Page 50 of Never Run From An Immortal (Immortals #1)

Chapter thirty-six

Rae, stop.

Boiling. The fucking pool water was boiling, a ball of light so bright, so familiar . Just like his silver flame. Tearing off his shirt, Aidan jumped in after Rae, magic slamming against his skin, sharp and blistering.

Rae, he called to her again. He could see nothing but white light, but he didn’t need to. He swam to where he felt her heart beat strongest, his arms encircling her in the water.

Make it stop, she pleaded, so weakly he barely heard her.

Aidan began to kick against the tile to break for the surface, but Rae tried to stop him, to pull from his embrace, eyes flicking open and looking up into his. Grey-blue eyes like a roiling storm that he knew were hers, and not some spell.

A ball of light, of flame , swirled around them at the bottom of the pool and Rae pressed a hand to her chest, pain tumbling from her so sharp Aidan felt it everywhere they touched.

Please. I can’t. Even mind to mind, her words were like a choked gasp, as if whatever she was doing was burning her from the inside out.

I’m right here with you. Just tell me what to do.

Aidan’s fingers rested under her chin, magic and water swirling around them, power building and building so fast he was certain the pool wouldn’t contain it.

He pulled back on every instinct that told him to delve into Rae’s mind and help her control her spell.

With how strong she was and how much she’d fight him, she might not survive it, no matter how much he wanted to help, no matter that he’d have done anything, given anything to ease her pain.

Rae’s fingers clawed at his shoulder, hair swirling around her as Aidan began to struggle for breath.

She might have been able to remain under water for unthinkable amounts of time, but he couldn’t.

Take it, please, Rae begged. I can’t do this anymore.

Her pain was like a knife twisting under his ribs, bones snapping, flesh tearing.

I’ve broken something that can’t be fixed, and I can’t…

she sobbed, eyes scrunching tight, Just take it.

Aidan didn’t get a chance to answer. Rae’s mouth was on his, her tongue parting the seam of his lips and breathing air into his lungs. Burning, hot air, but Aidan didn’t push away. His arms wrapped around her tightly as he kissed her back, as he held her close. Nothing would make him let go.

Magic surged and swelled around them like they were the centre of a storm, pulling the water away until flame and light twisted and bent.

Magic filled every space, danced across every place her body pressed against his, and he felt it then.

The way his veins sang under the power. His power.

The molten heat of his silver flame. His , and she was breathing it into him, pouring it into all the places that had mourned its absence for so long.

Aidan took it greedily. Every last drop that he’d gone without for so many years.

Elation danced along his bones as the power rushed in.

But as Rae made a pained sound deep in her chest, he felt her relief, her sorrow.

Her anguish. Every emotion slammed into him with his magic, with her kiss, her breath.

Memories followed them: fractured pieces of Rae’s past, a female beating her, pressing an iron into her skin, kicking her down a set of steps, drowning her, drowning her, drowning her.

The face of a young male Aidan was certain he recognised.

So much pain, but Rae didn’t stop, so Aidan tested his magic, tugging as gently as he could, experimenting, examining. The brightness around them diminished, the storm slowing, heat fading. Rae didn’t pull away, and Aidan didn’t break their kiss, even when the water rushed back in, bubbling away.

Rae hadn’t been able to control it, but the more of it she poured back into him, it obeyed.

It always had. Aidan relished the feeling of commanding his magic after so long without it, pulling it all back, owning every piece of it.

As the water calmed, he felt the tremors wracking Rae’s body, physical pain overtaking her emotions, coursing through her.

Her kiss slowed and Aidan kicked them both to the surface, any damage the boiling water had caused healing with the return of his magic.

Rae shook in his arms, and as her mouth fell from his, her eyes were glassy, unseeing. Her head fell back, his panic freshly renewed.

“Rae.” Aidan brushed the hair from her eyes, kicking for the steps with her limp in his arms. Baelin and Orion had made their way to the edge of the pool, a heartbeat away from diving in.

Don’t , he warned them. They had no magic that would keep them safe from the water temperature, or from Rae, and Aidan had no way of knowing if her own magic was unstable enough to follow.

