Page 6

Chapter four

“He lives,” a familiar voice mused from somewhere in the dark.

Aidan tried to open his eyes, but both were so swollen he could only see his chest where his chin currently rested against it.

His arms were chained above his head, spelled metal judging by the fact he couldn’t break them apart, his back pressed against a cold, damp wall. This night just got better and better.

He knew it was the human from the scent of her vanilla perfume, her sweat-slicked skin, the tang of blood that would have crusted on her wounds, and his canines fought to extend in response.

Interesting. He had more restraint than most Vampires, but he would need to feed if he stood a chance of making it out of this situation quickly.

He pushed out with his Provident abilities to force the human to come closer, but they were gone. Something had happened back in Rush before he’d fought with Torrin. And whatever those bastard Fae had injected him with next still seemed to rattle around in his veins.

The human sighed, the air shifting as she moved closer of her own volition. “Well, I can see you’re of absolutely no use to me.” With that, the air shifted again, and Aidan knew she’d turned to leave.

“Wait.”

“Why, so I can be your next meal? Your ticket out of here? I wasn’t born yesterday.

I know who you are. What you are.” Her voice was full of vitriol; gone was the human who had fluttered her eyelashes at him at the bar, replaced with the one he’d watched stab the Gerentis like she did it every night of the week.

If it didn’t hurt so fucking much, Aidan would have laughed. “Of course, because we’re all the same, aren’t we? Just like all humans are the same?”

She didn’t answer him. Just silently assessed him. “You’re Aidan Vale.”

“In the flesh.” A rattle of chains accompanied his words.

“Shame they had to ruin that pretty face of yours.”

Aidan let a puff of air pass his lips. “I’ll look as good as new in the morning, human.” Perhaps a little longer, given whatever they’d injected him with, not that it mattered. He’d been in far worse situations.

“I have a name, Vampire.”

He felt her take a step closer and tilted his head up, willing his eyes to open. “There’s power in a name.”

“There is, but I know yours. Seems only fair you know mine.” The air shifted as she came closer still, the scent of her washing over him. “Rae.”

Aidan forced his eyes to open, blinking at the blood and muck sealing them shut.

“Just Rae?” he asked as her violet eyes held his.

A few ringlets of blue fell across her face, a wound crusted near her eye, and her lip was split.

She’d been chewing it in the dark, the wound open, a bead of fresh blood forming, and Aidan’s cock stirred at the sight of it before she licked it away. He needed to feed.

“Farren,” Rae said after a beat of silence, eyes roving over his arms, his chest where his shirt hung open, and his stomach, making no attempt to hide her perusal.

“An old human name.”

“You’re rather well versed in humans for someone who hates them.”

A chuckle. A real one, as much as he could with his busted face. “Know thy enemy.”

Rae hummed as if she agreed with him, and Aidan’s sight cleared fully.

He took in the emptiness of their dark cell, the old blood stains marring the floor, and the shackles above him.

The human had recovered remarkably well from her grapple with the Vampire and her other activities at the club.

And a scrap with the Fae, Aidan suspected, because she didn’t strike him as the type to go down without a fight. A dirty one.

She shifted her gaze to his, something in her expression stirring a memory, one that was of no use to him here.

“You heal fast for a human,” he observed.

A nod. “I’ve learnt a few spells to keep me going over the years, just like any human with half a brain has done in order to survive this Hel-hole.”

Aidan didn’t doubt that. Her hair and eyes were common spells available at Demesia’s markets for any human to obtain, but she’d used the spell on the door lock, and Aidan hadn’t seen anything of the sort since the Thaumas had changed iron into gold.

Rae was cold, goosebumps pebbling her flesh in the frigid air, but she didn’t complain. His eyes slid over the bare skin of her soft stomach where her shirt had torn, the swell of her hips, her long legs, scabs over her knees from hauling herself over the bar to protect the waitress.

“Like what you see?” she asked, head cocked to one side.

“There goes that mouth.”

Rae smirked and tapped a finger to her chin. “They syphoned your Provident abilities. Injected you with something, a healthy dose of sedative by the looks of things.”

