20

Aidan and Mason waited for me in the training room- as far away from each other as possible. Aidan moved to the center of the mat when I came in. Without looking I knew Mason had positioned himself against the back wall, assuming his position from last night.

I joined Aidan on the mat, practically tripping over Conry who had been glued to my side since I got back. "Did Mason tell you what happened?"

"I am over three hundred years old. I do not need a hunter to have the sex talk with me."

"I was talking about what happened today, with Bathory. She was in the between."

"Exactly why you are not supposed to be." He glared at Mason. "All the more reason for this training."

I spent the next ten minutes listening to Aidan give me instructions that sounded a lot like the ones Mason gave in the bath house. "Ready?"

"If you are."

Mason gave a short, low whistle and Conry obediently padded over to sit beside him. If I didn't know better I might have thought my guardian liked Mason better than me. I pondered the fact that my dog never listened to anyone other than me but had no problem taking orders from Mason.

Aidan disappeared from the mat. Damn, I forgot how good he was at this. I cracked my neck, first to the right then the left and rolled my shoulders. I bounced on my feet a few times, shaking out my arms and the urge to spar that had been building since I walked into the training room.

I needed to calm down, center myself, if I wanted to catch Aidan before he got close. Mason and Aidan seemed to be in agreement that when we faced Caligula and Bathory they wouldn't be alone. I had to be able to sense a cloaked vampire before we could go after them. I would master this tonight. I was sick of waiting. That bitch was after my blood. I was going to kill her.

Unlike my training with Mason, Aidan didn't take it easy on me. He swept my legs from under me, knocking me hard on my ass the first time he came at me. Standing up hurt but I didn't so much as wince from the pain radiating out of my tailbone.

"You'll have to do better than that. You should have spent more time on your training and less time cuddling to your new boyfriend."

He was already gone, lurking in the shadows, waiting to pounce. Since I still couldn't pin point his location I shouted my retort. "How's Ryanne?" His answer was a palm in the middle of my back. I stumbled forward, coming down hard on my right knee. "Son of a bitch." I slammed a fist on the mat.

Aidan snatched me by the hair, snapping my head back. He licked his lips, fangs slightly extended. "She's a delight." He shoved my head forward, letting go of my hair.

His tone didn't match his eyes but I wasn't backing off now. Brushing myself off, I stood. My blood had been replaced with piss and vinegar and it pumped hard through my veins, my temper well out of control. "Don't you mean delicious?" That earned me another shot from the shadows, this time behind the knee. My legs buckled and I went down again.

"What's the matter with you? Concentrate. What we practiced in Cross Bath, Maurin. Come on," Mason shouted from the sideline. He still didn't know exactly what happened last night but he pieced it together. "He's using your anger against you. Clouding your perception with emotion."

“No shit. Tell me something I don’t know.” For the third time I picked myself up off the mat, determined to put Aidan flat on his back. With a deep, cleansing breath I pushed away the hurt and anger.

Reeling in my temper was harder and taking longer than I thought. Aidan didn't wait for me to finish composing myself. He came at me from the left but this time I felt him before he touched me. Barely, but still it was an improvement. I spun to my right, his hand grazing my shoulder. He was relentless but each time I improved, gaining enough distance to defend myself. When I felt him come from behind I threw an out elbow, ramming him in the solar plexus.

His grunt of pain was the best praise I'd had all day. This time I even felt him move away. He displaced air the same way I moved in the between. Once I knew what I was feeling for, it was easier to follow him. I closed my eyes and waited for the disruption in the atmosphere.

My left hand shot out, connecting with a hard throat chop. If I had to guess by the gurgling sounds coming from him I might have crushed his wind pipe with that hit. Not that it would slow him down since vampires didn't need to breathe.

"It's training remember? Stop trying to break my fecking bones." His wind pipe was apparently fine even though his voice sounded like he had been gargling with razor blades. With a parting shot - a hard shove on the shoulder - he was in the shadows again.

Mason watched me intently, analyzing my every move targeting my weaknesses. I felt his eyes on me. I turned to face him. There was a subtle change in his expression.

I was surprised by the realization that I had paid enough attention to Mason to pick up on those little differences. Even without the minute increase in the angle of his eyebrows or the single twitch in the corner of his right eye, I would have felt Aidan move. The moment he was close enough I positioned myself, throwing him down with a technique I had learned in Aikido a couple of years ago.

I sent him ass over tea kettle, slamming him down on his back. Wasting no time, I pounced on his chest, pinning him with all my weight. I pretended to stake him and declared myself the winner.

He grabbed my wrists, pulling me close so our faces were inches apart. "Why didn't you tell me? Why did I have to hear it from him?"

"What are you talking about?" I had a sinking feeling I knew the answer.

"Don't play coy with me. Your father and I had a little heart to heart last night."

"Arawn told you about my blood," I said, barely a whisper. Last night suddenly made sense.

"I don't know what pissed me off more, that I heard it from him and not you, or that he's right. Your blood isn't the only thing that calls to me but I can't separate thirst from desire with you. Even if you could share me with another it wouldn't be enough. I would always crave more of you."

So Arawn had been there. Mason wasted a trip going to talk to my father because Arawn already knew. He had been watching us from the moment we got back from the bar. He had been there waiting for the right moment to talk to Aidan.

His injury provided the perfect opportunity. Arawn probably made it back in time to meet with Mason. And then Ryanne provided Aidan the perfect opportunity to irrevocably end things when she stopped in to check on him.

I wrenched my hands free. Pissed at my father for telling him before I had the chance, pissed at Aidan for choosing to end things the way he did, I used his chest as a spring board and stood up. The more I thought about it the more pissed off I got.  I was furious they both knew me well enough to know things wouldn't have, couldn't have, happened any other way.

And I was really fucking pissed that out of all the mean things I could say, should say, because he deserved them, I wanted to say I'm sorry. Instead I turned my back on him and walked out.

Mason found me a few minutes later in the kitchen, water bottle in one hand and a pack of pepperoni slices in the other, raiding his fridge. "Make it to go. I just got word the vamps from the bar were Caligula's. The local Regulator is making a move on the remaining hive. If they know where their sire is hiding, I don't want local authorities killing everyone before we can find out."

Music to my ears. Finally we were mobilizing, going on the offense. I was so fucking ready to kill something.