ADEN STONE THRASHED ON his bed, his sheets falling to the floor. Too hot. Sweat poured from him, causing his boxers, the only thing he wore, to stick to his thighs. Too much. His mindâ¦oh, his poor, ravaged mind. So many flickering images tangled with consuming darkness, horrid chaos and brutal pain.
Couldnât takeâ¦much more⦠He was human, yet scorching vampire blood now flowed through his veins. Powerful vampire blood that allowed him to see the world through the eyes of its donor, if only for a little while. That wouldnât have been so terribleâheâd experienced it beforeâexcept he had ingested blood from two different sources the night before. Accidentally, of course, but that didnât matter to his scrambled brain.
One sourceâhis girlfriend, the Princess Victoria. The other, Dmitri, her dead fiancé. Or betrothed. Whatever.
Now their blood fought a vicious tug-of-war for his attention. A toxic back-and-forth. No big deal, right?
Over the years, heâd fought zombies, time-traveled and talked to ghosts; he should be able to laugh about a little ADD. Wrong! He felt as if heâd drunk a bottle of acid with a chaser of broken glass. One burned him while the other sliced him to pieces.
And now he wasâ
Switching focus again.
âOh, Father,â he suddenly heard Victoria whisper.
He winced. Sheâd whispered, yeah, but, too loud. His ears were as sensitive as the rest of him.
Somehow, he found the strength to push through the pain and center his gaze. Big mistake. Too bright. The heavy gloom of Dmitriâs surroundings had given way to the sparkling colors of Victoriaâs. Aden peered through her eyes now, unable to even blink on his own.
âYou were the strongest man ever to live,â she continued in a solemn tone, and Aden felt as if he were the one speaking, his throat rubbed raw. âHow could you have been defeated so quickly?â How could I not have known what was happening? she thought.
She, her bodyguard, Riley, and their friend Mary Ann had driven Aden home last night. Victoria had wanted to stay with him, but heâd sent her away. He hadnât known how he would react to the two different types of blood inside him, and sheâd needed to be with her people in their time of mourning. For a while, heâd tried to sleep, tossing and turning, his body recovering from the beat down it had givenâand received. Then, about an hour ago, the tug-of-war had begun. Thank God Victoria had beat feet. What a freaking nightmare it would have been to see himself through her eyes, in his current pathetic condition, and know what she was thinking.
When Victoria thought of him, he wanted her stuck on the word invincible. Barring that, heâd make do with hot. Anything else, no thanks. Because he thought she was perfect, in every way.
Perfect and sweet and beautiful. And his. Her image filled his mind. She had long, dark hair that tumbled down her pale shoulders, blue eyes that glittered like crystals and lips that were cherry red. Kissable. Lickable.
Heâd met her only a few weeks ago, though he felt as if heâd known her forever. Which, in a warped kind of way, he had. Well, at least for the last six months, thanks to a heads-up from one of the souls living in his head. Yeah, as if vampires and telepathic blood werenât enough of an oddity, Aden shared his head with three other human souls. More than that, each soul possessed a supernatural ability.
Julian could raise the dead.
Caleb could possess other bodies.
And Elijah could predict the future.
Through Elijah, Aden had known he would encounter
Victoria before sheâd ever arrived in Crossroads, Oklahoma. A place heâd once considered hell on earth, but now considered The Awesome, even though it was a total breeding ground for so-called mythical creatures. Witches, goblins, fairiesâall enemies to Victoriaâand of course, vampires. Oh, and werewolves, the vampire protectors.
And, okay. That was a lot of freaking creatures. But if one myth had been true, it kinda made sense that all myths would be.
âWhat am I going to do withââ Victoria began again, drawing his attention to the present.
He really wanted to hear her complete that sentence. Before she could utter another word, however, his focus switched. Again. Darkness suddenly enveloped him, consuming him, chasing away his connection to Victoria. Adenâs thrashing on his bed renewed, pain exploding through him just before he linked with the other vampire. Dmitri.