“I wasn’t born to be a vampire, Jane. You were.” His expression was tormented. “Right the fuck now, I want to sink my fangs into you. I want that sweet blood of yours on my tongue, and I want my cock in you. I have a hunger for you that’s not ending. It’s getting stronger and deeper with every moment that passes.”
“You think I don’t want you just as much?” She remembered the wild need that had burned to life inside of her when he’d taken her blood. “Because to be clear, I do, Aidan. I do.”
“You don’t understand.” The lines near his mouth deepened. “You aren’t seeing the danger.”
“Because it’s you!” Jane nearly yelled. “There isn’t any danger for me when I’m with you! Don’t you get that, Aidan? You’re my safe zone. My anchor. I’m not afraid when I’m with you.” She stared into his eyes, needing him to understand this. Needing it to go bone deep. “I won’t be afraid when I’m with you.”
He gazed back at her.
Jane exhaled and turned away from him. “Let’s go downstairs. I want to hear what that EMT has to say, too, and—”
“You will be afraid of me, Jane.” His voice came out low, without any emotion. “Before I’m done, I’ll terrify you.”
***
Vivian dragged the blonde with her as they hurried down Bourbon Street. The woman was still clutching a hurricane in her hand, and her steps were weaving as she struggled to keep up with Vivian and not spill her precious drink.
“I want to go back!” Sharon called. “I need more drinks!”
Vivian rolled her eyes. “You need to get your ass sober, woman.” She got it—she did. Sharon had been crying into her hurricane when she arrived. Sharon was convinced that she’d done something to cause Paris’s death. Like there isn’t already enough guilt going around on that one.
“I’m going to lose my job,” Sharon mumbled. “When my boss learns that I passed out on a patient…he’ll think I was drinking on the job.”
“Yes, well, the fact that you’ve been chugging drinks all morning isn’t going to help that case out any,” Vivian retorted. She could see Hell’s Gate up ahead. Good. Now to get Sharon inside and let Aidan work his magic.
“I wasn’t drinking.” Sharon jerked to a stop.
A stop? Now? When they were so close?
Sharon stared down at the drink in her hand. “I was trying to save him. I wanted to help. But when I-I opened my eyes…I was lying on top of him. My hands were at his throat. And his neck…it was broken.”
Vivian snatched the drink from Sharon’s hand. “I don’t think you’re strong enough to snap a man’s neck.”
Sharon blinked at her. “I…I lied.” A stark whisper.
Does the woman even realize she’s talking to a police captain? Vivian had identified herself earlier but…
“I told everyone on scene that he’d broken his neck during the fall. He didn’t. It happened in my ambulance. It must have been me.” She shuddered. “It was me. Me, me—”
“Stop that shit,” Vivian ordered flatly. They’d already been through this guilt routine at the bar.
Sharon stopped. She blinked at Vivian.
“You want to know what happened in that ambulance? Then you come with me, right the hell now.” She’d questioned Sharon for a while before and gotten the woman to mumble an admission about the man who’d appeared in the ambulance, then Sharon had clammed up. Aidan will take care of that situation.
“H-how can you find out the truth?”
“I have a friend who can help you remember what went down. Remembering things like that, well, it’s his specialty.”
Hope flashed in Sharon’s gaze. “You mean it? He…he sounds like some kind of amazing friend.”
Vivian steered her toward Hell’s Gate. “Oh, yes,” she murmured. “Trust me, he is.” Aidan’s the kind of friend you don’t want to piss off.
***
Roth Sly stumbled into his apartment, and the soft footsteps of his guest followed him right inside.
“You were hired to follow Jane,” the guy groused. “What the hell kind of screw-up are you pulling? If you can’t do the work, I can sure as hell pay someone else for the job.”
Jane.
Roth glanced to the right, to the images that he had pinned to his cork bulletin board. Shots of Mary Jane Hart were up there. Mary Jane with her gun drawn as she faced a thief. Mary Jane as she prowled through a cemetery. Mary Jane as she stood outside of Hell’s Gate with that big, dangerous bastard Aidan Locke at her side.
