by S. J. West
My dad returns to the table with a freshly prepared plate for Aiden. He hands him the plate and says, “Please, sit back down.”
Aiden takes the plate my father offers him and sits back in his seat.
My dad looks over at me and nods his head once silently telling me I should sit back down too.
I do but for one of the few times in my life, I feel mad at my father.
“Why would you do that to him?” I ask my dad. “Why would you try to hurt him in front of everyone?”
My dad sits down in his seat and looks at me.
“I needed to know if he still had the temper I remember him having. You forget I knew Aiden before we came to Earth. In Heaven, he was trained to be a War Angel. They were the hottest tempered and most aggressive of us. It was one of the reasons this relationship has bothered me so much. The only memories I have of Aiden are from that time, and I needed to know if he had changed since then. Once we came to Earth and were cursed, he and I didn’t exactly run in the same circles since we were on different sides. I assume you know what I’m talking about. You and I have discussed the divide between the Watchers.”
I nod. Of course I know. My father was like Mason and able to abstained from giving into the blood lust God’s curse caused. Did my father think less of Aiden because he gave into it? I wasn’t sure, but from this little ‘test’ of his, I could only assume so.
“Malcolm had faith Aiden would be able to control his temper no matter how hard he pushed him,” my dad says before looking away from me and back over at Aiden. “So, don’t be mad at Malcolm for what he said to you. I’m the one who asked him to do it.”
“I’m not mad,” Aiden says, visibly more relaxed now after my father’s explanation. “I actually understand why you felt the need to test me. I hadn’t really thought about what your view of me was until just now. Caylin’s your daughter. I understand your need to protect her from someone who would lose his temper easily. And, I admit, I used to be that way. But, you need to understand that I would never do anything to hurt her. She’s precious to me too. I’m sure you can remember how lonely your life felt before you were allowed to meet your soul mate. And, to be honest, when you and Lilly asked me to wait another three and a half years before I could even speak with Caylin, I wasn’t sure I would be able to do it. But, I surprised myself and did what you asked of me. I hope that shows you I’ve developed patience as well as tolerance since you and I were in Heaven.”
“We couldn’t have asked much more from you,” my mother says. “Your willingness to keep away even after you saved her from Baal was the main reason we decided to let the two of you meet before Caylin’s eighteenth birthday. It showed a lot of self-control, Aiden. I was extremely impressed when Jess told us you were willing to do that for us.”
“It’s important to me for Caylin to remain close to her family,” Aiden says. “I know how hard it can be when you’re isolated from the ones you love, and I would never want her to feel like she had to choose between us. I want her life to be filled with as much love as possible from everyone who means something to her.”
I hear Uncle Malcolm yelp from his end of the table. When I look down at him, I see him rubbing his arm again.
“Why do you keep hitting me tonight, Tara? I didn’t even say anything this time,” he complains.
“Because you need to apologize to that boy for the things you just said to him. I don’t care if Brand asked you to do it or not. They were rude and you need to say you’re sorry.”
“Must I?” Uncle Malcolm groans.
Aunt Tara raises her hand again. “Don’t test me, Malcolm.”
Uncle Malcolm sighs and looks at Aiden. “Sorry.”
“Seriously?” Aunt Tara says in complete exasperation with a stomp of her foot underneath the table. “That’s the best apology you can give?”
“For the moment, yes.”
Aunt Tara rolls her eyes at Uncle Malcolm and looks over at Aiden.
“Honey, you sure you want to be a part of this family? It’s not too late to turn tail and run. Nobody would blame you.”
Aiden smiles and I can tell he’s suppressing the urge to laugh.
“I would feel honored to be a part of this family. It’s obvious you all love each other and that’s something I would like to be a part of.” Aiden looks over at me. “But whether or not I become a member really isn’t my decision to make.”
I feel my cheeks grow warm under Aiden’s gaze, but I can’t seem to make myself look away from him.
