Death (The Devil's Roses #5)

I sigh, "This can't be the way it's meant to turn out.

She lifts my chin, "Aimes, we don’t get to choose the way it is and the way it isn’t. We get to try to fix our mistakes. You have to know that my powers are not the answer. You must know that by now. After everything."

I rock back and forth, "He's dead. He looks like one of them. One of us. He's so perfect now. I loved the little scar on his cheek and the way he always had messy hair. Now he's perfect. Everything is perfect. It's not him."

"Hey." She pulls me into her, "It's him the way it's you or me. We are still who we were."

I pull back and wipe my flooded eyes, "No. I'm not the same. I know I'm not. I can't even breathe without smelling people and wanting their souls. I can't walk down the road without noticing a distinct us and them feel to every human I see. I'm not human and I know it. In my heart of hearts I know I'm a monster." I back away and wink.

I drop to my knees in the sand and cry. I like to cry alone or with my mom, watching Austen.

The tears flow down my cheeks. Guilt and pain are everywhere. How could I have done this to him? How could I have let them turn him? I sucked his soul. I left him for dead and they changed him. It might have been to save him but it killed the sweet innocent awesome guy he was. I did this.

In my pain and suffering I don’t hear the sounds behind me. I don’t hear the warning sounds of uneasy feet on unstable rocks and sand. I miss the fact that a hand is reaching for my mouth. I miss it all until the excruciating pain is upon me. I wink but the pain follows.

My face is shoved into the grass on Lydia's lawn. I can see the house in my peripheral. Sharp stabbing pain and warmth cover my throat and shoulders.

"AIMEE!" I hear the screams. "WINK TO MARCUS'S!"

In the pain I try to reach back at the thing holding me down but my shoulders are limp. Broken.

I wink, feeling the warm liquid running down my throat.

In a flash of color and screams I see the bowler hat and Marcus. His face distorts slightly, in rage.

Shouts and chaos are everywhere. Blue eyes and a sweet face fill my vision that seems to come and go. Warmth surrounds me. I smell laundry soap and deodorant and sea air. I close my eyes and smile. I know the warmth surrounding me is Shane. He's carrying me to safety.

When I open my eyes I don’t see him. I don’t see anyone. I'm in a room with a fancy bed and enough space to make an apartment on the other side of the room, where the fireplace is.

I blink and look around the empty dark place. The smell in the air is ripe with the taint vampire's leave behind. I'm still at Marcus's. The memory of the stabbing pains in my shoulders flood my mind. I reach my hands around. The cloth of my shirt is ripped to pieces but the flesh of my shoulder is intact. It's as if it never happened. I climb off the bed and pad down the hallway. It's wide with paintings and art.

When I get to the large front sitting room, I hear voices coming from the far side of the massive room.

Shane is standing next to the tall blond Aleksander. They're laughing.

"Hey."

They both turn their heads.

Shane's eyes sparkle in away they never used to. Like Aleksander's. Like the magic of the immortals has put a spell on them. He grins, "Aimes, what's going on?"

He sounds normal but I can see he's not. I can see he's different.

"What happened? What was that thing that attacked me?" Flashes of fur and teeth and my own screams fill the back of my eyes.

Aleksander looks grim, which is almost impossible as he is so beautiful, "My dad. He attacked you. He has a thing for witches, must have mistaken you."

I frown, "For a witch?"

He nods, "You smell like Lydia's house.

"Why would your father attack me?"

Out of the corner of my eye I see the dark haired girl with the black soulless eyes, Ari. She smiles and waves like a zombie Barbie. I lift my hand weakly and force a smile upon my lips.

"So, Jon is in the cell?" She asks.

Aleksander beams and nods, crossing his thick arms. "Thanks to her."

Shane beams along with them, like he knows what they're talking about. I know Jon was the man who killed my mother in the previous way things were, but I have no actual idea how I did anything. "I just winked."

Ari grins, "To Henry. No one hates Jon like Henry does."

"What will happen to him?" I ask.

Boots click hard against the ground as Lorri enters the room, "We're going to wait it out with him. When Ophelia turns eighteen Henry will be allowed to kill him and give the powers of her sisters to her. We can't have Jonathan knowing where she is now and we can't risk the blue sisters finding her now. It's all too soon."

My brain instantly dashes back to the timeline. I piece it together and cross my arms, "Well what do we do for two years?"

