When he took over, Aden became more predator than man. He hated himself as much as he hated Victoria. Which was surreal. Chompers adored Aden. He truly did. He enjoyed being inside Aden’s mind and didn’t fight to leave him as he’d always fought Victoria. But even still, Chompers had a violent temperament, and that violent temperament demanded its due.

Sometimes Aden and Victoria switched back, the souls returning to him, Chompers returning to her. They would quickly switch again, however. And again and again and again. And each time edged them closer and closer to insanity. Too many memories swirling together, too many conflicting needs. One day soon, they would tumble off that edge completely.

“Aden,” Victoria said, panting, his name broken. “I must…have to…”

He knew what came next.

She angled his head, just as he’d done to her, and a moment later, her mouth left his. He didn’t like that. Her fangs sank into his jugular. He didn’t like that, either, and hissed out a breath. Once upon a time, her bite had felt good. In her mindless state of hunger, she’d lost her finesse, and those fangs sliced into a tendon. He didn’t try to stop her, though. She needed to drink just as much as he did.

Footsteps echoed through their cave, resonating like a buzzer.

Aden didn’t panic. Victoria could teleport anywhere she’d been before, had even whisked them here the night of his stabbing. He didn’t know where “here” was, or when she’d visited, he knew only that hikers occasionally wandered inside. None had ever traveled this far and this deep, and he doubted that would change.

He and Victoria could have gone somewhere else, he supposed, somewhere even more remote. Might have been safer, being as far away from civilization as possible. There was a target on Aden’s back, after all, Victoria’s father having come back from the dead to reclaim his throne. Or rather, Vlad the Impaler was trying to reclaim the throne.