Cara grinned into the screen. ”I don’t know, but I am always up for a new challenge.”
Reiya mimicked banging her head against a wall. “What am I going to do with you?”
“Continue being my best friend?”
“I don’t know. I’m starting to get the feeling I signed up for more than I bargained for eight years ago when I first met you in intake training.”
“Admit it. Your life would be boring without me.”
“No. My life would be headache free without you.”
“Not true. You would still have Reyes to worry about.”
“Touché. Now go back to the part about the island. Did you say it was private? And Aiden owns it?”
“Yeah, it’s ridiculous.”
“Of course the Prince of Darkness would have an island in the freaking Caribbean that was all his. Sometimes, I swear I am in the wrong business.”
“Who are you telling?” Cara agreed. “But it is gorgeous. It’s called Isla Verde. The vegetation is the same brilliant shade of green as his eyes.”
“Okay, I am going to pretend like you did not just say that. And I am not even going to ask how you know what shade of green his eyes are.”
Cara shrugged. “I pay attention to details.”
“No you don’t. You only care about details when you’re about to kill something, and the Prince of Darkness is not dead.”
“That hurt,” Cara said placing a hand over her heart in an exaggerated display.
“Ditto,” Reiya said into the screen.
“What is that supposed to mean?” A slight note of offense crept into her voice.
Her best friend sighed. “Nothing Cara. Just be safe. I love you. But remember, a hard head makes a soft ass.”
Cara was about to respond to that not at all cryptic statement but a knock sounded at the door announcing food and she was famished. “Lunch is here, I have to go. But I promise to call you later with any updates.”
She and Reiya disconnected.
After satiating her hunger, Cara crawled back into the sinfully comfortable four poster bed and returned to her former catatonic state. She reawakened several hours later after the sun had set. Her muscles felt stiff from non-use. Cara changed into a pair of black compression pants and a white racerback and went in search of the training room she had inquired about when James brought her lunch up.
She found the training room and stumbled upon an interesting sight inside it. Aiden and the blonde vampire with ice blue eyes he referred to as Dorian were sparring in the middle of the room. Aiden wore a pair of gray sweatpants and Dorian had on a pair of looser fitting white linen pants. They were both deliciously shirtless. Whereas Aiden had the build of a committed weightlifter that had little body fat and defined muscles, but was careful not to cross over into the so many muscles bulging out everywhere it’s gross territory, Dorian had the build of a runner. Sleek, trim, and athletic. Despite their difference in stature, Aiden was surprisingly just as light on his feet. Aiden moved with raw and uncut lethal power. When he struck it was swift, decisive, and unrelenting. He would overpower any enemy he came across by sheer strength of will and brute force. Dorian on the other hand moved with a sort of deadly grace. His blows were measured, calculated, and adhered to a code of personal honor. Aiden would hit you with a dirty move and not think twice. For Dorian to do so it would be a stain on his honor. He fought clean and above board, but was just as capable as ripping into an opponent and ending their existence nonetheless. The two now circled each other with a predatory air. The fight was no longer man versus man. It was predator versus predator in a fight to see who came out on top. The victor would accept nothing short of complete and total submission. Aiden struck first. He landed a right hook to the left side of Dorian’s jaw. He followed it up with a left cross but Dorian was ready for it and stepped out of its path. He countered Aiden’s maneuver with a solid jab. It caught him squarely in the jaw. The both separated a spat out blood. Again, Aiden moved first. His foot struck out in a right side kick but Dorian ducked out of range. He swiped his own foot out and took Aiden’s legs from up under him. Aiden caught himself on his hands and jumped up to a crouching position. Dorian hammered a kick at his chest, but Aiden expected it. He grabbed Dorian by the ankle and slammed him down hard to the mat. He constrained him in a jiu jitsu inspired lock and thrust his hand into his chest, cracking his rip cage a part. He lightly gripped the beating muscle beneath and waited.
“Yield,” Dorian gritted out.
Aiden withdrew his hand. Rafe threw him a towel from the sidelines to wipe the blood on. “Took you long enough,” he said to Dorian.
