from between her fingers, dimming…gone. Aden lay in a crumpled heap against the far wall. He was unconscious, unmoving, maybe even—no. No!

Her bare feet dug into the rocks as she raced to him. The moment she reached him, she was crouching and feeling for a pulse. No, no, no. Please, please. There! Fast, too fast and too weak, but there. He was alive.

Relief flooded her, followed quickly by remorse. What had she done to him? Beaten him? Drained him? No, she couldn’t have. Chompers wouldn’t have allowed that, either. Right?

“Oh, Aden.” She smoothed the hair from his brow. There were no bruises on his face, no punctures in his neck. “What’s wrong with you?”

A sound wafted to her ears. Frowning, she leaned down. Was he…humming? She blinked, listened more intently. Yes, yes, he was. And if he was humming, he wasn’t hurting. Right? He must be experiencing some sort of euphoria. Perhaps even the same euphoria she’d basked in. Right?

Please, be right.

She studied him more intently. His expression was serene, his lips edged upward. He looked boyish, innocent, almost angelic. He was experiencing the euphoria, then.

Relaxing, she traced her fingertip along his hairline. He was so striking, with his hair dyed black and those two-inch blond roots. Perfectly arched eyebrows rose above perfectly uptilted eyes. His nose was perfectly sloped. His lips were soft, his chin stubborn. Again, perfectly. His was a face a girl would never tire of looking at. Maybe because every new glance revealed a previously undiscovered nuance. This time, she saw the thick, feathering fan of his lashes, a golden chocolate in the haze of the cave.

“Wake up for me, Aden. Please.”

Nothing, no response.

Perhaps, like her, he didn’t want to leave. Well, too bad. They had some chatting to do.

“Aden. Aden, wake up.”

Again nothing. No, not nothing. He scowled, and the scowl soon became a grimace.

Her heart galloped against her ribs. All right. What if he wasn’t floating and carefree? What if he was stuck? Or worse, agonized? That grimace…

He panted out a breath once, twice, shallow and rasping. Crackling. She’d heard that crackle before—each time she’d taken too much blood from a human.

He won’t die. He can’t. They’d been here a week. Seven days, three hours and eighteen minutes. They’d fought and kissed and drank from each other the entire time. Aden had survived all of that; surely he would survive this. Whatever this was.

Shame suddenly outweighed her ever-present guilt. And maybe that shame was what corralled her beast, stopping him from screaming for release the way he had every time before.

Wait. Chompers wasn’t screaming. The realization caused her to blink with confusion. A quick glance at her chest, and she saw that all of her wards had faded. Even still, the beast was silent. That had never happened before.

What else was different? Her gaze fell to Aden’s neck, where his pulse drummed sporadically. Her mouth watered, but the urge, the electrifying need to bite him, wasn’t there.