A Dynasty of Death, A Creatures of Sin & Savagery Book 4, (EBOOK)

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{ Chapter 1 }

~ Aiden ~

“What the fuck?”

The wet tip of a cold boot nudged into my jaw, waking me, pulling from the haze of black and red in my brain.

Skye. Skye had to be kicking me. She needed me. Needed more.

“What the fuck, Aiden?” A slap landed on my cheek.

That wasn’t Skye’s voice.

That was male. Triaten.

My eyes cracked open. Or at least I think they did. The world still looked fuzzy, the red tinting everything
around me.

There. A face.

Triaten.

I blinked twice and the red haze started to clear.

That had been the knocking I’d heard in the darkness. Triaten knocking on the door. His boots knocking on the floor next to me.

“A—what the hell?” Triaten yelled as he grabbed my cheeks, shaking my head. He balanced on his knees next to me. Over me. Like he was floating. Like he’d learned to fly. “What happened? Who did this? Where’s Skye?”

I blinked hard as Triaten loomed over me. How to stop his panic? How to tell him this was all my own doing?

I pushed air from my lungs, and it hissed out like a dead man’s last decrepit breath. “Skye’s fine. She’s in the loft sleeping.”

Triaten stood up and disappeared. I could hear his footsteps going up the stairs to the loft.
I flopped my head to the left. A few embers still glowed orange-red from the previous night’s fire. And I was—shit—flat on my back, clad only in boxers.

No wonder Triaten was freaking out.

The footsteps tap-tap-tapped down the stairs again. I flopped my head to the right.

Triaten came back to me and stood over me, staring down at me for a moment. I closed my eyes to his assessment.

Heaving a sigh, he bent and grabbed my arm and shoulder, pulling me into a sitting position. I didn’t resist.

Upright hurt, but it also felt good. Felt real.

More of the red haze filtering out the world blinked away.

Triaten sank down, balancing on his heels in front of me, his eyes narrowed and still looking for an answer. “Are you going to tell me what the fuck is going on here, Aiden?”

“Skye—did you check on her? Is she okay?”

“She’s fine.” He waved a hand. “Sleeping. It’s you I’m worried about. Was someone here? Who did this to you? And why did you and Skye disappear?”

Fucking hell.

I’d completely forgotten I hadn’t told anyone—not even Triaten—what had happened with Shiv. What had happened to Skye.

Where to begin?

First thing. “Shiv’s alive.”

“What?” His eyes turned into saucers. “What the hell are you talking about? Shiv’s alive? How is that even possible?”

I nodded as much as the cut on my neck would allow. “She’s alive, and she’s malefic.”

Reeling back, he sank his butt onto the ottoman by the leather club chair. He rubbed the side of his unshaven jaw for a long moment, then got to his feet, went to the kitchen and pulled a water bottle out of the refrigerator. He cracked it as he walked back over to me, then stopped, holding it out to me.

I couldn’t lift my arm to take it.

“Bloody fucking hell,” he muttered and dropped to his knees, setting the lip of the bottle to my lips and pouring the water down my throat.

When the bottle was drained, he sat on the floor, drawing his legs up and setting his forearms on his knees as he stared at me. His assessing eyes roved over me as he tapped the empty water bottle against his shin to a beat that existed only in his head.

Another drawn-out sigh escaped his lips. “Well, shit. Did Shiv do this to you?”

I closed my eyes. Now the worst thing. “No. Shiv didn’t do this. Skye did. The malefic in her. It’s out.”

“Holy hell.” Triaten’s eyes closed, his head shaking as he winced. “Skye did this to you? Really? All of it?”

His look flew up and down my body. “Aiden there have to be over a hundred wounds I can see right now.” He started to stand. “She can’t—”

I used every ounce of strength I had to lurch to the side and clamp down on Triaten’s ankle, stopping his movement. “No. Don’t you dare go near her. She never wanted to do this. I made her. And we haven’t been able to stop. She needs this.”

Triaten glared at me and then relented. Instead of going up to Skye, he shifted on the floor and threw an arm around my back, dragging me to my feet, and he shuffled me to the worn leather couch.

He dropped me into a sitting position and then stepped back, his arms crossed over his chest. “Tell me.”

The water was doing the trick—helping feeling to filter back into my limbs and I had enough energy to sigh. “The malefics—you’ve seen it—you know how they are when they draw our blood?”

“The hyper-state?”

“Yep. Best Skye can describe it, it’s something that invades her blood. Raw, horrible pleasure, she says. It hits, and then it subsides.”

“So why the hell are you all cut up?” The anger in his voice told me I wasn’t supplying answers fast enough for him.

“It’s a drug, basically. Her body craves it. Demands it. She’s tried to leave here three times trying to get to it. To go hurt somebody instead of me.”

His brow furrowed. “She drove off?”

“No, she walked off. I hid the keys.”

Triaten looked out the window at the snowy landscape. “No—in the snow? There’s nothing for fifty miles in any direction, save Rudy. Really? In the snow?”

I nodded, completely defeated.

He whistled low, scratching the back of his head. “So, she’s been cutting you instead?” He glanced up at the loft where Skye slept.

“Yes. And somewhere along the way I lost control. I thought I could control it. I thought she could learn to control it—this need in her. Instead, it took both of us over. How long has it been since we’ve been gone from the mountain? Two weeks?”

His gaze swung sharply back to me, his words slow with a rumble in them. “Do you not know it’s been two months since you left the mountain with Shiv’s body?”

“What? No. Sixty days?” My head fell back, resting on the top of the couch. “Hell. How did you find us?”

“Rudy called the elders after his last drop-off to you a few days ago.”

“He did?”

Triaten shrugged. “He knows who he sends his invoice to. Anyway, Edmund told me. He’s mostly poking about, wanting to know what’s up with Skye. But he knew he couldn’t send anyone but me.”

“Damn,” I whispered at the ceiling. I didn’t have the strength to lift my head back off the couch.

Triaten sat down on the leather club chair across from me. “They’re all interested because of the random time shifts that have been happening.”

Alarm shot through me. “Time shifts? What time shifts?” I paused, blinking at the ceiling. “Oh, shit, she’s been flipping back time, hasn’t she?”

“Like I said, they’ve been random, five minutes here and there. But enough to make all of us wonder where the hell you two were and what you were up to.”

My head not moving, my eyes shifted to him. “Hell, Tri, I don’t even remember them.”

I could see it in his face. How deep into this shit I’d fallen.

I knew it. I just couldn’t bear to admit it to myself. Couldn’t bear to face what it might mean for Skye.

“You are in a fucked up place, man. I’m calling Charlotte.” Triaten stood and turned away from me, pulling out his phone.

“No, don’t bother her,” I mumbled, the need to protect Skye rearing and replacing all common sense. “I’ll be fine. We’ll be fine.”

He looked over his shoulder at me with a glare that told me to shut up. A glare that said I’d just had all thinking rights revoked.

I couldn’t move my limbs, much less get up to stop him.

He turned his back to me once Charlotte answered. “Char. We need you up here. Right now—take a chopper. I’ll clear a landing spot.”

There was a pause.

“See you soon.”