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The prince really was a ghost.
At least you didn’t suck him into your head, Julian offered helpfully.
Dude, Caleb said. Like that’s a silver lining.
The souls had been quiet ever since he’d taken that knife to the chest. Hearing them now, as if nothing had happened, was both a relief and a curse. They were alive and well, but he didn’t need the distraction right now.
Thomas was here to haunt him.
Sickness churned in his stomach, threatening to revolt. He’d encountered ghosts before. Hell, the souls inside him were ghosts without bodies. And yeah, he now knew Thomas couldn’t hurt Victoria, but that didn’t lessen his concern. This ghost wasn’t simply a deceased human. No telling what Thomas would be able to do.
“Leave,” he said to Victoria. He latched onto her arm and spun her around, then flattened his hand on her lower back and urged her forward, toward Riley.
“Wh-what?” She was so shocked by his words and actions, he knew, she offered no resistance.
“You have to leave.” Not once did he remove his gaze from Thomas. Just in case.
“I don’t understand.”
“You, too, Riley. Take Victoria and go.” He wanted to explain, but didn’t want Thomas to hear that Mary Ann blocked supernatural abilities, just in case other fairies were able to see and hear him. He didn’t want the fairies to know that she even blocked Aden’s. That, when she was around, he didn’t hear voices. That he didn’t see ghosts or wake the dead. Except when Riley was with her. Somehow, Riley muted her ability to, well, mute. One day he’d figure out how. Until then…“For God’s sake, go!”
Riley frowned but nodded. “Yes, my king. I’ll keep both girls safe.”
“I thought I told you not to call me that.” Aden was no one’s king. “And Mary Ann needs to stay.”
“No.” Green eyes narrowed on him. “Mary Ann goes with me, and that’s final.”
An argument? Now? For once, he would have preferred the reverence. “Actually, Mary Ann stays. That’s an order.”
Her dark head peeked from behind Riley’s shoulder. She made a slashing motion over her throat, silently telling him not to go there. Thomas watched, gauging. Deciding what next to do?
There was a pause, heavy and tension-filled. Finally, Riley growled, “Yes. My king. All shall be as you order.”
Aden pressed his lips together to stop his retort. He was getting what he wanted; he could let the sarcasm slide.
“Aden?” Victoria said, and he could hear the question—why are you doing this?—in her musical voice. Worse, he could hear the hurt.
He suddenly hated himself. She’d endured enough hurt lately, and he didn’t like adding to the mix.
Don’t be so harsh with her, Aden, Caleb scolded him. You know I only want to show her a good time.
A good time. Yeah. That’s all Aden wanted to show her, too. Always. She’d spent her life obeying one rule after another, sheltered, not really allowed to laugh, yet here he was, pushing her away without explanation.
Moment they were safe, he’d tell her why. And then he’d tease her until she laughed. He’d only heard her laugh once, and still dreamed of hearing that tinkling sound again.
Please don’t tell me you’re listening to Caleb now, Julian snapped. We’ve got work to do. Yeah. Sexy work. You are such a pervert.
Boys. Elijah sighed. Is arguing necessary? Now?
Looked like Elijah had taken over the role of mother hen now that Eve was gone.
“Aden,” Victoria repeated, drawing him back to the present.
He ground his teeth, irritated with himself. His concentration sucked, even in times of great danger. “Call me later,” was all he said, still unwilling to explain while Thomas could hear.
“I’ll do more than that. I’ll return for you this evening.” Victoria grabbed Riley’s hand before the wolf could protest. “My family wishes to meet you, and their wishes are not something you can ignore.”
With that, the two were gone.
A second later, Thomas vanished, as well. A second after that, the souls inside of Aden gasped, as they always did when Mary Ann muted them, fading from his mind, falling into the black hole they’d once told him about.
They despised that black hole, but they didn’t complain. They loved Aden. They wanted him happy, and they knew these private moments were necessary.
As necessary as letting them go, he thought, guilty again.
Aden sank to the ground, his back sliding against the wall. Yeah, he was going to have to set them free, no matter how much he might want to keep them. First, though, he had to figure out exactly who they had been as humans. Then he had to help them finish whatever was keeping them bound to the earth. To him.
