Bodyguards (10 page)

“I can help—”

“They’ve lost all their
channelers,” Aedan shouted with a glance toward her. “When you’re back behind
the shields they’ll have no reason to keep fighting.”

It sounded much too easy, like
Aedan was only trying to give her a reason to go back. On the other hand, how
could she help when she didn’t think she could stomach killing anyone?

All she had to do was take a few
steps back. The moment she crossed the shields, the night was suddenly darker,
thicker; the moonlight didn’t pierce the barrier, nor could she see or hear the
two fights mere feet away from her. Her hand clenching repeatedly on the grip
of her weapon, she waited, more afraid than she could have expressed, for Brad
and Aedan to reappear. What if they didn’t? What would she do, then, alone in a
strange world with the only two people she knew dead because of her?

CHAPTER TWELVE

Blood and Oaths

Bradan glanced back to reassure
himself that Vivien had entered the shields again, and he swallowed back a
sigh. She’d held her own pretty well for a while against the guard, but by the
end Bradan had been truly afraid for her. He tried to focus on his adversary.
Bradan had managed to draw blood twice, but his sword was made of Quickening,
not silver, and the guard’s wounds closed almost immediately.

Bradan’s only chance was to behead
him, but it was easier said than done when the man wore a neck shield to
protect himself against that very thing. Not all vampires did; Aedan certainly
never did, as far as Bradan knew. There didn’t seem to be such a thing as
standard armor where guards were concerned.

As the four of them continued to
circle each other and fight, Bradan found himself back to back with Aedan.

“How bad?” Aedan asked.

Bradan didn’t reply. He was trying
very hard not to think about his arm, and how warm his blood felt running down
all the way from his bicep to his hand.

“Didn’t you say they’d retreat
when she was out of reach?” he asked instead, slightly out of breath; it had
been a long time since he had channeled continuously for more than a few
minutes, and the blood loss wasn’t helping.

“They should. Ciara is just trying
to punish me.”

Bradan frowned as he parried his
opponent’s next attack, deflecting one knife then the other in quick
succession. Ciara... Aedan’s Maker.

He couldn’t stop himself from
glancing toward Aedan and the woman who wielded a single knife as though it
were an extension of her body; Bradan wasn’t sure why she had thrown the other
knife at her own man. She was as beautiful as Aedan had said, her features
sharp and feminine despite her boyish haircut, her curves somehow flattered by
the guard’s uniform she wore. Her expression, however, was one of pure anger,
the intensity of the emotion betrayed by how pale her eyes were.

Bradan instantly knew why she was
still standing, why she wasn’t even hurt after battling against Aedan since
almost the beginning of the fight. Aedan would never be able to hurt her, let
alone kill her, but he was too stubborn to abandon the fight. And since Bradan
had no way to kill his own opponent short of channeling enough Quickening to
burn himself out...

His mind made up, he angled his
path toward Aedan. When he was close enough, he released the channeling that
had created his sword and instead brought up a small shield around Aedan and
himself.

“What are you doing?” Aedan snapped.

Bradan didn’t reply. Instead, he
encircled his twin’s waist with both his arms and marched him toward the safety
of the house shields.

“Traitor,” Ciara called after
them, the first word Bradan had heard her utter.

Aedan started to resist like he wanted
to keep fighting. Wincing at the pain lancing in his arm, Bradan pulled harder,
drawing both of them to safety.

“Why did you do that?” Aedan
growled, his eyes like glittering ice, when Bradan released him.

“Would you have killed her?”
Bradan shot back at once, holding his gaze without flinching.

Aedan frowned, then looked back
toward the shields. They hid what lay beyond, but for a moment, he stared as if
he could see right through them.

“What took you so long?” Vivien
demanded and stepped toward them. Her eyes were wide with worry as they ran
over Bradan. She had removed her helmet. Her ponytail had come undone and wild
hair framed her face. “I thought you’d be right behind me!”

She dropped her sword and helmet
to the ground to throw her arms around him. As startled as he was, Bradan had
the presence of mind to raise his left arm so he wouldn’t get blood on her. He
started to close his right arm around her, but froze when he caught Aedan’s
thunderous expression.

“I told you to stay inside the
house. Were you trying to get yourself taken? Or killed?”