“Well, in that case, I got a few questions to ask before I can give you my stamp of approval,” Aunt Tara says.
I hear my dad groan as if he’s in pain, which is the only thing that pulls me out of the trance I seem to be under with Aiden looking at me.
I glance down the table and see my dad shaking his head at Aunt Tara.
“Don’t tell me you’re going to do to him what you did to me,” my dad says.
“Questions never killed anybody,” Aunt Tara professes. “You survived.”
“Barely,” my dad mumbles.
“Anyway…” Aunt Tara draws out the word before looking at Aiden again, “Aiden, I gotta know something. Why the hell would you want to drink human blood?”
“Aunt Tara,” I say, feeling completely mortified by how inappropriate her question is.
“What?” She asks. “It’s a simple question. I want to know if Aiden’s answer is the same as Malcolm’s was.”
“I don’t mind answering,” Aiden tells me. “Jess asked me the same question a while back. Drinking human blood was like drinking pure joy to me. It was the only thing that made me feel alive for a long time. Until Lilly asked us Watchers for our help to stop Lucifer’s plan, drinking blood was the only way I could feel even a small amount of happiness. But after God gave us another chance to prove ourselves, it became less important to me.”
“And just how many women have you had sex with here on Earth?”
“Aunt Tara,” I moan, covering my eyes with a hand, unable even to look in Aiden’s direction.
“Well,” Aunt Tara says, “I don’t see anything wrong with asking that question either. We might need to get him tested before he’s allowed around you.”
I peek through my fingers and look at Aiden. His smile is even broader, and I can tell he finds my Aunt Tara’s questions more amusing than inappropriate.
“I don’t have any diseases, if that’s what you’re worried about,” Aiden reassures her.
“And where do you see yourself settling down?” She asks.
“I have some property in the Denver area,” Aiden says. “I’ve always liked the mountains and snow.”
“How many children do you want to have?”
I let my hands fall back into my lap and glance up to see Aiden looking at me with a rather roguish grin on his face before he answers, “As many as possible.”
I quickly look down at my plate but know my cheeks probably look as red as apples now.
“And I think that ends this evening’s round of interrogations,” my dad says sounding uncomfortable with the turn of the conversation. “We should all probably try to eat our dinner before it gets any colder.”
I’m thankful to my dad for politely putting an end to Aunt Tara’s questions. I’m not sure I could have taken much more of it even though Aiden seems completely at ease with answering any question thrown at him.
The conversation is soon taken over by Jess and Mason detailing what happened in Moscow the day before when they disposed of the changeling there. I don’t really pay much attention to what they say, and I don’t feel much like eating either because all I can do is covertly watch Aiden as he eats his dinner. I’m still having a hard time coming to terms with the fact that he’s actually in my house and only a couple of feet away from me.
I feel an intense, uncontrollable urge to touch Aiden but considering he’s on the other side of the table it seems like an impossibility.
Then it hits me. He’s dir
ectly on the other side of the table from me. For a while now I’ve complained that my legs are longer than my torso, forcing me to buy tall pants and petite sized shirts just to make them fit properly, but tonight what I considered a deformity from birth might actually come in handy.
While I quietly slip off my flats underneath the table, my blood rushes with excitement as I stretch my left leg out trying to find Aiden’s. I’m not sure what he’ll think of me trying to play footsy with him beneath the table with my parents so close. I pray he doesn’t think I’m a floosy or something, but my need to touch him overrides my better judgment. I can’t stand having him so close and not touch some part of him.
It doesn’t take long before I feel the soft material of his pant leg. I watch his face closely for any reaction, but Aiden plays it completely cool and doesn’t show any outward signs that will give away what I’m doing.
I find the hem of his pant leg and work my foot inside it until I’m able to glide the pad of my toes along the silky smooth skin covering his well-muscled calf.
