Chapter 16 #2
Aiden wanted to laugh and shake him in between his broken sobs. “So, this was your plan to lead us to the Heller clan? To uncover all who threaten me?” Aiden asked. He sounded weary and maybe even incredulous to his own ears.
Ronan shrugged as if it were no big deal. “Well, it seemed the most expedient solution.”
“We caught him! He handed himself over to protect you!” Mara cried, but Aiden and Ronan ignored her.
There was a low growl to his left, and Aiden looked down to find River in his wolf form standing next to him, his head low and hackles raised while white teeth were bared in anger. He hadn’t realized that Wyatt and River had changed into their wolf forms.
“That’s quite an army you brought,” Ronan said.
Aiden glanced down the line to see his clan, his family standing with him.
Bel stood with a raven on his shoulder, but he had no doubt more animals were at the ready.
Marcus, Winter, Rafe, and Philippe were prepared with swords.
A small flame flickered in Ethan’s palm while the air around Fox crackled with energy.
Yes, they were very impressive and absolutely lethal when it came to protecting one of their own. And Ronan was theirs.
“You attack us now, and Ronan won’t survive the trip to Europe. Your family will be slaughtered! You will be dragged before the Ministry!” Mara threatened, her voice shaking and growing louder with each word.
“So…blood and carnage?” Ronan asked. His grin tilted, becoming a little more devilish, but Aiden shook his head. Vampires weren’t scared of blood and carnage. Aiden intended to create a nightmare from which Mara would never escape.
“How well do you remember 1347?” Aiden murmured, and Ronan’s smile disappeared into a mask of confusion.
Turning his attention over to Christopher, Aiden narrowed his gaze.
He took a step forward, putting a little distance between himself and his family.
“The Ministry intends to use you against me. You’re a pawn.
The power they promised you is a lie. I’ll give you and your clan this one final reprieve.
Leave now. Be out of Connecticut tonight.
Be out of the Americas in forty-eight hours, and I’ll let you all live.
Stay, and every last member of your clan will be slaughtered. ”
Heller laughed, the sound was high-pitched and a little desperate. “You’re insane, Varik. Even if you kill us, I swear we’re going to take a good number of you with us. I’ll finish Damon’s work. The Variks will be destroyed.”
Aiden slowly lifted his hands with his palms up, almost in supplication.
“No. No, you won’t.” He drew in a deep breath and held it for a second before steadily releasing it between parted lips.
As he tapped the power deep inside his chest, an overwhelming sense of peace swept over him.
It was a strange and almost frightening calm he hadn’t felt in centuries, but then it had easily been that long since he’d last used his gift.
Long tendrils of mist started to creep and slither across the ground toward the gathering of Heller’s clan. Aiden had seen a similar fog wind through cities plenty of times in his life, but this was different. This white mist moved with purpose.
Aiden looked up at Ronan’s worried gaze and offered a sad smile.
“Aiden?”
“Look only at me, my love. I have you. I swear.”
His control would be perfect and precise. Nothing would touch Ronan or his family. Or Mara. He wanted her to watch and remember.
The gathered vampires shifted uneasily as the mist closed in. No one paid much attention to it, and that was fine with him.
“Kill the Variks!” Mara shouted.
But no one moved.
Then the first one screamed. The mist wrapped around its victims, sinking into their flesh.
More voices were raised, one after another.
The vampires clawed at their flesh and fell to the ground, writhing in pain.
After a couple of moments, it became clear that skin was blackening and pulling away from the bone.
“What-what’s happening to them?” Bel gasped as one of the wolves whimpered.
“They’re rotting,” Aiden said simply. “It’s my gift.
I can make living creatures decay.” It was a horrible, ugly, wretched gift.
He’d always hated it. Hated that he could so easily do something so hideous.
Bel’s was a beautiful gift. Marcus’s darkness was a blessing.
Rafe’s charm was playful. Even Ronan’s gift of sleep was gentle. But this, it was monstrous.
And yet it came to him as easy as breathing.
Mara spun in place, pulling away from Christopher with a frantic scream as he clawed at her. She grabbed at Michael, frightened tears streaking down her face as she tried to get him back to his feet and to the car. But there was no escape.
It took only a couple of minutes for all the vampires to die, but his gift wasn’t done. Not until their bodies turned to dust. There would be nothing else of them but piles of empty clothes dotting the asphalt.
