by D. N. Hoxa
Edison’s mouth was hanging a little open as he thought about what I said. He ran a hand through his wavy hair to clear his forehead.
“What kind of a mark?” he asked impatiently.
“It’s a small circle with a simple, curved line in the middle.”
“Master vampire,” he said, pressing his lips.
“How do you know?” All I knew was that nobody knew about vampire marks until the vampires were dead.
“No matter, but I do know that circles are used only by Masters.” Before I could ask another question, he stood up.
“I will have information sent to you about my dead shifter and about anything else I might come across. I will look into the mark as well and keep you updated,” he said, clearly telling us that we were being dismissed.
I nodded and stood up. The first guard had already opened the door and was waiting for us to leave. I gave a curt nod to Edison before I turned to head for the door. My job there was done.
“I trust you’ll do the same?” Edison called behind me. I smiled coldly but nodded without word. I couldn’t help but feel a sense of pride at what I’d accomplished. Even though I was used to working alone, in this situation, allies were priceless.
Aaron stood next to me, and we stopped for a couple of seconds before we walked into the bar again. I couldn’t hide my smile as I turned to look at him. His expression was dead serious.
“Come on,” he simply said and pushed the door in front of us open. I wanted to ask what was wrong, but the music and the voices from the bar cut me off.
We stepped outside and right into Joe’s chest. He was waiting for us with his unibrow raised. I wanted to roll my eyes but didn't. I couldn't wait to get out of there and breathe clean night air again. The place was suffocating me.
Aaron made his way around Joe, but this time, he didn't take my hand. I followed him, keeping my head low and my eyes on the back of his feet. Just like when we walked in, the voices had stopped and only the music was playing.
“Wanna dance with me, baby?” someone called. Probably some old drunk. I ignored him and kept behind Aaron.
“Come on! Let’s dance,” someone else called.
I still kept my head low. I could see Aaron’s hands pulled up in fists by his sides. Ignore them! I told myself and I counted the steps to the entrance.
We were only two feet away from the door when I heard someone laugh. A second later, someone grabbed my ass.
This time, I rolled my eyes.
Really? I stopped for a second and took in a deep breath as the last effort to keep my control intact slipped away. I couldn't. I really, really couldn't let that go.
I grabbed whoever’s hand was cupping my ass by the wrist and I twisted. I turned and faced the owner of the hand, who was one short man with a round belly and a stained white shirt. His eyes were wide with surprise, and they grew wider when they saw my smile. I kept his hand twisted in front of his face, and it felt like no one was even breathing inside the bar.
A second.
Two.
It started.
A guy who was probably the short shifter’s friend tried to come at me with his wide fists. He was too clumsy and too slow. Drunk. I dodged slowly and put my foot on his stomach to push him away. Another shifter came from my other side, and I could easily see Aaron from the corner of my eye shaking his head. I think he was even smiling.
I kicked the hell out of the two shifters, all the while keeping the first shifter’s wrist twisted in my hand. The one on the left managed to hit me in the base of my back with his long foot, and I returned the favor right away. I jumped around the shifter I was holding and punched the other in the face. He fell back a couple of steps. They were so drunk, they probably didn't even know their own names.
Finally, with one last kick, the shifter on my left fell to the floor and the one on my right hit me on the shoulder. My whole torso trembled. Werewolf. A kick in the gut and he became one with the wooden wall at his side, and I still held the first shifter by the wrist.
Silence.
A second later, everyone burst out laughing.
Good thing, too. Fighting drunks was fun, but I didn't have the time for it. The shifter, whose wrist was still in my hand, looked like he was about to pee his pants. I leaned closer until his face was a hair away from mine. He reeked of alcohol and cigarettes, but I held my breath.
“Do not grab an ass that doesn't belong to you again. Okay?”
The other shifters couldn’t stop laughing as the drunk nodded his head too many times to count. I pushed him back, and he fell against Aaron, who rolled his eyes at me.
“What?” I said, shrugging. The guy had it coming. I wasn’t just going to sit around and let drunk sups grab my ass.
“Come on,” he said, and turned to leave before the shifters could change their minds and start realizing that I’d just beaten up three of their kind and in their territory, no less. We slipped outside, and I finally breathed clean air again. With my lungs full, I laughed like I couldn’t help it. Aaron just smiled and shook his head, but he didn’t comment.
I laughed because by morning those shifters were going to realize what had happened, and they were going to be pissed off. But by that time, I’d be underground.
We hopped into the car. I rested my head on the window and kept on smiling, as I remembered my talk with Edison. He would help me. I knew there were other Bases across the US who were doing the same thing—training to fight the Council when the time came—but I had an advantage. I’d been theirs for the last four years. And I’d made it my personal business to get to the bottom of it.
Master vampire. Edison believed that whoever had done the killings was a Master. No surprise there. I couldn't wait to see what kind of information Edison could provide.
“Did you have to fight him?” Aaron said after a while. I frowned.
“Do you think I would have, if I had any other choice? Trust me. It was the only way.”
“Do you know that he is going to kill his guards as soon as he can, if he hasn’t already?”
