At Villan Estate.
Aiden and Claire were snuggling in his bed. After the couple had decided to take Lucas's advice of watching a movie, they did exactly that.
There was a hidden compartment at the foot of the bed that when activated, a tv would rise electronically from it. So after picking a movie and making themselves comfortable, they started to watch it.
Aiden was leaned against the headboard while Claire was safely tucked to his side. Since the beginning of the movie, he had been drawing circles on her waist with the arm he had around her. Holding her close. Their legs were tangled with each other, the blanket over them kept them warm and the silence between them was a comfortable one. It was so nice, that thirty minutes into the film Claire had fallen asleep in his arms.
Since he knew how much she had been working, and after of few times of her mentioning how she had a hard trouble sleeping, Aiden was pleased to see that she was at ease. Enough so that she dozed off relatively quickly. And even though she would miss the movie, he didn't mind. Just having her around him made him feel relaxed and content.
Not to mention that laying with her in his bed was amazing all in itself. It was something he could gladly get used to doing more often.
'Baby steps.' He again reminded himself.
He was well aware that his first instinct was always to be fast and a bit too over bearing for other people's taste. And although he usually couldn't care less about other people's pace, he surely cared about Claire's.
Aiden looked down at the angel in his arms and couldn't help but smile. The way her arms hugged his waist, how her red hair cascaded over her face and even they way her breaths felt against his chest, it all made him feel beyond himself. It was as if he were snuggling with perfection itself.
He was silently lost in his thoughts when Claire's cellphone started to buzz. Aiden didn't want to wake her, but having seen first hand how her alarms were important to her, like the time it told her that Lily was in trouble during their dinner, he didn't have a choice but to do so.
"Angel, your phone is ringing." He said to her in a sweet voice as she stirred awake. "I know you're sleepy, but you can rest a while longer after you check your phone." Claire groggily took her cellphone from his hands.
After half opening her eyes and looking at the alert on her screen, she immediately sat up straight wide eyed. She turned to look at Aiden so quickly that she almost got whiplashed by the sudden movement.
"Where is Lily?"Any and all grogginess was stripped away from her voice as she hurriedly got out of the bed.
"She's in the movie room with Lucas. What's wrong?" He could tell by her reaction to her phone that something was going on. And judging by the look in her eyes, it was something serious. It was similar to the way they looked the night of Colton's attack. Making him immediately get up from the bed a well.
"I need Lucas to move her to the safest place in the house. NOW." Claire replied as she called somebody. Aiden understood by her tone that she wasn't in the mood to answer his questions at the moment, so he simply nodded and called Lucas. After he made sure he was moving Lily some place safer, he tried to get into contact with the men in charge of guarding his estate. When he failed to do so, he began to understand the severity of the situation.
"How many?" He heard her ask making him turn to face her again.
"I count forty on the thermal scope. So taking into consideration what we know, that would mean you have four to look for." Colton's voice was heard on the other line with the sound of fingers tapping against a keyboard in the background. Since the phone was on speaker mode, they both heard him clearly. "Where's Lily?"
Claire had set down the phone and was placing her hair into a messy bun when she looked up at Aiden. "She's in one of my house's panic rooms." He responded while walking over to Claire and taking her hand.
After he grabbed the phone, he guided her inside his walking closet where he shut the doors behind them. He didn't need much of an explanation to understand that his house was under attack.
"How far out are they from infiltrating?" Claire asked in return after taking the cellphone back. She could sense Aiden doing something behind her, but she was focused on the shared images Colton was sending to her phone.
"Eight minutes." Colton answered. The line between them went silent and only the buzzing background and the keyboard tapping was heard from his side. After a few long seconds, Colton spoke again with a much more different tone than the one he was using before. He was now using the voice Aiden had heard him have only when he spoke to his little sister. "It's time Cece."
Aiden could only see Claire's back, but he didn't miss how she flinched at what he said. Just a second after doing so, she straightened her shoulders. It was subtle, but he managed to catch the emotion laced in her response. "It's time." she repeated after him.
And with that she ended the call.
She took a deep breath before turning around to face Aiden. Once she did, she noticed he had moved aside a large portion of his neatly hanged dress shirts. She took a few steps closer to him and realized that a he had opened a hidden door placed behind the clothing rack.
