25
Aiden
Aiden couldn’t breathe. Heheaved and wheezed, but no matter how frantically his lungs pumped for air, oxygen just didn’t seem able to fill them. A burning sensation started in his chest and then spread through the rest of him as his world narrowed down to the cryogenic tank on the right where Claudia’sintactbody floated suspended inside.
How was this possible? She’d been cremated and he’d buried her ashes two years ago.
The blueish liquid inside the tank gave the golden expanse of her skin a frosty gleam, though her open eyes retained their penetrating amber color as her unseeing gaze pinned Aiden where he stood. They were as intense as they’d been while she was alive, yet also blank and haunting now that they’d lost the spark of life.
The ‘C’ tattooed just behind Aiden’s ear burned. Thoughts and emotions he’d started to forget came rushing in, uncaring that they had no place within him anymore and crashing into him like an avalanche down a crumbling slope, peeling away at the pieces of himself he’d managed to rebuild. His Claudiahad been here, in one piece, hidden in Marcus’ secret vault this whole time and he hadn’t even known.
Marcus had kept her body. He’d faked not only the autopsy but the cremation and the funeral, too.
A choked wail ripped out of Aiden. A thousand knives stabbed his heart. Like a marionette being recalled by its master, his limbs scrambled to carry him forward, not stopping until his palms were flat against the icy-cold glass and his erratic gasps left condensation where they crashed into it. It was just him and Claudia now, the rest of the world forgotten as his gaze took in her eerie form and the bullet wound marring her otherwise impeccable flesh. A single, precise shot to the heart that had robbed him of her radiance and lies. A merciful end to her existence, but an end nonetheless that had left his world barren of meaning and purpose other than to avenge her.
And just as he’d started to believe he could move on, that he could let her stay in the past, here she was.Waiting for him to find her and be part of her life of secrets once more.
Aiden wheezed, crumpling to his knees in front of the tank. The world became a disembodied entity around him as anger rose to the surface, as memories from his and Claudia’s life together flashed in front of his eyes. Their first date, their first kiss, the trip to that seaside resort to celebrate Aiden’s first ever project as a lead architect… Claudia’s promise to bring him a new stone from Mars for their collection on the day of her death.
Aiden balled his fists, but the pain from his nails digging into his palms was a distant thing, a barely tangible throb that his mind didn’t fully register. He was both numb and in agony, his thoughts a jumble of questions and grief and guilt.
Why was Claudia here? Why was she back now when he had been trying so hard not to give into the guilt and betrayal?
They wereconsuming him, riding that wave of anger and hate aimed at Darren and at himself… because he wantedDarren in spite of what Darren had taken from him. Because he couldn’t resist and a part of him didn’t want to anymore. Because he had surrendered willingly and allowed himself to see in Darren those things he’d missed so much since losing Claudia. An anchor, a safe place, a person who understood him and accepted all of him and still couldn’t get enough.
Aiden shuddered, feeling like he was drowning. His head was throbbing from all the chaos in his mind and he didn’t know what the right thing to do was. Confronting Claudia’s death once had broken him; confronting it twice… he wasn’t sure he had anything left to break.
Panic squeezed his chest, traveling to his throat where it lodged itself and made him choke on nothing. His skin felt too tight, like a prison of flesh. The darkness was back, tainting all those pieces he’d retrieved that now belonged to Darren.
Darren, who was just as alone, haunted by that same darkness that still lurked inside Aiden.
Darren, who was also Ren, Sara’s brother and the surviving heir to the Valrais bloodline Marcus had tried to eradicate.
Darren, who Aiden cared about when he shouldn’t.
Darren, who’d killed Claudia and changed Aiden’s life forever.
Aiden gasped, clawing at the glass.How was he going to face this? How was he going to live through it?His body and mind were shutting down, too overwhelmed, too lost, no longer able to take this. They were giving up on him and he was going to let them because that was the only thing he could do. Numbness flooded him, chasing away the pain and the sensation of the cold floor under him. It emptied him from everything, and he accepted that too, slumping against the glass tank and closing his eyes.
Then he felt it. Darren’s presence somewhere behind him, a soul-grounding beacon he seemed attuned to even withouttrying. It grew stronger even as he tried to ignore it, and then it became solid and tangible and warm as Darren ghosted his hand along Aiden’s back. It was barely a touch, there simply to keep Aiden anchored, tethered to reality. But it was a reminder too, that Darren was in this together with him. Within reach, but not reaching out; undemanding, yet impossible to truly ignore because even though Aiden had fallen so deep in the abyss he carried within him, he still wasn’t alone.
Darren remained by his side, waiting to pull him out when the time came and put him back together if he allowed it.
Aiden spun around, his breathing hitching as air finally made it through to his lungs. His gaze clashed with Darren’s, and what he saw there hijacked all of him. Tore him apart and burned him and uplifted him because the devotion in those indigo depths, the want, the longing, the soul-deep regret were too much and too raw and too intimate and belonged just to him.
Aiden didn’t know if he wanted to hit Darren or hug him, but before he found out, his own body took that choice away from him. He embraced Darren, holding onto him with desperation that seared itself into his soul.
Because he needed Darren. Because, despite everything, he wasn’t willing to give Darren up. Because he craved that safety and understanding, that haven he could only find in the man who’d shattered his fake world.
“Aiden,” Darren whispered softly in a voice sad and gut-wrenching. “I’m here. I’ve got you.”
Aiden buried his face in Darren’s shoulder and his fingers into Darren’s back. He let Darren hold him as his breakdown ravaged what remained untouched, pillaging and crumbling and breaking what Darren had helped Aiden rebuild. He didn’t know if he mourned the loss or celebrated it, but he didn’t let go until the last tendrils of panic drained out of him and he no longer felt like he was about to pass out.
A few more minutes went by before he calmed down enough. “Thank you,” he croaked, squeezing Darren’s arm as they stepped back from each other.
Darren looked at the tanks behind them, his expression now under control. “Aiden, are you—I’m sorry. I—”
“Not now,” Aiden interjected, turning around. It took him everything to keep his voice steady, but he had to because Claudia’s body being here not only explained why Nyle had come across her name in those correspondences, but it also changed things.
