Aiden went colder inside than he’d been anytime in the last hundred and thirty-two years. He knew his brother and Troy was too certain to be wrong. Kelly was a target of a vampire that was somehow wrapped up in the murder of six girls. And that vampire, was deeply entrenched in her world, which ensured she would stay on his radar. There was no wiping her memories and sending her back to her life, without putting her in harm’s way. Kelly was now in for a wild, bumpy ride and he had a feeling she was going to take him for one too.
Chapter Five
“He’s coming for her all right,” Troy said, as Aiden settled Kelly on the black leather sofa they’d rented at the same time as the downtown Victorian style house, they now stood inside. “You’re one hundred percent right about that. Either she’s too close to figuring out the secret behind his little blood cocktail, or he’s simply got his sights set on her.”
Aiden’s gaze lingered on Kelly a moment, drinking in the pale perfect skin, her pretty heart shaped face, before he glanced up at his brother. “Then we kill him now, tonight, before I ever wake her up.” Troy plopped down in a leather chair. “Hey man, I’m always down with killing a few bloodsuckers gone bad, but this dude has been playing mafia and getting away with it. He’s working as a human detective, employing an army of vampires, and he’s now working a drug scheme with a werewolf. We can’t kill him, until he leads us to his minions, and to Andres, or Andres will just move on, and replace him with someone else.”
Aiden’s teeth ground together. “You let him go intentionally.”
“Hell yeah I did,” Troy agreed. “We have to get Andres.”
“We don’t put innocents in the line of fire.”
“Every ‘innocent’ that crossed Andres’s path gets their throat ripped out.” He sat up, his elbows on his knees. “What’s up with you Aiden? You know the big picture.”
“Since when, is revenge against the werewolf population the big picture?”
“This isn’t about fucking revenge,” Troy spat between his teeth. “This is about saving lives, many lives, not one woman’s.” Troy narrowed his gaze, glancing at Kelly and then Aiden. ”Don’t do it brother. Don’t go and get attached to a woman. You and me, we aren’t Evan. We don’t get the happily-ever-after. For us, it always, always ends badly.”
“You think I don’t know that?”
“Then act like it,” Troy said. “Wake her up and let’s talk to her. She’s the only link we have to Detective Wright and he’s the link to Andres.”
He was right again. Personal feelings got in the way of duty, they got people killed. Aiden pressed his hand to Kelly’s head, finding the memory of the man he’d killed in the bar, and wiping it. He didn’t need her morals, or her fear, getting in the way of keeping her safe. He’d learned his lesson. He followed the memory cleanse with a command to wake up. The instant she blinked, he stood up and walked to the opposite side of the coffee table, putting distance between himself and her, for good measure.
***
Kelly came awake suddenly, disoriented, and cold. There was a ceiling fan above her and for several seconds she watched it rotate, trying to get her bearings. Slowly, a memory of Detective Wright dragging her to a hallway came to her, then biting her – no – that was crazy. He couldn’t have bitten her. Her fingers went to her neck, but there was nothing there. A flash of Aiden pressed close to her, his mouth on her neck…She jerked to a sitting position, her gaze traveling wildly around what seemed like a living room.
“Aiden,” she said, realizing that he stood directly across from her, dressed in leather that hugged every one of his many muscles. Another man, with long blonde hair, and equally as leather clad, sat in a chair to her left. “Where am I? What happened?”
“You’re at a safe house,” Aiden said, his gaze sliding to the ample leg she was showing. She tugged at her skirt, suddenly all too aware of her too short skirt riding high on her thighs, and her cleavage that was riding way too low. “And you need that safe house,” he continued, “because you clearly went out looking for trouble and you found it.” Anger rolled off of him. “You’re lucky you weren’t victim number seven.
Had we arrived seconds later, you might not be here right now.” Defensiveness rose inside her and she tried to explain. “Detective Wright told me that-”
“Detective Wright is dirty,” the blonde man said.
Her attention shifted to him. “Are you FBI too, I assume?”
“I’m his brother, Troy,” he said, not exactly answering the question. “And I’m also the guy who the detective, and a band of drug dealers, tried to kill while Aiden was inside that bar saving your pretty little ass.”
“Pretty little ass?” she asked indignantly. “Did you really just say ‘pretty little ass’ to me?”
“If you’re willing to flaunt it to get a killers attention, then don’t expect me not to notice.”
“Enough Troy,” Aiden said sharply, drawing Kelly’s attention, only to hit her with a challenge, “What the hell were you thinking making yourself a target?”
Her eyes flashed angrily at him. “Who the hell are you to ask me what the hell I was doing in the first place?”
“The man who saved your life and I can’t change the fact that you put yourself in the line of fire, but you’re there now, and there isn’t an easy way out.”
“I was trying to get a sample of the drug so I could save lives,” she said although she felt nerves fluttering in her stomach. “Any consequence that comes from trying to save lives, I’ll live with. And for your information, Detective Wright said he was undercover. I might not like the man, but I don’t know that isn’t true. I won’t judge him without facts.”
“Not only was Detective Wright not working undercover tonight,” Aiden assured her. “He’s the leader of what amounts to a date rape drug ring and he’s using a position inside law enforcement as a cover.” The nerves of moments before turned to nausea, as a bad realization started to wash over her, she wasn’t quite ready to voice. “How sure are you of this?”
“Absolute,” Aiden said.
She inhaled and let it out, staring at the hardwood floor, feeling a rare moment of panic.