I laughed. “What are you talking about? Why would he kill his own guards?!”
“Because, he is the head shifter, Star, and the biggest asshole there is. Think about it,” he said and touched his temple as he urged me to use my mind.
And I thought about it. My breath caught in my throat when it all clicked together. Shit.
Edison was the freaking head shifter! And I had fought him, proved to be his equal—in front of his guards. He couldn’t afford to let them tell anyone that he couldn’t knock a girl on the ground, a young and indeed stupid girl, even though he’d tried. He wouldn’t allow it.
Blood boiled in my veins. Damn politics. The guilt made its way underneath my skin, turning my already hot blood into wild fire. It was tearing me apart. It was just too much.
And what would happen when I couldn’t take it anymore and I fell?
“You can’t be sure,” I said, but it almost sounded like a pleading. The look on Aaron’s face told me he was sure. It had probably happened before, so why not now? Bile rose in the back of my mouth at the thought that I’d felt proud about showing him, having no idea that it would cost three lives.
But that wasn’t all. My whole body shivered when I realized that even if I had known, I’d have done it all the same because it needed to be done. I needed the head shifter, his resources and his power if I was going to go anywhere with what I had in mind. And, sure, the Elders could make him do my bidding, but I wanted the help he could give willingly. The Elders wouldn’t always be there.
“I had no idea,” I said with a sigh. I dropped my head on my hands, and suddenly, I felt so very tired and my limbs felt too heavy for my body.
“I know. Just…try to keep it in mind for next time,” Aaron said. He almost sounded sorry.
I wanted to tell him that even if I’d known, I’d have done nothing differently. I didn’t, because I didn’t want him to think even less of me than he a
lready did. So I kept my mouth shut and let the guilt make my stomach turn.
“Come on,” Aaron said, and only then I realized that the car had stopped. We were back at the Base.
We walked in silence until we reached the front of the metal building again. The sky stretched like black velvet endlessly, stained here and there with darker and lighter colors of blue. It looked so peaceful, so calming that I wanted nothing more than to spend my entire night looking at it.
Aaron took a seat on a concrete stair in front of what was once the main entrance. I followed him with my eyes locked on the sky. As I sat next to him, I exhaled deeply, as if the air coming out of me could take with it every negative feeling I held in my chest. I wished it were that easy, but it wasn’t. Because while I was out enjoying the calmness of the night, three shifters were probably getting killed. Three innocent shifters, whose only crime was that they happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
“And I wonder why people hate me…” I thought out loud, a dumbfounded smile on my face.
“People don’t hate you,” Aaron said, and when I raised my brow at him, he added: “At least not as much as they used to.”
The darkness wouldn’t let him see me smile, and I was glad for it. I knew he meant well, but I didn’t understand why he’d have the need to make me feel better about myself. It was easier when he just hated me because now, whatever he thought he knew about me, it was just an illusion. An illusion that just minutes ago I was ready to support.
“I would’ve done the same.” I didn’t know what I wanted to accomplish with that confession, but it felt right to tell the truth, no matter the consequences. There were so rare rights in my life lately that I wanted to preserve them each chance I got.
“What do you mean?”
“Even if I’d known that Edison would kill them, I would’ve done the same.” I wanted to continue and tell him that I’d dealt with men like Edison before, and they were too caught up in their own egos to accept anything less than a worthy challenge, but what good would that do? So I kept my mouth shut.
Silence.
The branches of the trees in front of us moved with the slow wind as if they were waving at us. I kept my eyes on them because I didn’t have the guts to turn and look at Aaron.
“Why?” he asked after a while
“Because there wasn’t any other way.”
“There’s always another way,” he said, and I practically heard the dumbfounded smile on his face, though it was too dark to see his face.
“Not this time. Not with Edison. And we need as many allies as we can get, Aaron. We need them because we don’t have the luxury of time to try and figure it out by ourselves,” I whispered because I knew just how I sounded. Heartless.
“What good will it do to try and get to the bottom of this for the people, if you step on them whenever they’re in your way?”
“You don’t underst—”
Before I could finish my sentence, he jumped to his feet.
“No, it’s you who doesn’t understand, Star. There’s always another way,” he repeated. “And if you would have known what Edison would do, you’d have figured out another way.”
He got closer to me with every word he spoke, and by the end, his breath blew right on my mouth.
“No, I wouldn’t have. I’d still have done the same.”
It was the truth, and he needed to accept it. Accept me.
He let out a strange sound from his throat and shook his head like he couldn’t decide what the hell to do. Finally, he stepped back and turned around. I could hear his heavy breathing clearly.
“You drive me crazy!”
“Same here, buddy,” I said, and a heartbeat later, he turned to me again, and he yelled at me like I was a little girl.
“Why don’t you say it, Star? Why don’t you just admit that you hate how people stare at you? You hate the fear in their eyes, and you feel guilty and sorry for everything you’ve done, and you’re trying desperately to make it up to them. So why won’t you just say it, damn it?!”
I’m pretty sure he would’ve hit me if he could see the empty look on my face. And I was a hundred percent sure I would let him. I was frozen. Even my heart stopped beating. Everything—everything I was trying so hard to keep from everyone else, he knew. He just knew! And it made me sick to my stomach.
