Read Twisted for Free Online

remember exactly.” All she knew was that she’d had a choice. Find the humor in what happened to her or drown in her misery. “Two weeks ago, maybe.”
    The mention of time wiped away his delighted expression, leaving him with a cold frown.
    Only one person affected him that way. Mary Ann Gray. The girl had struck out on her own the same night Aden had been stabbed, and Riley the Besotted Wolf had charged after her, determined to protect her despite the hazard to himself.
    â€œWhere’s your human?” Wait. Mary Ann wasn’t quite human anymore. The girl had become a drainer—something Victoria had not seen coming—able to suck the magic from witches, the beasts from vampires, the power from fairies and the ability to shift forms from the wolves.
    Victoria had begun to wonder if Mary Ann had ever been human. After all, fairies were drainers. The difference was, the fairies could control their hunger and feedings. Mary Ann could not. Still. That raised a startling question. Could Mary Ann be a human/fairy hybrid?
    Victoria had never heard of such a pairing, but as she was learning, anything was possible. If Mary Ann was somehow a hybrid, every vampire and shifter in this stronghold—besides Riley, of course—would want the girl dead. More than they already did. Fae were Enemy One. Dangerous in the extreme. A threat to otherworld existence.
    â€œWell?” Victoria insisted when Riley offered no reply.
    â€œI lost her.” A muscle underneath his eye jerked, a sure sign of his upset.
    â€œWait. You, an expert tracker, lost a teenager who wouldn’t know how to hide if she were invisible?” Another sign that Mary Ann was more than she seemed.
    The ticking migrated to Riley’s jaw. “Yes.”
    â€œYou should be ashamed.”
    â€œI don’t want to talk about it,” he said. “I’m here to talk about you. How are you? Seriously?”
    â€œI’m fine.”
    â€œAll right. I’ll pretend I believe that. Any word from your father?”
    â€œNo.” Vlad had ordered Aden’s execution while remaining in the shadows. Shadows he had yet to vacate.
    She’d never been so grateful for her father’s vanity. He wanted to be seen as invincible, always. So, no one here knew Vlad was still alive, and if she had her way, they never would. The vampires might rebel against Aden before he was officially crowned king, and if they rebelled while he was in this condition, he would lose. Everything he’d already endured would have been for nothing.
    Even healthy and whole, he needed every edge hecould get. Not just to remain in charge, but to stay alive.
    Right now, he had time. Victoria knew her father. Vlad would not return until he was at top strength. Then…well, then there would be a war. Vlad would punish those who’d submitted to Aden’s rule. Herself and Riley included. He would make an example of Aden. And his preferred method of “exampling,” as she’d come to call it, was placing a severed head on a pike and displaying that pike at his front door.
    Would Aden fight him? If so, could Aden hope to win?
    â€œHow’s Aden?” Riley asked. The wolf could read auras and had probably sensed the direction of her thoughts. “Did he…survive?”
    Yes and no. Her stomach twisted into thousands of little knots. She tugged from Riley’s hold, turned and motioned to the bed with a wave of her hand. “Behold. Our king.”
    Green eyes narrowed as they lanced to the lump atop the mattress. Five sure steps, and the shifter was at the side of the bed, peering down. Victoria joined him, trying to see Aden as Riley must.
    He lay on his back, as motionless as a corpse. His normally bronzed skin was pallid, the blue tracery of hisveins evident. His cheeks were hollowed out, his lips chapped and cracked. His hair was soaked with sweat and plastered to his scalp.
    â€œWhat’s wrong with