Chapter 24

Ensconced in Madame Dumont’s spacious yet cozy library, Aiden rocked slowly in a high-backed executive chair. With the doors shut, muting the music and guests, the squeaking of its shiny black leather was the only sound in the room. In one of a pair of plush matching leather chairs across a massive glossy dark wooden desk, Anna watched him. From beneath tightened brows, the worry was plain on her face.

“It’ll be okay,” he said before glancing at Eva in her fuchsia wrap dress, leaning against one of the cherry bookshelves lining a wall. “Go ahead and sit, Eva. It may be a while yet.”

After a curt nod, she moved across the crimson and black carpet to the other seat. Aiden swallowed as he tracked her sleek form. After she’d settled in the chair, the ever-hungry flash of her impish eyes while she crossed her sleek, toned legs had his pulse racing. When Anna caught his gaze, he flashed her a smile and sent out another forceful pulsation.

With forceful exhales, both women tensed. As Anna’s lower jaw trembled, twin spikes jutted from beneath the slender crimson halters straining over her enormous chest. There was more than fear in their eyes. Although the ring’s energy wouldn’t stop, Aiden also would not mute it. He was a beacon. Sophie needed to sense the hunger. And know she wasn’t alone. That she’d never be abandoned again.

“How can you be so sure, Aiden?” Anna asked as her gaze drifted to the closed doors. “It’s been over an hour.”

“She’ll come.” He looked at the small table between the two women. Though he settled on the pair of empty champagne flutes, glittery in the dim lighting, his mind wandered far. Along flickering tendrils of blue-tinged orange. In a distant tone, he added. “Soon. He’ll send her. For me.”

“But how do you know that?” Eva’s voice was shaky. After her eyes dropped to his hands, clasped on the desktop, they focused on the cold band of metal around his finger. “Did it tell you that?”

“Yes.” He let his gaze drift to her wide, dark pools. “Blaine is, if nothing else, consistent. He thinks he’s safe with Sophie.”

“He has her back under his control?”

Though low, Anna’s voice echoed in his skull as his mind watched the shadowy silhouettes moving on the dark terrace. One of them separated to move towards the house. As he tracked its approach, Aiden’s heartbeat thumped louder. He shook his head to get an image from his skull; Hui Ying, her pale naked frame chained to an ancient stone pillar beneath swirling red clouds.

“Yes. Well, no. He’s not as, I don’t know, lucky as me, I guess.” After a quiet gulp, he glanced at the ring. “It and I have an understanding. He never had that. It’s trusted me more than him. I’ve no idea why.” He chuckled, then lifted the hand with the cold metal circle on its finger. “I wish I knew. Then maybe I’d understand a helluva lot more about this thing.”

At the sudden turn of a handle, his chest tightened. While turning in their seats, Anna and Eva gasped.

“She’s here,” he stated, even as one of the pocket doors eased sideways.

When the gap widened, he surged from the chair. After stumbling only for a brief second when an enormous pulse thundered across the room, he continued marching for the widening portal. As the door froze, its handle shook. Despite the ring chanting ever louder, he buttoned his tuxedo jacket and flashed a smile at both women. Also captured in the energy wave, Eva’s slim body shuddered, while Anna’s eyes had become white-rimmed gray-green pools.

“Stay here,” he said, while continuing for the door.

“Shouldn’t we—” Eva’s shaky whisper softened the tensing muscles of his chest.

“No. Not yet.” His gaze left them to stare at the open gap in the doors. “When I call, come to me.”

“How will we—” Anna’s voice faded when he wriggled the finger bearing the ring.

After he’d yanked on the handle, the door flew wide, revealing Hui Ying’s gold-clad frame. As he pushed past her, she stumbled backwards. At his fingers on her slim shoulder, the tiny woman gasped. Yet, after only a brief tensing, pressed into his hand.

“I know,” he said, before aiming her for the dark patio.

Although the crowd had diminished, those in the main room looked up as he guided the small woman towards the glittering azure waves in an almost eerie blackness. On shaky, dragging heels, she stumbled beside him, trying to keep pace as he pressed her onwards. The golden dress glimmered with each jerking motion.

“He’s not like you. He’s...”

At the uncertainty in her voice, he chuckled while scanning the shadows beyond the brightly lit room. Just as he swerved around a cluster of departing guests, she lurched into him. At the soft press of her tiny frame, Aiden loosened his grip on the ring. As she shook, he gripped her shoulder tighter, slowing them while its pulse pierced the gasping woman.

As the wave diminished, his eyebrows raised. It had only been a gentle burst, more like a nudge. After sliding through its cloak of orange flickering flames, his mind sought the ring. When he found it, his brows tightened. And even as he scanned Hui Ying, her fine eyelashes became glittery with tears. With a grunt, he returned to focus on the ring. What? Why sadness?

At a sudden vision, he sucked in air through gritted teeth. The rage on Blaine’s face. The relentless, brutal strikes. She’d wanted to flee. But wasn’t allowed. Not by him. By others. More blows. So much anger from him. After softening his grip, he turned to Hui Ying. Just before stepping from the house, a chilly evening breeze sent that perfect bang sliding across her forehead. In mid-step, he slowed to inspect her.

“No. I’m not cruel like him, Hui Ying.” After speaking, he removed his hand. “Powerful, I suppose, for some reason. But I’ll not ... What he’s done with—to—you, I’d never do something like that.”

“I know,” she whispered before flicking her gaze to shadows moving beyond the far side of the glittering pool. “He wants his ring back.”

“His?” Aiden laughed. “We both recognize the lie in that, don’t we, Hui Ying? Or whatever your real name is.”

Although she remained silent, he caught the instant shimmer of the skintight golden dress with the shaking of her diminutive figure. When her eyes dropped, he sighed and ran his fingers along her thin, pale arm. On his finger, the band of searing heat sent towering wispy tendrils to wrap around them both. The image returned. Porcelain splayed on black. Her tiny frame, stripped and chained to an enormous stone obelisk beneath an uncaring crimson sky. Whips snapping. Ceaseless. So many lashes. Delicious pleasure. Sharp, cutting pain. Wrapped together. Forever.

“And whatever you are,” he added before turning from her as she gasped.

Once on the patio, rather than pausing for his eyes to adjust, he strode onwards. Between the dim blue light from the pool’s glittering surface and the ring’s wispy tendrils, his path was clear. The shadowy forms in two distant chairs drew closer. Beside him, Hui Ying’s heels clacked as she kept pace. Because, of course, she required little light.

“Whiskey,” Aiden said after coming to a halt in the darkness and turning to look down into her shadowed face. “Straight up. And make it tall.”

At first, her mouth opened, but after a curt nod, she moved back to the house. As he tracked her, his eyebrow lifted; she’d hardly hesitated. After a heavy sigh, he headed past a cluster of guests departing the patio to delve further into the shadows.

Just as he approached the pair of silhouettes, an icy pulse swept towards him. But when the energy parted and dissipated, the larger, hulking shadow hissed. Once Aiden halted, Sophie’s form solidified in the darkness. In a chair, with her arms tight across her chest and legs crossed, she remained silent and unmoving at his approach. Her dark eyes were glossy black holes.

With his thick legs wide and large hands curled around a champagne flute in his lap, Blaine Hornsby sat in the middle of a neighboring couch. Though in shadow, Aiden could see his knitted brows and hunching shoulders. There was the softest squeak as the man’s fingers tightened on the glass.