by Tara Brown
Sister.
I smiled brightly. “Ladies!”
The faces that matched mine flitted about the space.
“How’s Trist?”
They looked confused. How? How do you know us?
“Trust me. It’s a damn long story. How's Trist?”
Not good. Father’s a cruel man.
I forgot how sucky things were for him. How Oliver and Phillip were the only things that ever made him happy. Even our mother living in the tower was nothing to him.
“Well, a plan is in effect to help him. To end Father.”
Will you free us soon?
“I don’t know. I hope so. I'm glad you guys are here. I missed you. Tell Trist the Roses have a plan.”
We love you, Sister. Their ghostly voices still creeped me out a bit, but it was awesome to have them with me again.
I lay back on the bed and waited for everything to catch up. My cell phone started going nuts in my pocket. I pulled it out to check it.
A message from the twins stared back at me. I sighed and shoved it back into my pocket.
I didn’t know how to live in both worlds, and I dreaded seeing my dad. The first time had been easy. I had thought he was my brother. This time I wouldn’t be fooled but I would have to act like I was. A knock interrupted my thoughts.
“Come in.”
Ari walked in. She smiled with only her lips. Her eyes were filled with trepidation.
“Hey.”
“You remember.” She rushed at me, wrapping herself around me. “Oh my God, I'm so glad you're back.”
I hugged her, though we were never close. “Has it been bad?” I asked.
“No. Sort of. Not really and yes.” She laughed. “It’s nice having Aimee just focus on work and not Shane and Aleks, and Aleks and Shane, and so on. It’s been awesome having Aleks and Sam back and all the kids. It’s been kind of pleasant not having Hanna around to make such a mess, but at the same time, Sam’s bummed. I'm pretty sure he’s stalking her like a crazed man. Ben doesn’t remember shit so sometimes we have to remind him of stuff. I'm glad you're here though.”
“Me too.” I said it doubtfully.
She pulled back. “Everything is different this time.”
“Why doesn’t Aleks remember anything?”
“Aleks was dead the first time we got Giselle to make the memories stay. We reversed it and forgot to make his memories stick the second time.”
“Yikes.”
She nodded. “Yeah.”
“Ari, O, you in here?” The door swung open even more and Lucas came in. “How's our favorite witch?”
“I missed you guys. I mean, I didn’t know I did, but I did.”
He grinned at Ari. “Hey, baby.”
“Hey.” She blushed.
“Okay.” I pointed. “Take it out of my room.”
“I was just about to.” He grabbed her hand and kissed the back of it. “I just wanted to ask if we are storming the alley tonight?”
“Where is Ben? He hasn’t even come to say hi.”
Ari laughed. “He doesn’t remember you.”
Lucas flinched at her laughing. “She’s starting to lose it. She laughs at weird stuff now.” He was kidding but his eyes didn’t look like they got the joke.
Ari rolled her eyes and walked toward the door. “I'm just glad we're out of Alaska. I hate cold. I wanna go back to New Mexico, see my uncle, and bask in the glorious sunshine.” She pointed at the hall. “Ben’s downstairs. If you want to go meet him. He knows who you are but doesn’t remember you.”
My stomach felt funny. Ari was almost hysterical. I sat back on the bed, concerned, when Lucas came running back in. “I need to talk to you,” he whispered.
“Is she okay?”
“No.” He swallowed hard. “No. She’s pregnant. She isn’t saying anything to anyone.”
My eyes widened. “What? Congrats.”
“Don’t say that. It's not good. Her kind doesn't do well with kids. They don’t even usually have babies and if they do, they sort of leave them. I'm scared. If something happens to her, I need you there. I need her to live.” His eyes were glassy.
“Okay. I'll do what I can to help her.”
He grabbed my arms hard. “No matter what. You save her.”
“I will,” I assented. I didn’t even know how I could promise such a thing, but I did.
“Thanks, O.” He bent and kissed my cheeks, leaving the room. I stared at the floor and pondered it all.
