Bodyguards Read Online Free PDF Page A

again, to answer each of her questions in
turn—and raise a dozen more with each word.
    “Anabel and I have the same duty:
to protect you. Sometimes we disagree on how to do that best. I know when your
birthday is because I’ve been waiting for you to turn twenty to finally bring
you home to Foh’Ran. But it looks like Rhuinn decided he wouldn’t wait for you
to come and challenge him for your birthright. He sent his guards to snatch
you. If Aedan hadn’t been there, they might have done just that.”
    Still trying to process his words
and order her thoughts, Vivien let her gaze drift between the two brothers.
    Standing still against the wall,
Aedan asked, “Why were you not with her, anyway? I told you he was getting
restless.”
    Embarrassment drifted over Brad’s
features like a shadow, reawakening Vivien’s own. Had it been hours ago that
she had asked him on a date? It felt like a lot more time had passed, but that
might have been an effect of how confused she felt.
    “I lost her at school,” Brad muttered
before looking back at Vivien. “It would have been easier if I could just have
told you, but Anabel was dead set against it, and she made me promise not to
say a word to you until she did. She was mad at me for even talking to you.”
    These words, at least, seemed to
make sense. From the first time Vivien had mentioned Brad, Anabel had bristled
at the mere mention of his name. It wasn’t too difficult to accept that they
did know each other. But the rest...
    “I don’t understand,” Vivien said.
She twirled the ring on her thumb round and round, keeping her hands busy while
her mind tried to piece things together. “Why would anyone want to hurt me? Why
would you want to protect me?”
    Brad’s gaze was too strong for
Vivien to hold, his eyes narrow and intense as though he were willing her to
believe him. She lowered her eyes and noticed he was rubbing his fingers
against the swirls of the tattoo on the inside of his left wrist.
    “Aedan and I are both part of the
QuickSilver Guard,” he said in a low, vibrating voice. “We swore to protect the
true heir to the throne of Foh’Ran from the usurper king.”
    Vivien looked up, holding her
breath. She had a feeling she knew what he would say next. And indeed, his
words turned solemn when he intoned, “We swore an oath to protect you.”
    “I’m nobody’s heir,” she
protested. “I’m just a girl. My parents died in a car crash.”
    Aedan’s voice rose, slow but
strong. It was the first time he addressed Vivien since Brad’s arrival.
    “Your mother was Eleoren Te
Celden. She was the ruler of our world, the seventh in the line of Celden
rulers that began with Lahien the Great. She did not die in a car crash.” He
sneered at the words. “She was murdered for being too favorable to vampire
rights four years after she sent you to the Otherworld for your own
protection.”
    Vivien stared at him. He had
recited those names as though they meant the world to him, as though she was
supposed to trust every word he said when all she knew about him was that he
was a killer.
    “This is crazy. Why should I
believe you?”
    Aedan didn’t bat an eyelash, but
his eyes seemed to gleam with a metallic reflection. “Whether you believe me or
not is irrelevant, Dame Vivien. You are safe. You will remain safe. That is all
that matters to me.”
    “Aedan,” Brad said, the word heavy
with reproach. “If she doesn’t believe us, how can she ever trust us?”
    “Our vows said nothing about
trust. Once we Pass Through, she’ll have no choice but to believe. We should go
now.”
    “I’m not going anywhere,” Vivien
said. “Not until you start making sense.”
    To her own ears, her voice sounded
plaintive. This was all too much, too strange.
    “I know it’s a lot to take in all
at once,” Brad said. “I’m sorry, I wish I knew how to make it easier on you.”
    He patted Vivien’s hand where it
lay on the sofa between them. A few feet away, his