His warm breath was on my face in a second. I didn’t know why he wouldn’t just let it go, why he would even bother to bring it up. So what if I was sorry? So what if I wanted to make it up to them? Who cared?
No one.
“I’m not,” I said after what felt like hours before my heart started beating again, and I was dragging air into my lungs. Though I couldn’t see his eyes clearly, I imagined they looked like a deep, troubled sea minutes before a destructive storm.
“I know you are.”
I laughed, and it sounded awful. “How? Because you see right through me?” I was trying to mock him and he knew it. That was why what he did next made absolutely no sense to me at all.
He abruptly leaned in and crashed his soft, warm lips to mine. My eyes closed on their own accord, and it felt like fireworks exploded inside me. My body was paralyzed in place from surprise and a hundred other emotions, and his lips lingered on mine, so soft, so perfect, so comfortable. I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t move, I couldn’t think. I didn’t want to, because I didn’t want to ruin that moment.
Every part of my body was warm and fuzzy, and I wanted to dive headfirst into the feeling.
But it took me a long time to move again, and by then, Aaron had slowly started to back away from me. As soon as his lips were off mine, I felt like I was going to die. Like I needed to feel him again if I wanted to survive. So I wrapped my arms around his neck, and I pulled him in right where he’d been half a second ago. Right where he belonged.
Our lips touched again, and our bodies crashed into each other. His fingers buried themselves in my hair, and a numb moan escaped his throat, fueling my desire further. It was nothing more than just two pairs of lips touching at first, but I wanted more. So much more. So I grabbed his lower lip—the one I’d dreamed about so many times—between mine and sucked it lightly, like I’d been wanting to do ever since I first laid eyes on him.
It was a billion times better than in my imagination. My blood was rushing in my veins, and my feet were no longer touching the ground. Gravity ceased to exist in that moment. He accepted my invitation eagerly and pulled my upper lip between his teeth, gracing it, making me moan in pleasure—a sound that made him pull me even closer to his body. His warm tongue parted my teeth. I obliged all too eagerly. On the tips of my toes, I explored the inside of his mouth with my tongue, and he did the same in mine.
A big ball of flame, bigger than I ever thought it could possibly grow, burned brightly inside my stomach, and I ached between my thighs. As if he felt it, Aaron grabbed my hips with both his hands and pressed me against his body, against his hard erection. The sounds coming out of me were ones I never knew I was capable of making. I was going to waste no time at all and wrap my legs around his hips, when someone spoke from behind me.
“Get a room, for fuck’s sake!”
Shocked, Aaron and I pulled away from each other, breathing heavily.
Jack was standing right by the entrance to the Base, looking at me like what we were doing was really disgusting. My heart was beating so loudly, and I needed a long second to catch my breath. I had no idea what the hell had happened, and I was so full of emotions that I was sure I was going to explode any second. I didn’t dare look at Aaron.
“What the hell are you doing here, man?” Aaron said, his voice hoarse as if he had just woken up from a long sleep. Don’t know why that made me feel embarrassed. Like really embarrassed about a kiss—a feeling I hadn’t experienced in such a long time.
“Me? I’m just out here getting some air, and let me tell you, I was completely unprepared for what you were doing here,” Jack said, looking f
rom me to Aaron and then back again, his brows raised, his lips parted.
I finally found my voice and gathered enough courage to speak.
“I’m going to bed. ‘Night.” My voice was weak, my body still shivering. I kept my head down as I passed Jack. Why? No idea, but he didn’t stop me.
Neither one of them said anything as I jumped down the stairs and disappeared underground, but I could feel their eyes on me. I wasn’t even curious to stop and try to eavesdrop on their conversation. I was a mess. When I finally made it to my room and dropped on my bed without bothering to undress, my fingertips were on my lips and my mind replayed the most incredible kiss I’d ever experienced in my whole life. It had been like floating and flying and swimming and walking and running and dreaming, all at the same time.
I knew that it was wrong, that I shouldn’t have let him kiss me or even come close to me like that, but I pushed all those thoughts aside for the morning and let myself smile like an idiot as I imagined Aaron’s lips and body on mine again. I drifted into a feathery light sleep what felt like seconds later.
10
——————————
I woke up the next morning feeling more alive than I had in a long time. By the time I headed for the kitchen to meet the others, I was a nervous wreck. Not knowing what to expect when I saw Aaron again made my stomach keep on turning.
A deep breath later, I pushed the door open. Everybody was there just like every other morning, and Ella was sitting alone in her usual place. My heart beat loudly as I tried but failed not to look around for Aaron. I felt like a freaking teenager, but I couldn’t help it. My emotions were all over the place.
Aaron was nowhere to be seen as I made my way to Marie before she could call me. Although she didn’t, the others noticed me and slowly started to get out of my way. Despite Aaron’s word, despite the fact that he wanted me to say it, to admit how much that sucked, I knew it wouldn’t make any difference so I didn’t bother. But the fact that he could figure me out like that when no one else ever could was intriguing as much as it was terrifying.