Chapter Eleven
A iden didn’t know if he should’ve lived, but he did.
His feet had turned to anvils as he’d trudged down the strip.
At some point, he’d stopped to rinse his bloody hands in a water fountain and re-tie his boots.
The four holes in his throat had soaked the collar on his black shirt.
Turned the water pink in the shower, circling his toes and the silver drain.
He’d scrubbed his body with neatly packaged hotel soap, somehow convinced he could wash the night away if he cleaned well enough.
He shaved his jaw, each arm, his legs, between his thighs.
Lathered his hair, disinfected the bitemark, and dug at his ears with a towel.
Sleep had arrived instantly. Almost like he’d been trapped in a dream and lying down meant waking.
Something touched his nose. A soft, slow stroke, brow to tip, again and again. He wanted to stay in that darkness, that pleasant, simple silence. But he thought, Shay , and opened his eyes.
Shay gazed at him. Pretty eyes. Big, blue, Bambi eyes. He brushed his finger down Aiden’s nose again, and said, fondly, “Hey, dipshit.”
“Hi, asshole,” Aiden rasped .
Radiance replaced the sick Shay had carried yesterday, plumping his mouth and cheeks, chasing the ash from his olive skin.
He touched Aiden without pause, thumb to mouth, resting there, then inching downward, pinching his chin.
Shay lifted his head and leaned closer, studying the fang-prints on Aiden’s throat. “I went alone for a reason,” he said.
“That didn’t sound like ‘sorry for almost eating you, Aiden. I’ll buy you breakfast’,” Aiden said.
Get away from him, you idiot. He swallowed, steering his eyes away from Shay’s parted lips.
He didn’t want to look at him, to be caught looking at him.
But he was fucking trapped—captured like a fox in a snare.
Shay touched him casually, as if they’d touched each other a thousand times before.
“Guess we’re even,” Shay said, and followed Aiden’s jaw with his fingertips, tracing a constellation between each puncture.
Everything below Aiden’s navel clenched. He imagined moving, but couldn’t. Imagined kissing Shay, but didn’t. “Thought I was a goner, honestly.”
“Me, too.” His throat worked around a swallow. “You sounded scared, Aiden. Really scared.”
“You did, too. That night at the trailhead.”
“I was,” he said, and laughed under his breath. “Thought I’d finally hit the jackpot and then you kicked me in the chest. Rude awakening, you know.”
Jackpot.
Unmistakable heat ignited behind his heart. Impossible , he thought. Absolutely the fuck not , he thought. Shay, you didn’t , he thought. You didn’t . “Can’t believe you bit me.” He blinked away the sting in his eyes. “Like a dog,” he added, snidely.
Shay nuzzled the pillow. “Like I said, we’re even.”
Aiden pushed the comforter away and swung his legs over the edge of the bed.
With his back to Shay, he allowed his jaw to slacken, his eyes to widen, his fingers to flex in his lap.
The overpriced psychic was right. He needed to tear this feeling out by its roots.
Exorcise himself of this love, this acquiescence, this wretched, overbearing want.
Shay touched a thin, red cut on Aiden’s tailbone—the place his claw had snagged. His voice softened. “Why didn’t you stop me?”
The stone Thomas had pounded into Aiden’s throat reappeared.
He shook his head, trying and failing to find the right words to express how his willingness to die in that specific moment tethered ruthlessly to Shay’s refusal to stay dead a few nights ago.
How self-preservation had always been prioritized over other people until Shay Bennett chose his own glory over Aiden.
How when Aiden tried to do the same, he still chose Shay.
“Those claws were new,” Aiden said, because saying I am completely fucking ruined by you was not an option.
Shay sighed through his nose. “Don’t avoid the question.”
“It doesn’t matter. We’re alive despite each other.
Let’s keep it that way.” Aiden stood, glancing over his shoulder.
Shay propped himself on his elbow, expression strung between irritation and curiosity.
A jagged, pink scar marked the place where Aiden’s hunting knife had skewered his stomach.
“Vampire shit,” Aiden said, matter-of-factly, and pointed at his woundless belly, then lifted his hand and pointed to the bitemark on his throat. “ Extremely vampire shit.”
Shay furrowed his brow. “Did anyone see us leave?” he asked, and flopped onto the bed, tangling himself in the comforter.
“Me and… I think her name was Cassandra. Cassie. . .” He stuffed his nose in the blanket.
