beads of sweat broke out over the man’s brow. His eyes widened, fear finally winning and glazing his irises. His chest rose and fell quickly, shallowly, his breath wheezing from his nostrils.
“I—I’m so sorry. Didn’t mean to … will leave … never tell … swear … just let me go … please, please.”
Victoria continued to study him as if he were a rat in a wheel.
“Tell him to go away,” Aden said. “Tell him to forget.” She would despise herself if she hurt an innocent human. One day. Not today, probably not tomorrow, but one day, when their wits returned.
If they returned.
Silence. Her fingers tightened on the man. So much so, he grimaced in pain, bruises already branching along his jaw.
Aden opened his mouth to issue another command, but in the back of his mind, he heard another rumble. Stronger this time, more than a yawn. Every muscle in his body tensed.
Chompers had awakened.
A sense of urgency filled Aden. “Victoria. Now! Or I swear I’ll never feed you again.”
Another beat of silence, then, “You will go away,” she said, thrums of subdued power wafting from her voice. Why subdued? “You saw no one, spoke to no one.”
Unlike before, several seconds passed before the human responded to her command. In the end, his brown eyes dulled, and his pupils contracted. “No trouble,” he said in a monotone. “Leave. No one.”
“Good,” she said, anger pulsing from her now. Her arm fell to her side. “Go. Before it’s too late.”
He stood. Walked to the entrance. Exited without looking back. He would never know how close he’d come to dying.
The rumble in Aden’s head intensified yet again. Any moment now, and the rumble would become—
A roar.
So loud, consuming, rocking him to his soul. Aden covered his ears, hoping to block the sound, even though he knew how ineffective the action was. Louder and louder, the roar became a scream, high-pitched, slashing through his mind like a razor until his thoughts broke apart and two words hacked their way to center stage.
Feed.
Destroy.
No, no, no. I did feed, he said to Chompers. Let’s not—
FEED. DESTROY.
The spiderwebs returned to his vision, interspaced with red. Both zeroed in on Victoria. Still she crouched, her gaze leveled on him, wary. She knew what would happen next.
FEEDDESTROY.
Yes. Aden rolled from the rocky dais and settled his weight on unsteady legs. Victoria unfolded to her full height, reed slender and lovely. Wild. Her hands curled into fists. He’d just eaten, true, but he needed more. Had to have more.
“Feed,” he heard himself say, two voices layered together, one familiar, the other smoky and harsh. Fight this, he had to fight this. Couldn’t let Chompers tug his puppet strings.
A whimper escaped Victoria as she scratched at her ears. The souls must be waking up. He knew how loud their voices could be. As loud as Chompers’ roar.
“Protect,” she said, her eyes suddenly sparkling with brown, green and blue. Oh, yes. The souls were in there, chattering.
Protect her, as she’d said. He must protect her. But he ground out, “Destroy.” And even though he tried to root his feet into the floor, he found himself stalking toward her, his mouth watering.
D e s t r o y d e s t r o y d e s t r o y.
DESTROYDESTROYDESTROY.
Chompers had always been insistent. But this … this was savagery at its most basic.
Somehow, some way, Aden’s time with Victoria was about to come to an end—the knowledge was suddenly as much a part of him as his healed heart—and he had a feeling only one of them would be walking away.
TWO
VICTORIA TEPES, DAUGHTER of Vlad the Impaler and one of the three princesses of Wallachia, braced herself for impact. Good thing. A split second later, Aden slammed into her, knocking her into the same cave wall against which she’d thrown the human. Goodbye, beloved oxygen.
There was no time to refill her lungs, either. One of Aden’s hands closed around her neck and squeezed. Not enough to damage her but enough to trap her. He was fighting the monster’s urges with every bit of his strength, she knew. Otherwise he would have already crushed her.
Soon, he would lose the battle.
Anger would have helped her push him away, but she couldn’t summon a single spark of it. She had done this to him, and the guilt ate at her, a malignant cancer without a cure. He’d told her not to try and save him. He’d told her bad things would happen if she did. But as she’d peered down at the boy she’d come to love, the one person who had ever accepted her for who and what she was without any strings or expectations, she hadn’t been able to let him go. She’d thought, He’s mine, I need him.
So, before death could claim him, she’d acted. She still didn’t regret what she’d done—how could she? He was here!—and that was why the guilt had chewed such a big hole in her. Her Aden had to abhor what he was becoming. Aggressive, domineering … a warrior without a soul.
Normally he was gentle with her, treating her like a precious treasure, a need to safeguard her somehow hardwired into his brain. Even though she could rip him apart in seconds. Or rather, could have ripped him apart. More than changing mentally, he was changing physically. Already he was taller, stronger, quicker—and he’d been tall, strong and quick to begin with.
His eyes, usually a collage of glittering colors as the souls he (once) possessed peered through them, were now the startling shade of a violet. “Thirsty,” he rasped, and she would have sworn she felt the singe of smoke wafting from him.
Isn’t this just a peach, a male voice piped up inside her head. We’re with the vamp again. And there was Julian, the corpse whisperer. He could raise the dead. So far, however, all he’d raised was her blood pressure.
Sweet! Hey Vicki. Another voice immediately joined the conversation. You should take a shower. You know, get that blood cleaned off you. And remember to scrub really hard. Everywhere. Cleanliness is next to godliness. This one belonged to Caleb, the body possessor and naked-curves aficionado.
“Let me take over Aden’s body,” she said. She’d seen him step into and disappear inside other people, snapping up the reins of command. Just boom, one second he was there, and the next he was a part of them, forcing them to do whatever he wanted.
He no longer needed Caleb’s help to perform the task. He could control the ability, turning it on and off at will. Not her, though. She’d tried multiple times and failed miserably. Maybe because the souls were not a natural extension of her being. Maybe because they were new to her, there was a certain way to deal with them, and
