Page 50 of Blood Submission

Chapter21

Grace rolledover in the bed she shared with Aiden. Stretching out an arm, she patted around on the mattress next to her. It was empty.

Rubbing her eyes, she sat up and looked around the bedroom. Though it was just past dawn, the room was dark thanks to the blackout shades. “Aiden?” she called softly. She heard movement on the other side of the bed and reached over to turn on her lamp. Her hedgehog poked his nose out of his house next to the nightstand and grumbled about being woken up. “Sorry, little dude.” Rolling back over, she found Aiden standing next to the bed in his red boxer briefs. He had his back toher.

The tiny hairs rose on the back of her neck as she watched him. “Aiden?”

When he turned around, she realized she wasn’t talking to Aiden at all. Shadows darkened his grey eyes until they appeared more like a storm cloud than a morning mist. “Waano.” She spit out the detested name. Sitting up, she was glad she’d kept her PJ’s on last night. Normally, her vampire mate liked to feel her skin against his, even if they didn’t have sex, but she’d fallen asleep reading a medical textbook this morning. She’d decided to go back to school the previousweek.

Anger overcame her in a rush. “Why are you here?” she demanded. “What do you want?” She hadn’t seen this particular side of her mate since it had tried to force Aiden to commit suicide by crazy obsessed vampire bitch in a desperate bid to gain its freedom. It didn’t want to possess Aiden any more than he wanted to be possessed. But they seemed to be stuck with each other until they could figure out how to get it out ofhim.

Waano cocked Aiden’s head at a strange angle as he studied her, causing chills to skate over her skin. “What do youwant?”

“They’re here.” Aiden’s British accent was gone. “We have to warnhim.”

“Who’shere?”

“The others. They came for the box. For the clue.” Aiden’s body walked toward the bedroomdoor.

“Wait!” she cried after it. “Where are you going withhim?”

“I must tell her to warn him,” it said, and left the bedroom.

Grace scrambled out of bed, pushing her long, red hair out of her face. She followed Aiden, or rather Aiden’s body, out of the apartment and to the stairs. “Nikulas!” she screamed from the hallway. “Emma!”

Nik’s blonde head popped out of the apartment and Grace looked back at him with frantic eyes. When he saw her following Aiden into the stairwell, he shoved Emma back into the apartment. “Stay here!” he ordered. “I mean it, Em!” Then he closed the door in her face and followed Grace.

She held the heavy door open for him and kept her eyes on Aiden. He was heading up the stairs. “I think he’s going to Luukas’s.”

“Yeah, that’s not going to end well,” Nik answered. “Especially not with those obnoxious undies he’s wearing. It’s going to be like flashing a red cape in front of an enraged bull. Only worse.”

“How do we stop him?” she asked as she began climbing the stairs. The concrete was cold on her barefeet.

“I don’t think we can,” he said. “But we can stop Luukas from killing him.” Adding under his breath, “Ihope.”

But Grace heard him. “You should’ve let Emma come. She couldhelp —”

He cut her off with a slash of his hand and a quick shake of his head. “No fuckingway.”

“Nik, her powers are growing. She stopped Dante. You need to let her helpus.”

“Not today,” hesang.

“Nik.”

“NO.”

Grace sighed, but didn’t argue with him further. They were approaching Luukas’sdoor.

Waano didn’t knock. One well-placed front kick broke the lock, tore the door from its hinges, and sent it flying into the apartment. Aiden/Waano calmly walked in after it, with Grace and Nikulas on its heels.

“Dammit, Nikulas! We just fixed that door!” Keira’s voice came from the glass-walled office just as over six feet of pissed off Master Vampire filled the doorway at the opposite end of the foyer. He wore nothing but a pair of black lounge pants, the muscles jumping in his chest and arms as his upper lip pulled back to reveal long fangs ready to take a bite out of whoever it was that had just busted into hishome.

One look at Aiden and Luukas hissed in fury, fisting his hands at his sides and dropping into a fighting stance.

Nik got between him and Aiden just as he was about to attack. “Luuk! Wait! He says he needs to tell you something. He hasn’t threatened anyone.”

“Her,” Waano clarified. “I need to tell her, the witch.”

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