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Chapter twenty

Aidan watched Rae walk away, waiting for the rain and the wind to clear away the aroma of her blood from inside the car.

She’d blocked him out tonight. It had been the scent of her bleeding he’d caught first on the air a few blocks away, then he’d settled into Reed’s mind and knew precisely where to find them both.

He’d pulled into the courtyard just in time to watch her hurl two metal objects from her hair into the humans attacking Reed, metalsmithing tools if he had to guess, like she’d done it a hundred times before. Knowing Rae, she probably had.

At the perimeter of the manor grounds, Aidan felt his First Unit’s presence, Reed among them.

Good work tonight , he told his team as he checked in with Baelin, his eyes fixed on Reed as the Fae exited the First Unit’s vehicle.

Aidan hadn’t told Rae all that he’d seen sifting through Reed’s thoughts and memories, how badly Nim had been injured when Reed had last seen her.

He needed her focused on the task they’d agreed upon, not distracted with her friend. Tonight had been evidence of that.

Beck was the first to approach, the Vampire’s head snapping in the direction of Rae’s room where Aidan could feel her rummaging around in her backpack.

“Eat first, report later,” Aidan told him, slipping into the manor past a waiting Shaw.

He would deal with Beck later. The last thing Aidan needed was a house full of hungry Vampires with Rae wounded.

A few spots of crimson stained the stairs as he took them two at a time; no doubt Shaw would be scrubbing away at them in the next few minutes.

He tapped his knuckles against Rae’s door, but the only reply was a hiss and a slew of cursed grumbles. I can break it down, Farren.

The door swung open, though Rae stood beside the dresser on the opposite side of the room.

More magic. Her wet hair still clung to her face, her neck, her chest. It was difficult to tell what colour she’d opted for today; right now it looked almost black against her skin.

She held a needle in her hand, a small reel of thread in the other, her backpack discarded at her feet.

Aidan cleared his throat, shutting the door behind him and sliding the lock in place once more. Rae raised an eyebrow at him in question. “You’re bleeding all over the carpet. Unwise in a house full of Vampires,” he told her.

She rolled her eyes, shouldering her way into the bathroom without a word, and Aidan followed her in, biting back the questions he had for her, like what the Hel she thought she was doing blocking her location, blocking him out.

She was trying to keep her emotions locked down tight, but the adrenaline of the night had caught up with her, her heartbeat a rapid flutter in her chest.

“Sit,” Aidan barked, flicking his chin at the sink.

Rae didn’t protest, sliding onto the basin as if there wasn’t an open gunshot wound bleeding freely down one arm.

“You don’t sit like a metalsmith,” Aidan remarked as he ran a towel under the cold tap.

A barely-there laugh escaped him. “Thief. Faction leader.” He had no reason to comfort her, no reason other than her discomfort unsettled him.

He cast the thought aside as he motioned for Rae to hold out her arm.

She hesitated for a moment, a hint of a smile tugging at the corner of her mouth before she angled her body towards him. “I was a dancer in a past life. My father thought it would be an attractive quality in whatever marriage he eventually arranged for me.”

It was the first she’d spoken since leaving the car, and with her words, her composure slipped a little, the adrenaline giving way to exhaustion.

“Another role to add to your repertoire,” Aidan said with a smirk, though there was nothing light about a father wanting to sell off his daughter.

Anger spiked through him at the thought.

He took her wounded arm, carefully cleaning around the damaged skin and ignoring the burn in the back of his throat from the proximity to her blood.

It wasn’t a deep wound; she’d been lucky, but deep enough she hadn’t healed it with a spell. A few stitches would be enough.

He felt her attention on him the entire time. A wise choice. Vampires were predators, and Rae would have been reminded of that daily. Demesia was a diverse city, but the Vampires had been running it for decades.

Her hair was still dripping, her skin icy cold where Aidan’s fingers curled carefully around her bicep, and almost as soon as the thought occurred to him, she shivered.

Rae didn’t acknowledge it, and he wondered what he’d find if he could pull back her mental defences, what she’d be feeling underneath it all.

It was quiet, with her, he realised, as he paused his work to wrap a clean towel around her shoulders.

No thoughts and feelings assaulting him from every direction. Peaceful.

She nodded her thanks at the towel; Aidan told himself it was a practicality.

If she was shivering, it would interfere with his sutures.

He thought of how she’d hurled those metal tools at the humans again, his canines threatening to extend at the memory of it, but he swallowed down the burn in his throat.

“I can’t decide if you’re an incredible liar or just an exceptional individual; whether you don’t actually know how to get my abilities back, or you never had any intention of doing it.

” He knew what she was; he wanted her to say it.

To hear her confirm she was a Witch, just like her little friend.

“Which do you think?” She’d settled on a deep blue for her eyes, until she changed them again, but there wasn’t a hint of fear in them as Rae stared up at him, her face inches from his.

“I think the answer is probably a little of everything, Farren.” Her heart hammered in her chest. It didn’t matter how good she was at controlling her feelings, this, she couldn’t hide from him. “Is Nim your sister?”

A flicker of something else fell from her before she covered it up.

Regret, maybe. She broke his gaze, using the towel to dry her hair.

“Did you know Witches can store magic in anything?” she asked quietly.

“Objects, trees, people. A little bit like Calder did, but on a much bigger scale. It’s a very well-guarded secret. ”

“Why tell me then?”

Rae paused. “So you know that I’m not bullshitting you.”

Aidan studied her face. The swell of her lips and the curve of her mouth. The way she watched him just as closely as he watched her, something he’d found himself doing more and more lately. And then he reminded himself why she was there. Of their agreement. “Because you need more money.”