“No, it took you long enough. You’re not going soft on us are you?” Dorian spotted Cara in the doorway.
“Hardly,” Aiden laughed.
“We’ll see,” he said it to Aiden but did not take his eyes from Cara. If looks could kill, she would well and truly be dead in the doorway.
She took that as her queue to saunter in. “I would say good morning but I guess the more accurate term is goodnight.”
“Did you sleep well? Dream of anything worthwhile?” Aiden smiled that infuriating, inherently arrogant, heart stopping grin of his.
Cara folded her arms across her chest. “Nah, just the same old, same old.”
“Which is?” Aiden asked curious.
“None of your damn business vampire.”
Aiden shrugged it off. “Oh well, hope they were as good as your last one.”
Cara fought back the blush. She would not turn red like some damn demure idiot in the middle of a room full of vampires. She walked past said vampires and claimed a space in the far corner of the room. She unsheathed the katana at her side and began maneuvering through a series of warm-up drills. She didn’t really use the ancient curved sword in battle much, it was too long and impractical in close combat situations, but she always used it for the sword meditations she opened up her practice sessions with.
Aiden watched her with keen interest as she gracefully moved through one meditative pose after another. She handled the curved blade as skillfully as any of the celebrated masters. She was as lethal as she was beautiful. The fact that she seemed completely unaware of her appeal made her even more alluring. She knew she was homicidal. She knew she was deadly. She knew she was stronger, faster, and better with a blade than most. She had every confidence that she could go up against any opponent and emerge victorious. But she didn’t know the steel gray of her irises coupled with the almond slant of her eyes was mesmerizing. She didn’t know her soft feminine curves, the petite swell of her breasts, the supple tightness of her backside, were tantalizing. She didn’t know that having her in view and not being able to reach out and touch her was excruciating. The sound of Rafe’s thickly accented voice broke him from the trance.
“Who the hell do you think you are Hunter? Coming in our training room and taking over its space. You hunters are all the sa-.“ His voice was cut off by the dagger that embedded itself in his throat.
“I advise you not to interrupt me when I am meditating,” Cara warned him. It was a part of her daily waking routine and she needed them to keep her balanced. “It helps me toe the line between reasonable homicidal bitch and irrational psychotic murderer. Interrupt me again, and you might find yourself on the wrong side of that line.” Cara gave him her best psycho smile.
Rafe yanked the dagger out his throat and the wound knitted closed. He glared at her. “You and I are due for a rematch.” He hurled the dagger at her.
She caught it, blade first. “Sorry. I don’t fight people whose asses I already kicked once. It kind of sucks the fun out of it. You know, knowing the outcome at all.”
Rafe scowled at her one final time before exiting the room.
Dorian devoutly remained where he was standing when she entered. She looked at him. He stared back at her. He took a step in her direction. She tensed in anticipation of a fight and leveled her sword.
“Dorian!” Aiden barked out
. “Check for any updates from Asad.”
He turned to Aiden. They held each other’s gazes for a moment, communicating via a mental link. Finally, he stiffly tilted his head to Aiden and left.
Alrighty then, Cara thought to herself. I’ll have to watch my back around that one. She returned to her meditation. Mere seconds later sun-kissed skin stretched tight across a bare, muscular chest and chiseled abdominals blocked her view. Argh! She wanted to scream. “What do you want?” she asked Aiden.
His eyes seared into hers. “You.”
She purposely kept her voice flat. “I’d rather die first.”
Cara saw mischief in his stare and his smug, arrogant smile all but confirmed it. “Care to make a wager?”
“About what?”
“You said you’d rather die first then come to my bed. I don’t believe you. We never did finish the fight from the alley. Don’t you wonder if we didn’t end it in a draw, who would have won?”
Cara wondered that indeed. So she kept listening.
Aiden leaned in closer to her, allowing his lips to graze her ear. “How about we pick up where we left off. Only this time no draws. We fight to submission. My terms are the surrender of your body or death. What are yours?”
