Blood Tied by Jacob Z. Flores Read Free Book Online

hothead. “I don’t understand.”
    He chuckled, but it communicated frustration instead of amusement. His broad, muscular chest heaved, and his respiration increased. He was getting more worked up by the minute. “Yes, well, neither do I,” he admitted with a grimace. “All I remember is falling asleep in my chambers at the Hearth, and when I awoke, there was only darkness.” He shivered, and I suddenly remembered it was in the midthirties and he was naked. I took off my fur-lined trench coat and offered it to him, but he waved it away. “I’m a fire fairy. I don’t get cold.”
    I eyed his trembling body. “But you’re shivering.”
    He waved away my concern. “In anger. Nothing more.”
    “Tell me about the darkness,” I asked, putting my coat back on. I didn’t have the luxury of not getting cold.
    He gritted his teeth before replying. “It was everywhere, like some damned plague I couldn’t escape. I couldn’t breathe, and there was this voice, speaking to me in a strange language.” His anger continued to grow in his retelling. He clenched his hands as if he were ready to strike out and punch a tree. “Its hands were all over me, and then pain I’d never felt before shot through me. Afterward, I woke up here with that bitch of a banshee standing guard. I was too weak at the time to fight her, and I don’t do weak.” He locked onto my eyes, and I nodded. He apparently wanted me to know he was capable of defending himself.
    But as quickly as his rage ignited, it blew out. Tranquility returned to his gaze. His mood swings made me dizzy. “If you hadn’t come along, she would have killed me.” He held my cheeks in both hands. The warmth of his touch spread across my body. “Thank you,” he said. He bridged the small gap between us. His breath, which reminded me of cedar and honeysuckle, plumed across my face, and then his mouth brushed tenderly against mine.
    His velvety lips and the sweetness of his kisses filled me with joy and need. It was a stark contrast to what I’d experienced with Ben.
    When he pulled out of the kiss, I tried to bring his lips back to mine. Instead of succumbing to me as I had to him, he placed his hand on my chest and gently pushed. “I am forever in your debt, and while I would enjoy making love, I’m afraid I don’t have the time. I must return at once to Otherworld.”
    What? No. How could I let him return to the land of the fairies? “Please, don’t.”
    “I must,” he said. He removed my hands from his smooth waist, but even though his almost regal tone had returned, there was a moment of hesitation, as if he seriously considered my request. When his dilated pupils returned to normal, he shook his head. “Trouble is obviously brewing back home. I must return.”
    I understood the pull of duty. That was why I’d come home, and I couldn’t stand in his way any more than I could let him stand in mine.
    He waved his hand. In response a fiery pinwheel floated in the air. It rotated clockwise, and as it did, it grew larger until it was at least seven feet high. “Good-bye, Thaddeus. I hope our paths will cross again.”
    “I don’t even know your name,” I said.
    “I’m Aiden,” he said and stepped through the flaming portal. Once he entered, the flaming blades spun counterclockwise, shrinking with each turn until it disappeared in a puff of smoke.

Chapter 3
     
     
    I DROVE the rest of the way home with a clarity I hadn’t had in a while. Since my nightmares began, I’d been walking around as if the world were muted. It had gotten worse when I ran into Ben. My muffled world had been thrown askew, and I’d reacted to him in a way that was definitely not me.
    But in the few moments I’d spent with Aiden, that changed. It was like sipping a tonic that flushed the poison I’d inadvertently drunk from my body. The heaviness that had settled upon my chest, and the unease I had been carrying around, vanished.
    The comfortable control I’d cultivated all