Roth quickly glanced away from those photos even as he edged closer to the bulletin board. Without looking directly at the image of Jane again—for some reason, he just didn’t want to do that—he reached out and grabbed the photos. He tossed them into the trash.
“What the actual fuck are you doing?” The man who’d followed him home demanded.
Before Roth could speak, the fellow had grabbed him and shoved him against the wall. The guy held him there, far too easily. And Roth found that he didn’t want to look the fellow in the eyes, not directly.
Because…
Because I know he’s not human, no matter what he might want me to think.
“You let Aidan Locke get to you,” the man snarled. “I told you he was dangerous. That you could never get fucking close to him. I gave you the lotion to use in order to hide your scent from him. He wouldn’t have known you were ever close…”
Roth hadn’t wanted to talk to the guy at the coffee shop, and, honestly, he’d been kind of dazed when he first walked in the place. It had taken him a few moments to even recognize his employer of the last year.
The last year.
Yeah, he’d met the secretive asshole a long time ago, long before he’d ever encountered Mary Jane for the first time. The sly bastard had offered him one thousand dollars a week to watch her.
A thousand dollars? When he’d barely been bringing in anything with his art work? Hell, yes, Roth had jumped at the chance. Especially since Jane was just the type of pretty brunette he liked to watch, anyway.
And I’d gotten paid for the gig. I thought it was my lucky fucking day.
He wasn’t feeling so lucky any longer.
“Aidan Locke is an alpha werewolf,” his boss snapped. “He can play with your head and you wouldn’t even know it.”
Actually, he did know it. His temples were throbbing. Nausea rolled in his stomach.
“What did you tell him about me?”
“N-nothing,” Roth said. That was the truth, he hoped. He hadn’t told the guy anything about his boss. At least, he didn’t think he had. The whole scene was kind of blurry in his mind.
“Why don’t I believe you?” His boss dropped his hold on Roth and paced away.
Because you’re not a very trusting bastard?
“Aidan could have made you forget every single fucking thing you said to him.” The boss peered out of the blinds that covered Roth’s windows. “He could be hunting me, even now. Dammit, I needed more time.”
His boss was seriously pissed.
“Aidan won’t forget you,” his boss said. “He’ll start digging into your life. He’ll want to learn everything he can about you. And if he digs too hard into your world, he’ll find me.”
Roth’s heartbeat was racing in his chest. The job had taken a far darker turn six months ago, and yeah, the money had increased to go along with the new orders. First his payment had increased to five grand a week, then to ten grand recently, and the money had been so good that he hadn’t cared that some people were getting hurt.
When you went so long without money, getting it…well, it could change a man.
The boss's rage wasn't a good thing. It was very, very bad, and Roth tried to defuse the situation before it headed to hell. “I gave the other wolf the blood!” Roth said quickly. “Just like you said to do!”
“At least you did something right.” A dark mutter.
Roth notched up his chin. “More than just something. I’ve been doing exactly wha
t you told me, all along.” Maybe the boss needed a reminder. “I-I broke into the ME’s lab the night it caught on fire, remember? The night Jane changed? I snuck in there while Jane was still out cold on the ME’s slab. Heider had samples of her blood and I took them, without him even noticing me.” And one of those samples had been given to Paris. See—I was following orders.
“Yes,” the man acknowledged. “That night, you did very, very well.”
Roth blew out a low breath. Damn straight, I did well. “And when I gave it to the other wolf, to Paris, I was doing exactly what you wanted. I’ve always done what you wanted.”
This time, a soft smile flickered over his boss’s face. “You have.”
Roth began to relax. This was good. He was going to be okay. “I’ve done all the tests, monitored Jane’s progress exactly as you wanted.” Hell, maybe by the time he was done talking, the boss would even give him a raise. “Look, I won’t make the mistake of getting near Aidan Locke again, okay?” It had just been a screw-up that night. He’d taken pictures when he shouldn’t have lingered. “I’ll keep doing my job and no one will know what’s happening.”