Cara took a minute to think about it. What would pain His Darkness the most to lose? It was a shot in the dark, but she thought she knew. “This island,” she said, “or your head.”
A nerve ticked in his jaw. Yup, she had been right on the money. Aiden loved the private island almost as much as he loved himself. Though why, she did not know. Surely, he had enough money and influence to buy ten more of these. But Isla Verde was special to him. She felt it the moment they landed on it.
“Agreed.” He stuck his tongue out and trailed it along the length of her ear.
Ashamedly, she shivered. Instead of shoving the vampire away as she might have done in the past, she slanted her neck to the side, exposing her throat. She lowered her lids and looked up at him through hooded eyes. Aiden’s attention jerked from her ear to her neck as Cara knew it would. He dragged his nose along the length of it, inhaling her scent as he did so. Cara reached out with one hand crushing his face to her neck. As she did so she used the other hand to thrust the katana she held through his chest. The sharp blade slid into Aiden as if he were butter.
Aiden, momentarily stunned looked at her in confusion then down at the blade poking into one end of him and out the back. “That was a dirty move.”
Cara moved her shoulders in an unapologetic shrug. “You should know by now I don’t fight fair. It’s the quickest way to get dead.”
Aiden lasciviously smiled at her. “Good, then I won’t either anymore.”
By the time the words were out of his mouth Cara was pinned to the wall behind her. An unseen force had literally picked her off her feet and pushed her backwards into it. Aiden remained in place with the katana sticking through one end of him and out another. Red bloomed around the blade’s entry point as gold rimmed his eyes. He closed his hands around the hilt of the blade and yanked it out of his chest in one smooth, powerful motion. He deliberately let it clatter to the floor, sending Cara the message that in this fight he would need no weapons other than himself. Aiden looked at her arms pinned to her sides as tightly as she was to the wall. The same unseen force raised them up and pinned them to the wall above her head. Aiden took one slow, methodical step toward her after another. He was a predator coming to claim his prey, prey that had well and truly been caught in his trap. Cara was as fearful of what he would do next as she was anxious. She had just run a sword through the Prince of Darkness’s’ chest. Surely no one did that without the remainder of their now very brief existence being laced with agony. Aiden came close enough for their noses to touch. He crushed his body against hers and wedged one hand between them. He tore the cotton tank she had put on to train in away from her body with a flick of his hand. Her chest was left bare but for the small scrap of black lace bra she wore underneath it. Cara silently cursed and simultaneously thanked herself for not putting on the unflattering black sports bra she normally trained in when she dressed for the evening. Aiden braced his hands against the wall on either side of her head, ensnaring her more thoroughly. The short throwing knife she had strapped to her inner thigh unseated itself and wedged itself between them. Its sharp point pressed into the soft flesh below her left collarbone with enough force that would have made a grown man wince. But Cara was a hunter. She was bred and trained to stand strong in the face of pain. She met Aiden’s stare head on. She would not show an ounce of weakness, especially to him. Cara thought she may have seen approval flash in Aiden’s eyes, but it was gone as quickly as it appeared, replaced by a combination of something much more dangerous. Cara saw her imminent torture reflected back at her. She had finally gone too far. The Prince of Darkness intended to pay her back in kind for the blood she had drawn. The knife’s edge slid from her collarbone across her chest and stopped at the swell of her breast. It pushed into her flesh with enough pressure that a tiny red droplet beaded at its tip. The blade moved on its own accord away from Cara’s breast to Aiden’s lips. Without ever taking his eyes off her, he licked the blood from it then cast it aside with little more than a thought.