Bradan couldn’t remember his
brother’s voice ever being so cold before; he couldn’t remember his eyes
gleaming like this, gunmetal death rather than their familiar blue-gray.
Bradan’s arm curled around Vivien, and he shifted their bodies so that he stood
between her and Aedan. He couldn’t believe that Aedan would ever do anything to
hurt her in any way; and yet, at that moment, looking into Aedan’s eyes, Bradan
wondered how well he still knew his brother.

It didn’t help that Vivien pulled
away and faced Aedan, fury burning as hot in her eyes as it was icy cold in
his.

“And what right do you have to
tell me to do anything?” she asked, her voice shaking with outrage, her chin
raised high as she tried to stare Aedan down. “What right do you have to put
your hands on me?” In a flash, she bent down to pick up the sword she had
dropped and although she held it pointing down, it was clear she was ready to
raise it should Aedan provoke her. “Don’t you ever dare touch me again,” she
said, each word cool and precise. “I can take care of myself. I don’t need you
to treat me like a child.”

For a long moment, Aedan did
nothing more than stare at her. Then his nostrils flared, and he all but bared
his teeth at Vivien.

“You can take care of yourself?”
he repeated. “Then why did you need us to kill that guard for you? And why are
you hurt?”

She huffed. “I’m not—”

“You’re bleeding. Your leg. It’s
cut.”

Vivien peered down. Bradan did the
same. There was a small cut on her thigh, maybe an inch long, the fabric of her
jeans barely stained by a trace of blood.

“That’s nothing,” she said with a
shrug. “I didn’t even feel it.”

Aedan didn’t reply. He didn’t need
to. What he thought was all too clear to Bradan when their eyes met.

They had to keep her safe. It was
their one goal, the one thing for which they were ready to give anything.
Bradan had lived in the Otherworld for a dozen years, most of them alone, away
from the one person who was now his entire family. Aedan had given up far more
when he had become a vampire.

When Vivien had stepped out with a
sword, helmet, and armor, Bradan had had a second to decide: should he let her
help him or send her back inside? He’d seen her fight before. He had gone to
the same fencing club she had. They had fenced different weapons and he’d never
been in direct contact with her, but he had often watched her. The sword she
held now was very different from her old épée, but she was good, and both he
and Aedan had been close enough to help her if she got in trouble; he had let
her join the fight. He realized now that it was a mistake and so was his
decision to take her beyond the shields.

“I’m sorry,” he said, holding
Aedan’s gaze. “I should have kept her safe. I won’t fail her again.”

Aedan gave a tiny nod, and the
anger filtering through their bond mellowed.

“You won’t fail me again?” Vivien
snapped, drawing both of their gazes back to her. Her eyes were gleaming with
the hurt of betrayal as she looked at Bradan. “I’m not a child. I can take care
of myself. If you think I’m going to let the two of you fight my battles and
get hurt while I just stay back and simper in fear, you have no idea who I am.”

With that, she turned on her heel
and strode back toward the house, her feet striking the ground as though she
were wearing heavy shoes rather than being barefoot. Aedan was frowning, and he
started to go after her. Bradan caught his arm and held him back.

“Let her be. Let her calm down. We
can talk to her later, when she’s ready to listen to us.”

“Will she ever be?” Aedan shot
back. “She doesn’t care about her own safety. She doesn’t care about our oath.
It means nothing to her.”

Bradan rubbed his temple with two
fingers. “It’s not that she doesn’t care about it,” he tried to explain. “It’s
just...foreign to her. In the Otherworld, oaths like ours are a thing found in
books. And women don’t like men to treat them like fragile things.”

Aedan raised his eyes to the sky.
“What does it have to do with her being a woman?” he asked, sounding
exasperated. “I’d have been just as mad if the king had rushed to the front of
the battle when I was fighting for him.”

The admission startled Bradan
enough that he didn’t answer. Had Aedan cared about his guard duty for the
false king that much? And why was he still calling him by his title rather than
simply his name? It didn’t matter, Bradan told himself forcefully. Aedan was
here now for Vivien. They both were. That was enough.

* * * *

Far from abating after a good
night’s sleep, Vivien’s annoyance increased as she tossed and turned, finding
little rest as her thoughts returned, over and over, to the events of the
evening. She ended up listening to her MP3 player for hours to try to calm
down.

Her humiliation at the way Aedan
had treated her roiled inside her like acid. Was she no more than a child in
his eyes? How could she prove to him that she was anything but? And how could
she prevent Brad from starting to think like his brother? He had seemed to
welcome Vivien’s help during the fight, but after a few words from Aedan, he had
been apologizing, of all things, for what had been her decision.