That’s how he’d lost Eve. Once he’d given her what her human self had wanted most—a day with her daughter—she had disappeared in a snap.
So much to do, he thought. Overwhelming. First up, it seemed, was meeting Victoria’s family. The sisters he’d already seen in that vision. Laurel and…no, that wasn’t right. He wracked his brain. Their names remained just out of reach.
“Is the fairy.” Mary Ann began.
“Yeah. He’s gone.” But most likely, Thomas would return the moment Mary Ann left the ranch. What would Aden do then? He couldn’t keep her here all day and all night.
“Good. Now don’t take this the wrong way, okay?” She walked to the bed and threw herself on the mattress, bouncing up and down. “But you really need a shower.”
He glanced down at himself, heat blooming in his cheeks. Streaks of blood decorated his chest, and sweat had dried his boxers to his skin. “The bathroom is down the hall. Will you stay here? I’ll hurry.”
“I’ll stay,” she said with an impish grin. “Now, less talking and more showering.”
As weak as he was, he had to use the wall to unfold from the floor and stand. And while digging through the closet for clothes, he fought wave after wave of dizziness. Finally, though, he was in the bathroom, having managed to stalk down the hall without running into any of the other boys, hot water streaming down his body, cleaning him inside and out.
His first private shower, he mused. He wondered how far Mary Ann’s ability stretched—and he wished he could enjoy the solitude more. Yeah, really enjoy it. Instead, he had to hurry as promised.
When he finished, he dressed in a T-shirt and jeans and headed back to his bedroom. Just before he reached the door, the scent of peanut butter sandwiches drew him into the kitchen. There was a tray piled high with them, but no boys in sight. They should be here, studying.
You killed their teacher, remember?
Sad and guilty once again, Aden confiscated two of the sandwiches, eating each in two bites, and searched the rest of the bunkhouse. All the chores were done, so the boys had been here. The wood floors were polished, the oak table and scuffed chairs dusted. The walls were scrubbed clean and smelled of soap.
A few months ago, those walls had been filled with horseshoes and pictures of the ranch as it used to be a hundred or so years ago when it had first been built. But then two of the boys had gotten in a fight, and one of them had used a metal horseshoe to bash up the other. Or so Aden had heard. Dan, the owner of the ranch and the guy in charge of their care, had taken everything down.
There was no sign of the boys anywhere. Were they okay? Where had—
Laughter suddenly rang out.
At the far window in the entryway, he brushed the curtains aside and looked out. An overcast sky fashioned a gray canopy over the D and M as the boys played football in the field between the main house and the bunkhouse.
Aden experienced a momentary pang of jealousy. Once, that’s all he’d craved. Friends, games. Acceptance.
Now he finally had it, for the most part, but he also had a little too much on his plate to enjoy it.
“You’re gonna get into trouble,” he told them, even though they couldn’t hear him. Dan wasn’t here—his truck was gone—but Meg, his wife, rarely left the main house, and she would report what had gone on.
But no tutor, no studies, Aden supposed, and his guilt increased. Dan was going to have to find a new tutor, having no idea why Mr. Thomas had “left” as suddenly as he’d appeared.
Aden liked Dan. Respected him. A lot. The man was honorable and truly wanted to give the boys here a better life. Yet time and time again, Aden made his life more difficult. Don’t think about that now.
Back in his bedroom, Aden found that Mary Ann was still on the bed, though she was propped against the headboard and reading one of Shannon’s books. The door clicked shut behind him—no lock, though, since Dan had removed them—and she looked up.
“Much better,” she said with a nod.
“Thanks for staying.”
“My pleasure.” She set the book aside and straightened. “How are you feeling?” “As good as I smell.”
She laughed exactly like he wanted Victoria to laugh. “That good, huh?”
“Sorry you had to stick around.”
“I didn’t mind. I wanted to talk to you about something, anyway.”
He sat at the desk, marveling that the room was perfect, nothing out of place. After Riley and Thomas had ravaged the entire building in that other dimension—which still freaked him out—he’d expected some sign of what had happened. Yet there was nothing. Not even a speck of blood.
“Are you listening to me?” Mary Ann asked with another laugh. “I thought the souls were quiet when I was with you.”
