“I don’t…I don’t want to attack him.”
His words made her head jerk toward him. Garrison rubbed his throat. “His scent…it’s been changing since I got here. He doesn’t smell like other vamps anymore.”
That was good, wasn’t it? A sign that Aidan’s alpha blood might be helping Paris? “What does he smell like?” Because she had no clue. All she could smell right then was the scents of blood and mildew.
Garrison inched a bit closer. Did he know that she had a gun loaded with silver bullets in her bag? If he was lying to her and the guy was about to go for Paris’s throat, she would be stopping him.
No one was going to take Paris away.
The force of her attachment to Paris was…frightening.
“He smells…like Paris.”
Her brows rose.
“The scent of the wolf is there,” Garrison mumbled, frowning. “Woodsy, wild. There’s another scent clinging to him, now, too, though.” He inhaled deeply. “Apples.” He shook his head. “Jane always smells like apples. And lavender.”
Annette stiffened. Jane always smells like apples. She shoved her hand into her bag and brought up her knife.
“Wh-what are you doing?” Garrison stammered. “And what the hell all do you have in that bag?”
Everything I need. Paris was out cold, so she grabbed his wrist and sliced him.
“Stop!” Garrison shot toward her. He caught her hand and pulled her away from Paris. “Don’t you hurt him!”
She wasn’t going to hurt him, not anymore. “I got what I needed.”
“For him to bleed?” Garrison’s cheeks were nearly as red as his hair.
“Yes,” Annette said simply. Then she handed him the knife. “Take this to the ME, Dr. Bob Heider. Make him run his tests on the blood. Tell him I know he ran a test when Paris first woke, but he needs to examine this sample.” Because if Paris’s scent was changing, then maybe other things were, too. She thought quickly, then said, “Get him to compare this blood to Jane’s.” Because she knew he kept samples of Jane’s blood on hand.
Jane’s blood.
Aidan’s blood.
Carefully, Garrison took the knife from her. “Shouldn’t I like…bag this or something?”
Annette rolled her eyes. “This isn’t a crime show, wolf. I don’t have freaking plastic bags on me.” They weren’t included in the everything she had contained in her oversized purse. The purse was for her weapons and her magic. She generally left science to others. “Just be careful with the knife. Move as fast as you can and get that blood to Dr. Heider.”
Garrison nodded and made his way to the door, moving with slow, mincing steps.
Her breath huffed out. “You can go a bit faster than that!” Her gaze stayed locked on him until he left the back room and then…
Awareness slowly edged up her spine. Her gaze slid back to Paris. A very awake Paris.
Oh, damn. Annette glanced at the floor. The line of dirt still circled him. Good. She would just make absolutely sure not to pass that line again. When I sliced his hand, I passed it. Foolish mistake. But she’d had to know…
His nostrils flared and his gaze slowly slipped over her face. When his lips parted, she caught sight of his fangs.
“Don’t even think about it,” Annette whispered. “I’m not on your menu.”
But he smiled at her. “Love, you are the menu.” Then he leapt to his feet and charged right at her. The chain that fed into the top of the wall broke—the stupid chain that had been manacling both his wrists—as he lunged to attack. So much for the new chain Vincent had brought to use.
In the face of Paris’s attack, Annette didn’t move. She didn’t flinch. She didn’t back away. She waited.
Paris slammed into the invisible force field created by the dirt of the dead and by her power. He howled. The sound was very, very wolf-like. So his beast is still there. Good to know. She’d been afraid that his wolf was dead.
Not so.
“What…is…happening?” Paris yelled. He shoved his hand against a wall that was there—one he couldn’t see.
“You’re being restrained,” Annette told him simply. “Until you’re more…yourself.”
He snarled.
She picked up a bag of blood and tossed it to him. The blood sailed right over the line of dirt. “Drink up,” Annette urged him. “Because I need my Paris back.”
Greedily, he grabbed the bag. He tore into it with those razor sharp teeth and started to guzzle the blood. He guzzled and guzzled and… “Don’t watch me,” Paris whispered.