After they stepped inside the secret room, Claire understood it was a panic room. Or better said, half of a panic room. The other half was more of an armory. And taking into consideration the up coming situation they were about to face, it was equivalent to having stepped inside wonderland.
The secret room consisted of a single bed, a separate space with a bathroom inside and food provisions among a few other things. To it's other side, the entire wall was covered in different types of weapons with a large metal table placed right in front of it.
Hand gun's, assault riffles, modified pistols and a lot more. In that room alone, Aiden had enough fire power to start a small gang war if he wished to do so. It was definitely a sight to see. But Claire didn't have enough time to take it all in since there were much more pressing matters to attend to.
"You can find the knives inside the cabinet to the left." Aiden said to her as he dismounted a few hand guns from the wall. He mentioned the knives after remembering she seemed to prefer them over guns. Or at least that was what he gathered from the night she fought after Colton's accident.
"Aiden I can't let you go out there with me." Claire said in a very low voice while she fidgeted with her fingers.
She knew that what she was saying would sound outrageous to him, but she had to at least try to make him stay out of it. And judging by his reaction, she was right on the money when thinking she had any type of a chance at succeeding in doing so was ludicrous.
Aiden turned to look at her as if he had just heard the most absurd thing she could ever say to him in his whole life. But even so she continued. "I know this is your house, and I also know that you can take care of yourself very well but..."
"But?" Aiden interrupted her while he placed the guns down and walked over to her. He stood so close to her she was forced to crane her neck up to look at him. Something that made her obviously more nervous.
"But their numbers are just a diversion to have a handful of skilled men infiltrate and take out a single target." She said in an almost guilty voice. It wasn't a topic they had discussed yet. And for very good reasons.
Aiden kept silent while he stared at her with an unreadable expression on his face. Prompting Claire to continue talking. "And I don't want to risk you getting yourself in harms way because of that. So please just stay here and let me handle it."
He could see in her expression that she understood her request was brazen to say the least. But it was her choice of words that ticked him off the most. Maybe even more than the fact that intruders had successfully managed to gain access to his private property.
Without warning, he lifted her by her waist and sat her on the metal table's cold surface. A few of the bullets he had placed on it fell to the floor, but neither of them payed it much attention. Instead, he grabbed her face with both if his hands and forced her to focus on him.
"We will only have this conversation once so listen well Angel." His voice was low. Dangerously low. It wasn't the kind of voice that left room for debate. "I will first turn around as a corpse inside my grave before I ever, EVER, let my woman go into any kind of danger alone." His serious tone sent shivers down Claire's spine, forcing her to feel the need to hold on to him. While she grabbed on to the shirt over his chest, he continued. "It doesn't matter what kind of trouble you're in or who it is that you have to go up against. I would rather drop dead than have you think I'm the kind of man that would ever even consider leaving you on your own."
"You don't understand." Claire all of a sudden seemed like the most vulnerable version that Aiden had ever seen of her. It was similar to the way she looked when she almost had a panic attack after seeing his dogs for the first time.
"Do you really think I'm afraid of a mere forty men?" Aiden asked with a bit of disbelief in his voice. "If you know why I'm called the Blood Raven, then you have to know the reasons behind it as well Angel."
"Aiden!" She slightly raised her voice which was something he hadn't seen her do. Not even through all that he had seen her go through the past months. Her eyes were desperate for his understanding. "The men after me are trained in ways you and you're men aren't equipped to deal with. If you go out there with me and something goes wrong..." The grip she had on his shirt tightened. "I won't be able to choose you over what needs to be done."
Aiden was finally starting to comprehend that the depth to his little lady's knowledge and mystery's, was far greater than he could simply imagine.
At the beginning he had thought that his abilities to deduce and connect the dots would be enough to uncover whatever it was that his Angel was involved in. But in reality, he had met his match. A realization that had just dawned on him thanks to the complicated look in her eyes.
"Claire." He said in a softer more understanding tone. And since he used her name, it took her by surprise. It was rare for him to call her by her name. "I respect you and your privacy, but we have less than five minutes to get ready to deal with what you already know is coming." He lowered himself even more so that their eyes were at the same level. "And just like your brother said before, it's time. So how about you finally start sharing whatever it is that's going on with you."