I take a deep breath. “Layla, is that you?”
Her gaze jerks to me. “Izzy?”
I nod. “Are you…are you Layla? Or something else?”
“Both,” slips from her lips.
Aiden’s hands curl into fists, and I speak without thinking, afraid of what might happen. “We’re…uh, gods, and we’ve come to find the vampires that killed Layla, but then you’re here now, and we don’t know what to make of it.”
She blinks really slowly, and I’m transfixed yet again by how similar and yet different she looks from the person I knew. Layla is older than all of us, and yet she looks to be the same age as we are now. It’s weird to see someone has aged, but not as much as they should have.
“Did you guys say gods?” she asks.
Aiden advances toward her, and I push a hand against his chest to stop him. “Why are you using our sister’s image?”
“I’m not!” she cuts in, looking shocked.
“It wasn’t enough you killed her,” he roars, and this time I cut him off.
“What is this?” I ask.
She takes a deep breath and speaks past me, her gaze sweeping between Aiden and Reid. “I’m your sister. I’m just not human.”
Everyone just stares, and I’m frightened by the way Aiden’s whole chest seems to heave, like it’s about to break. Like his heart and his lungs can’t take what’s happened. I long to wrap him in my arms and ease his pain, but I’m afraid of taking my eyes off Layla or the guys for one minute.
“What do you mean not human?” Wilder’s voice comes out dangerously calm.
Layla’s eyes fill with tears. “I’d started seeing a man. Abel.” She reaches out and takes the hand of the bleeding vampire that had just been face-to-face with Aiden. He still stands just in front of her, protectively, glowering at Aiden. He’s pale and dark-haired and eerily handsome, looking no older than Layla.
“I didn’t understand at the time, but he turned me into a vampire.”
“That man?” Aiden’s face is suddenly even more livid with rage. “He turned you into a vampire? He stole you from us?”
“This is why we don’t try to explain things to mortals…” Abel mutters.
Aiden suddenly snarls and shoves past all of us. Lighting crackles in the air, then explodes around him. His hair blows around his face, and the air is charged with energy and a powerful wind.
“Aiden!” I scream his name.
“No!” Layla says.
Aiden raises his hand toward the vampire, who snarls as if he wants to tear into Aiden but looks as if he can’t, because he glances at Layla.
“Aiden!” Layla shouts. “He’s my husband, please!”
Very slowly, he looks back at her. “Husband? The vampire who killed you that night? Who took you from us? You married him?”
She nods.
The light dies from his hand, and he drops it. The storm continues to rage around him, but he looks so hurt, and so lost.
Ignoring the lightning and the wind, I walk through it, knowing that even enraged, Aiden wouldn’t hurt me. I wrap my arms around him and tears gather in my eyes when I feel the way his entire body shakes. What must this be like for him? To see the person he loved so much, the person he thought he killed, still alive? And to see someone responsible for the accident that night?
It’s almost too much to bear.
“Everything will be okay,” I whisper into his ear. “We’re here.”
His arms come around me, squeezing me against him as if I’m the only thing keeping him from shattering. “My sister…but he…”
“I know,” I say. “I know.”
The lightning calms around him, but the wind continues to swirl. “What do I do?”
My thoughts spin. I don’t know what he should do, but I know what my heart says. “Either walk away right now and go on pretending she’s dead, or hear what she has to say and then decide what you want to do.”
He takes a deep breath that shakes his entire body, and the wind disappears like the closing of a door. “Okay.”
Reid is beside us a minute later. “We can leave right now. We don’t have to do this.” And his voice holds an anger I’ve only heard from Reid a few times before.
Aiden pulls back from me, just a little, and looks at his brother. “No, I think we need to hear her out.” His gaze snaps to the man. “But if he comes near me, I’m going to kill him.”
His words only make the man’s eyes flare with protective heat. His voice is a warning as he says, “Layla.”
“Please,” she whispers to him. Then she faces Aiden and Reid again.
“I was in the middle of the change when I was murdered.” She takes a shaky breath. “I woke up in a coffin and had to claw my way free.”
“If that’s true,” Aiden sounds tortured, “why didn’t you come back? Why didn’t you tell us?”
She reaches for him, and he jerks back. Hurt is written across her face.
“Leave us,” Abel orders the other vampires. “Thank you for your help, but it turns out this is a family matter.”
Aiden’s jaw tenses at those words, but the other vampires exchange looks and then begin to leave, some of them helping each other limp away.
Abel turns his gaze on me. “If you could be so kind…”
It takes me a second to understand as he gestures across the lawn, and then I catch a glimpse of pink skin and a cute little tail, almost hidden in the flower beds.
“Right. Sorry about that.” I make a gesture, and suddenly the pig explodes into a full-sized vamp, who frantically oinks a few times before he sheepishly stops, draw himself to his full height, and glides gracefully across the lawn.
Layla folds her hands in front of her as if it’s hard to keep from touching her brothers now.
“I always wanted to introduce you to my family,” Layla forges on, faking normalcy to an impressive degree. “We have some things to discuss. But Aiden, Reid, this is Abel. Abel, these are my twin brothers. Aiden and Reid.”
She takes a deep breath. We could probably all use one of those. Then she asks, “Will you come in and talk?”
Reid glances at Aiden, and Aiden, after a second, jerks his head in a nod.
Abel’s eyes return to our group. “I’m pretty sure these are the gods that have been asking about us. Are you sure they’re your brothers? Gods are dangerous tricksters who--”
“Dangerous? Like making someone crash their damn car into a tree for fun?” Aiden’s voice is low and frightening.
“We’ve been at war with the hive that tried to hurt Layla ever since.” Abel pulls himself to his full height, and I have a feeling he wants to fight Aiden as much as Aiden wants to hurt him. “Do not make the mistake of thinking all vampires are the same.”
Aiden scoffs. “You look the same from here.”
Abel returns his gaze coolly. “Then why are you even still talking to your sister?”
“Enough,” Layla says, looking back and forth between the two of them with a look of exasperation written across her face. “Abel, will you give us some time, please? Make your wife happy.”