AIDAN
Aidan needed to get the fuck out of here.
It felt like his bones were itching even as they burned and froze. Kianna sat beside him, idly talking to some pasty girl named Dreya. Vaguely, Aidan wondered if they were going to shag before this mission was through—Kianna only talked to two types of people: him, and the select few she wanted to see naked. It made his gut burn. Not because he was jealous, not because he didn’t want her to have her fun, but because he was dying, and no one in this godforsaken room seemed to care.
Not Kianna.
Not Dreya.
Not the silent dark-skinned boy brooding in the corner.
And definitely not the stuck-up blond prick pacing back and forth with his sword unsheathed like he was showing off his goddamned dick.
The door opened, and in stepped Tenn.
“Fucking great,” Aidan muttered to himself. Loud enough for the room to hear, sure. But screw them.
Tenn paused in the doorway and looked him over. Aidan watched his expression like a hawk. He knew Tenn’s secret. Tenn pretended to be all altruistic and caring but he was a murderer, just like Aidan. Tenn killed Leanna. He’d been shagging Tomás. And maybe that was why Aidan was pissed that Kianna was flirting with a girl and everyone else was content to be about their own business.
He felt abandoned.
And he didn’t have any sort of flame to burn that weakness away.
“About time,” the blond dude said. Jarrett. Dreya had tried introducing everyone. Blondie was Jarrett and the other dude was her brother, Devon, apparently twins, though how the hell they were related when they were night and day was beyond him. Too much meddling with magic, probably.
Aidan snorted. If only Kianna knew he was blaming someone else for using too much magic.
Tenn looked between Jarrett and Aidan and oh, Aidan knew that look. Tenn and Jarrett were lovers, and they were having a fight. He knew that look because that was the look he and Trevor had shared more often than not. Well, before he burned Trevor to the ground.
His snort became a laugh, and before he knew it he had fallen back on the ground and pain was lancing up his side and he didn’t know if he was laughing or crying or if it made a difference in the cold. Everything was so. Damn. Cold.
“Is he okay?” Aidan heard Tenn ask.
“The feck does it look like?” Kianna replied.
Aidan felt her hand on his shoulder. Trying to calm him down. Her grip was like ice. Like crushing ice.
He squeezed his eyes shut and tried to stop falling apart. Tried to take deep breaths because that’s what you were supposed to do. Tried to find calm. Instead, in the darkness behind his eyes, in the shadows between the icebergs of his blood, he heard his mother, screaming out for help. Just as another voice promised he still could help her, if only he spoke the right words, if only he gave in...
His eyes snapped open.
Apparently a few moments had passed, because Tenn was now on the opposite side of the room conferring with blondie and the not-twins were huddled together, looking at each other as though they had telepathy. They were probably just unhinged. Kianna stood beside Tenn and blondie, growling something under her breath, and for a brief moment Aidan wondered if they were about to leave him. Then Kianna shook her head, turned back to him, and began gathering the few things she’d managed to scavenge from the flat: a cricket bat, a few kitchen knives, some new clothes.
“What’s going on?” He tried to whisper but his voice was too rough.
“We’re leaving,” Kianna said.
“All of us?” Aidan looked to Tenn, whose head was down. Defeated. That was the look. He glanced at Aidan once, and Aidan felt the same spark as he had the first time their eyes locked. Not passion. Something darker. Something covered in blood.
“There’s a Guild east of here,” she mumbled, sliding a knife into her boot sheath. “They want to take you there.”
“I’m not going anywhere with him,” he spat, looking straight at Tenn. Hell no. He would rather die than put up with that miserable wretch.
“Oh? Planning on walking somewhere on your own?” Kianna nudged him with her foot. “You’re coming with us. Even if I have to knock you out to get you to cooperate.”
He knew she’d do it, too.
“Then what?” he asked.
“We get you better.”
There was no mistaking it—the way she didn’t look at him, the particular tilt to her words. She was lying.
“You don’t think I can get better,” Aidan said.
“I don’t think you were ever right in the first place.” She tried to grin and failed. “Once you get healed they want to assemble an army. Try to bring over troops from America. Then we’re going to take down the rest of the Kin. All of us.”
Aidan held back the words that burned in his throat. He looked at Tenn again, who seemed sad beyond belief. And he looked at Kianna, who still refused to meet his gaze.
They expected him to die. She was already readying herself for it. She was already figuring out what she would do after.
That inner acid turned to fire, the first warmth he’d felt since the Inquisition had branded it out of him. They weren’t going to the Guild to save him. They were going to drop him off. To let him die. They were going to abandon him. After everything he’d done for them. Everything he’d sacrificed. They were just going to let him go.
Screw that.
He wasn’t about to go gently.
They thought they could just leave him in some sickbed and go off for glory themselves?
He closed his eyes and felt the shadows whispering in the back of his mind. The words he’d spoken to activate the shard. And the ones hidden in the corners, words for powers beyond his wildest dreams.
Runes to make everything right again.
Absently, he pressed his fingers to the brand on his wrist.
The Dark Lady smiled with his lips.
His story wasn’t over. Not yet.