Ariana tensed. “I told you about my plan because I didn’t want anybody else involved,” she hissed at him.
“Your plan was flawed,” Grayson growled. “I made some adjustments.”
“What makes you—?”
A ferocious growl fell from his lips, making Ariana whimper and move closer to my side. I glared at him but took note of the fact that Eva didn’t even flinch.
“What plan?” Emeric asked.
I wrapped an arm around Ariana’s waist and lifted her onto my lap. Eva’s eyes darted over to us and locked with mine for a few seconds before she looked away.
There was no time to make sense of the emotions that had flashed through her eyes when she had looked at me because Grayson was speaking again.
“Ariana wants to confront Oliver.”
“No,” I sneered at her. “He wants to fucking kill you.”
“I don’t want him to hurt anybody else,” she said. “I just want to talk to him and—”
“He’ll kill you before—”
“Which is why Eva will be going in Ariana’s place,” Grayson interrupted.
I glared at him. He had to be fucking kidding me! Eva might not want a mate and I might not be able to stand Eva at the moment, but there was no fucking way I would allow either of them to be placed in danger. So, Oliver was part of mother’s original plan, but things changed the moment he went after Ariana.
“Don’t look at me like that, kid,” Grayson sneered at me. “We all want this to end and the only way for that to happen is to get rid of Oliver.”
“You want to put the girls in danger!”
“Not both girls! Ariana will stay here and Eva will go in her place.”
“No!” Ariana yelled as she jumped to her feet. “I told you that I don’t want anyone else involved!”
Grayson’s hand on the desk slowly curled into a fist. I could tell by the tensing of his muscles that he was about to explode. One thing I had learned from training with him was that he had a short fuse when it came to back talking.
Leaning forward, I took hold of Ariana’s wrist and gently pulled her back onto my lap. I wrapped both my arms around her waist to prevent her from getting up again.
“It won’t work,” she whispered but we all heard.
“It will.” Grayson’s eyes darted from one twin to the other. “Their futures are similar enough that if Eva changes her hair colour she will look like Ariana. Oliver wouldn’t notice the difference.”
“He would,” I told him. “Ariana has a fragility about her that Eva does not have. She’s thinner too while Eva has more curves.”
Ariana turned her head to look at me. I shrugged in answer to her silent question. I have spent most of my childhood studying the two sisters from the photos my mother always seemed to find, so I knew their physical differences even though a lot had changed since the last photo was taken.
“He’s right,” Emeric muttered as he straightened. “The differences are easily noticeable. Besides, the obvious differences, there’s the fact that Ariana’s animal is dormant while Eva’s animal is easy to sense.”
“The guy is human he will not notice it.”
Emeric frowned at him. “He will. With Ariana’s animal dormant it makes her weak. She acts like prey instead of facing the danger head-on as Eva would.”
Another low growl fell from Grayson’s lips. “Why the fuck are you all ganging up against me? You want to get rid of the fucker so I find you a solution and you throw it back in my fucking face.”
He slammed his fists down on the table, making the wood creak. Ariana instantly tried to get away when Grayson got to his feet and flashed his teeth at us. Without another word, he stormed out of the room, making a cursing Emeric hurry to catch up with him.
I nuzzled the back of Ariana’s neck but pulled back immediately when she shifted on my lap. She turned to face me and reached up to grip my shoulders.
“Make him change his mind,” she said. “We can’t go through with it.”
My lips parted but it was Eva who spoke.
“It shouldn’t be your choice, Ariana. You’re not going to be there anyway so it shouldn’t matter whether you agree or not.” Eva glared at us. “Not everything—”
“Shut up, Eva,” I interrupted her. “Get out; I want to talk to Ariana alone.”
“You get the hell out! This isn’t your home so you don’t get to tell me what I should do.”
“You’re being childish,” I muttered.
“Childish,” she gasped. “I’m not the one walking around smelling like sex!”
My lips slowly curled up into a smirk. “You sound a bit jealous, firecracker. Want me to fuck you too so you feel better?”
Her lips parted but she pursed them instead of uttering a word. Letting out a growl, Eva jumped to her feet and spun towards the door, but she froze with her hand on the door handle and turned back to glare at us.
“You won’t be smiling like that when Dad finds out what you’ve been doing with my sister!”
She ripped the door open and slammed it shut behind her. Rolling my eyes, I looked back at Ariana who was staring at the closed door. My eyes dropped to her throat when she swallowed. I stared at the purplish bruise on her skin with mixed emotions.