She hissed at the first press of the needle into her flesh but remained silent for the first complete suture. Watching him still, he knew. To see if the blood would affect him, if she’d be able to get away if she needed to. She wouldn’t.

“Silver is becoming harder and harder to source, and I need your money to buy it,” she said at last, but there was concern laced with the words.

“To equip the humans with your enchanted trinkets.”

“Those trinkets have reduced human deaths considerably over the last few years.”

He knew she was right; the numbers spoke for themselves. “So you think Demesia could be something better too.”

“Not whilst your kind run the city. Not whilst your war with the Fae takes out everything else in its wake.” Another hiss. “Never run from an immortal. It’s the first thing humans are taught when they join a faction, no matter which you join. It’s the only thing we all agree on.”

“Only you’re not human.” Aidan flicked his eyes up to hers, hating that he needed to rely so much on his other senses for her reaction.

She didn’t seem bothered that he knew. If Aidan was right, she’d already suspected it.

“Humans accepted me with open arms,” Rae said, her brow pinching together for a moment.

“Took me in when no one else would. All they ever gave me was opportunity after opportunity; all they’d ever been were playthings for your kind. ”

“Because we’re all the same.” He repeated his words from the first night they’d met.

Just like all humans are the same, he’d mocked, and Rae had said nothing.

“I’m surprised the members of Omnia accept a Witch for their leader.

” Rae held his stare, and more pieces clicked into place.

“They don’t know,” Aidan murmured. Another scrap of information to use against her.

“You’re stacking up a rather neat pile of chips there, aren’t you?” There was a hint of laughter to her voice as she said it, though no amusement accompanied her words.

“Deliver on our agreement, and I won’t need to use them.”

Anger, sharp and hot, blistered to the surface. “That’s her life you’re playing around with,” Rae seethed.

“Believe it or not, Farren, I value life. I visited a contact earlier to get us some more information; he’ll deliver his update soon.”

She blew out a breath, her anger diminishing with it. “I got an update too. Tried to. I met with Baxter; he’s Tripp’s right hand. Aera.”

“I know who he is.”

“Well, all he did was waste my time. Again.” Another pinch of her brow, but whatever she was going to say, it was gone.

Aidan finished the sutures in silence, keeping his opinions about Baxter to himself.

When he’d tied off the thread, he brought the needle to his mouth, licking her blood from the metal, and it took everything in him not to wrap his hand around her throat for more.

Gods, the taste of her. Blood had been like ash for longer than he cared to remember, but this , this had his heart racing, and he fought to keep his composure as Rae glared at him.

“Waste not,” he said with a shrug, discarding everything into the bin beside the sink, fighting the reaction his body was having to her like he was some blood-starved adolescent.

The way his heart beat like a damned sledgehammer in his chest. No wonder his uncle had kept a Witch as a pet for all those years; they tasted like fucking starlight.

Rae inspected his work as he tidied everything away, the burn in his throat turning to an ache.

“Thank you.” Gratitude accompanied the sentiment, and he knew she’d done it intentionally.

Genuine, nothing disguised beneath it. She shivered again, and this time Aidan turned on the shower. That earned him a questioning look.

“Get in. Your skin is like ice,” he said with a jerk of his chin.

Rae didn’t move, and he could almost see the thoughts turning over themselves. Whether she was putting herself in a position she couldn’t get out of. Whether she already had. She cast a look over her shoulder at her reflection in the mirror before catching his gaze, her fear spiking and levelling.

“I’ve had my fill today, Farren. I’ll help you with your shirt so we don’t have to redo the stitches, and then I’ll be on my way.”

She watched him for a fraction of a second longer, then slipped off the basin, discarding her damp towel and peeling her good arm out of her shirt. She nodded once, the only permission she gave him to step closer and help ease the bloodied garment over her wounded arm.

Aidan had already known she’d seen Baxter earlier, could still scent the human on her skin.

Whatever they’d been doing, they’d been close.

Baxter’s stench was all over Rae’s chest like they’d been pressed up against each other, but more than that, his Provident abilities allowed him to feel Baxter’s presence all over Rae, and though Aidan hated to admit it to himself, it irked him.

He prised her wet shirt away carefully, sliding the fabric up her raised arm, and she shivered again where he grazed her skin.

“He touched you here,” he said, knuckles hovering over her cheek but not touching, “and here,” he murmured, his thumb tracing her bare shoulder, stopping at the strap of her bralette. “And you didn’t like it.”

Rae swallowed, her eyes dipping low for a moment before flicking back up to meet his. “Bold of you to assume I like it when you touch me there.”

Her sharp inhale and her rapid heartbeat told him otherwise.

He may not have been able to use his Provident abilities on her like he could with everyone else, but she didn’t hide her physical responses as well as she thought she did.

Like the way her thighs squeezed together, the way the scent of her arousal had him wanting to taste her, to have it mix with the blood still coating his tongue.

Her attention was on his mouth again, her skin pebbling beneath his touch at her shoulder.

Despite the nature of their arrangement, he wanted to push her up against the wall.

Hear what sounds she made when he made her come.

But he wouldn’t be able to resist sinking his teeth into her, and that would shatter what little trust they’d built.

Would destroy whatever goodwill there was between them, whatever chance he stood of getting his magic back.

Aidan took a step back, his eyes on Rae’s mouth. A mouth that he would be thinking about later when he took his own shower in an attempt to shake her from his thoughts. “Goodnight, Witch.” He didn’t wait for a response, just left Rae alone to get warm, to sleep off what was left of the night.

He’d already taken one step into the hallway when he heard her.

Vale. Top drawer by the door.

I don’t need to know where you keep your vibrator, Farren.

Just open it. There’s a data module. If you find anything—

Aidan had already found the module. He tucked it into his pocket with a glance back in the direction of the shower. You’ll be the first to know.