He grinned sheepishly. “Sorry. I’m so used to being inside my head, I often get lost in there.”
“Well, I was saying that you know how to fight.”
“Yeah.” He should. He’d been fighting his entire life. Other mental patients, doctors, other foster kids. Zombies that Julian, the corpse whisperer, raised from eternal slumber.
“Well,” Mary Ann said, squaring her shoulders. “I want you to teach me.”
He arched a brow, not sure he understood. “You want me to teach you how to kick as—uh, how to
fight?”
“How to defend myself and how to attack, yes.”
There was a big difference in what people needed to do to defend themselves and what they needed to do to attack someone else. A big, dangerous difference. “Riley won’t like it.”
She shrugged, swirling a finger along the cotton comforter. “He’ll have to get over it. I need to do this. I don’t want to be a liability anymore.”
That, Aden understood. Perfectly. “I’ll teach you.”
She clapped as if he’d just told her she’d won the lottery. “Thank you.”
“My pleasure,” he said, mirroring her earlier words. “So when do you want to start? ”
She whipped her cell phone from her back pocket and checked the time. “We have a few hours until I have to be home from school. And I can’t believe I’m saying this, rather than rushing back to class, but…why not now? ”
Those sandwiches had given him strength, though he wasn’t one hundred percent racer ready. Still. He nodded. This girl had been the first person to accept him for who and what he was; he owed her. “We’ll have to go out back. The boys are in the front, and it’ll be better if they don’t see us.”
“Sounds good to me.”
Outside, the clouds were thicker than they’d been even a few moments ago when he’d peeked through the window, the air chilled and laced with dew. A storm was on its way.
He positioned Mary Ann on the grass, then moved in front of her. “First up, defense. And to do that, you have to learn how people will strike at you. Which means I’ll have to strike at you.”
Determined, she nodded. “Okay. I’m ready.”
The next few hours passed quickly, and by the end, they were sweaty, grass-stained and exhausted, but mostly wet and muddy. A fine drizzle had started fifteen minutes ago. Mary Ann was pretty bruised up. Fine, Aden was, too. He’d been jabbed, punched, poked and tripped. And yeah, he’d done the same to Mary Ann. Experience was the only way to learn. Because, if she was afraid of pain, she would cower rather than act. So he’d had to show her she could withstand anything.
Surprisingly, she had. Better than he’d hoped.
“So tell me what you’ve learned so far,” he said, standing in front of her again.
“Screaming is good. And punching people in the throat is far more effective than punching them in the face or stomach. Plus, throat punching is something anyone can do, even fragile little girls, since it doesn’t take much force to do a lot of damage there.” This last was said in a mockingly deep voice, mimicking him. She tightened her borrowed jacket around her middle. The only time they’d stopped practicing was when he’d gone to fetch her that jacket from his closet. “I should use my fists as if they’re hammers, or even hit with my open palm.”
“Good. What else?”
“Anything can be used as a weapon. Rocks. Keys. A purse.”
He nodded. “What else?”
“I shouldn’t use my toes when I kick. There’s not enough power there. I should use the flat part of my foot. Oh, and kneeing my attacker in the groin is acceptable. Even encouraged. So is eye-poking. I shouldn’t be afraid to cause this person pain, since their main goal is to hurt me.” She spoke as if she were reciting gospel. “If my back is to them, I should try and elbow the guy—or girl—in the face. That causes a lot of pain and stuns them, allowing me to try and get away.”
“Good. Now let’s put some of that information to the test. I’m going for your neck this time,” he warned her. “My plan is to choke you. Do you remember what to do? ”
She nodded. “As quickly as possible, I’m to move both my arms between yours and hit your elbows with mine.”
“And?”
“And knee you in the groin.”
“Yeah, but let’s just pretend on that last one. And by the way, an attacker won’t usually give you a heads-up.”
Her lips quirked at the corners. “Much as I wish otherwise.”
Next time, he wouldn’t warn her what he was going to do. He’d just act, and she’d have to figure out what to do without forethought. “Ready?”
“Read—”
Leaves rattled a few yards away, and they both turned.
“Aden? Mary Ann?” Shannon had just stepped from the forest, a backpack dangling at his side.
