Twisted. Gena Showalter
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panned the … bedroom. Yes, he was inside a bedroom. Or a snowstorm. All that white—white walls, white carpet, white furnishings—was as overwhelming as it was familiar.
A girl approached him, her hands wringing together and twisting the fabric of her black robe. Finally, a shade other than white. Long dark hair cascaded over one delicate shoulder. She had pale skin, smooth and flawless, and the loveliest blue eyes he’d ever seen.
She reached out, slowly, so slow, to feel his brow. The sweetness in the air thickened, and the urge to taste increased. Though he wanted to bite her, he leaned away from her touch.
Hurt consumed her features.
Within seconds, she masked the emotion and squared her shoulders. “I’m glad you’re awake,” she said, voice devoid of any emotion as well.
Fangs peeked from between her lips, he noted. Vampire. She was a vampire. A vampire princess. Her name was Victoria, and she was his girlfriend. The details came at him like they were baseballs being shot from a pitching machine. Yet no reaction accompanied them. “How do you feel?” she asked.
He just looked at her. Feel? His nerve endings had calmed, and he didn’t feel anything.
She gulped. “You were asleep for nearly four days. We gave you medication to quiet the souls, just in case they were the ones keeping you under.” Chewing on her bottom lip, she glanced over her shoulder. “We didn’t feel we had any other choice.”
We, she kept saying. Implying someone had helped her.
“Can we get you anything?”
We again. Aden panned the room a second time and noticed a guy standing in the far corner. Tall, strong, dark hair, green eyes. Riley. A wolf shape-shifter and an all-around pain in the ass, but he was a good guy nonetheless.
A human girl stood beside him. How Aden knew she was human, he wasn’t sure. He’d never met her before. She was nervous, moving her weight from one sandaled foot to the other, her short crop of blond hair dancing over her shoulders, her brown eyes looking anywhere but at him, and her freckled skin chalk white.
Again the sweetness in the air intensified. Except now it was layered with something spicy, and his entire body vibrated with anticipation.
Anticipation. His first emotion since waking up, and it consumed him.
“Thirsty,” he croaked.
Victoria reached out, not to touch him but to offer her wrist. Distantly he recalled drinking from that wrist. His gaze lifted. And from that elegant neck. And that gorgeous mouth. He’d been besieged with need, utterly intoxicated. And he’d hated himself. He recalled that, too.
Also, he’d hated her. Or at least, a part of him had.
That part of him must have grown, taken over. Because, looking at her now, so lovely and serene, he wanted to grab her arms and shake her. To hurt her as she’d hurt him. To punish her for what she’d done to him.
The urges surprised him. What had she done to him? Besides try to turn him into a vampire. Besides feed him and feed from him. Besides fight him to survive. All of which he understood and accepted.
“Aden?” She wiggled her wrist.
The moisture in his mouth heated and burned, demanding relief, demanding … blood. He recognized the sensation and was leaning toward her before he registered the fact that he was moving at all. Just before he sank his teeth into her skin, he stopped. What was he doing? He needed blood, yes, but not hers. Hers was dangerous. Addictive.
Shaking, he pushed her arm away—the part of him that still craved her screamed in protest. Her skin was warm, and though not as hot as before, he tingled where they’d touched all the same. He wanted to be touched again and again and again.
Focus on the human. “You,” he said, nodding to her. He refused to fall under another girl’s spell. If he did, he might not recover. There was no way anyone would affect him the way Victoria did. Surely. “Do you want to feed me?”
That dark gaze at last zoomed in on him. “Y-yes.”
Truth or lie? “Are you nervous?”
“Of you?” She shook her head with conviction, but her subsequent stuttering contradicted the motion. “N-no.”
She wasn’t scared of him, but she was scared of something. That wouldn’t stop him. “Good. Come here.”
Riley and Victoria shared a long, dark look. More than a look, actually. He knew Riley was pushing his thoughts into Victoria’s head, and shrugged. Let them say—or not say—what they wanted. Nothing would change his decided course of action.
Finally Victoria nodded, moved backward, and the wolf shifter gave the human a little push in Aden’s direction. She scooted around the princess, remaining out of striking distance, and Aden suddenly comprehended the reason for her upset. She feared Victoria.
Smart of her. Victoria watched her through narrowed eyes, poised to launch into an attack at any second. Were they enemies? No, they couldn’t be. No one was more protective of Victoria than Riley, and the wolf never would have let the human through the door if that had been the case. So … what was the problem?
Only when the girl was at Aden’s side did she relax. She curtsied, grinned. “What can I do for you, my king?”
He didn’t allow himself to study his vampire and her reaction to the girl’s query. “Let me have your arm.”
Instantly she reached out. He wrapped his fingers around her wrist. It was thicker than Victoria’s, with a little more meat under her skin. As hot as Aden’s body temperature now was, the human felt chilled.
He absorbed her scent, testing it. Sharper than what he craved, he mused, with more spice than sweetness, but he could deal. Already his stomach was twisting, knotting. He urged her closer … opened his mouth.
“Wait. You’re going to hurt her,” Victoria snapped, beside the girl in the blink of an eye and jerking her from Aden’s hold.
The human gasped and trembled.
Aden growled, even as the scent of the vampire stirred up some kind of animal inside him. A wild thing, cohabitating in a place where there was no room for emotion, only instinct honed on a battlefield.
Mine, that wild thing said.
Never yours, the other part of him hissed.
“You don’t have fangs.” Victoria raised her chin. “So, like I said, you’ll hurt her. I’ll bite her and—”
“I’ll bite her.” Fangs or not, he knew how to feed. Hadn’t he proven that to Victoria, over and over again?
The memory had his gaze falling to her neck, where her pulse hammered swiftly. The ache in his gums returned. Mine, he thought again. Mine to bite and to drink from and to kiss.
You don’t even like her. Not anymore.
“I’ll bite her,” she continued through gritted teeth, “and you can drink from her.” She didn’t give him a chance to respond. She simply lifted and bit.
The human closed her eyes, moaning as the pleasure hit her. Pleasure Aden knew very well and still craved, despite his determination to remain aloof.
Vampire fangs produced some kind of drug that numbed your skin and flowed straight into your veins, warming you up, making you feel good, too good. Which was exactly why so many humans became addicted, willing to do anything for another nibbling.
Not him. Never him. Not again.
A second passed, then another. Victoria lifted her head. Blood wetted her lips a deep scarlet, and Aden wanted to lick them. Instead, he forced his gaze on the two punctures in the human’s wrist. Blood wetted there, too, and he groaned. What he didn’t do was chastise Victoria for disobeying him. What right do I have