Aiden hated these parts: when Shay became unguarded and vulnerable, nestled in the king-sized bed with his fingers coiled around still-warm sheets.
When he made himself available, easy to want after becoming a beast. Shay huffed adorably.
“I di dn’t realize. I mean, I did . I knew what I was doing, but?—”
“You didn’t think about being on tour with the band she was following around,” Aiden said. He shook his head. “Laura, that weird fuckin’ girl with the ugly gloves, she saw you leave with her. I’m sure a few security cameras did, too.”
“I don’t think I’ll do very well in prison.”
“You’re not going to prison, princess Bennett. You’re rich and you’re white and I’ll vouch for you, calm down.”
“Aiden, I killed someone, I?—”
“You fed,” Aiden snapped. He stood beside the bed, raking his fingers through his hair. “You did what you had to do. Besides the almost-killing-me part, you could’ve skipped that.”
Shay paled, staring at Aiden. He looked scared, almost. Softened by guilt. “You feel okay, right. . . ?” Shay asked, voice hushed. “You’re not, like, turning or something?”
“Icing on the cake,” Aiden said and walked into the bathroom.
He opened his mouth, pushed his fingers against blunt canines, and tugged at his eyelids, searching for demonic-adjacent evidence.
He saw Shay watching him intently in the mirror.
“Lookin’ pretty human to me, but I’ll let you know if I get the sudden urge to bite a chunk out of your neck. ”
Shay laughed, sarcastically, and threw a shoe at him.
Aiden kicked the bathroom door shut. Secretly, he crossed his fingers and hoped for fangs.
The speedway roared. Vendors lined the area to the left of the stage, selling memorabilia, greasy food, cold beer, and watered-down cocktails.
Knight’s Blood had played in similar, sweeping venues.
The kind reserved for Metallica, Prince, Dio, and Beyoncé.
But Aiden had never seen their name at the top of the flyer, or their logo printed on t-shirts and snapbacks at the giant headliner merch-booth.
They’d always played under the scorching mid-afternoon sun, staring at a lackluster crowd and a lazy mosh-pit.
Tonight, the moon rose steadily, darkness cloaked the repurposed racetrack, and Knight’s Blood listened to their introduction ring loudly through the open-air arena.
Shay snorted a bump of coke from the hollow of his thumb, winced and hissed, and pressed his thumb against his nostril. “Fuck, Dylan. This is good shit, but damn. Little strong, huh?”
“It’s fifty-fifty, coke and ice,” Dylan said.
Georgia swatted Dylan on the back of the head, and said, “Nuh-uh, we don’t mess around with meth, man. You know better.”
Aiden snorted a bump from the back of his hand. Ouch, yeah. Wow . “Calm down, Georgia. We’ll live.” He dumped another white mound between his knuckles and inhaled. “We’re doin’ an encore tonight, yeah?”
“Holy Diver,” Shay said, nodding.
Georgia adjusted the straps on her pleather bralette. “All right, we ready?”
They walked to their designated stations, shielded by a red curtain rippling at the edge of the stage.
Aiden rolled his shoulder until the guitar strap fit comfortably.
Their logo flashed, strobing as their introduction ended, fading into the epic sound of swords clashing, hooves clopping, soldiers shouting.
Adrenaline kicked his heart into gear. The drugs did, too.
Sharpening his gaze, numbing his throat.
Déjà vu fluttered through him, and everything, all at once, shifted from then to now , impossible to possible, past to present.
Shay glanced at Aiden, wrapped his hand around the silver microphone and tugged it toward his mouth.
His growling laughter echoed, and the crowd raged.
“Good evening, Las Vegas,” Shay rasped, too sexy and too confident. He winked at Aiden, confidently, like a dick .
Aiden steered his flushed face toward the rapidly falling curtain.
He hit the strings on his guitar and widened his stance, jumping into the first song of the night: Into the Wild.
The audience stretched on and on, howling and cheering as Knight’s Blood played.
For the first time since Shay had re-joined the group, their stage presence as a unit evolved.
It felt like they were seventeen, chugging beers on a makeshift stage.
Aiden remembered those days. Falling asleep with his temple propped on Dylan’s shoulder before their three o’clock set.
Writing songs with Georgia in semi-dry storm drains and stealing malt beer from the grocery store.
Sitting cross-legged on Shay Bennet’s bed and watching the sun rise through his window, still carrying smoke and hope on their clothes, saying one day we’ll play in Amsterdam and Australia and Tokyo, and Shay believing him.