His boss nodded as he came closer. “It is important for no one to understand what’s happening. At least, not yet.”
“I won’t breathe a word—”
The boss’s hand flew out and locked around Roth’s throat. “I know you won’t. After all, it’s incredibly hard for the dead to speak.”
Roth tried to fight him but…but the bastard was so much stronger than he appeared. He clawed at the guy’s hold, twisting and kicking and—
“Thanks for all the hard work,” his boss whispered. “Now consider yourself fired.”
Chapter Twelve
The big door at Hell’s Gate swung open, and Jane glanced over at the entrance. Captain Harris walked in first, and her expression was grimly determined. She came in with her hand locked around the wrist of another woman, a blonde with a short, pixie hair-cut and mascara stained eyes.
“Aidan, Jane,” Vivian murmured in acknowledgement. She shut the door behind her and her guest. “Meet Sharon Lawson, the EMT who was working on Paris the night he died.”
Aidan was sitting at a table in the middle of the club. Jane stood at his side. As Vivian and Sharon approached, Jane could practically smell the human’s fear. Sharon’s gaze darted all around the club’s interior. “Sh-shouldn’t more people be here?” Sharon asked. “I mean, I know it’s early but the other bars on Bourbon Street are already—”
“We’re closed,” Aidan murmured. “The bouncer I have out front won’t let anyone inside, not without my approval.”
Sharon licked her lips. “Are you the ‘friend’ that is supposed to help me remember?”
“I am.” His hands were flat on the table. His claws weren’t out. Jane figured that was a good thing. She was standing and not sitting because…
Because I feel like I need to keep a close eye on him. She wasn’t scared of Aidan, but she also wasn’t sure just how smoothly this little meeting would go.
She wanted to make sure he didn’t cross any lines and, oh, say…hurt a human.
“Come closer,” Aidan ordered.
Sharon looked as if closer was the last place she wanted to go, but when Vivian nudged her, she edged a few steps toward Aidan.
“Have a seat.” Aidan’s voice was calm. That eerie kind of calm that came right before a storm.
Sharon slumped into the chair across from him.
“Vivian told me,” he began, body relaxed, “that you don’t remember exactly what happened on the ambulance.”
Sharon twisted her hands on the table top. “One minute, my patient was alive. The next…” She swallowed. “I was lying sprawled on his chest and my hands were around his neck. I don’t remember hurting him, I swear, I—”
Aidan caught her hands. He stared at them, then he looked up at her. “You will remember.”
“Wh-what?”
A shiver slid down Jane’s spine. His voice wasn’t so calm now. Now…he was more like the storm.
“You will remember what happened on that ambulance. You will tell me exactly what happened to Paris. Every detail. See it in your head right now. Tell it to me.”
Sharon’s hazel eyes seemed to glaze over.
Jane looked at Vivian. Vivian’s focus was on Sharon.
This always makes me so damn uncomfortable. The idea that Aidan could force his way into someone’s mind. That he could control that person completely…
I’m glad he couldn’t control me. She never wanted to give up that kind of power to someone else.
“I was working on the patient,” Sharon said, her unfocused stare seeming to see her past. “He was breathing. His vitals weren’t the best, but I knew he was going to make it. How incredible. I’d just seen him fall from that second story window, but he was going to survive. Other people were still in the building and I had to work on him alone because my partner was needed to tend to the other victims. But then…” A furrow appeared between her brows. “A firefighter came to help me.”
Aidan’s head tilted toward her. “A firefighter?”
“Yes, he said he had training, that he could help.” She gave a hard, negative shake of her head. “I told him I had the patient, I could take care of him, but…” Her hand lifted to her neck. She stopped talking, just touched her neck.
“Tell me what happened next,” Aidan said.
Her eyes had gone wide. “He pulled out a needle and shoved it into my neck.” Her fingers were rubbing along the side of her neck. “I couldn’t even speak! Everything went dark. When I woke up, I was on top of the patient. His neck was broken.”
“And I’m guessing the firefighter was long gone,” Jane said, unable to stay silent any longer.
