I mumbled incoherently against my hands. Delayed as it was, it struck me then that Aiden had spent the night with me—in a bed. And I’d been passed out for it. Gods, that royally sucked, but it didn’t suck as badly as it would have if someone found out about it. “Why did you stay here? What if someone—”
“Only Seth and Leon know what happened. And Laadan. No one else knows we’re here.” He pulled my hands away. “I wasn’t leaving you alone. The drug was still in your system and I wasn’t taking a risk on something else happening to you. You were sick again in the middle of the night. You don’t remember that?”
“No,” I whispered, trying to ignore the warmth his protective words brought. “I don’t remember that.”
“Probably a good thing, it was pretty rough.”
“Great,” I muttered.
A brief smile appeared. “You were… talking a lot, too.”
“This just keeps getting better. What did I say?”
“You told me you wanted to marry Seth’s bed, and then you told me you’d marry me if I asked. After that, you started to—”
“Enough,” I groaned, wanting to crawl under the blankets.
Aiden laughed. “It was actually kind of cute.”
More embarrassed than I’d ever been, I had a hard time looking at Aiden. His face didn’t show any signs that he’d duked it out with Seth. Maybe I’d imagined it. “Did you and Seth… fight?”
One eyebrow arched. “Yeah, we did.”
“Oh, gods, Aiden, it wasn’t Seth’s fault.”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m sorry that you had to go through any of this. You have nothing to be ashamed of. You did nothing wrong, but he did.”
“Don’t apologize. Please. None of this is your fault.” I drew in a deep breath. “It wasn’t Seth’s, either. Aiden, he tried. Really, he did, but I just…” I couldn’t believe I was going to say any of this. “I just kept pushing him. I couldn’t stop, but I knew what I was doing. I just couldn’t stop myself.”
“That doesn’t matter, Alex. Seth should’ve shown restraint. He knew you were vulnerable, that it didn’t matter who you were with.” He paused, drawing in a deep breath. “Alex, look at me.”
I lifted my head slowly. I expected there to be some sort of judgment or disappointment in his gray gaze, but all I saw was infinite understanding, which made the ball of conflicting emotions feel that much worse. His eyes shut briefly. When they reopened, they burned an unnatural shade of silver. “Did he… did you two…?”
“No. We… didn’t do that. He stopped.” I figured it was best to leave out the exact reason why he’d stopped.
We fell into silence for a little while. My mind worked through the events of last night, the implications of them. Someone had wanted me to screw up in a bad way. And to go to that kind of extreme—even the idea sickened me. What if Aiden and Seth hadn’t seen me?
“You really think someone was waiting for me?” I swallowed down the taste of bile, shuddering. “Waiting to catch me with a pure?”
Aiden looked me straight on. “Yes.”
It was hard to wrap my head around that kind of tactic. I shuddered again. Aiden reached down and tucked the blanket around me, but then I jerked up, ruining his hard work.
“Are you feeling sick again?” He moved as if he would carry me off the bed.
I wasn’t sure. The walls did feel like they were closing in around me, but it wasn’t the effects of the brew. “I could’ve lost everything.”
Aiden didn’t respond, because really, what could he say?
My mind raced. There were so many things I could do with the power I would have. I’d learned one thing at the Council—I needed to be able to do something to change the lives of my kind. Seth had been right; we could do something about that as long as I made it to eighteen without being forced into servitude. If I were put on the elixir—which was what someone had intended last night by hoping to catch me with a pure—I might never Awaken. I’d lose such a huge opportunity—more than any half had ever had.
And someone had tried to take that from me at least three times in the last couple of weeks: the compulsion, the Council session, and now this? Telly had warned me if I messed up one more time, I’d be kept in New York.
Sleeping with a pure, willingly or not, would have classified as messing up.
“Alex, are you okay?”
My gaze dropped to his. I don’t know what I saw in his eyes. I couldn’t read them anymore. “Do you think Telly did this?”
Aiden blinked. “Minister Telly? I don’t know, Alex. He’s a lot of things, but to do this? And why?”
“He doesn’t like me.”
“Not liking you is one thing, but to destroy you? It has to be more than dislike, Alex. There has to be a reason.”
Aiden had a point. “Then I need to find out why.”
“We will find out why.”
I nodded. “Right now, I just… I just want to leave here. I want to go home.”
He leaned forward and placed his hand over mine, easing my fingers off the blanket I’d been gripping. “There’s a late afternoon session, and we’ll leave immediately afterward.”
Surprisingly, I didn’t feel very relieved by that. The plus side in all of this was I now knew not to take drinks from… it hit me then. I laughed.