She stiffened.
His gaze held hers. “It…shames me.”
That was her Paris talking. He was coming back. Bit by bit. “You don’t need to be ashamed with me.” She reached for another bag and tossed it toward him.
He caught it. Still stared at her.
“It’s going to be okay,” Annette whispered to him.
But Paris gave a sad shake of his head. “No…now I’ll never be good…enough for you.”
Her heart hurt. “You are good enough. Monster or man, it doesn’t matter to me.” It had never mattered. “But next time, don’t be so slow making your move, got it? You want something, you want someone, you act.” Because life was too fragile. Too quick. And even her magic couldn’t stop all the bad things in the world. “Paris…” Annette sighed his name. “I won’t let you go.” That was her shame. That she needed him so much, that she’d come to care for him so much, that she would make any deal, use any dark trick, to keep him with her. I won’t lose you to death.
No matter what it took.
***
Garrison rushed into the ME’s new lab, and when the doc saw him—
Dr. Heider jumped to his feet and put his hands into the air. “Don’t hurt me!”
Garrison frowned at the guy, but then he realized Heider was staring at the bloody knife he gripped in his hand. Humans. “The voodoo queen told me to bring you this.” He dropped the knife onto the doc’s desk. “It’s got Paris’s blood on it, and she wanted you to test it.”
Heider inched closer to the knife. “Test it? I ran exams on Paris’s blood earlier. The results were clear…the guy’s a vamp.”
Garrison’s jaw hardened. “Run new tests. Using this sample.”
“It’s probably contaminated to hell and back.” Heider sniffed. “I mean, you were just running around town with the sample…”
Garrison growled. He might not be an alpha, but he was still a wolf. “Run the tests.”
“Right, tests.” Heider nodded. “But it’s not like the results will change. Not like someone can go back from being a vamp.” Hider pulled on a pair of gloves.
“Annette also said…” Garrison cleared his throat. “She wants you to compare the results to Jane’s blood.”
Heider hesitated. “Got to say, at this point, I’m surprised Paris actually still has a head. I would’ve thought the guy would be well on his way to the afterlife by now.”
Garrison growled once more. “Careful, doc. That’s my pack member you’re talking about. But, yeah, he’s still got his head.” And Garrison wanted the guy to keep it. He liked Paris. Paris was his friend, and Garrison didn’t have enough of those.
Heider’s gloved fingers gingerly picked up the knife. “A vampire killed your family,” he said as he turned away from Garrison. “Shouldn’t you hate them all?”
“I do hate the vamp who took my parents.” Rage would always twist in him when he thought of that bastard. “But that guy is nothing but ash now. He can’t hurt anyone.”
Heider was taking some samples from the knife.
“I don’t hate all vamps.” The words just seemed to slip from Garrison. “I don’t hate Jane.” He couldn’t hate her. As for Paris…“Like I told you, Paris is pack.”
Heider was silent as he ran his tests. Garrison just stood there, shifting a bit from foot to foot and glancing at the body bag to his left. Why the hell would anyone want to work with the dead all day?
“You haven’t felt the urge to attack Paris?” Heider’s voice drifted to him.
Garrison rubbed the back of his neck. “At…at first, I could feel my beast and he wasn’t happy but…but the more blood that Paris took, the better it got.”
Heider glanced up from his microscope. “Blood?”
“Yeah, he’s been drinking the bagged blood that Aidan had. I think the alpha’s blood is really helping him,” Garrison added. “He looks better and he…seems saner.”
“Alpha blood.” Heider peered back through the lens of his microscope.
“It can cure anything,” Garrison murmured.
But Heider stiffened. “No, it can’t cure anything.” He looked over at Garrison. “Where is Jane now?”
“With Aidan.”
“Of course, she is. Because Jane doesn’t see the danger with him. She thinks she can trust him…” Heider made a long hmmmp sound. “Will she still be trusting him when he tries to rip out her throat?”