Sharon nodded.
“What did he look like?” Jane was betting the guy had been no real firefighter. Like her, he’d probably just taken a uniform so that he could hide in plain sight.
Was he watching me that night? Did he see me do the same thing?
Sharon frowned, but didn’t answer Jane’s question.
Jane sighed. “Aidan, keep doing your thing.” She glanced down at him and saw—his claws were coming out. Crap.
“Describe the man,” Aidan instructed flatly.
Sharon nodded. “Big. Wide shoulders. Tall…over six feet, I-I think. He had on his helmet when he came inside the ambulance but…but when he brought that needle toward me, I saw his wrist. H-he had tattoos there.”
Jane stiffened. Tattoos?
“See the tattoos in your mind,” Aidan said. “Tell me exactly what they looked like.”
“A raven.” Sharon’s voice had gone breathless. “He had a raven flying on the inside of his wrist and a snake was reaching up to bite it.”
Jane took a step back.
Roth? They’d had the bastard. They’d had him, and they’d just let him go.
Sharon’s chair scraped across the floor as she shot to her feet. “That guy—he killed my patient, didn’t he?”
Killed him…transformed him into a vampire. Same thing, mostly.
“Who is he?” Sharon demanded. Her frantic gaze flew to Vivian. “The cops have to find him! You have to arrest him! You have to—”
Vivian put her hand on the woman’s shoulder. “Don’t worry. We’ll take care of him.” Her gaze slid back to Aidan. “Won’t we?”
He was already rising to his feet. “Hell the fuck yes, we will.” He stalked around the table toward Sharon. He paused, staring into her eyes. “You never saw me today. You never came to Hell’s Gate. The patient’s death wasn’t your fault and you know that. So go back to your life. Go back.”
And forget the monsters in the dark. Jane bit her lip so that she wouldn’t say those words.
A few moments later, Sharon walked out of Hell’s Gate. Aidan watched her go, his clawed hands hidden behind his back.
Jane was on the phone, calling in favors at the PD and getting Roth’s address. Roth
Sly. The sonofabitch. Was he already in the wind? Running hard and fast?
The dispatcher came back and rattled off his current address to Jane. She thanked him, then hung up the phone. She looked over and saw that Aidan and Vivian were standing nearly toe-to-toe. Uh, oh, that couldn’t be good. “Guys?” Jane cleared her throat. “I’ve got the address. We need go get the hell over there.” Before the guy clears town. If he hadn’t already.
Jane had learned one important lesson that day. Aidan’s power had limits. Apparently, he had to be sure and ask the right questions. Because otherwise, some jackass like Roth could slip away.
Despite Jane’s words, neither Aidan nor Vivian moved. Vivian just kept her stare locked on Aidan as she asked, “Where’s Paris?”
“Safe.” A clipped, rough answer.
“You’re not going to tell me? Me?”
Jane paced closer. She grabbed Aidan’s arm. “Come on.”
But he kept gazing at Vivian. “I can’t tell you, not yet.”
Vivian’s lips pressed together, then, after a tense moment, she said, “What did that bastard do to Paris in the ambulance? Something worse than death…”
Aidan nodded. “Yes, worse.” Pain flashed on his face. “But I’m trying to bring Paris back. I just need more time. And I can’t risk more pack members finding out just yet.”
Vivian stumbled back, as if she’d just been stabbed. “You don’t trust me?”
“You need deniability, Viv. Because if I go down, you’re the only one who can keep this pack together. They have to trust you.”
She held up her hands, palms out. “I’m no alpha.”
“No, but you’re the fucking closest thing, and they need you.” He inclined his head toward her. “I will handle this.” Then he looked at Jane. “I should have killed that bastard earlier.”
Killing Roth wasn’t the answer—they needed to question the guy. Find out what he’d given to Paris. Why. This time, they’d ask the right questions. She knew Aidan had gotten sidetracked earlier…because of me. His feelings for her had gotten in the way, and, dammit, she should have been the one to push for a deeper truth from Roth.