Page 201 of Fractured Fate

His mind ping-ponged back and forth between visions that had haunted him for months and the present, the two events blurring together until he could only cling to the sounds of crying and the feel of Blaire’s healing magic in his memories.

Bloodied hands clutched the sides of his head and he wailed into the surrounding nothingness. Tears like acid scorched the skin of his face as they broke free after months of confinement.

“—den!”

His body bent forward, and he tucked his head, fighting against the demons in his mind that threatened to consume him as sounds filtered through the fading ringing in his ears.

“Aiden!”

Pressure met his lips; the strong taste of salt met his tongue when he parted his lips in surprise. In reflex, his lips moved against the softness caressing them.

The scent of buttery brown sugar and pineapples stole him from the nightmare he couldn’t escape on his own. He blinked as the moonlight of the world around him came into focus for the first time since the gunshot.

Charlotte pressed her hands on top of his on the sides of his head, kneeling in front of him. Her kisses were tender and coaxing, urging him to come back to her. Her desperate longing for him bloomed in his chest, stealing his breath.

His hands lowered with hers, and she broke the kiss to look into his eyes.

Tears tracked down her face, trailing through the blood on her cheeks from where she kissed him. “Don’t leave me,” she whispered.

Aiden surged forward, yanking her into his arms, clinging to her as he sobbed against her neck.

For months, he’d kept the emotions over what happened to him trapped inside. He thought his only problem came from having nightmares because he felt nothing in the waking world, but he had suppressed the trauma. When he first told Charlotte about what happened, and a tear slipped, he thought nothing of it. But it marked the first crack in a fissure that formed and splintered at the worst moment. In the middle of combat with his Korrena in danger.

He released her and took her face in his hands.

He yearned to tell her how much he loved her, but now wasn’t the time. With his defenses shaken, would she believe him? Instead, he brushed his lips over hers once, trying to convey everything he felt without words in the tender move.

She was the first stitch in the wound of his psyche.

He shook his head and exhaled a breathy laugh when they parted after his emotions were under control. “I can’t believe you kissed me after I threw up.” His amusement dispersed when he took in her grim expression.

“Aiden, it’s Blaire,” she whispered.

He squeezed his eyes shut as the events of the last hour filtered back into his consciousness. The fight. Charlotte’s supposed father. Blaire. The bite.

He pulled Charlotte to her feet and turned, taking in the sight of Lukas kneeling on the ground, cradling Blaire in his arms. Dominic had joined Noah in fighting rogues who tried to get to Blaire, while farther away, Riley and Seth struggled against their own opponents.

Both Charlotte and Aiden rushed over and lowered next to Lukas and Blaire.

“Is she alive?” Charlotte asked, her voice breaking.

Lukas held his hand against Blaire’s cheek. “She’s fine. I think she passed out from the shock of it all.” He turned her head to allow them to see her neck.

Two obvious, but shallow, puncture wounds branded her neck, along with a tear in the skin where Aiden had pulled the rogue away from her before he inflicted fatal damage. She didn’t show any signs of pain, and her breathing remained calm and stable.

Lukas met Aiden’s eyes. “You saved her life.”

Aiden fell back from his crouched position onto his backside, burying his face in his hands.

Charlotte leaned against him, her small hands clutching his bicep. “She saved mine.” She sniffed and swiped her cheeks. “Blaire?”

He lowered his hands as Blaire’s eyelids fluttered open.

“Thank fuck,” Lukas murmured before pulling her against his chest. “I love you so much. Don’t do that to me.”

Blaire groaned and put her hand on her neck. “Shit, that stings. I forgot how much it hurts when it’s not you.”

Lukas growled. “You shouldn’t know what it feels like from another to begin with.”