She remembered the fantastic silk wall hanging in his sitting room. Her mother would have known instantly where and when it was from, but Sid could only guess. Maybe she could get a picture for her mom next time she was in Aden’s room. She smiled ruefully. Might as well call it what it was, the next time they had sex. And please let there be a next time, her body was begging silently.
“This is it, my lord,” Bastien said from the front seat. “White house, fourth one down on the right, broken street light.”
Sid was jerked out of her lust-filled thoughts by his announcement. She looked around and found herself back in the same Woodlawn neighborhood where she’d been skulking around . . . was it only the night before? So much had happened, it seemed longer ago.
“There’s an apartment house in the back,” she told them. “You can sneak in through—”
“There’ll be no sneaking,” Aden said, cutting her off. “Trav, Bastien,” he continued, “we’ll take the front.”
They parked two houses away. Sid climbed out after Aden, listening as he conferred with Freddy and Kage, the final two members of his inner circle who’d traveled in the van, telling them to come in from the back. She watched them slip away into the shadows, thinking about her own clumsy spying and wishing she could move with even a fraction of their stealth. Bastien and Trav had already started up the walk. She pushed away from the truck, intending to follow them, but Aden wrapped his fingers around her arm, pulling her to a stop.
“Sidonie, this will not be civilized by your standards. You may want to wait—”
“I’m going in with you,” she insisted stubbornly.
He eyed her steadily, and she thought she saw a glimmer of approval in his dark eyes before he nodded sharply and said, “As you wish. But you will go in last and remain by the door. I wouldn’t want to kill you by accident.”
Sid scowled, pretty sure he was joking about that last. But she hung back when the vampires climbed the stairs, not wanting to chance it. Her main objective tonight was to be there for the captives afterward.
Bastien reached the door first, and Sid waited to see if they’d knock and then rush the entry, or—
One kick, and the door flew inward.
Okay, well, that worked, too.
ADEN WOULD HAVE entered first, but Bastien shoved his way through the door ahead of him. It went against Aden’s nature to let someone else take a risk for him, but he was gradually coming to terms with the necessity. If he was going to rule a territory, he’d have to surrender to the requirements of security. Not for his own sake, but for the sake of those whose lives he would hold in his hands.
Once inside, however, all bets were off. There were half a dozen vampires in the living room as they came through the door, with more rushing in from other rooms in response to the noise. His inside man had told him to expect ten or more fighters, all vampires. The slavers were moving their captives tonight, and that meant the entire crew would be present. Which was what made this night perfect. Aden could wipe out the entire filthy operation with one blow.
His power lashed out, cutting through vampires like a barbed whip, saturating the air and spraying the walls with blood. Vampires screamed and died, and dust joined the bloody miasma filling the shabby room. Some of the slavers seemed to recognize him then, or at least recognize the brutal nature of his ability and the strength behind it, but even here he didn’t draw on the full depths of his power. He didn’t need it for vermin like these. And like vermin, they scurried for the back of the house, thinking to escape, but Freddy and Kage came roaring in through the kitchen door, and the fight was all but over. The slavers went down with disappointing ease. This wasn’t like the challenge battles that Aden would fight in the coming days, including the inevitable showdown with Silas. Tonight’s encounter was a bloodbath. None of these vampires had the juice to offer him even a semblance of a challenge. They were puffed-up line vamps who wouldn’t be alive if not for Lucas’s willingness to step in and keep their hearts beating after Klemens died.
The last slaver made a dash for the hallway where the captives were being kept, intent either on escape or mayhem. Aden was across the room and on top of the coward before he’d gone five feet down the hallway. Grabbing the vampire by the throat, he lifted him off his feet, watching dispassionately as his face first flushed with blood, then began to purple with a lack of air.
“Mercy, my lord,” he managed to gasp.
Aden bared his fangs. “Shall I show you the same mercy you gave these women? I know masters who will pay to own a gelded vampire. One whose will has been burned out, but who still walks and talks. Is that the mercy you’d have of me?”
The vampire’s eyes went wide in shock and fear, and he struggled to shake his head in denial. “Please,” he ground out.
Aden studied the vampire, not bothering to conceal his disgust. “I think not.” With a quick twist, he broke the vampire’s neck and dropped him to the floor, then, wielding his power with a fine control, he carved into the vamp’s chest and destroyed his heart.
“Aden, what—” Sidonie’s voice cut off mid-sentence. He could feel her behind him, but the violence storming through his veins was so great that he didn’t dare turn to face her.
“I told you to wait,” he growled.
“I did wait,” she retorted, or at least she tried to. Her bluster failed her on the last word, betraying the fear he could sense making her heart pound, a fear that he drew in like the sweetest air. It made his fangs emerge; it made his dick hard. He wanted to take her right there, to put her up against a wall and pound into her with the blood and ash of his enemies still fresh around him.
“Aden?” she asked, her voice still a little shaky.
It was too much. He spun around and snagged her by the waist, slamming her against the wall and holding her there with the full length and weight of his body. His cock was a hard bulge against her belly, and he saw her pupils flare the moment she felt it.
“I told you to wait,” he murmured, his lips right against her ear. Cupping her ass in one hand, he lifted her high enough that his cock fit neatly where it belonged.
“Is this what”—she swallowed before continuing—“is this what happens when you fight someone?”
He grinned, letting her see the length of his fangs. “Only when I kill them, habibi. Only when I drain their blood.”
“Oh.” Her tongue darted out nervously, and Aden caught it, covering her mouth with his, sucking on her tongue and closing his teeth over her tender lower lip.
“Sire, there are sirens.”
Aden kept his gaze on Sidonie’s flushed face. “Tell the others to load the women into the van. I want everyone gone in five minutes.”
“Yes, my lord.”
“Let me help,” Sidonie said, her voice steady as she met his gaze. “Please. At least let me talk to the women and tell them what’s going to happen next. They probably don’t speak English, but I know Spanish.”
Aden regarded her silently, then nodded his head once, letting her slide down the wall until she was standing on her own. “You have the same five minutes, and then you’re coming with me.”
Rising up onto her toes with a little smile, she lifted her mouth to his and kissed him. “Thank you,” she whispered, then slipped away down the hall. She went directly to the second bedroom and opened the door. A chorus of hysterical cries greeted her, and he heard her soothing the women in Spanish, telling them it was all right, that they were safe. Freddy and Kage hurried past, and Sidonie reassured the women again, embracing a very young girl, telling her not to be afraid, gripping the hand of another woman as she repeated that these men were here to help, that they’d take them to a safe place.