"What is your name?" Cara asked the little girl who now sat on her mother's lap.
"Gretchen," she responded with wide, innocent eyes.
Cara smiled at the child. "Gretchen my name is Cara. Why don't me and you go play and let your mother and Aiden finish talking?" The child did not need to hear the questions that would be asked of her mother.
"What would we play?" She asked Cara skeptically.
"Whatever you like."
"Even princess tea party?"
Cara had no idea what that meant but the child's hopeful expression left her no choice but to agree. Her surrogate father had just been stolen from her and her mother was grieving. Affording the girl a few minutes of happiness in the middle of her family's storm was the least Cara could do.
"Sure," She told her.
Lila hopped from her mother's lap and grabbed Cara by the hand. "Let's go, let's go," she squealed as she dragged her away.
"You look positively lovely," Aiden teased Cara. "Like a respectable lady."
She took off the floppy yellow hat Gretchen insisted she wear with the satin white gloves and flung it at him. Gretchen giggled from her seat at the table beside them.
"I think Aiden wants to play tea party too," she told the child conspiratorially. "Wouldn't it be fun to have a boy play?"
"It would. It would." She clapped her hands together.
Aiden tried to object but Gretchen would not hear of it. She needed one more guest to fill the empty seat at her tea party. The Prince of Darkness sitting in a flower garden at a child's table with a lilac hat on his head and a teacup in front of him was possibly the most hilarious thing Cara had ever seen. She doubled over in laughter.
Aiden scowled at her. "I look ridiculous. I will pay you back for this."
“Nonsense. You look like a respectable lady.” She pulled out her phone to snap a picture but his reflexes were quicker than hers. He snatched it from her hand and refused to give it back until they were back on the chopper and away from five-year-old little girls.
"I did not expect you to actually play with her back there?" Cara confessed still laughing every time she thought of the comical yet endearing image of him in the hat.
"I have a soft spot for kids. Especially ones who have lost a parent." Cara did not expect Aiden to say more but to her surprise he did. "I lost my mother when I was about Gretchen's age. My father was never capable of much love but he adored her. When she died what little compassion my father did have died with her."
He did not elaborate on how she died and Cara did not press him too. She never spoke the details of her father’s death out loud. The mere thought of doing so made her feel too vulnerable. As if she would be laying her soul bare and exposing the innermost parts of herself. The helicopter abruptly landed on top of a mountain in the middle of the Andes.
"Is everything okay?" Cara called over Asad's shoulder.
"Everything is fine Hunter. Aiden requested we make a stop on the way back to the island."
She looked at Aiden questioningly. He opened the helicopter's door and climbed out. He turned to her and held his hand out to help her do the same.
"Where are we going?" She asked him.
"Do you trust me?" He asked in return.
Cara turned the question over in her mind and came up with an answer. "Yes I do."
"Then come on and stop asking questions. You will spoil the surprise." Aiden held his hand out to her again and she took it.
Cara's eyes widened in disbelief that they were actually seeing the ancient Incan site immortalized in Neruda's Heights of Macchu Picchu.
"Stick bodies to me like magnets. Draw near to my veins and my mouth. Speak through my words and my blood," Aiden finished the poem she had started reciting midway through as they flew over the Andes.
"You are civilized!"
Aiden chuckled at her teasing. "When you live a millennia you pick up a thing or two. I can demonstrate a few other things when we get back to the island," he whispered the last part in her ear. His breath warmed the length of her neck and images of the night they spent together played across her vision. She forcibly pushed the memories away.
"You never returned my cell phone," she said abruptly changing the subject. "I cannot visit Macchu Picchu without leaving with pictures."
Cara lost herself in exploring the ancient ruins. She had been fascinated with visiting them since reading Neruda's work as a teenager. She'd been to the Andes dozens of times for various hunts but she had never taken the time to visit the mountain. She never took the time to do anything besides hunt vampires.
Take the time now. She heard Aiden's voice in her head as clear as if he spoke the words. She wasn't sure if it was her subconscious talking to her or the man beside her. She decided she would rather not know. She did not want to consider what it meant about the bond inevitably developing between them if he could speak into her mind so easily.
She did take the advice. She took time, hours in fact, to enjoy the famous ruins she longed to explore. Eventually, she found herself sitting beside a stone pillar with Aiden at her back as she lounged against his chest between his legs. He absentmindedly played with a stray strand of her auburn curls.
"Did you always want to be a hunter," he asked her.
Cara shook her head no. "My dad was a surgeon. Before he died I wanted to be a doctor just like him. Fate is obviously a bitch with a sense of humor. I aspired to save lives and now it is my job to take them. Did you always want to be the heir to the vampire throne?" She teased him in good jest.