“That’s not going to happen!” Garrison glared at the guy. “Aidan loves her.” He’d seen the way his alpha looked at Jane.
“Love and obsession can often be confused, especially by someone like Aidan.”
The doc was pissing him off. Garrison’s hands fisted and he took a menacing step toward Heider.
“Easy, wolf,” Heider spoke quickly. “I’m not the enemy.”
“Then who the hell is?” Garrison demanded. “I need to know. We all need to know exactly who we’re facing.” So they could take the bastard out. He advanced on the doc. “What do you see in his blood? Can you figure out which vamp it was that changed him?”
He saw the doc’s Adam’s apple bob. “Yes, I think I’ve figured that part out.”
Garrison waited.
The doc didn’t say more. He did pull out more slides and put them under his microscope.
“Uh, want to clue me in? Who’s the enemy?” Who did Garrison need to kill? Because he was more than ready to fight in order to protect his friends.
Dr. Bob took off his glasses and set them—very carefully—on the table. “Jane.” His voice was soft, and his expression had turned ashen. “It’s…Jane.” He stared at Garrison in growing alarm. “I think she’ll be the end of you all.”
Chapter Eleven
The water poured down on Jane as she stood beneath Aidan’s shower. He’d carried her up the club’s stairs. A sweet, but totally unnecessary gesture. She hadn’t stopped him, though, because if the guy wanted to carry her…
Why not relax and enjoy the ride? He’d been so tender as he eased her into his shower. His hands were careful on her skin. Even now, he stood just behind her, lightly smoothing soap and lather over her arms.
“Did I hurt you?” His voice was quiet.
She smiled as she turned toward him. Her body was slick and her skin slid against his. “Not even a little.” But…was that the truth? When he’d marked her, it had stung. A sharp flash of pain that had caught her off-guard. The pain had only lasted a moment, and then there had been so much pleasure.
His hands slid down her arms.
And he stepped away from her.
Jane stayed beneath the warm spray of the shower, watching him as he slipped out and quickly toweled off. He knotted the towel around his waist, and her gaze drank him in. Those wash-board abs, his powerful shoulders.
Sexy. So very sexy.
“I…died in the fire, Jane.”
It took a moment for his words to register. She shook her head, and even managed a quick laugh. “No, you didn’t. I got you out. I saved you, Aidan.”
Steam drifted in the air around her.
And Aidan shook his head, just once. No.
The warm water was suddenly chilling her. Jane’s hand flew out and she turned off that water. The drip, drip, drip that followed seemed way too loud to her sensitive ears. She stepped out of the shower, standing on his lush mat and dripping all over the place, but not really caring about that.
More important things were happening. “I saved you,” Jane said again.
He pulled out another towel. Big, fluffy, white. With the same care he’d shown her before—as if he were afraid a touch would bruise her—Aidan carefully dried her skin. Then he wrapped the towel around her body.
“Aidan?” Jane prompted.
His hands fell away from her.
“I burned and I died, Jane.” Stark. Cold. “My last thought was of you. I can remember that. The flames were eating my flesh, I hurt so much, and all I wanted…it was just to see you again.”
Tears stung her eyes. “You—you were breathing. I got you out.”
He started to speak, but then stopped. He turned from her and paced to the small closet in the bathroom. He pulled out a pair of faded jeans and yanked them on. Then he jerked a soft, black t-shirt over his head.
Jane stood there, wrapped in the towel, goosebumps covering her skin, and feeling more vulnerable than she’d ever felt before.
Aidan reached for her spare clothes. He offered them to her. “Dress…then we’ll talk.” His jaw clenched. “It’s…too hard to focus when I can see you like this.”
Then he turned his back on her and walked away.
Jane stood there a moment. The clothes were on the sink near her. And all she could hear was…
I died.
She dressed with shaking hands and hurried out of the bathroom. Aidan was standing in front of his desk, with his back to her. She wanted to run to him and wrap her arms around him, but something held her back.
That something? It was fear. Plain old fear.