There’s a loud clatter of silverware against china, which makes me shift my gaze away from Aiden’s face to Mason who’s sitting right beside him. Mason practically jumps out of his chair making it topple over behind him onto the hardwood floor in a thunderous crash, and I instantly feel the leg I was touching disappear.
“Are you ok, Mason?” Aiden asks in concern over his friend’s odd behavior.
Mason is staring at me with eyes wide in surprise and confusion. I feel my cheeks burn as realization hits. It wasn’t Aiden’s leg I was just playing with underneath the table but Mason’s. I instantly want to apologize to him but then everyone in the room would know what I just did. So, I take the coward’s way out and stay completely silent.
“Sorry,” Mason says to everyone, turning around to sit his chair upright again, “I thought I felt something crawl up my leg.”
“Something crawl up your leg?” Aunt Tara asks in worry, scraping her chair back to peek under the table just as I’m slipping my shoes back on. “I don’t see anything, hon.”
“Must have just been my imagination,” Mason says, clearing his throat and pointedly not looking at me.
I feel awful. I feel embarrassed. And all I want to do is phase somewhere else, but I know that would be a dead giveaway, revealing my sin.
“Sweetie,” my mom says looking at me, “are you feeling all right?”
My mom slaps the back of her hand against my forehead. “You look a little flush. You’re not coming down with something are you?”
“No, mom,” I say, feeling myself grow even warmer because everyone is looking at me now.
“Maybe you just need some fresh air,” Jess suggests. “I bet Aiden would love to see your studio.”
“I would like to see it.” Aiden says. “Where is it?”
“It’s out in the old boathouse,” I tell him, silently thanking Jess for offering me a way to get out of the room for a while and an opportunity to be alone with Aiden for at least a few minutes.
“Old boathouse?” Aiden asks.
“My mom doesn’t like the water so my dad sold the boat a long time ago,” I explain. “That left the boathouse empty. I’ve used it since I was a little girl.”
“We’ll have dessert in about fifteen minutes,” my dad says to me. “Why don’t you give Aiden a quick tour of your studio then come back in?”
I know what my dad is doing, making sure I know I only have fifteen minutes to be alone with Aiden. It might not be a long time, but I plan on taking whatever I can get at this point.
CHAPTER SEVEN
When I stand from my seat, Aiden does too. I walk around the table to him and take his hand. I grab my coat from the rack by the French doors leading out to the back porch. Aiden casually takes it out of my grasp to hold it open for me to slip on. I smile when I feel the palms of his large hands rest of my shoulders and slide halfway down my arms as I’m buttoning up the front. Like a gentleman, he opens one side of the French doors for me to precede him outside.
The crisp February night air is wonderfully cool against my skin, dissipating the heat of embarrassment I just experienced with Mason. Honestly, I’m not quite sure how I’ll ever be able to face him again. And I can’t even imagine what he thinks of me. I try to push those thoughts to the back of my mind. For the next fifteen minutes, all I want to do is focus on Aiden.
After Aiden closes the door behind us, he takes one of my hands into his and tucks his free hand into a pocket of his slacks.
I stand there on the porch for a second wondering what Aiden would do if I just propelled myself into his arms and kissed the dog out of him. It’s something I’ve dreamt of doing for three long years, and this is the first opportunity I’ve had to make that dream come true. I stand there and look up into his handsome face, faintly illuminated by the light coming through the French doors at his back from the inside of the house. I imagine an angel sitting on one of my shoulders and a little devil perched on the other. The angel argues I should wait, the time isn’t quite right. But the little devil argues I should go for it because who knows what will happen tomorrow, if there is a tomorrow.
“Are you ok?” Aiden asks me, looking confused by my lack of movement.
“Yes,” I say, deciding to listen to the angel, which makes the little devil groan in disappointment. “Come on.”
I tighten my hold around Aiden’s hand and lead him over to the boathouse that is just a short distance away from the main house down by the lakeshore.