She didn’t ask why, though it was the obvious question; one he wanted answered too.

And syphoned —there was a word he hadn’t heard in a while.

Rumoured to be a Witch ability, though the Witches hadn’t concerned themselves with Demesia in years.

They held their own seat of power in Riguera, the Witch king’s city far beyond the mountains, and it was rare to hear of one setting foot in the city after a failed alliance with the Fae a decade ago.

“So, the question is,” Rae asked, a glint in her eyes, “what’s in it for me?”

If she were to release him with that spell of hers that could open locks. The unspoken words hung in the air like she knew the power she held.

Aidan watched her closely. “Why wait for me to wake up if you can break out of here by yourself?”

Rae shrugged, folded her arms across her chest, and let her eyes rove over his bare torso again. “Curiosity. I wanted to know if they’d killed you.”

“Sorry to disappoint.”

“I’m not disappointed.”

Aidan arched an eyebrow.

“I’m relieved,” she admitted, her gaze sweeping over him. “If they can kill you, we’re all completely fucked. The fact that we’re having this conversation means I might actually see the remainder of the year through.”

“They,” Aidan said dryly. “It’s no surprise to me that Torrin has been working with humans.

Knowledge is power, and Torrin craves it.

I’ve been trying to convince my council of a possible alliance.

” Between the Liberalist Fae led by that prick, Torrin, and a human faction, though Aidan hated that he didn’t know which.

Rae nodded as if the unprecedented coalition were obvious to her. “I take it that didn’t go down very well.”

“They laughed.”

“And how did that feel? Did it hurt?” She held a hand over her heart, her tone sweet as if she were talking to a child.

The balls on her. “Here’s what I think,” Rae said, turning away from him again.

“One,” she raised a finger, her attention fixed on the blood stains ahead of her as she paced, “You need me to get those shackles unlocked from whatever magic the Fae have sealed them with. And honestly, Vale, I have to say, I’m disappointed that it was all it took to keep you locked up. ”

Aidan pressed his lips together.

“And two.” Another finger. “You murmur in your”—she waved a hand—“sleep? No. Delirium? Whatever that was. Anyway, you were talking about your magic. I can help you get it back.” She stopped pacing and shot him a half smile, as if she knew she had him by the balls.

Aidan rarely slept. His Provident abilities had made it difficult in his early years, though he had learnt to master them decades ago.

It was the absence of his other magic that kept him awake, and as he watched the human’s grin stretch into a smile, he wondered if, inexplicably, she knew it.

Impossible. Fifteen years he’d been without it and fifteen years he’d searched tirelessly for answers.

“What’s in it for you?” he asked, because no one did anything for free in Demesia. Particularly not cocky little humans with an arsenal of spells and a vendetta against his kind.

“Two for two,” she said with a shrug. “There’s a target on my back now. I’ll need your money, your resources. Your”—another wave of her hand—“this.” She gestured to his body, her face impassive. “Your protection. To get me places I can’t.”

“Places?”

She raised a finger to silence him. “You said it yourself. Knowledge is power. We both want to get to the bottom of this. I stand to lose as much as you do.” She said it like she wasn’t one of thousands of humans in Demesia and he wasn’t the Vampire Lord.

Like she gave zero fucks about either of those things. Aidan didn’t doubt it.

“And I’ll throw in a freebie,” the human went on, “because I’m feeling generous. I’ll keep your secret. About your Gerentis abilities. Or whatever the fuck it is you’re missing that you’ve kept from everyone.”

It didn’t matter what she knew. The minute he got his Provident abilities back, Aidan was going to drain every last drop of crimson coursing through her veins, then melt her fucking brain and be done with her, as he should have done the moment he saw her open that locked door back in Rush.

“We’ll shake on it once I’ve freed you, but a Vampire’s word is his vow, right?

” Rae folded her arms, waiting. A Vampire’s word was binding, but a Provident’s went far deeper than a vow.

Even with whatever the Fae had done to him to send his Provident abilities to sleep, their agreement would settle into his skin, his bones, until it was done.

If only she’d worded her arrangement better.

“We have an agreement, Farren,” Aidan said with a dip of his chin.

