D. Reynolds - Aden

Aden and his crew parked a short block away from the warehouse entrance. They were too big and too noticeable to approach unremarked upon, whether walking or driving, so Travis took the nearest parking spot that could handle the big SUV.

There was a line of customers waiting in front of the club, every one of them eager to donate blood to whatever vampire crooked a finger. Aden had been to plenty of blood houses over the years. He and Lucas had shut a few down back in the day. But it wasn’t his choice of donor. He much preferred a private party for two with someone like Sidonie Reid. In fact, before too much longer, he and the lovely Sidonie would be having that party. But first . . . there was Silas.

The club was crowded inside. Being a warehouse, it had high ceilings, rough brick walls, and a floor that was cold concrete beneath his boots. But it was no more than 2,000 square feet, rectangular in shape, and with a brightly-lit bar running nearly the full length of the back wall.

Aden and the others shoved their way through the crowd, ignoring the delighted squeals of blood groupies and the occasional groping hand. A few vampires objected loudly to their sudden appearance, but quickly fell back when they got a good look at who the newcomers were. A path cleared before them rather quickly, as vampires faded into the crowd and took their human companions with them.

“The private room, Sire,” Bastien said in his ear, nodding at a wide metal door to one side of the long bar. It was painted an unimaginative bright red, but at least the color made it easy to spot in the flickering light of the dark warehouse.

Trav reached the door first. It had an ordinary metal door knob, which he twisted experimentally, finding it unlocked. He shared a skeptical look with Aden. Where was the security on this supposedly private room?

“Is there an anteroom inside? A second door?” he asked Travis, needing to shout to be heard over the noise, despite their enhanced hearing.

“Not that I’ve seen, Sire,” Trav shouted back.

Bastien came up on Aden’s other side. “Something’s not right here,” Aden told him. “They’re expecting us.”

Bastien looked up and met his eyes. “You think our source was playing both sides?”

“Maybe. But it’s too late now. This changes nothing, except that now we know they’re waiting for us. Stupid of them. They should have left a guard on the door. Ready, gentlemen?”

His question was met by vicious grins and nods all around. “Let’s do this.”

Travis yanked the door open on his signal.

They were outnumbered four to one. No, Aden corrected, five to one. And Silas was nowhere to be found. Typical. First, the coward sent a team of incompetents to ambush him outside the hotel, and now this. Silas couldn’t dredge up enough courage to face Aden one-on-one, but wanted to be the next Lord of the Midwest.

Not gonna happen, but that showdown would come later. Right now, Aden had to deal with the current threat, had to keep his own people alive. Because Silas or not, there were plenty of enemies here, all trying to kill him and his.

Aden waded into the crowd of hostile vampires, his power lashing left and right, thundering off the walls of the small room. There was a small bar against one wall, and the stench of alcohol permeated the air quickly as bottle after bottle shattered. Glasses rattled and fell from shelves, while the industrial lights overhead swayed alarmingly on their unadorned cables. Gradually, the air filled with a fine gray dust as vampire after vampire fell before the combined might of Aden and his cadre.

From the depths of Aden’s power, a dark force lifted its head and scented death, demanding to be set free. Drawing on two centuries of discipline, Aden flexed his will and forced it down, unwilling to permit Silas’s spies to carry word of his true abilities back to their master. But a taste of that dark cruelty must have shown in his gaze, in the midnight glow of his eyes, because Silas’s followers took one look at Aden standing there covered in blood and saw their deaths. They broke for the exit, but Bastien and the others got there first. No mercy, Aden had told his people, and they granted none.

Finally, Aden stood in the middle of the room, smelling the dust and blood that were the inevitable remains of a vampire’s battlefield, searching for an enemy among the shattered remains of tables and chairs, the pile of glass and wood that had once been an antique bar front. No one rose from the rubble to challenge him. No heart beat within the twenty-by-twenty confines of the private room, but for those four who were under Aden’s care. And Aden himself.