“Thank you for not leaving earlier,” I tell him. “You had every right to when you learned my dad was testing you.”
“He loves you,” Aiden says. “I can understand wanting to keep you safe.”
“But he should have known he didn’t need to test you like that. You would never hurt me.”
“You’re father only ever knew the dark side of my personality,” Aiden says. “He needed to know for a fact that I was a different person. For most people it’s hard to change the nature they’re born with. My evolution from what I was to what I am now has been a slow one, Caylin. He wasn’t there to see it for himself. So, he did the next best thing. I can’t say I wouldn’t have done exactly what he did for my own daughter.”
“I feel suffocated by them sometimes,” I admit.
It’s the first time I’ve ever confessed that to anyone, but I’m not surprised I say it to Aiden. I have a feeling I’ll end up sharing many of my secrets with him.
“They just love you,” Aiden says in their defense. “They’ll do whatever it takes to keep you out of harm’s way. And so will I.”
I glance up from the path to the boathouse and look at Aiden. His expression is earnest, and I know if it came down to it, he would die for me without giving it a second thought.
“I’m stronger than I look,” I tell him, not wanting him to think he has to protect me all the time. “I have my mother’s powers that she inherited from her father.”
Aiden nods. “Yes, I know that.”
“And I have some of my father’s traits from when he was a Watcher.”
Aiden stops walking and I turn to face him.
“That… I didn’t know,” he admits. “Jess never mentioned it.”
“I don’t use them very often,” I say. “One is passive. I can tell when someone is lying to me. And the other is his strength.”
“His strength?” Aiden says tilting his head. “You mean you’re as strong as us?”
I nod. “If I hadn’t knocked my head when Baal pushed me to the ground the other day, I could have thrown him off me myself. But I was so disoriented, I didn’t even have enough sense to think to phase away.”
“Prove it,” Aiden challenges as a smile appears on his face.
“Don’t believe me?” I tease.
“I want to see it for myself.”
“Hmm…” A plan forms in my mind, and I tug on his hand to start us walking towards the boathouse again.
The boathous
e is a fairly large space. It’s built to the side of the dock over the lake where my father’s boat used to be moored. It’s a sixteen by twenty foot space with two skylights in the ceiling, which is one reason I love to work out here.
I switch the lights on and invite Aiden into my private sanctuary.
There are various paintings and sketches of my family and friends scattered around the walls and on easels. I walk Aiden over to my wooden worktable which is waist high and let go of his hand to move some sketches out of the way. I walk over to the other side of the table and prop the elbow of my right arm on it.
“Up for a little arm wrestling?” I ask Aiden wiggling my fingers in challenge.
Aiden looks unsure. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
I smile. “Funny, that’s exactly what I was thinking about saying to you.”
Aiden smiles. “Really? Well then,” he walks up to the table and rests his elbow across from mine before grabbing my hand, “do your best then.”
Before he can even react, I pin his hand down on the table.
“Wait!” he laughs. “I wasn’t ready.”
“Oh all right,” I moan good-naturedly. “I guess I’ll give you another chance, but you need to be a little faster around me, Aiden.”
I tighten my fingers around his hand and he does the same.
“On the count of three,” I tell him. “And don’t hold back. I want to see what you’ve got.”
Aiden smiles. “You seem awfully sure you’ll win.”
I smile back. “I never go into anything thinking I’ll lose.”
“I’ll remember that,” he promises.
“Ok, one… two…don’t hold back,” I remind him. “Three.”
Aiden doesn’t hold back, and I find moving his arm an actual challenge. Poor Will always thought he should have been the one to inherit our father’s physical strength. But my father was human by the time Will and Mae were conceived. I’m the only child of a Watcher to gain some of their strengths and none of their weaknesses or the curse of being a werewolf. Even the children born of Watchers, like Jess and Mason’s kids, weren’t given any Watcher traits. It was part of the gift God gave them to have normal children with the women they took as wives.