Dark Horizons (The Red Sector Chronicles) (48 page)

Aden frowned, methodically running his thumb up and down the side of the glass in thought. “I don’t know, but I can certainly look into it. Your brother was interested in the first king’s whereabouts, am I correct?”

When I nodded,
he continued. “Then it probably
has something to do with that.
Genesis
does mean ‘the first,’
after all.”

I thought about this, troubled. Orion told me he wanted to find the first vampire because he thought he was the key to unlocking eternal life. Sure, I wanted to know about my ancestors as much as anybody would, but why had it been so important for Orion to tell me that, of all things he could have said on his dying breath?

I had this weird feeling
that
I was being watched. Looking up, I caught Aden staring at me, eyes narrowed in thought. “What?” I asked.

He looked away. “Nothing.”

I smiled
to myself
.
There’s the wall again.

“How are you feeling?” I asked. I felt bad for not asking sooner. He was the one who had died and come back
to life
.

He shrugged, as if this h
appened every day. But I guess
for a vampire, it sort of did. “Fantastic, actually.”
He grinned. “Or shall I say
fangtastic
?”

I rolled my eyes, resisting the urge to shove him. “You’re still full of cheesy lines, I see.”

“Only with you.”

His words were quiet, like a caress. My blood heated, and I took a shaky breath, practically inhaling the rest of my champagne. It went down too quick, and I coughed, starting to choke.

Aden chuckled as my eyes watered. “It’s not funny!” I said between coughs, wheezing. “What if that had been serious?”

“Death by champagne? Doesn’t sound as bad as some things,” he said lightly.

I blushed, feeling guilty. “Yeah, I guess not.”
It
definitely
wasn’t
as bad as dying via Red Death.

Sitting the glass back down on the table, I tucked my legs beneath me on the couch. “Aden, when you were sick,” I started, meeting his
eyes, “did you, er, have any… vivid
dreams?”

His eyes sparkled with secret laughter. “You mean like fields of red flowers and sunshine and a beautiful woman
wrapped up in my arms
? Yeah, I would say it was pretty vivid.”

My jaw dropped a little, and my whole body flushed. “Oh. So it was real.” I don’t know what I was expecting. Some part of me still thought it was probably just my imagination. But it had been so much more than that.

“Sloane?”

My gaze snapped up
and my heart trembled. “Yes?” I said a little breathlessly.

Aden leaned forward; his eyes never wavered from my face. “
When I was dying, you were the only thing that kept me going.” He smile
d, wistful
. “You were my sunshine, my oxygen, my soul. Sharing what we did in the field was incredible.”

I couldn’t blink. I couldn’t do anything but stare back at him, taken aback.

“I’d heard of dream-
sharing
,” Aden went on, “but I’d never experienced
it
before with anyone.”

“You mean
you’ve never made any other vampires besides me?”
I don’t know why, but I thought maybe he was joking back in the dream world.

He shook his head. “Only you
. I have no desire to share a piece of myself like that with anyone else.”

Those last words punched me in the gut with brass knuckles of guilt. I looked away, no longer able to meet Aden’s gaze dead-on. I didn’t deserve to.

You
had no
choice but to turn Leo. It was that or lose him.

Somehow that didn’t make me feel any better.

“I’m told this Leo is your best friend,” Aden said casually.

I flinched.
Here it comes. The twelve foot elephant in the room.

“We were,” I said, my voice sounding a little squeaky because my throat was so tight. “When we were kids, that is. I’m not really sure what we are now.”

Aden hesitated, his expression clouding over with dread. “I… could feel parts of your emotions whenever you were near him.”

I
raised my brow
and he elaborated. “The longer two vampires are bonded, the deepe
r their connection gets. Dream-
sharing
is only the beginning. Eventually, we’ll be able to feel each other’s
emotions,
and
we’ll
k
now when the other is in danger,
where they are
, etc.”

“Wow,” I said, blinking. “I didn’t realize there was so much to it.”

A wry smile turned up the corner of his mouth. “You thoug
ht it was all parties and blood
sucking, did you?”

“Yeah, you got me. I was hoping quasi-immortality would be one non-stop party.”

He smiled, but it abruptly faded. “Sloane, I need you to tell me something straight.”

I froze.
No. No, please ask me anything but this.

He paused, taking a deep breath.

“Do you love him?”

I remembered Leo asking me
the exact same question, point-
blank, just like Aden was now. I swallowed, stalling so I could form a response. “I have always loved Leo,” I said slowly. “But what we share has always been deep, the kind of love family has. Now…
I don’t know.
” I sighed hard, embarrassed. “I… we kissed.” Several times, but he didn’t need to know that.

Aden looked like he was trying not to smile. “And did you like it?”

I studied him, my eyes narrowing. “You knew, didn’t you?”

That received a full-blown smile. “
I could feel your emotions when it happened
and pieced it together
.”

His voice was calm. I kept waiting for this explosion of anger or betrayal, but it never came.

He gaze
d
out into the room, his expression thoughtful. “I felt anger, grief, shock, love, but those weren’t the strongest emotions.”

I waited, but he didn’t say anything right away. “And?”

His gaze met mine.

“Loneliness. It was so great, I felt like all
the
sunshine had left the world, leaving me breathless because I felt so lonely.”

I blinked. That wasn’t what I had been expecting.