When the first light of morning
illuminated her window, she gave up on trying to sleep. She got out of bed,
washed up in cold water that did nothing to improve her mood, and dressed in the
first outfit that fell under her hand, a skirt and blouse. When she put on her
sandals, she only had a vague idea of what she intended to do, but as she
opened her door and found Aedan in the hallway, his back to the wall and his
arms crossed over his chest, her decision solidified.

“Blessings, Dame Vivien,” he said
in a quiet, calm tone that in no way resembled his angry voice from last night.

Without acknowledging him, Vivien
strode past him and down the hallway. She couldn’t hear a sound behind her, but
she was sure he was following her and refused to turn around to check. She
descended to the first floor and went to the kitchen. There, she continued to
resolutely ignore Aedan’s presence as she pulled food out of the cupboard and
helped herself to breakfast. At the very least, he owed her an apology, and
until he stopped treating her like a child she would have nothing to say to
him.

Aedan, however, didn’t seem to be
familiar with the concept of ‘silent treatment.’ He remained by the wall, but
soon broke the silence.

“I understand that you are upset
with me,” he said in a slow voice. “But there is something I wish to ask of
you.”

A tiny bit of curiosity niggled
Vivien, but she pretended it didn’t exist and continued to spread jam over her
bread. God, but she missed coffee.

“When we swore the QuickSilver
Oath,” he continued, still very slow, “Bradan and I were children, and we had
no one to swear to but each other. We meant the words anyway, each and every
one of them, but...”

He fell silent when Vivien stood
abruptly. She passed by him without so much as a glance and went to the water
pump, pouring herself a goblet of water which she took back to the table. She
wished she could have stolen a glance at Aedan to see how annoyed he was, but
that would have defeated the whole purpose of the exercise. Besides, she could
hear his voice growing more and more frustrated.

“I had to swear another oath when
I joined the king’s guard and—”

That drew Vivien’s eyes to him,
and she stared at him with a sharp gaze. “You what?”

For the first time as far as she
could recall, Aedan’s countenance wavered, hesitation flickering over his
features. He shifted from foot to foot before stilling again.

“It was all part of our plan,” he
started again. “Bradan Passed Through to the Otherworld to stay close to you,
and I joined the king’s guard and became a vampire. But that oath... The
QuickSilver Oath was always stronger. I only followed the king’s orders as long
as you remained safe.”

Vivien’s eyes widened, and she
stared harder still. Never mind working for the very person who wanted to hurt
her; Aedan had been undercover, she had watched enough cop movies to understand
that. But a vampire? They had said that word before, and she had read it in
those books, but no one had ever said that Aedan was a vampire. He didn’t have
fangs, did he? And she had seen him in the sunlight when she had first met him.

“You are a vampire,” she
repeatedly flatly, barely managing not to roll her eyes at him. “Right. That’s
totally obvious.”

Aedan ignored her sarcasm and
continued right on. “In my heart, I still hold the QuickSilver Oath as true. I
would never break it. But if you will, I wish to swear it again, this time to
you. Then maybe you will understand that your safety is the most important
thing for me. More important than my own life.”

The same anger that had kept
Vivien up most of the night flared through her again. Hadn’t she told them she
wouldn’t let anyone fight her battles? Why did she have to understand him when
he refused to hear her?

She stood, pressing both hands
hard against the table so he wouldn’t see she was shaking.

“I don’t want you to die for me,”
she said in a low, angry voice. “I don’t want anyone to die for me. That oath
you want to swear, it’d just be a leash. On me. Something to hold me in check.
Stop me from doing anything you think is too risky because if I do, you might
throw yourself in front of me and get hurt on my behalf.”

Walking up to him, she raised
herself to all of her height and glowered at him, his gray eyes just inches
away.

“You know what?” she hissed. “I
don’t want that oath. I don’t want your protection. I don’t want you anywhere
near me.”

She’d intended to go for a walk to
soothe her nerves—Brad had mentioned a lake—but now she needed to get out of
this house and away from Aedan. And if he tried to put a hand on her to get her
back inside like he had last night, she would show him she didn’t need a sword
to fight. She strode away from him and swung the back door open just as he
clasped her shoulder. Sunlight poured in. Behind her, Aedan gasped—was it in
pain?—and let go of her.