Slowly his muscles loosened their vice-grip on his bones. He eased back down, now noticing the ache in his neck. He reached up, but there were no puncture wounds. She must have healed him. By licking his neck as she’d done to his lip?
“Thank you.” He was a little embarrassed that she’d done so much for him. He was the guy and she was the girl. He was supposed to take care of her. “Did you get in trouble with Riley?”
“No. I returned to him when I promised and he, in turn, took me home. He went back to Mary Ann and I snuck out to return to you. I’m so sorry I took so much of your blood, Aden.” She gripped his wrist, her strength enough to crush him. He didn’t complain. Any touch of Victoria’s was welcome. “I should have pulled back, would have pulled back, but you tasted so sweet, better than anyone, everyone, and all I could think was that I wanted, needed more.”
Despite the ache inside him, he shivered in remembrance. His mouth dried and his muscles jerked.
“I told you I was an animal,” she cried.
“No, you’re not.” Whatever she’d pumped into his vein…dear God. He wanted more. He pried her fingers from his arm and twined his own through them. “What you did…I’d be lying if I said I didn’t like it.”
“Yes, but—”
“No buts. You need blood to survive, and I want to be the one to give it to you. As long as I’m alive, I want to be the one you come to, the one you feed from.” His thumb traced the smooth skin of her wrist. Her pulse raced.
She sniffled. “You speak as if you won’t always be around, as if you know you’ll be leaving soon.”
Should he tell her about Elijah’s vision?
He anchored his free hand under his head and stared up at the ceiling. If he told her, she could decide to leave him—for good. A doomed teenager was not exactly good boyfriend material. She could decide to try and save him—which would do her no good and only cause her anguish. Trying to change Elijah’s visions was like trying to stop a tidal wave. With the right tools, you could build a dam, but eventually that dam would break and the damage would be a thousand times worse.
Only once had Aden tried to save a person he’d known was going to die. He’d kept one of his doctors from getting into a car he’d seen crash in his mind. Sadly, she’d escaped the crash only to die later that same day. A pole had fallen from the top of a building and slammed its way through her chest, he’d been told. Rather than die instantly as she would have in the car, she’d died slowly, painfully. He shuddered.
Whether Victoria would leave him or not, she deserved to know the truth. She’d stood up for him to her father, had given him the best days of his life, laughing with him in the water, kissing him, drinking from him.
“Come here,” he said. He released her hand and held out his arm in open invitation. Eagerly she stretched out beside him, her head burrowing in the hollow of his neck. “I have something to tell you. Something you won’t like, something that will probably scare you.”
She stiffened against him. “All right.”
There was nothing left to do but say it. “I’ve seen my own death.”
“What do you mean?”
He heard the horror in her voice and wished he could take back the words. Instead, he plowed ahead. “Sometimes I know when people will die. Sometimes I know how they’ll die. Awhile back I saw my own death, the same as I’ve seen a thousand others.”
Her palm flattened on his chest, just over his heart. She was trembling. “And you’ve never been wrong?”
“Never.”
“When is this supposed to happen? How?”
“I don’t know when, only that I won’t look much older than I do now. I’ll be shirtless and there will be three scars on my right side.”
She sat up, silky hair tumbling down her shoulders and back, and gazed down at his stomach. Without asking permission, she lifted his shirt. There were scars, but not the three parallel lines he’d seen in his vision. “To have scars you must first be injured, and that injury must have time to heal.”
“Yes.”
Her expression hardened with determination. “Once you’ve rested, you will tell me everything you know about this vision and we will do everything in our power to stop it. For what is the point of knowing something in advance if you can’t change it?”
Aden reached up and caressed her cheek. She closed her eyes and leaned into the touch. Some other time, he would tell her the consequences of trying to prevent someone’s death. He’d given her enough to deal with for one night. Here, now, there were a thousand other things to talk about, a thousand other things to do.
“Have you noticed anything different about my room?” he asked. “Anything different about the people here at the D and M?” Maybe Ozzie was as sweet as an angel now that the past had been altered. A guy could hope.
She eased back down and once again curled into his side. This time, she wrapped her arm around his middle and held on tightly, as if afraid to let him go. “The only difference I’ve noticed is the array of pills on your desk. I don’t recall ever seeing those before.”
Pills?
Amid her protests, he rose from the bed and crossed the room to the desk. At first glance, everything looked normal. There was his iPod. A few weeks ago, someone had left it on a park bench and he’d snatched it up. He swept his gaze across the rest of the desk. Pill bottle after pill bottle greeted him. He picked them up one by one and read the labels. No wonder his companions had been silent since his waking. They were totally and completely drugged.
“Guys?”
No response.
“Guys!” he said to jolt them. What if the drugs had done irreparable damage to them? What if they never returned? He thought he’d taken every kind of medication there was, but he—they—had never reacted this way. He glanced at the label. He hadn’t heard of the drug names. Experimental, maybe?
He wanted them out of his head, yes, but he also loved them enough to want them to have lives of their own, fulfilled lives, happy lives. He would rather live with them than see them destroyed.
Elijah had told him one of them would leave him in this new, altered reality. He’d assumed that meant one of them would find a body. What if it meant one of them would be killed inside him? Aden almost threw up then and there. What the hell had he done?
He looked at the name of the doctor printed on the bottles. No longer Dr. Quine, but Dr. Hennessy.
“Guys!”
Finally, Eve spoke. So tired, she said.
Can’t think, Caleb said.
Just want to sleep, Elijah added.
Julian remained quiet.
“Julian,” he demanded in a fierce whisper. Nothing. “Julian!” Louder.
Still quiet.
“Julian, I swear to God if you don’t start talking I’m going to—”
Too loud, Julian slurred. Keep it down.
His shoulders sagged. Thank God. They were all here and they were all alive and well. As well as they could be, anyway.
What happened? Eve asked.
He explained about the drugs. Like him, they retained the memory of their former selves, not changing even when the past did. They wouldn’t know what had happened to them, either.
Aden turned toward the bed, but Victoria was no longer there. He hadn’t heard her move, but she was suddenly beside him, arm wrapping around his waist, holding him tight.
“I have to get back,” she said, head nuzzling against his neck. “My family is awake this time of night and expects me home. There are werewolves out there, besides Riley, that is, surrounding this property to keep you safe. Mary Ann’s house, too.”
Aden cupped her cheeks and pressed a soft kiss against her lips. “Will I see you to—” He stopped dead. There was someone at his window, glaring into his bedroom. Glaring at him. He shoved Victoria behind him. “Hide,” he told her, gaze searching for his blades. Where had she stored them?