Chapter 14
Oh, Ari
Aimee
“Do you think you'll ever be in love with me again?” Shane’s lips looked soft, even in the dimly lit alley.
“No.” I glanced down at the concrete. I could sense the others. They lined the rooftops of the alley. Just like last time.
“Are we strangers now? We were friends once, Aimes.” My nickname hurt.
I hated that I had lured him there in an attempt to get Jonathan to snatch O. Honestly, I didn’t want to talk to him. But I forced it. “We'll always be friends.”
“Aimes.” He reached forward and grabbed my hand. “We live separate lives. We don’t hang out anymore. You made me this way and then left me.”
“I didn’t make you this way.” My eyes burned as the sparks lit the air between us.
He dropped my hand. “Easy, tiger.”
“I never left you.” I frowned. “I have never left you. You chose Marcus’ way. There have been blood-bag vampires for as long as there have been blood bags. Not the slutty downtown kind either. I mean the plastic ones.”
“Gross.” He wrinkled his nose. “I don’t like it. It’s the rest of my life, the world's life. I'm immortal. I don’t want to eat plastic food. Imagine an eternity of that?”
“Imagine an eternity together.” I whispered it and hated that they could all hear me lying to him.
“Oh, Aimee.” He chuckled. His grin was killing me. “I'm not giving up on you. I know you'll come around.” He came closer and grabbed my face, pressing his lips against mine.
“Stop!” I nearly gagged and pushed back, wiping my face. “I can taste the last person you killed.”
“Ditto.” He looked at me through his lashes.
Marcus strolled up the alley behind him. “Aimee, how lovely to see you. We see so little of each other.”
“That’s not true.” My lips curled into a sneer. “I see enough of you.”
He chuckled and crossed his arms over his broad chest. “So feisty. I liked you better when we first met. Of course, it was the time before. Or was it the time before that? That Ari’s a pain in my ass.”
“She saved you.”
Shane glanced back at him. “I'll be there in a minute.”
Marcus cocked an eyebrow and scoffed. “She isn’t giving you a minute, Shane. She was doing something else in this alley. Look around you. The Roses are lining the rooftops. Something’s up.”
I narrowed my gaze. “Go home, Marcus.”
“You watch yourself.” He was in my face fast. “I don’t take orders from little girls.”
“That's not how I heard it.” A grin slipped across my lips.
“Oh, Aimee.” He laughed. “While that was amusing, I still expect you to tell Lorri the deal’s off.” His hot breath on my face smelled exactly how it should, disgustingly tasty.
“Tell me yourself.” Lorri’s voice rang out over the sound of her boots in the alley.
Marcus released me and stepped back haughtily. “The deal’s off.” He pointed to the roof where Henry stood glaring menacingly at us. “Let's not test our fates, shall we? I am fairly confident I will win this battle.”
Lorri growled at him. “The deal stands.”
Marcus studied her for a moment. “No.”
“Stop being a child,” she snapped.
“I will HAVE HER!” he screamed and then he was gone.
Shane didn’t flinch. I grabbed his hand again and squeezed. “You don’t have to stay with him. You can come w
ith us.”
“Yes, I do.” He shook his head. “I'm royalty. I can’t even walk past the guards. I tried.”
“That’s not royalty, it’s your dark deeds.” I slid my hand along his face. “Don’t do anything I would have to come for you over. Shane, it all seems like shits and giggles, but we were over busting into blood brothels in Egypt tonight. We took the baddies down there because the African Roses are busy. Roses Academies are on every other continent. I will know if you are part of it. I don’t want to have to kill you.”
He bent and pressed his lips against mine. “Stop making it so finite and difficult. We both know you still love me. You always did.”
“I don’t feel that way anymore, Shane. Before, yes. Back when I was just a girl and you were just a boy. Things were simple.”
He gripped my hand roughly. “Don’t make it so hard, Aimes,” he whispered and released me. He was gone before I could reason with him.
“Well, that was a bust,” Lorri said quietly. “Friggin’ Marcus.” She surveyed the rooftops. “Sam, go to her. Make sure he doesn’t do anything. Do what you have to.”
