“Don’t be an idiot, Sidonie,” Aden said from right behind her.
She spun around, fighting the urge to jump, but knew she hadn’t succeeded when she saw one side of his mouth curl up knowingly.
“I’ll give you a ride back to your condo,” he told her.
“No, thank you,” she said primly. She turned away from him and started walking.
“Have it your way,” he murmured. “But don’t blame me if Silas finds you.”
That stopped her. She spun to face him. “What?”
His thick shoulders moved in a careless shrug. “Dresner told Silas how she knew I was coming. Your name came up.”
Well, wasn’t that great? Sid pulled her cell out of her pocket. “I’ll call a cab.”
Aden strode forward until he was blocking the street light, and she was standing in his shadow. His deep voice curled around her. “Let me give you a ride, Sidonie.”
Sid swayed closer, then realized what he was doing. “Don’t you dare do that to me!” she gasped. “I am not some pathetic vampire groupie you can mesmerize into becoming your slave.”
“Be careful,” he warned her. “My patience is not unlimited.”
“The truth hurts, Lord Aden. Good-bye.” Sidonie turned her back on him and started off toward Clark and Wrightwood. There were a few clubs up there in Lincoln Park that had music seven days a week. She should be able to find a cab there, or at least she’d have other people to hang out with until one could arrive.
It was a short walk to the corner, and she felt Aden’s stare against her back every step of the way. She kept waiting for his crooning voice to drift over her shoulder, for his big hand to wrap around her waist. But it never did. He let her go. And she told herself it didn’t matter. That the disappointed ache she was feeling was only because she was losing a powerful ally in her efforts to close down Klemens’s old network.
And she nearly believed it.
ADEN WATCHED Sidonie storm away down the street, as if she were in control. As if she could escape him. He let her go . . . for tonight. There were only a few hours before sunrise, and he had a lot to do before then. He’d pretty much drained Dresner of any useful information, but he wanted to pursue Sidonie’s claims regarding Klemens. His vampire sources had hinted at the existence of a slave ring here in Chicago, something he found deeply troubling. He wasn’t a total innocent. He knew many vampires indulged their darker natures and ignored human laws. Aden himself frequently bypassed the human legal system, considering it irrelevant to most vampire affairs.
But slavery was one thing he would never permit in his territory. He knew the emotional toll of being owned, of having one’s very existence dependent on the whim of another. Sidonie thought he’d enslaved Dresner by capturing her mind and compelling her to tell him what she knew. But what he’d done to Dresner was temporary and harmless. He hadn’t altered her memories, though he could have, and he hadn’t stripped her mind bare, although he could have done that, too. Once he’d dealt with Silas permanently, Dresner could go back to her sad devotion to the dead Klemens, and Aden would have nothing more to do with her.
That wasn’t slavery.
Sidonie Reid had no idea what it truly meant to be a slave.
Morocco, 1763
ADEN OPENED HIS eyes and shivered in the cold morning. It was raining. His master Hafiz would be in a foul mood again today. Hafiz hated the rain. He claimed it lowered his profits, and Aden supposed that must be true, since he doubted people would want to stand in the rain and bid on shivering, wet slaves. But what Aden knew for certain was that if business was slow, his master would take out his unhappiness on his own slaves, and that included Aden. Especially Aden. It was as if Hafiz derived particular pleasure in beating the bastard son of one of the wealthiest merchants in the city. More than once, Aden had wondered if his father had known the kind of treatment he’d receive at Hafiz’s hand, and if he’d chosen the slave master for that very reason. Had his father wanted to punish him for being born? For taking even a small part of his mother’s love? Though that love had obviously meant nothing to her. She’d sent him away willingly enough.
He poured freezing water from the cracked pitcher on the wooden table next to his bed, filling the crude pottery bowl. He no longer even thought about the elegant furnishings he’d left behind in his father’s home, things like smooth pottery and fresh-smelling soaps. As the bastard son, Aden had made do with the lowest quality available in his father’s palace, and yet they were still a thousand times better than what he had now. He splashed water on his face and washed his hands with the harsh soap. It hurt his skin, but he did it anyway, knowing it would earn him lashes if he failed to present a neat appearance. Not that he wouldn’t be whipped anyway, but he’d discovered there were degrees of pain.
There was no need to change clothes. He had only the one set, and it had been too cold last night to sleep na**d. The shirt was ragged and unhemmed, the pants torn and too short for his long legs, but they were the only ones he possessed. And even these were owned by his master. Aden owned nothing. He was nothing. He was a thing, a possession, easily discarded and of very little value.
“Aden!”
He heard his master’s bellow and rushed from his room, drying his hands on his pants as he went.
Dropping to his knees at the open door to his master’s morning room, he bent nearly in half, face to the floor, and shouted, “How may this useless one serve you, master?”
His master’s laugh greeted his query. “Didn’t I tell you?” Hafiz chortled. “Perfectly biddable.”
“So you said,” a woman’s husky voice responded.
Aden didn’t move from his prostrate position, but he was intrigued. His master didn’t entertain many women. Boys were far more his style, and only the smallest, weakest ones at that. It was one thing Aden had to be grateful for, that his Scottish blood had made him too big to suit Hafiz’s perverted taste in sexual amusement. Even at the age of five, when Hafiz had first purchased him from his father, Aden had been too strong, his attitude too arrogant. The arrogance had been beaten out of him quickly enough, but his size and strength were there to stay.
“Get in here, worm,” Hafiz’s hated voice called.
Aden lifted himself from the floor, and, keeping his head lowered, eyes downcast, he shuffled into his master’s audience chamber, where he promptly prostrated himself once again.