"Actually no," Aiden said surprising her in a rare moment of transparency. "Power in vampire society is attained and held by right of might. My father ascended to the throne by xmassacring the former Sovereign, his heir and all his supporters. Brute force and bloodshed is how he retains the throne. My father is enough of a cruel, merciless bastard that there are not many who would oppose him outright. If he even thinks someone has treasonous intent, he executes him or her on suspicion alone. It does not stop everyone around him, even those close to him, from lying in wait for a weakness they can exploit. I hate vampire politics. Everybody is always jockeying and scheming for more power behind closed doors. My Circle are the only three I can rely on not to take my head the minute I display a weakness. It's exhausting to think that as Viktor's heir, my existence will be marked by schemes and bloodshed for the rest of eternity. If I have children I will be condemning them to the same fate I recognized as a child. One of my father's council members tried to take his throne. At his execution he put a blade in my hand and directed me to carve out his heart. When I hesitated he thrust his hand into my chest and gripped mine. He told me that as his heir it was either kill or be killed. I could not afford to be merciful. I needed to purge it from my system and drive the knife I held into the vampire's heart or he would kill me then and spare someone else the trouble of doing it later. The vampire was my first kill. Ever since that day I have wanted to be anything but the heir to my father's throne."
Cara turned her head to face Aiden. Her heart broke for the young boy he had once been who had his innocence stripped away in a moment of death. Their childhoods were similar in that respect. She wanted to say something to comfort him or show him she sympathized with him but she was terrible with words and even worse at expressing any feelings other than anger. So she did the only other thing she could think of. She placed her lips against his in a tender kiss. He locked his arms around her, holding her in a tight embrace. As their kiss deepened a mounting need to claim the hunter and make her his built inside Aiden. Until that point he made sure to keep his interactions with women light and casual. He would not drag a woman into the same ruthless existence his father dragged his mother. He was too afraid they would share the same fate. Whenever he was around Cara it was hard to maintain his rigid control. Whenever he touched her any intent to keep her at arm's length flew out the window. The hunter got under his skin and made him feel and want things he told himself an eon ago he would
never allow himself to have. Both his mind and body craved her and wanted to be as close to her as possible. They screamed at him to possess her, wrap her in his arms and never let her go. He was tired of fighting against them. The last vestiges of his control slipped when she kissed him not in lust but in a display of compassion and empathy. He pulled her onto his lap and settled her legs around his waist. The need raged within him to claim her as his own. But he would not take her in a carnal rush of desire like last time. He would take his time and worship every inch of her body, claiming her mind along with it. He removed her cotton tank top then unhooked the satin bra that perfectly accentuated her breasts. He palmed them both, slowly rubbing the pads of his thumbs across her nipples. She shuddered beneath the attention. He sucked one nipple into his mouth and traced lazy circles around it until it was taut with desire. He did the same to its twin then shifted their position so that Cara was lying on her back. He unbuttoned her black leather pants and slid them down her waist. The satin thong she wore to match the bra left his mouth watering with the need to taste her. He removed the scrap of material and dipped his head between her supple thighs. He drew a soft breathy moan from Cara as he slowly delved between her folds. When his tongue made its way to her sensitive bud her thighs clenched together, trapping his head between them.
Don't stop," she whimpered into the gently blowing winds around them.
Moving with a greater sense of urgency he gripped her ass and lifted her slightly off the ground. He speared her with his tongue and thrust it in and out of her in a quick rhythmic motion. Cara writhed in ecstasy beneath the maddening onslaught.
"No more. Need you...inside of me," she begged.
Aiden quickly shed his own clothes and answered her pleas. He could refuse her nothing. If she asked him to lay the world at her feet, he would give her the universe and if she asked him to destroy it, he would raze it to the ground. He resettled himself between her thighs and slowly pushed into her core until he was buried inside of her. He stayed that way, unmoving, allowing her walls to stretch and form to the shape of his cock. He was remolding her from the inside out so that he was the only man she would ever desire again. When her body ached with desire and her core throbbed with need, it would be images of him thrusting into her that her mind conjured.
"Aiden please." Cara ground her hips into him in a desperate attempt to feel the sensation of his cock sliding within her walls.
He immediately gave her what she wanted in torturously slow movements that drove her mad.
"Faster. Harder," she demanded.
Aiden drove in and out of her at a relentless pace. His movements became frenzied as the same pressure that built within him built within her, causing her muscles to contract around him. It was all he needed to take him over the edge and her with him.
Twenty-Five
Cara sat cross-legged on the bed staring down at her phone. Upon returning to Aiden's island she called Reiya who had yet to call her back. She did not have any new updates to give her since her visits to the Viceroy's residences had all yielded the same results. Absolutely none. But she called anyway because she knew Reiya would panic if she did not hear from her. She found it odd that her over protective obsessively paranoid friend had not called her back. Cara dialed Reiya's number again. The phone rang in an endless loop. A moment before the voicemail would have picked up it stopped. The line was connected but Reiya's voice did not come through. Cara heard heavy breathing mixed with static.
"Hello?" She said uneasily into the phone.
"Hello Hunter," a deep voice responded. Cara immediately knew something was not right. Her heart beat erratically in her chest as hysteria bubbled within it. She took a deep breath forcing it back down. Mentally falling apart would do her no good.
"Where. Is. Reiya?"
"Safe for now, but she won't be for long. You have twenty-four hours to get to your family's beach house in St. Lucia. If you do not show up, what we did to your father will look like child's play compared to what we will do to the Director," the voice on the other end promised.