I wanted to tell him about my increased bloodlust, how whenever I drank from Leo, I hadn’t seemed to be able to control my sexual drive. Mortifying a topic as it was to discuss, I still wanted to address it. I needed to know I wasn’t losing control of myself.

A knock came from downstairs
and we both turned. “Ah, that would be our company,” Aden said, downing the rest of his champagne and getting up.

“Our company?” I asked, also rising.

He walked toward the bedroom door. “Yes. I figured since this Leo is so important to you, I wanted the chance to get to know him.” He opened the door
and paused, looking back at me.
“That’s precisely why I’ve invited him and his human companion over for dinner.”

I stood there, gaping. “You
what
?”

Aden was already out the door and bounding down the stairs, a satisfied smile on his face.

I went after him. “Aden, maybe this isn’t such a good idea.” My mouth started watering at all the wonderful smells coming from the kitchen. It smelled like
steak sauce and seasoning
. Mrs. Knight was an excellent co
ok. While I’d stayed here, she had
made huge meals for us, cooking up enough food to feed a small army.

“Oh, don’t be silly,” Aden said, h
is hand on the front doorknob.
“He is, after all, family now.”

I didn’t get another word in before he opened the door and smiled.

Reluctantly, I stepped into the rectangle of light spilling through the open door.

Leo stood there, hands in his jeans pockets, with Arika right behind him. I quickly scanned her neck. No bite marks. I inwardly sighed.
At least that’s one disaster averted.
Not that I’d had crazy bloodlust when I’d been made into a vampire, but
thinking about what could have happened
still made me worry.

Someone had obviously hooked Leo and Arika up with a clean change of clothes. He had on a black Gre
en Day T-shirt, jeans, and Puma
s. His hair had been gelled, hanging in perfect, glossy ringlets. Arika had on b
lack tights, a long sleeved, lacy
black top, combat boots, a short
poufy
black skirt, and another corset, only this one was red. It matched the red strip
e
s in her bangs. She looked miserable, like she was going before a firing squad and not
out
to dinner.

Aden saved me from an awkward greeting. “Hello,” he said pleasantly, extending his hand. “You must be Leonardo. Mind if I call you Leo?”

Leo sized him up, nodding slightly.

A bad feeling gripped me.

“That de
pends,” Leo said
. “Are you Aden? Sloane’s maker?”

“Indeed I am,” Aden said proudly.

Leo smiled. “I’ve been waiting a long time for this.”

Without warning, his fist flew out, clocking Aden clean in the jaw and sending him staggering backward.

“Leo!” I screamed, rushing forward between them.
I made to help Aden up, but he was already on his feet, rubbing his jaw.

“Brings back memories,” he said wryly, opening his mouth and closing it with a wince.

I grimaced. He was referring to when I’d accidentally socked him on my first day in his home. Mrs. Knight had snuck
up on me – which was a bad move
because I didn’t like to be grabbed without warning – and I’d gone into auto-punch mode. Aden, thankfully, had pushed her out of the way, taking the hit in the jaw.

I rounded on Leo, my gaze hot. “
What’s wrong with you? Have you lost your mind?”

He pressed his lips together, trying not to laugh. Arika’s expression was nearly identical. “Ah, he’s fine, Sloane,” Leo said, gesturing to Aden. “Besides, he’s a vampire. He’ll heal in, like, .2 seconds.”

“Actually, make that a day or two,” Aden said, coming up behind me. He had stopped rubbing his jaw, but it looked a little swollen. If he was in pain, he didn’t let on as he smiled coolly at Leo. “Though I still think Sloane hits harder.”

That wiped the smile off Leo’s face.

I groaned. Something told me this was going to be a long night.

CHAPTER 29

By the grace of the powers that be, nothing disastrous happened during dinner. Aden seemed to be mildly amused, acting as if nothing had ever happened, which I think he partially did to annoy Leo more. Leo kept shooting glares at him all night, usually while stabbing his fork a little too forcefully into his steak.

Mrs. Knight was all smiles
, graciously serving seconds and encouraging small talk. She even managed to wriggle a smile out of Arika, who up until then looked like she was going to face-plant in her mashed potatoes from boredom.

We didn’t talk about what had happened
aboveground
. I kept waiting for it to come up, but it never really did. Every time the conversation start
ed veering into no-man’s-l
and, Mrs. Knight would deftly pull it back into another direction. I think that
was the whole point of this get-
together, to smooth things out between her son and me, and to take all of us “stra
ys” under her wing.
I suspected she had more to do with
the
dinner invitations than Aden.

All throughout dinner, I couldn’t help but stew over what remained to be done. I needed – okay,
wanted
– to talk to Deyzre or Rook and find out where they had stowed Ivan so I could pick his brains about my long lost grandpa. I also wanted to ask Paris how the vaccine was coming along. Nothing had been said on the local vampire station, or at least, from what I could make out. Reception down here was pretty sketchy at best. It seemed like Frost was keeping the Red Death under wraps, probably in an attempt to prevent mass hysteria.

After dinner, Aden and I walked Leo and Arika to the front door. Soon as the door was open, Arika stepped outside, too eager to get away. Leo lingered behind, his eyes catching mine for a moment.

I had so many things I wanted to ask him. Why he hadn’t come by, how he was handling all this, if he needed anything. Mostly, I wanted to know if he still needed
me
.