Sam beamed and then he too was gone.
The icy-blue eyes watched me for a second before Aleks vanished.
I flashed to the rooftop where Ari stood next to O. “He never came then?”
O shook her head. “Something else must be different.”
“No.” Ari looked sick. “It has got to work.” She looked like she might lose it. Lucas rubbed against her. His green eyes were full of worry. I scratched his head, earning a snarl.
“What?” I put my hands in the air defensively. “You’re all fluffy and soft. I couldn’t help it.”
Ari grabbed my hand and showed me a picture. It was the desert. I winked us there without consulting anyone. The vampire blood-drugging house was below us. The air was cool as the sun was setting.
“I'm pregnant, Aimes,” Ari whispered.
“What? Is that even possible?”
“Yeah, it's rare. Usually it’s angels and fae impregnating humans. Not fae impregnating Nephilim.” Her dark eyes were like pools of despair. “I need your help.”
“Okay.” I agreed. “Anything. You know that.”
Her lip quivered. “If anything happens to me, you make sure Lucas doesn’t remember me.”
“What? Why? What's going to happen?” What had I just agreed to?
“That’s just it. I don’t know.” She glanced off into the distance. “I haven’t talked to Dorian about it. I think he'll be mad.”
“He’s going to be the oldest grandpa in the world.”
“I can’t imagine him as a grandpa.”
“No. Certainly not. Maybe creepy grampy.”
Her smiled faded. “If something happens to me, you have one of them make Lucas forget me.”
“Ari, that’s so wrong.”
“No. You make him raise the baby and be at peace with my death. He'll hurt himself if I d-die.”
I grabbed her shoulders. “You're immortal. No baby can kill you.”
Her eyes grew haunted. “I'm not entirely certain of that. I'm losing pieces of me every day. My mind, my heart, my sanity, my soul.” She whispered the last part.
“It doesn’t make any sense,” I muttered.
She continued to stare off into the distance. “I know. I just feel it. Something isn’t right.”
“You should talk to Dorian and Lorri.”
She shot me a look. “No.”
Her mother died when she was being born which was why she was worried. “You're not human like she was, Ari. You're special. You'll be fine.”
She smiled and I saw the fakeness of it. “Let's just kill shit.”
“All right.” I took her hand and flashed us to the doorway at the back of the large home. “Ready?” I asked.
Her eyes filled in solid black, eating up all the white as she smiled a twisted grin. “Yup.”
I opened the door and slid against the wall. I didn’t know how many there were. We did sloppy reconnaissance. We tended to be overconfident.
The hall was silent except for Ari's buzzing with the strange electricity.
We crept along quietly, watching for movement. It was all so familiar to me.
“Have we done this before?”
“No. But we did one in Rio a few times. You probably just remember that in the weird déjà vu way.”
“Great,” I muttered. “Great. Love that déjà vu.” I opened the door to the right of us in the long hallway. The room was empty and dark. It was a small sitting room with strange chairs and sofas. They looked exotic, like a genie would live in there. I closed the door just as Ari opened the one on the left.
“This is weird.”
We walked to the end of the hall where it forked.
Ari pointed right and walked left. We knew each other like the backs of our hands, and honestly, she knew me better than I did.
I snuck along the hallway until it opened into a fancy kitchen with marble, granite, and stainless steel everywhere. It was stunning, not what I expected.
There were few windows but many lights so it seemed like daytime inside. At the end of a hall with no other doors I felt a twinge of something. When I touched the handle of the door, it scorched from being so cold compared to my burning hands.
I stopped turning the handle midway. A feeling crippled me. It was foreign but there was a memory of it, from when I was human. It was fear. Real fear. I spun back toward where we had parted ways and broke into a winking run.
“Ari!” I shouted, trying to keep my voice down, but I couldn’t. I pulled my cell and snapped a photo of the lovely kitchen and sent a mass text: HELP!
I called out, panicking and searching, “Ari!”
Kicking and tearing the doors down, I left each one open. The house was empty. All the floors were empty. She was gone.