When Aiden finally did break their stare it was to lower his head to the very breast the blade had pierced. He fangs instinctively elongated to razor sharp points. Cara’s breath hitched and her heart began to beat erratically in her chest. The gravity of the position she was in finally sunk in and whatever Reiya may think, she did have a few self-preserving instincts. She was literally trapped, completely unable to move or defend herself, and at the utter mercy of a vampire who was infamous for his lack thereof. He could sink his fangs into her, drain her dry and tear out her heart and she would not be able to do a thing about it. She did not know how the hell it was possible for Aiden to do it, but he had rendered her utterly helpless and vulnerable with a simple thought. Cara had never heard of a vampire in history who possessed such powerful telekinetic abilities. She had the feeling that she had just been let in on a very closely guarded secret, which did not bode well for her. She was now officially a loose end that would need to be tied up whenever her and Aiden concluded the business they had with each other. Aiden’s fangs grazed across her breast and in spite of the imminent danger they represented, her body involuntarily shuddered. Every inch of skin his fangs made contact with became aflame. Gods what was wrong with her? Did she really have as much of a death wish as everyone else assumed she did? How messed up was she that in the face of her impending doom she was turned on by the very being who would be the harbinger of it?
Aiden looked up at her with a sinister smile in place and dipped his head toward her breast once more. Cara closed her eyes and held her breath in anticipation. She opened her eyes and looked down at him more than a little confused. She felt the soft flick of his tongue across her breast instead of the sting of his bite. He was using the healing enzymes in his saliva to close the wound made by the knife rather than using his fangs to further penetrate her flesh.
Aiden’s eyes met hers again. The blazed gold with heat. “I believe I won our wager Hunter. We both know I could have torn into your heart just as easily as I healed the flesh covering it. We both know I still can.” Aiden pointedly looked at her hands still pinned above her head.
“You hustled me,” Cara hissed at him. “Where the hell does a vampire get those kind of telekinetic abilities from? It was a completely unfair fight and you know it. I want a rematch, without your newly revealed strength.”
Aiden ignored her request. He had no intentions of granting Cara a second chance to best him or somehow renege on their wager. Instead he pressed his body into hers, forcing her legs apart to accommodate him between them. “I may not have won fair and square but I still won. You should know I don’t fight fair. It’s the quickest way not to win,” he threw Cara’s own words back at her. “I always win Cara and I always get what I want.” Aiden delibe
rately pressed his waist into hers leaving no room for misunderstandings as to exactly what it was he wanted.
The feeling of Aiden’s rigid length against her core set it aflame. Moisture embarrassingly pooled between her legs. The self-satisfied smug on Aiden’s face left no doubt that he could sense her arousal. A better man would not have done what he did next, but Aiden never claimed not to be an ass. He placed his hand over her beating human heart. “Complete surrender, Cara. Those were my terms and you agreed. Which is it? Your body or your heart?”
Cara almost took the easier way out. The words had already formed in her mouth and sat waiting on the tip of her tongue to be released. But as they were leaving her lips the words she uttered were completely different from the ones she intended to. “My body. I surrender my body,” she said to her utter shock. Even Aiden momentarily appeared stunned by her response. However, never one to miss a beat he quickly recovered.
His licentious smile returned. “I have some business to attend to but I’ll see you at dawn. My room is on the 4th floor adjacent to yours. Come in something sexy… or nothing at all.” Aiden turned and walked away.
Out of pure habit Cara unsheathed the twin partner to the throwing knife Aiden had used against her and launched the blade at the back of his skull. The cocky bastard didn’t even bother to turn around. He simply deflected the blade with a wave of his hand, quietly chuckling as he exited. Belatedly Cara realized that she was no longer pinned to the wall and wondered exactly when and for how long had she regained control of her own limbs. Aiden had demanded either her body or her heart and Cara conceded her body. Ironically, Cara thought, her heart was still not safe. Giving her body over to Aiden would eventually lead to her giving him her heart. She knew this deep down in her soul as an irrefutable fact. It was the main reason she fought against her unwanted attraction to him so fiercely. It was going to be damn near impossible to offer Aiden her body and withhold her heart. But Gods she would try with every ounce of strength that she possessed. Because if she didn’t then Aiden would doubly win. He would take her body and soon after have her heart. And eventually he would crush it and her along with it because that is what happened when you loved someone. The love broke you and delivered a blow worse than any physical strike even the Dark Prince himself could deliver at his most lethal.
Born In Blood (Born Hunter Book 1) Page 12