Hot Vampire Seduction (Vampire Wardens 2)

“No.” He pushed to his feet and Aiden went with him.

“Okay. No Marcus. You have my word. Evan-”

“No, damn it,” Troy snarled. “Don’t pull him and his woman into this. I’m fine.”

“You aren’t fucking fine.”

“The worst is over,” Troy said, his voice raspy but more like his own.

“Holy shit, you say that like this has happened before.”

“I thought I’d learned to control it.”

Aiden cursed. “How many times before this one, Troy?”

“Four. Two…” He squeezed his eyes shut, hissing through extended fangs. “…two other close calls.” Pain radiated through his features. “I fought them off. I thought…oh God - my head.” He shoved Aiden away. “Have to go. I have to go and…”

“No. No you are not-”

“Run,” Troy growled. “I have…to run it off.”

“Yes,” Kelly said from the kitchen. “We need an ambulance. It’s some sort of reaction to a drug we think-”

Aiden went completely still as realization hit him. Kelly was on the phone and this was not good news.

Aiden was in the kitchen in two seconds flat, grabbing the phone from her hand. “We don’t need an ambulance. My friend didn’t know that my brother has seizures. He’s recovering fine and we aren’t paying for an expensive ambulance ride he doesn’t need.” He answered a few questions and ended the call.

Kelly’s eyes went wide and she started to back away. “Aiden, that wasn’t a seizure. That was…I don’t know what that was but it wasn’t a seizure.”

He could wipe her memory. He could do it now, and the council would dictate he do so. But this was Kelly and he couldn’t undo a memory scrub or the damage to her trust if she ever found out. “We need to talk, Kelly.” And he needed to figure out what he was going to tell her.

A sound from the living room drew his attention and he cursed. Aiden ran toward the living room, arriving to find the sliding door open. Troy was gone. Emotions roared inside him. He couldn’t lose Troy.

He couldn’t.

“Aiden?”

Seconds passed while he forced the storm raging in him back down, knowing control was the only way to keep her safe. “I’ll pay for the damage,” he said, turning to her.

“I don’t care about the damage. I care that your brother is not only sick, but he might hurt someone.”

“He won’t,” Aiden said, knowing his brother, and hoping there was enough of Troy left to be true of that knowledge. “He’d kill himself before he’d hurt an innocent.”

“What the heck is going on Aiden? What aren’t you telling me?” He scrubbed his jaw and inhaled. “If I tell you, you’ll be in danger.”

“I’m already in danger.”

“You don’t understand. More danger. Much more.”

She curled her fingers by her side. “Make me understand. Damn it, Aiden, we just had unprotected sex, and that realization is freaking me out more and more by the second. I need to know what I’m into here.

What you’re into.”

“I can’t have children and I’m, well, I’m not like you Kelly. You can’t catch anything but a little piece of hell from me.”

She shook her head, her hands in the air. “What does that mean? Because if it was supposed to be comforting, it’s not. I just saw Troy morph into something out a monster movie, and I have a substance in my lab that’s the common denominator in six murders. If those two things are related, I need to know, and I need to know now.”

“It wasn’t Troy. He didn’t kill those women.”