The others arrived behind me on the stairs. I turned back, certain horror and terror had taken over my face. I tried to avoid the green eyes when I spoke, “She was here and now she’s gone. It was a trap. They took her.”
Lorri growled, “For Christ's sake, when will the two of you stop doing these rogue missions? I know it gets stale at times, but this isn’t one of those times. We have a ton of shit to do.”
Lucas leapt up the stairs at me, naked. His fingers bit into my skin. “Where is she, Aimes?”
I flinched, holding back my powers. “I don’t know. There’s no one here. It should have been full of drugged blood bags.”
“Why take her?” Lorri paced on the stairs. The worried looks changed depending on the faces I glanced at.
“What do you mean she’s gone?” Dorian snarled savagely at me. “How could you let them take her?”
“I didn’t even see them. I didn’t hear them. I—we separated. We always do. She has the holding thing.” I clearly had no excuses.
Giselle stepped forward and grabbed my arms from Lucas who looked as if he might eat me. “You guys suck.” She scowled at them all. “Everyone knows Ari’s badass and can kicked anyone's ass. Aimee doesn’t need to protect her.”
Ben grabbed his brother's arms. “I agree. This isn’t Aimee's fault. We need to stop blaming and started searching.”
Aleks offered, “We don’t need to. We know where they took her. Ophelia's at Lydia's safe and sound. They took what they could. She is in Alaska.”
My heart sunk. I remembered the details of the last time.
Lorri was already gone. Dorian pointed at me. “Lydia's now. We need to talk.” He flashed him and Ben away but Lucas broke free before he was also taken home.
“I’m sorry.” He grabbed my hand. “I didn’t mean it. It was just, she’s not herself lately.”
“She told me.” I felt as defeated as I sounded. “I'm so sorry. I should have asked for backup on this.”
“She wouldn’t have let you; you have never needed backup.”
“I guess we did.” I flashed Giselle, Luke, and me back home.
; Sam spoke right away, “Leaving now then I guess, huh?” He knew already.
“Yup.” I wiped my face and sat down.
“Miss Aimee, you been a bad girl. Lord suffering Jesus, you and that Miss Ari always been so naughty.” Annabelle handed me a cup of cocoa. I sipped it and plotted.
“I know, Annabelle.”
Lydia stormed into the kitchen. “This isn’t so bad. They have Ari. Now we have a reason to go there and attack. We can get the ball rolling the way it was before.”
Sam shook his head. “No. Ari’s got a situation.”
“Sam,” I said before I could stop myself.
“No more secrets.” He shook his head. “Everyone needs to know, Aimes.”
“How do you know?”
He ignored me. “Ari’s pregnant.”
Lydia gasped. Dorian choked on his cocoa, spraying a bit of it across the room. He flashed and grabbed Lucas by the throat. Seeing the spark I leapt across the room, knocking my cocoa across the kitchen too. When I gripped Dorian's hand, I winked. We landed funny, me lying on top of him in the forest close to home. I didn’t know why I had flashed there but I did.
He screamed in rage.
I held him to me, cradling him in my body. I wrapped my legs and arms around him and held tightly.
When he was done, he closed his eyes and sighed. “You knew? You knew and you took her there?”
“No.” I lied. “She told me in the desert. She wanted to be there.”
He sighed. “Goddammit!”
His slow heart was beating harder than I imagined it could go.
“She'll be fine. We’ll save her.”
He grabbed my arms and threw me off of him but with such force I didn’t have time to wink. I slammed into a tree with a thud. I gurgled and groaned from the broken ribs I was sure to have as searing pain crawled through me. His black eyes burned and his nostrils flared with every breath. He was savage, but I couldn’t get my breath to talk him down.
I lay limp in the soft moss and ferns. He winked, leaving me alone in the woods. I winked to Lydia's, trying to get my breath. I landed on the back grass and whispered, “Aleks.”
He was there within seconds. “Hey, what happened?”
I coughed as the rib pulled away from my lungs and started to heal. “Dorian. Pissed,” I croaked.