Strange emotions filled me the longer I stared at it, but Ariana turned her head, making my eyes snap up to hers. I knew she hadn’t seen the hickey otherwise she would’ve been pissed at me.
The fear I saw in her eyes was something I expected but not the panic.
Swallowing, I reached up to move the strands of hair from her face. The colour that filled her cheeks minutes ago was gone, leaving her looking sickly pale again. “Ariana—”
“I know it’s a good plan,” she interrupted me. “It’s better than what I had in mind but I don’t want Eva to be placed in danger.”
“And you think that I want that?” I asked.
She shook her head. “I just don’t want anybody else to die or get hurt because of me.”
“You can’t stop that from happening, doll,” I told her softly.
Ariana got to her feet and walked over to the desk where she paused to stare at something before she started pacing. I stared at her and silently waited.
Grayson’s plan was brilliant. It was easy to tell that he had gone over it time and time again to make sure that no matter what happened Eva would be safe. But I didn’t like the fact that she would be placed within easy reach of Oliver.
He was out to get revenge just like I was out to get mine, but where I was set out to hurt Silas, he wanted to hurt Ariana.
Ariana spun to face me and made wild gestures with her hands. “Everything that has happened so far is because of me! I made the stupid mistake of asking Ethan to call Dad.” She swallowed loudly and blinked rapidly, making a few tears spill over. “You almost died because of me. I’ve already lost Mom, Lucas. I don’t want to lose Eva too.” Ariana shook her head and paused before she continued. “What if I agree and Grayson doesn’t reach her in time? What if Oliver kills her? What if…?” she trailed off with a helpless shrug.
I stood and froze as I was hit with a sudden wave of dizziness. Blinking, I pushed it aside and walked over to her. I reached up with a shaky hand to wipe the tears from her cheeks before I pulled her against my chest in a tight hug.
“There are a lot of what if’s in life,” I whispered. “It might not be today, tomorrow, or next week, but someday you are going to lose Eva.”
“I know that,” she croaked. “I just don’t want her to die at the hands of Oliver.”
“You know that I will be there too,” I told her. “I won’t let anything happen to her, I promise.”
Letting out a sigh, she turned her face into the crook of my neck and pressed a kiss to my skin. A shiver raced down my spine as my stomach clenched. My heartbeat increased. I knew that the spot she was kissing was where she wanted to mark me. When her tongue flicked out to taste my skin, I jerked away.
“I need to head home,” I told her as I took a few steps back.
“Why?” Ariana asked with a frown. “Didn’t you go home last night when you left?”
“No, I waited until everybody went to bed and then snuck into the house.” Running a hand through my hair, I gave her a crooked smile. “I should let my stepfather know that I’m still alive, and I should probably stop at the studio and make sure that I still had a job.”
Her eyes darted over my face as silence settled between us. I waited for her to ask me more questions but she nodded instead.
“Okay,” she muttered. “I need time to think.”
I nodded and stepped forward to press a kiss to her cheek before I hurried out of the room.
It was getting increasingly harder to keep the trembles at bay. My legs felt like jelly and my head was still pounding.
I hurried out of the house and sagged against the wall as I glanced around. There was nobody in sight which I was thankful for because the last thing I wanted to do was explain why the hell I felt like utter shit. It couldn’t be because of Grayson’s blood because he had given me some before and I was perfectly fine the next day. It was something else.
For a few seconds, the world tilted dangerously to the left, making my stomach roll as nausea hit me. After a few deep breaths, everything was upright again Straightening, I took a few steps forward but froze when Silas’s voice reached my ears. I frowned as I stumbled forwards and peeked around the side of the house.
Silas stood at the side of the house, near the Jeep parked there, with his phone pressed to his ear. He was silent but it only lasted for a few seconds before he spoke again.
“Don’t be fucking stupid!” he hissed. “Stay right where you are! We had a deal, Ethan. Don’t ruin everything by expo—”
Why was he talking to Ethan? Was it the same man who had helped us or was it someone else with the same name?
Licking my lips, I hesitated a moment before I moved closer. I tilted my head to the side and listened. The voice coming from the other end of the phone was enough to clear my confusion.
“I called her Lara when I saw her,” Ethan growled through the phone.
“You shouldn’t have helped them,” Silas told him. “You—”
“You would still be searching for them if I hadn’t!” Ethan interrupted him. “I know that we had a deal, brother, but the fact that my niece and my daughter are in danger changes everything.”