prime real estate in his head, as if they were afraid he would succeed and they, too, would have to leave and experience the unknown.
Where Eve had gone, none of them knew. They only knew that she’d disappeared and hadn’t returned.
So what’s going on? Julian asked.
What he means, Caleb said, is that our dreams were hot. And not the good kind of hot. We burned, dude. Burned.
And most of us normally don’t share your dreams, Julian added.
Well, Elijah did, but that was because Elijah was psychic and his visions were Aden’s. Tonight, last night, whenever, hadn’t been a vision, though. It had been real, a mind-merge, but now, pieces of his memory were missing. He remembered seeing Victoria, feeling those flames, then meeting her…sisters? Yes, her sisters. But nothing else stood out. The rest of what happened was blurred at the edges, as if his mind couldn’t process what it had seen. If that were true, though, why did he remember being burned alive? Why did they all remember that? Shouldn’t that be what they forgot? Something too painful to recall?
So? Julian prompted. An explanation would be nice.
“Vampire blood,” he reminded them. He couldn’t just think his replies because they couldn’t hear his inner voice amid the chaos. “We saw through two other sets of eyes.”
Oh, yeah. And speaking of vamps, Caleb said. Where’s ours?
Victoria, he meant. She’s mine, Aden wanted to snap, but didn’t. Caleb the Pervert couldn’t help himself. He lived for girls and “nookie” he might never get. “She’s supposed to meet us here and walk to school with us.” What time was it?
Before he could check the clock on his desk, his bedroom door swung open, and Seth and Ryder strode inside.
“—Shannon won’t mind,” Seth was saying. Seth Tsang. An Asian last name, though you couldn’t tell his race from looking at him. He’d streaked his black hair with red, and had blue eyes and pale skin.
Ryder Jones, who was behind him, arched a brow. He, too, had dark hair, but his eyes were brown. “You sure? You know how possessive that dude is with his
stuff.”
Aden grabbed the sheets and jerked them over his sweat-soaked lower body. “Hey, guys. Knock much?”
They ignored him.
“So what’re you looking for?” he grumbled.
Again they ignored him. In fact, they didn’t even glance in his direction.
“Just check the desk,” Seth told Ryder, and the boy shuffled forward to obey.
Aden frowned. Once, these two had hated him. Once, but no longer. They’d reached a truce after their Treat-Everyone-Like-Crap idol, Ozzie, had been kicked off the ranch—and, as of this weekend, sucked dry by vampires. Not that they knew that part. They were as clueless about the “other” world as he had once been.
So why the silent treatment now?
“Where is it?” Seth muttered, crouching in the closet and rummaging through the clothes on the floor, wrist turning and revealing the snake tattooed there.
“Where’s what?” Aden repeated, sitting up.
Yet again, they ignored him.
Shirts and jeans were tossed over Seth’s shoulder, followed by shoes. At the desk, papers crunched under Ryder’s hands. Several minutes passed. Aden kept up a steady chatter—“this joke isn’t funny, try something original, will you just talk to me already?”—to no avail. He finally stood, sheet falling away, forgotten, and stalked to the desk.
With every intention of beating some sense into Ryder, he reached out. Except his hand wisped through the boy’s body.
No way. No damn way.
Aden’s heart pounded against his ribs as he tried again, shaking this time. Again, his flesh wisped through Ryder’s and he could only stand there, wide-eyed and reeling. How was that possible? How the hell was that possible? He’d burned to death, yes, but in someone else’s body. He’d thought…He’d assumed…Was he dead, too? Truly, no-coming-back dead?
No. No way. But…Blood freezing in his veins, he stalked to Seth.
“Found it,” Seth said, standing. He held a book triumphantly in the air. A book about vampires. Any other time, Aden would have floundered over Shannon’s chosen reading material. “Shannon’s weird, dude. He’s always reading this crap. Saves us a trip to the library, but, frickin’ please. I’ve never written a report about wackos with fangs before and I don’t want to start now.”
“Mr. Thomas is the weird one, my man. We’re supposed to write about how evil the bloodsuckers are, like they’re real or something. I can’t take that crank seriously, you know. I’ll probably fail, but ask me if I care.”
His shaking intensifying, Aden tried to wrap his fingers around Seth’s wrist. Nothing. No solid contact. Bile burned a path up his throat. His arm thudded heavily to his side, and he stumbled backward, black winking over his eyes, dizziness rushing through his head.
The answer to his question? Dead. He was really dead. That was the only answer that made sense.
The boys raced from the room, mumbling about stupid new tutors and dumb homework assignments. Aden just stood there. Doomed to live the rest of eternity as a ghost?
God, was this how the souls felt? Trapped, out of control, lost?
“Guys,” he whispered, not knowing how to begin. If he was a ghost, he couldn’t help them figure out who they’d been in their other life. And if he couldn’t help them figure out who they’d been, they could never be free of him. If that’s what they still wanted. “I think—I—This is—”
“Hello, Aden.”
The male voice came from behind him, and he spun. There, in the doorway, was the D and M’s brand-new tutor. Not for him or Shannon since they attended Crossroads High, but for all the others. Mr. Thomas had shown up the day of the Vampire Ball, and Dan had hired him on sight. Which was completely unlike Aden’s guardian. No background check, no intensive interview, just, “You’re perfect!”
Even weirder, the boys acted like they’d known him forever, already comfortable complaining about him. Aden hadn’t met the man officially, but Victoria had secretly pointed him out. Mr. Thomas, as it turned out, was not a let’s-all-learn-and-grow kind of tutor. He was a fairy and Victoria’s enemy, here to find out who was helping her.
The man didn’t look like Aden’s idea of a fairy—small, female and winged. Instead, he was tall, lean, his skin golden and even a bit glittery (okay, that was fairylike). And never had Aden seen a more perfect face. There wasn’t a single flaw. Perfectly spaced blue eyes, a perfectly sloped nose, perfect lips neither too full nor too thin.
And it was embarrassing as hell that Aden had noticed. Anyone found out, and they’d take away his man card or something.
“You can see me?”