“I was changing before the fire,” Aidan spoke without looking at her. He was running his fingers over the top of his desk, as if tracing something there. “I knew it. I started to crave blood and…my instincts changed.”
His instincts. “You mean the urge to kill every vamp on sight?”
Finally, he looked back. “Yes.” There was a pause. “And the blood that I craved the most? Jane, it was your blood.” He swallowed. “And I still crave it.” The words seemed to be a warning.
She wasn’t in the mood for warnings. She moved closer to him.
“I died in that fire. You were my last thought. But…I came back.”
“Vamps don’t rise that fast,” she whispered. He’d died violently, with a vampire’s blood in his system. Okay, yes, technically, that might make him change but— “Werewolves aren’t supposed to become vampires.”
“I did. Paris did. I think we can just screw that ‘supposed to’ shit straight to hell.”
Jane flinched.
“I came back. I woke up burning and I woke up…” His gaze slid down to her neck. “Hungry.”
She had to touch him. Jane’s hand pressed right over his heart. “You woke up as you. You came back totally—”
“Vivian had seen to it that I was given blood before I even opened my eyes, Jane. Plenty of it. Vivian wanted to make sure I was strong so she did what she thought was best. She didn’t even realize that she was strengthening a vampire, but that was what she did. That’s how I held onto my control. But my control is getting weaker. There’s a darkness growing in me, and I feel it becoming stronger every single second.”
His heart thundered—too fast—beneath her touch.
“I’m worried about what I’m going to do.”
“You aren’t going to do anything wrong!”
He smiled at her. “The wolf in me didn’t stay dead, Jane. It came back, too. A wolf and a vampire living in one body…and they’re trying to tear me apart.”
Her breath seemed to freeze in her lungs.
“I’m afraid I’ll hurt you,” Aidan said.
“You won’t.”
But his hand slid over her neck, moving down to brush over the mark he’d left on her. The mark that, even with her new healing powers, hadn’t faded. “I already did.”
“Aidan…”
“You are mine, Jane. And I can’t let you go.”
Had she asked to be
let go?
“I worry about what I’ll do…when you finally run from me.”
That—that was crazy. “Do I look like I’m running?”
“Not yet.”
But you will. She could practically hear those words whispering in the air between them.
“No,” Jane fired back. “I’m not going to—”
The phone rang, shrilling loudly on Aidan’s desk. He glanced at it, his eyes narrowing, and she thought he’d ignore the call because, you know, they were in the middle of important shit. But then he reached for the phone. “Locke,” he growled.
Jane could hear the caller all too clearly. It was Vivian, and she said, “Aidan, I’ve got one of the EMTs, Sharon Lawson. She swears that Paris was alive when she first brought him in her ambulance, but something happened…she blacked out for a moment and when she woke up, he was dead. His neck was broken and Sharon is swearing to me that wasn’t the case before she passed out.”
Fury darkened his face. “Why the fuck didn’t she say something to someone before?”
“Because she’s a human,” Vivian said, her voice soft. “And she’s terrified. She has vague memories of a man climbing into the back of the ambulance with her, but considering that her patient died on her…Sharon is blaming herself. I found her in a damn bar, just down from you on Bourbon Street. She’s trying to drink herself into oblivion.”
“Drag her ass out of oblivion and get her here. I’ll make her remember.”
“On the way, alpha,” Vivian responded. The phone clicked when she hung up.
Aidan slanted a fast glance at Jane.
“We aren’t done with our conversation,” she warned him.
“What more do you want me to say?” His smile was bitter. “I’m losing myself. I can fucking feel it. I’m drowning, and I’m afraid I’ll pull you under with me.”
“I’m not afraid of sinking.”
His hand slid over her cheek. “I think I should tell you to run, while I still have some control. This beast that I’ve become…it wants you something fierce. Vamp and werewolf…a fucking abomination.”
She caught his hand and held tight. “Then I’m an abomination. You know I have both wolf and vamp running through my blood, too. But I’m not going crazy. I’m not turning psycho and attacking everyone in sight. You won’t do it, either! I know that you won’t—”