A spicy grin crosses the redhead's face, "Train and fix all the things that we screwed up on along the way. If you'll excuse me, I'm going to send Daniel on a new task for work. You know, so the army of shitheads that he ends up building against us, is considerably smaller." She glances back at me, "No matter what, do not let Marcus kill Hanna."

I open my mouth to speak, but she's gone. I close my lips and look around. Everyone is looking at me like I'm in charge. My stomach sinks. I don’t have a clue what to do.

Ari smiles and puts a hand out, "We need to make certain your body remembers the training and killing. Are you ready?"

I glance at Shane. He laughs and shrugs, like I'm being offered my first drink at a party and he thinks I should take it. I grimace and take her hand. She flashes a picture of a place on her cell phone and I wink my eye.

Chapter Eleven

Egypt 2012

"What do you think?"

I scan the desert and nod, "I think if we can get him to come to us we'll have a better chance of saving some of the women." I pace back and forth in the sand. I look back at Ari and scowl, "I hate sand. These boots are new."

She laughs and lifts her DC sneakers, "Try these on for sand walking. I've got more in my shoe than is in the whole damned desert."

My phone beeps. I sigh and pull it out, 'get here now' it says with a picture of a dark alley.

"Giselle."

Ari looks at me and nods, "Great. Not again."

I look back at the house belonging to the piece of shit vampires, who are running a drug blood service, and growl. I put my hand out. Ari takes it and we're in the alley. My boots click against the cold cement. I still smile at how strong they make me feel. How I feel just like superwoman in them. We round the corner of the alley. Giselle is standing over the body of a man.

His leather shoe is twitching. I put my hands over my face and look at her. She shakes her head. Her face is devastatingly beautiful under the dim streetlights.

"Did you come after?"

She nods, "I was hunting and I smelled him. When I got here he fled and the man was too far."

Ari looks closer, "He's still alive."

"Duh." Giselle pulls her thick black hair back and crosses her arms over her cute lime green pea coat. "Dude. Of course he's still alive. I just ate. I figured Aimes could have this one."

Ari looks pissed, "You let him live and suffer till we got here?"

Giselle takes a step towards her "Don’t be such a whore. I was being, like, thoughtful and shit. God."

I laugh and shake my head. I walk to the dying man and crouch down. I grip his arm where his expensive watch sits and let my power loose. Giselle would have gotten nothing from him but I eat differently. I don’t need there to be a lot of life force or emotion the way she does. I just need the soul to leave the body. I shiver and gasp as his soul slips from him.

I pull off his watch and take his wallet. "Tragedy of the city." I whisper. I feel sick. Shane and I haven’t gotten along since he was turned. His blood lust is too much for me. His friendship with Marcus is way too much for me. The dead man below me is his way of bending the Roses rules. The man broke one of the Ten Commandments no doubt, making him fair game for Marcus and Shane. I hate what Marcus has taught him. As long as they don’t kill an innocent, we can't touch them.

"So, we gonna tell Lorri?" Ari flashes me a sarcastic look.

I glance at Giselle, who is twirling her hair. It makes me miss my sister for a moment, "No." I sigh, "Him and Marcus will have a reason for his death."

Giselle nods, "They always do. They always find the bad humans. I never get that lucky. I thought I had one the other day. He was dragging some little kid down an alley but then I grabbed him and he had a priest robe on and the white collar thingy." She motions where her throat is. "So I knew he wasn’t bad. The damn probably was though."

"You know priests aren’t all good right?" I ask, almost speechless. Ari's eye shift funny at the comment.

Giselle shrugs, "I know. He just was kinda hot and so I knew he was a good one. Anyway, I don’t get how Shane always finds the bad ones."

Ari rolls her eyes, "Dude, they probably compelled them to do the bad shit and then ate them."

A flash of understanding whips across Giselle's face, "Oh my god, do you think? Wow that’s pretty smart actually."

Ari stares at her blankly, "Don't even think about it."

Giselle smirks, "Hey, I don’t need to compel them. I've learned how to do it so I don’t have to take it all. I haven't killed anyone in like six months. It's not the same but at least my record is clean. Lorri is such a nag about the humans dying."

Ari's head turns, "You smell that?"

I've already got the scent. "Hands in." We flash just as hellhounds round the corner of the alleyway.

I stalk across Lydia's grass and open the front door, "This is so messed up."

I glance back at Ari who scowls and pouts.