Richart stood just inside, arms crossed, a look of amusement on his face.
Chris closed the door.
Somewhat reassured by Richart’s relaxed demeanor, Ethan glanced around.
Aidan stood at the other end of the room, beyond the long oak table, staring back.
Ethan took in the figures to either side of him.
Four Aidans stared back, to be precise.
“Okay,” he said, eyeing the quadruplets, “this is weird.”
Richart laughed.
“All right,” Chris said. “Let’s do this.”
Ethan looked from Chris to the Aidans. “Do what?”
Chris motioned to the Scottish immortals. “Can you tell which one is the real Aidan?”
“Yeah.” Ethan pointed. “That one. Second from the left.”
The other three swore.
Ethan didn’t ask if he was right. He already knew it.
Chris gaped at him. “How did you know that? And so quickly? You didn’t even hear them talk.”
Ethan shrugged. “I didn’t have to. There are little things, like—”
“Don’t tell us,” the Aidan on the far right cut him off in what Ethan thought was an impressively close imitation of Aidan’s brogue. “We have to figure it out ourselves.”
“Hey, not bad,” Ethan said. “You sound a lot like him, Seth.”
Seth swore. “Turn your back.”
Laughing, Ethan did so.
This was good. This was very good. If Seth had seen the vampires’ memories, they clearly hadn’t fooled him.
Seth wanted Aidan to be innocent.
This was definitely good.
Aidan stood still while Seth, Zach, and Jared—all of whom had shape-shifted into mirror images of him—walked around him in slow circles, scrutinizing him from head to toe.
Minutes passed.
“Frown,” one of his look-alikes ordered.
He did so.
“Smile,” another commanded.
He did.
“Squint your eyes,” the third said.
It was like taking orders from himself.
He’d seen his own reflection in calm waters, looking glasses, and mirrors for millennia, yet even he thought they all looked exactly like him. Sounded like him, too.
Aidan cleared his throat. “I have to say I agree with Ethan. This is weird.”
Ethan laughed, his back still to them. And Aidan could hear relief in his laugh, so Ethan must be thinking the same thing he was: this was good.
Aidan’s three carbon copies lined up again.
“Okay,” Chris told Ethan, “let’s try this again.”
Ethan turned around.
Chris nodded to them. “Which one is the real Aidan?”
Ethan pointed at Aidan. “Him. Still the second from the left.”
The other three swore.
Chris looked astounded. “He was right?”
Aidan grinned. “Yes.”
“That’s amazing,” Richart mumbled. “I can discern no difference between them.”
Chris turned to Ethan. “What gave it away?”
One of the imitators held up a hand. “Don’t answer that,” Seth said in his usual voice. “If he tells you, Gershom will be able to read it in your thoughts.”
“Oh.” Chris grimaced. “Right. Yeah, don’t tell me.”
Ethan smiled. “Want to try again?”
Seth-Aidan shook his head. “Now we need to see if Dana can tell us apart.”
Surprised, Aidan turned to him. “Why?” Then he frowned. Is that how I look when I’m exasperated?
“So we’ll know,” Seth explained, “whether or not she’ll be able to recognize that he isn’t you if Gershom comes to her in your form as we believe he did with Veronica and the others.”
“Oh.” Damn, that was disconcerting. Aidan would like to think Dana would be able to tell the difference, but even Chris and Richart couldn’t tell them apart, and he’d known them a lot longer than he had Dana.
Aidan zipped over to the door when Chris opened it. “Dana,” he said, leaning out.
Relief blanketed her features when she saw he was all right. “Yes?”
He smiled to let her know all was well. “Would you join us, please?”
“Sure.”
Heather rose. “Can I come, too?”
Chris nudged Aidan back inside and motioned for him to hurry and rejoin the look-alikes. “Sure.”
Aidan dashed back to the others and stilled before the women entered.
Dana didn’t know what to expect when she passed through the doorway but ended up in a very large, swanky boardroom.
Wow. These Immortal Guardians and their network had money. A lot of it, by the looks of things.
Richart smiled at her and nodded toward the other end of the room.
Dana swiveled around, started to smile, then froze. “Whoa!” Her eyes widened. Her mouth fell open.
Four Aidans stood on the opposite side of the room.
Not four men who resembled Aidan, but four Aidans.
Slowly, she walked around the long table and stared at them.
The moment stretched.
They sent her encouraging smiles.
“Okay,” she announced, “I’m not gonna lie. This is freaking me out a little.”
Richart laughed.
Chris moved to stand beside her. “Can you tell which one is the real Aidan?”
She moved to stand in front of the Aidan on the far left.
He had the right height. The right build. Same hair. Same handsome-as-hell face.
When she had learned someone was posing as Aidan, she had thought—if no other way—she would see something in his eyes that would tip her off and help her discern whether it was her Aidan or a faker, but…
She moved on to the second one. Then the third. And the last.
She just wasn’t seeing anything. “Can I talk to them?” she asked Chris.
“Of course,” the Aidan before her responded. “We want you to be certain.”
The third Aidan repeated the response. Then the second. And the first.
They even sounded like him.
So how else could she tell the difference?
An idea occurred. One she didn’t particularly like.
“Aidan,” she murmured, “don’t be mad, okay?”
All four chorused, “Okay.”
Drawing in a deep breath, she rose onto her toes, reached up, cupped the back of the fourth Aidan’s head, and drew him down for a kiss.
His lips were soft like Aidan’s. After a moment’s hesitation, those soft lips parted. And like Aidan, he slid one arm around her waist and pulled her up against him as he deepened the contact.
Holy hell, he could kiss, teasing her as skillfully as Aidan did, his mouth moving on hers in a way that should have made her heart pound, but— She jerked away and took a step back. “You’re not Aidan.”
“No,” the other Aidans all growled in unison, “he isn’t.”
Then their eyes flashed bright.
Ethan gaped. “Holy crap. Dana just kissed Seth.”
Heather gasped as her mouth fell open. “That’s Seth?”
The eyes of three of the Aidans faded to a dark brown color.
The real Aidan’s eyes remained bright as he glowered. “Yes. And Seth kissed her back.”
The Aidan on the right shifted into Seth’s taller form and held up both hands. “I was trying to convince her I was you,” he said, his voice low and calming. “If I hadn’t, we wouldn’t know that she does have a way of identifying which one is you.”
“By kissing him?” Aidan growled.
Dana scowled and propped her hands on her hips. “Okay. If you do this again, I am not going to kiss all of you. Especially since I now know I have another means of figuring out who is who.”
Seth turned to her with interest. “What other means?”