"What do you want with me?" Cara knew she would not get a straightforward answer. Still, she had to ask. He might slip up and say something to help her figure out where Reiya was.
"Ask your vampire." The phone disconnected.
"Where is Aiden?" Cara cornered the butler in the hallway.
"He is in a meeting."
"Where?" She demanded. She did not have time for cryptic vampire bullshit. She had to try very hard to keep her cool and restrain herself from flaying the vampire's skin from his body.
He must have seen his imminent torture in her eyes because he quickly added, "His Grace is in his office on the first floor."
The group of vampires looked toward her with varying expressions as she stormed into Aiden's office, closed the gap between them, and drew her hand across his face. The sound of her hand connecting with his flesh reverberated around the room. Dorian simmered with barely contained outrage, Rafe seethed with offense, and Asad schooled his expression into a blank mask.
"You bastard! " She shouted at him. "You have been dragging me all over fucking South America pretending like you did not already have the answers I am looking for when you not only knew who killed my father but why. And now they have Reiya. Tell me the entire truth about the wolves now," She demanded.
"Leave us," he said to his circle without ever taking his eyes from Cara.
"Your Grace..."
"Now!" He roared cutting off Dorian's objection.
The trio obeyed even though Aiden knew they would not go very far. They did not trust the hunter and would intervene even against his direct order and the threat of reprimand if they thought she posed a danger.
"Speak. Now. Or I swear I will carve out your heart."
Aiden cursed. It was time to have a conversation he could no longer delay. If he refused her, she would very well attempt to take his heart and his Circle would attempt to take hers. In turn, he would have to kill them for lifting a hand against her. He did not want to have to kill his Circle.
"I gathered intel confirming the wolves were behind both your father's murder and the viceroys' before arriving in Manhattan. They used to be a species that thrived as greatly as vampires and the humans. Vampire relations with them have always been tenuous throughout history. When my father took the throne from his predecessor relations between vampires and wolves turned downright hostile. My father loathes them and had them hunted to near extinction. The few that survived have been hiding in secrecy. They have since rebuilt their numbers and want to come out of hiding but to do that they need you. The reason my father was able to annihilate them is because they are forced to turn at the full moon. When they are forced to turn they become mindless beasts that can be easily hunted down by us. Their leader claims he was told of an ancient blood ritual by their wolf God in his dreams that would free them from the confinements of the new moon. It requires the blood of a descendent of a born hunter, humans who are born with superhuman strength and reflexes for the specific purpose of hunting those beings that are not. Born hunters were never abundant but they became even more rare when the wolves died out. They mysteriously declined in number along with them. The gene became recessive in the human population. Your father was the first human to have a dominant copy of the gene in a millennium. It's why the wolves killed him. They thought his blood would be their salvation. But nothing happened when they performed the blood ritual. Their leader claims the wolf God came to him again in a dream and told him that the blood ritual did not work because the gene also has to be activated through the killing of either one of my kind or theirs. Cara, you have a dominant copy of the gene just as your father did and you've killed more than enough of your share of vampires."
By the time Aiden finished Cara looked at him with a mixture of horror and disbelief. "How do you know all of this?"
"My father had a lone wolf tracked and captured. He was outraged when he found out a handful of them still exist.
He unfortunately died from the torture he was subjected to before he could reveal their hiding place but he did reveal their plan to return to power."
"So what part was I to play in this? I imagine you meant to cut the issue off at its head by killing me that night in the alley but you did not. What? Did an even better plan stall your hand? You thought to dangle me out on a line as bait while you stayed close by and waited for them to bite." The betrayal and hurt that shone in her eyes beside her rage struck Aiden like a steel blade to the chest.
He did not bother with an apology. There was nothing he could say that would vindicate his actions.
"Congratulations, Your Grace. Your plan worked out perfectly. I need to be in St. Lucia in twenty-four hours to hand myself over to the wolves to save the only family I have left. Advise whomever you need to that I will need a ride off this goddamned island. You will have your wolves shortly after the next sunset."
Aiden lost it. The mere thought of Cara within reach of the wolves made him want to rip someone's head off. "I don't care about the damned wolves anymore!" He shouted back at her. "I care about you and you are not walking into the trap they have set."
Cara's eyes glittered with rage. "I am going," she told him in a deadly tone.
"No you are not," Aiden snarled at her. He let his power radiate off him in lethal waves. It clawed at Cara's consciousness. Told her it was in the midst of a monster and the only way to survive it was to lie down and play dead. Ha! If the Dark Prince thought she would be cowed by his little display of force he was in for a surprise. Instead of backing away in retreat Cara advanced on him in an intentional display of non-submission.
"It was your plan all along. You never gave a shit about me being able to track the wolves. You probably even already knew the scent trails were long dead. I was bait to draw the wolves out under a situation you controlled. She is my best friend. I am going.“
"No you are not.” Aiden’s eyes were ablaze in golden flames.
“I’m not one of your vampires. You can’t force me not to.”
Born In Blood (Born Hunter Book 1) Page 16