He brushed against her thoughts, seeking, asking for permission to go deeper, but her memories played over and over, and Aidan couldn’t risk waiting any longer. He reached into her mind and willed her to sleep.

Rae had burnt herself out. Burnt away every spell she’d been using, and there were many.

Her natural hair, dark brown, now dry, fell below her shoulders in waves.

The sight of her was like a punch to the gut.

Aidan had seen a few of her scars before, but it hadn’t even been half of them.

She was covered in hundreds of small marks, burns, and large scars, some jagged, some Aidan couldn’t fathom how anyone could give them to their worst enemy, let alone their own daughter.

And on her back, a white tattoo spiralled from her spine and spanned across her shoulder blades, fine lines of script in a dialect Aidan didn’t recognise.

Another spell, no doubt. One he suspected she’d gone to great lengths to conceal.

She’d slept throughout the night, and he’d sat by her bedside, his bed, the entire time. Waiting for her to wake, waiting for answers. Not long after dawn, she began to stir.

“Farren,” he said quietly, fingers gripping the sides of his chair lest he do anything stupid.

Her eyes opened slowly, the colour more blue than grey in the dim light of the room as they met his.

He couldn’t help but press against her mind, checking, testing, making sure she hadn’t been harmed from what she’d done to herself in the pool, what he’d had to do.

He loosed a silent breath as he realised she was fine, whole, every part of her. Except for one thing. His magic.

All this time, it had been inside of her. And she’d fucking told him as much the night he’d stitched up her wound.

Did you know Witches can store magic in anything? Objects, trees, people. It’s a very well-guarded secret. She’d played him all along.

Panic flared from her for a moment, but she covered it up quickly, pushing herself up in the sheets before realising she wore nothing, and damn him if he didn’t want to peel that scrap of fabric off her despite everything.

Despite all of this, he couldn’t help but think about how beautiful she was without any spells in place to hide herself.

“Talk,” Aidan commanded, still not trusting himself to move.

Chestnut hair fell over her shoulders as she pulled her knees, the sheet with them, to her chest. “Do you have siblings?” she asked quietly.

He’d only told Baelin, that night he’d driven into the city for Rae, but he’d never felt the need to hide anything from her. “A brother and a sister.”

Surprise flickered across the Witch’s face. “Older or younger?”

“Younger.”

A tremble in her lower lip. Pain, raw and fresh, and it twisted something in him to see her like this.

“So you understand then,” she said hoarsely. “My brother. Everything I did was for him.”

The face he’d seen, Aidan assumed. “And now?”

Rae frowned, and he knew she was fighting her sorrow, but for herself this time. “Now it’s over.”

“Because of Nim?”

Steel blue eyes flicked up to meet his. “Because I can’t do this anymore.”

Use him? Pretend? Manipulate everyone around her?

Aidan’s patience was growing thin; if she’d been anyone else, he’d have sought the information he wanted without this preamble.

He held her gaze, more anger bubbling up inside of him.

She looked tired. Afraid. He hated it, but she had every reason to be. “The tattoo? What does it mean?”

She didn’t try to cover her fear as she glanced over her shoulder at her inked skin. “Did anyone else see it?”

Aidan hadn’t allowed anyone to enter his room whilst she’d been resting, not even the damned rutok, even though the others had all asked for updates. No one had seen what he knew she’d tried so hard to hide. He could only manage a shake of his head in response.

A car approached the gates, a visitor Aidan had little interest in entertaining right now, but he rose from his chair anyway, if only to clear his head.

Panic flared again, and he didn’t know which he hated more, that she was afraid of him or that a stupid, stupid part of him wished she wasn’t.

“Stay here,” he snapped, a sharpness to his tone he hadn’t intended. “I have a visitor.”

Rae chewed her lip. Dipped her chin, and it was an effort to tear his gaze away from her, to leave her there in his bed.

As he opened the door, the rutok burst in and he didn’t need to look back to know it had leapt into her arms, though her shaky exhale as it did had him swallowing against the tightness in his throat.

He passed Orion in the hallway. Aidan wanted someone outside his room at all times when he wasn’t in it, and he wasn’t taking any chances. The commander of his First Unit tipped his head in acknowledgement as Aidan made his way for the stairs.