Aiden extended his left hand toward Marcus.
“Your knife, please Marcus.” A moment later, a knife handle was pressed into his palm, but Aiden was careful not to look at his son’s face.
He couldn’t face him yet. Couldn’t risk seeing the horror and rejection yet.
At least not until Ronan was free. Once his mate was completely safe, then he would deal with the damage he’d created.
Closing his fingers around the handle, Aiden was stunned to feel Marcus catch his hand, holding him in place. He reluctantly looked up, but there was only worry and love in his eldest son’s eyes.
“This changes nothing,” Marcus said forcefully. “You are still our father, and we love you.”
Aiden could only nod, unable to get a single word past the lump that had closed off his throat. Marcus released him, and on slightly wobbly legs, he closed the distance separating him and Ronan. His lover held up his bound hands and Aiden very carefully cut them away.
“The Black Death…that was you?” Ronan asked softly.
Aiden tried to laugh, but the sound came out ragged and choked. “God, no. But I might have thrown some temper tantrums that looked very much like the bubonic plague in my younger years.”
“For how long?”
Aiden lifted his gaze and sighed. “About two hundred years. I didn’t handle losing you too well in the beginning.”
As soon as his hands were free, Ronan touched Aiden’s jaw. “You will never lose me again.”
Aiden truly wanted to believe that, but there was something he needed to do first. To protect Ronan. To protect all of his clan.
Placing the knife in Ronan’s palm, he stepped around his lover and approached Mara, who was tugging at the door handle of one of the SUVs. Apparently the vampire who had driven the vehicle had locked it behind him, and she didn’t have the presence of mind to find the keys.
He grabbed her arm and pulled her away from the vehicle so that she was forced to face him. She sucked in harsh, ragged breaths while tugging ineffectively at his grip.
“You’re a bastard! A monster! The Ministry is going to slaughter you!
” she shouted in his face, but Aiden ignored it.
Holding her hand in one of his, he used his other to pull up the sleeve of her coat and her blouse, revealing perfect pale flesh.
Wrapping his fingers around her slender forearm, he called on his powers one more time.
Mara screamed and begged as fear conquered impotent rage.
“Look at me!” Aiden snapped. Mara instantly quieted to nothing more than a whimper.
“I’m going to let you live so you can carry back the story of what happened here.
Tell the ministers that if they stay on their side of the ocean, I will stay on mine.
Ronan is now a Varik. They will stay out of Varik affairs.
They will stay out of the Americas. And if they doubt your word, you will show them this.
” Aiden peeled his fingers away to gray and blackened flesh in the perfect outline of his fingers.
Mara let out a soft, broken cry. “Every morning when you close your eyes, you will remember what happened here. You’ll hear their screams. You’ll know that your life belongs to me because I let you live.
And to pay for that gift, you will become my messenger.
Anyone who plots to hurt the Variks, you will warn them of the fate that awaits them on my shores. Do you understand?”
“Yes. Yes, King Aiden,” Mara whispered with a violent nod of her head.
Aiden turned away and started to walk toward his family, hating himself.
He committed violence against others to protect those he loved.
But this, it was more akin to torture, and it left him feeling dirty.
As if the decay had seeped into his soul.
He’d never wanted this, but he would do whatever he had to in order to keep his family safe.
The quick pound of shoes across the ground had Aiden’s head jerking up, but the movement was little more than a blur before a body slammed into his. He rocked back to catch himself as arms wrapped around him tightly.
“I love you, Father.”
Rafe. His heart sighed. Rafe was holding him in a grip tight enough to crack ribs.
There were three more quick impacts that rocked him as the rest of his sons hugged him tightly. Words of love and devotion rained down on his head, washing about the self-loathing and shame.
He didn’t know how long they stood there hugging and whispering words of love, but it was Fox’s voice that brought them all back to the moment.
“Guys,” Fox called out. “I don’t know about vamps and shifters, but this witch is fucking cold! Can we go home now?”
“I’m with the witch. Let’s go home,” Ronan agreed.
Several of them chuckled, and Aiden reluctantly released his boys. They kept him grounded. Kept him from getting lost in the horror of his own mind. In the pain of loss. They were his happiness. As was Ronan.
Turning, he extended his hand to the man who’d won his heart so many centuries ago. “Home?”
Ronan took his hand, threading his fingers with Aiden’s. “You have been, and always will be, my home.”