Rae angled her head as if she were still making her decision. Whatever it was, she turned away from him, striding to a corner he couldn’t see beyond.

“Where are you going?” he murmured, rattling his chains with irritation.

“To get you a snack,” Rae huffed.

“What? You just said—”

“Oh, Vale.” She spun around to look at him, one hand on her hip. “You’re pretty but you’re not very smart, are you? Be a good little Vampire and pretend you’re still”—another hand waved in his direction—“delirious. Asleep. Just don’t fuck this up.”

And with that, she was gone around the corner where he couldn’t see, but could hear every one of her quiet steps, her controlled breathing. She was resourceful, he’d give her that.

He listened to her talking to the guard. Flattering him. Seducing him. Rae wasted no time on pleasantries. The guard was human, and she had him wrapped around her little finger within moments.

Aidan smiled as metal whined against metal, the door to their cell creaking open. Fast breaths filled the air, followed by Rae murmuring to the guard through puffs of laughter. He let his head swing to his chest, eyes almost closed.

“Fuck me against the Vampire Lord,” she said on another rush of air. “Then you can tell all your friends how limp his dick was before you killed him.”

This. Fucking. Human.

Their footsteps rounded the corner, the guard’s wet kisses and grunts of approval coming closer.

A soft body stepped back against Aidan’s, Rae’s round ass grinding into him.

Her hair brushed his chin, and as the guard kissed her neck, she arched back further, looking up into Aidan’s eyes and winking at him.

Rae held his gaze, her fingers digging into the guard’s hair, the human’s head travelling lower.

She moaned as the guard pawed at her breast, an over-exaggerated sound that almost had Aidan shaking his head at her theatrics.

Rae pressed her body flush against his, not an inch of space between them, as if she knew how hard he’d be fighting the desire to drain her first, and at last, his canines elongated to their full length.

Before he’d even finished the thought, Rae’s body was gone, spinning the guard around and shoving the human into Aidan’s chest as if it were all part of the desire addled moment.

He didn’t hesitate. His gaze never left hers as he slammed his teeth into the guard’s neck, and she pressed an arm against the man’s torso to keep the human in place.

The taste of ash coated Aidan’s tongue, the warm blood sliding down his throat, replenishing him.

It didn’t matter how much he tried to recall how it had once tasted, the smoky, bitter taste was all that remained.

“Vile,” Rae said, shoving the drained guard to the floor and stepping over him.

Aidan wasn’t sure who the comment was aimed at, but he didn’t care.

She leaned up, hands reaching up to his cuffs, her chest pressed against his, close enough to share a breath, close enough that he could smell the guard’s scent mingled with hers.

“Play nice,” she whispered, her eyes darting to his blood-soaked mouth and back up again.

He watched her as she murmured her spell, watched the way her heartbeat pulsed in her neck, and his cock twitched against his trousers.

He despised humans, and though fucking and feeding was instinct to any hot-blooded Vampire, Aidan had far more command over his baser desires than most of his kind.

But he was a hot-blooded male, and he was wounded, and he couldn’t fight his body’s instinct to heal itself.

Rae’s eyes flicked down to where their bodies pressed together, the corner of her mouth tugging upwards. “Easy there, tiger. You want your magic back, don’t you?” The chains clicked open, and Rae stepped aside as Aidan staggered forwards.

She was rummaging through the guard’s pockets, humming when she pulled out a ring of keys. “Asshole locked us in together.”

“Seems to me like you have very little use for keys.”

“I’m not an all-powerful Provident, Vale. There’s a limit to my abilities, and if you want yours back, we need to preserve mine. You follow?”

If it wasn’t so fucking grating, it would have been refreshing how she spoke to him like no one else had dared to for decades. Except for maybe Baelin, who would have most likely been losing his mind right now over the hours of silence.

Aidan took the keys from her, flicking his chin at the corpse between them. “If you found that unsettling, I suggest you look the other way until we’re out of here.”

“My, my, Lord Vampire, I’m quivering with anticipation.” Rae rolled her eyes, stepped over the body, and made her way for the door without glancing back.

With a flash of irritation, Aidan followed.