He knew what he looked like. Knew the cold glow of his eyes, the curl of his fingers into claws, and the gleam of his fangs dripping blood. Even his own children hesitated to approach him with echoes of his power still bouncing off the walls. Only Sebastien knew what the night’s work had cost him, the effort it took to contain the unique and gruesome ability that had come to him with his vampire blood. But he’d learned the necessity of rigid control as a child, a never-forgotten lesson that had stood him in good stead since he’d become Vampire. When he finally ran Silas to ground and forced a fight between them, he would hold nothing back, but the lesser vampires she’d left to die tonight had been more of her sacrificial lambs.

Silence slowly filled the room. The dust settled, and the last shattered bottle drained its contents onto the debris.

“Sire.” It was Bastien, of course. Of all of them, it was his eldest who had the least fear of him, no matter the circumstances.

“Any humans?” Aden growled, barely able to form the word from the depths of his anger.

“There were none in this room, my lord. A small grace, but Silas must have cleared them out in anticipation of your arrival.”

Aden clenched his jaw against the incontrovertible conclusion from that bit of information. Silas had known he was coming. But how?

“I’ll want to speak directly to your source tomorrow, Bastien. Someone warned Silas we were coming, and I want to know who it was.”

“Our action was unplanned, my lord,” Bastien protested. “No one knew except—”

Aden turned sharply to regard him. “Except who?”

His lieutenant eyed him warily, then drew a deep breath and ventured, “Ms. Reid, Sire. I was on the phone when she walked past. She might have overheard.”

Aden frowned. Was that the real reason Sidonie had approached him when she did? Was her story of a dead friend and drugs simply a cover to get her into his office, like a silk-clad Trojan horse? The thought made him so angry, he nearly choked on it. He wanted to storm over to her home and confront her, wanted to tear the truth from her mind until she begged for death.

But it was late, and he had others to protect.

“Sidonie will be joining us again tomorrow,” he said coolly. “If it was she who betrayed us, I’ll know it before the night is over.”

SID STOOD IN FRONT of the mirror, once again trying to decide what to wear for a meeting with Aden. She kept glancing at the clock. She didn’t want to be late, didn’t want to give him any reason to turn her away. She was determined not to be sidetracked tonight. She was going to confront Aden with what she knew about Klemens’s sick enterprises and ask him what he planned to do about it. She was also curious, after her conversation with Dresner last night, about what had happened between Aden and Silas. She even admitted to being a little afraid that Aden had been defeated and that there’d be no one to meet with her when she arrived at his office. Or even worse, there’d be some strange vampire that she couldn’t trust.

Not that she trusted Aden. She wasn’t that naïve. But he seemed, if not honest, then at least businesslike. And maybe a little intrigued by her sexually. And, okay, maybe she was intrigued right back at him, which made her wonder at her own sanity. But she couldn’t get the image out of her head of Aden’s mouth on her neck, his breath warm as his fangs slowly emerged from his gums, as they pierced her vein . . .

Damn. She shook herself mentally. Was this why so many women, and men, too, lined up for those blood houses? Did the vamps exude some sort of pheromone that made regular humans lose every ounce of survival instinct?

“Snap out of it!” Sid told herself sharply, then laughed. She really was going nuts. She stepped into the green wool sheath she’d decided to wear tonight, pulling it up over her hips and reaching back to zip it before eyeing herself critically. It was a nice enough dress, but she’d chosen it for the neckline. Most of her winter clothes had turtlenecks, because they were winter clothes. This was Chicago, after all. The sweater she’d worn last night and this dress were probably the only exceptions in her closet.

She smoothed the soft wool over her hips, fighting the instinct to find a cardigan to cover the sweetheart neckline, which not only bared her neck, but also showed a fair amount of cleavage. With a deep sigh, she stepped into a pair of simple black pumps. Simple in that they were unadorned, but the heels were high and spiky, and there was a tiny bow on the back that transformed them from businesslike to sexy. Or so she thought. Hopefully, Aden would, too.

With another long-suffering sigh, she pulled on her warm coat and headed off to walk voluntarily into the lion’s den once more.

ADEN STOOD BEHIND his desk as Sidonie Reid entered his office. Not for the first time, he wished his vampire gift had included a greater telepathic component, especially when it came to humans. He could work his will on them easily enough. If he’d wanted, he could have had Miss Reid stripping herself naked and on her knees before him in no time at all. He rarely did such things, however. He preferred seduction, drawing his victims in until they begged for the very thing he’d wanted from them all along, even when they’d denied him only moments before.