“Maddock,” Aidan said in greeting to the waiting Witch examining the bookshelves in his study.

“Vale.” No pleasantries here, no bullshit. The Witch kept his hands behind his back and a sword strapped to his hip, and he had every thought and emotion locked down so tight Aidan couldn’t find a hint of a way in. A wise move. He’d have made an excellent pet for the likes of his uncle.

Aidan poured two glasses of visk, handing one to his guest. “I take it you’ve accepted the position.” With the new king dead, and his older sister still missing, Maddock was next in line as first cousin to the heir.

“Someone needs to put a stop to this monstrosity the Fae have created.” There was no attempt to hide the disdain in his voice.

“Liberalist Fae and a few of the human factions,” Aidan reminded him, “not the Royalists.”

“Does it matter? The Royalists are allowing it to happen; they’re complicit.”

That was difficult to argue with, but the Fae king had been on his deathbed for some time, and court matters were delicate.

Aidan leaned back against his desk, his Provident abilities reaching out to check on Rae.

She was on her feet, out in the corridor above, arguing with Orion. “What brings you here, Maddock?”

“I’m looking for my cousin.” He searched the shelves as if he might find some evidence of the missing princess there, the red tattoo on his neck like a trail of blood in the low light.

“Worried she’s going to steal the throne out from under you?”

“She has something that belongs to me.” His magic, Aidan would put money on it. And then— fuck .

Not what, who. He’d been asking Rae the wrong fucking question all along. Ten years. I’ve had no one looking out for me but me for the last ten years of my life , she’d told him. Ten fucking years she’d been missing.

Vale, she pleaded in his thoughts. She was on the stairs, Orion’s hand around her arm, the rutok growling at him. From Orion’s thoughts, Aidan knew she’d been told who stood before him in his study.

Get her back in my room , Aidan ordered his commander.

He killed… the new king. Maddock did it, didn’t he? Rae asked, and Aidan dragged a hand down his face as the pieces came together. Her brother. The reason she’d all but fucking detonated in his pool.

“Whatever she took from you, she’s long gone,” Aidan told Maddock, his expression bored as he downed the last of his visk.

“You proved rather useful in removing one heir; I thought you might help me remove the other.”

“I didn’t know you were going to kill him.” He’d been too caught up with Rae when the request had come from Cormac. From Scarlett.

“Is that remorse from the Vampire Lord?” Maddock arched a brow, a measure of disgust dancing across his features. “Seylan was useless, and Alethea murdered my sister in cold blood. She needs to pay for what she did.”

“Murdered? She’d have been a child when your cousin died.” A fucking child .

“Then why did she run so quickly after the funeral?”

Running is what I do best , Rae had told him.

The princess was only seventeen years old when she disappeared.

Seventeen, and already covered in more scars than Aidan had amassed in almost two hundred years.

“That’s not my concern. The hybrids are getting stronger, Maddock. Do I have your backing or not?”

The Witch made a show of looking bored, silence stretching out between them. “Perhaps I’ll leave it to the Royalists,” he said at last. “Find her, and I’ll consider it.”

“I’ve no interest in working with someone seeking retribution from a ghost. We’re done here.” He’d already called on Shaw, the steward eagerly approaching his study. The door opened just as Orion hauled Rae up the stairs, all but dragging her back to Aidan’s room.

Maddock shot Aidan a look of disdain, downing the contents of his glass before handing it to Shaw and leaving the study without a word.

Working with Maddock had always been an attempt to mend the rift with the Witches.

The rift that he was, in part, to blame for, but this…

Aidan’s fingers tightened around his glass.

The information he’d provided Scarlett had been meant as an olive branch, a step towards mending what had been broken between Vampires and Witches over a decade prior, not fuel to murder their fucking king, not something to fuck things up further between him and Rae.

Aidan rolled a joint and pocketed it, waiting until Maddock’s driver pulled out of the compound before pouring himself another glass of visk.

He drained the contents in one, reaching for the bottle to pour himself a third, but grabbed a second glass instead, the bottle with his other hand.

Something told him it wouldn’t be nearly enough to get him through the conversation he was about to have.

It was time to talk with the princess.