Chapter Two
The alley was clean. It had looked like a blood bath just an hour before but now the place was practically spotless.
Aidan’s nostrils twitched.
Bleach. Someone had even used damn bleach at the scene. He stared down at the ground. A body should have been there, close to the trash bin. The blond bastard that he’d killed with his claws. But the guy was gone. So was his partner.
A low whistle came from behind him. Aidan didn’t move at the sound. He waited as Garrison, one of his younger pack members, approached. Garrison’s arm brushed against Aidan’s as he studied the scene. “Somebody sure moved fast, alpha,” Garrison mused.
Somebody sure as hell had.
And the bleach was overpowering—nearly wiping out all the other scents.
“At least we don’t have to clean up the bodies, though,” Garrison added, his voice sounding a bit brighter. “That’s something, right?”
Aidan turned his head and focused on the redheaded wolf. Garrison was still young—Aidan reminded himself of that fact for about the hundredth time. He’s young. He’ll learn. He’s only an asshole some days. “The bodies would have told me something.” But now—
He stiffened. He’d just caught sight of a faint green light from the corner of his eye. A light that should not have been in that alley. His head tilted up, then to the left. There. Small, dark—a video camera. The faint green light was glowing from the bottom corner of the camera.
Someone is watching.
His eyes narrowed on that camera. Someone had been watching while Jane was attacked? While she lay on the ground, fighting for her life? And now…someone was still watching as he came to find answers.
“Uh, alpha…” Garrison began nervously.
Aidan leapt up into the air—far higher than any basketball player could ever dream. His claws drove into the camera and he wrenched it down.
No more green light. No more watching.
The wolves who’d come with him to that alley were dead silent.
A video camera…one that had recorded a vampire and a werewolf that night. “Trace it,” Aidan ordered. When it came to tech, his pack knew their shit. “Find out where the feed was going. Find out who the hell put this camera up there. Find out…” His voice dropped to a growl. “Who was watching.”
Who was watching while Jane nearly died.
***
The dream came again. Dream, nightmare, memory—to Jane, there was no difference.
She was tied down, secured on the top of an old table. In the basement of her house. When she turned her head, Jane could see her mom. Her mother was tossed on the floor, her limbs all twisted and a big pool of red underneath her body. Her dad…he was there, too. Another quick turn of her head showed Jane her dad’s form. The only father she’d ever known, not by blood, but by love. He’d loved her so much, all the way until the very end.
His eyes were still open, but she didn’t think he saw her, not anymore.
“There, there…no need for tears, little one. It’s all for you.” That voice was back. The voice she hated. Mean and cold and cruel and she wouldn’t look at him. She just wouldn’t.
“We waited a long time for you. You’d better not disappoint.”
She looked back at her dad. This was her house. Her mom’s house. Her dad’s house. They were supposed to be safe there. Why aren’t we safe?
“You can scream if you want,” that cold voice told her.
It was all the warning she got. Pain came then. So hot. Burning, branding. She screamed and screamed but it didn’t stop. And she could smell something—something funny. Something—
It’s me. I’m burning.
Her voice broke and her cries stopped.
“Good girl.”
She didn’t want to be good. Not if he liked that.
“I’ll be back soon.” He stroked back her hair, and his green eyes gleamed down at her. “We’ll take a little break. Let you get a bit of strength back so that we can finish things up.” His blond hair was swept away from his face. A face that seemed so normal.
It isn’t. He’s not normal. He’s evil. Monster. Monster. Monster!
Vampire.
There were no tears on her cheeks. She’d stopped crying after…Daddy.
The green-eyed man—monster—shut the door on the way out. Her home. He had taken over as if he owned the place. They had. In the middle of the night, monsters had come for her. Her mom had told her that monsters weren’t real. That she should never be afraid of them.
Her mom had been wrong.
She heard faint squeaks. The softest of rustles. Her eyes had closed. When had they closed? She should look around and see what was happening.
But she was afraid and she didn’t think she wanted to see anything else.
Her right side kept hurting. Throbbing. She could still smell that terrible scent in the air. I think that’s me.
“Mary Jane…” A soft voice called. Her brother Drew’s voice. “Mary Jane…are you okay?”
Don’t be here. Don’t. Run away.
“Y-you didn’t tell them I was here.”
Now she did cry. One long tear slid down her cheek.
“I’m gonna…I’m gonna get you out.”
She shook her head and kept her eyes closed. But she felt him pulling on the ropes that held her ankles down. There was a faint sawing motion. It sounded so loud to her ears. She was afraid he would hear. “Stop.” The barest of whispers.
But the rope gave way. Her legs were free and her feet hurt because it felt like needles were shoved into them. She bit her lower lip as hard as she could, trying to hold back her cries. Now wasn’t the time to scream. She knew that.
Her eyes opened.
Her dad’s sightless eyes stared back at her.
No, look away. Look away!
Then the rope was gone from her wrists. Sawed away. He’d cut her wrists with the knife he had, but she didn’t care about that small pain. Then he was pulling her, pushing her toward the window. Such a small window. They were in the basement. And that window was up high.
“I’ll go through first,” he said. He shimmied up and vanished.
I don’t want to leave mom and dad. But…they were already gone. They’d left her. They weren’t suffering anymore. No one could ever make them suffer again.
“Mary Jane!” Drew reached down for her. His hand was small, barely bigger than hers. Dirty. Bloody. “Come with me, Mary Jane!”
Had he been hiding during everything? Hiding and waiting? He’d seen everything, too, just as she had. She looked up into his eyes—eyes that were the exact shade of her own. He’d been crying. He never cried.
Her gaze darted back to his hand just as she heard the basement door opening—the faintest of clicks from the top of the stairs. The monster was coming for her again.
She grabbed for the dirty little hand, and he pulled her up, yanking with all of his strength. Her body slid through the narrow opening of the window. Her shoulders. Her chest. Her stomach. Her—
The monster grabbed her feet.
”No!” she screamed. And then she held that dirty little hand even tighter. “Drew, help me!”
***
The nightmare-slash-dream-slash-walk-into-hell faded. Jane cracked open one eye. She wasn’t in the old basement any longer. Her face was shoved into a familiar leather couch—Aidan’s couch. She moved just a bit and saw the floor of his office and—
Legs. Legs in fancy black pants.
“Rise and shine, Jane,” an amused voice murmured. A voice that did not belong to Aidan.
Her head lifted and she stared at Paris. He smiled at her.
And she realized she was naked from the waist up. Good thing she’d only lifted her head. Jane took stock of her body, checking for aches and pains, but she actually felt good. No, better than good. Strong. Powerful.
She flexed her back but didn’t feel the pull from her wounds.
“Already healed,” Paris told her, rather helpfully. “It was quite amazing to watch, really. Your skin just starting closing about an hour ago. Like it was stitching itself up.”
“You’ve been watching me?”
“Um.”
That wasn’t an answer.
So she tried a different question. “Where’s Aidan?”
“Where else?” He waved one hand in a rather bored gesture. “Out looking for the men who attacked you. Come on, Jane. You know how he gets. Anyone hurts you and he flips the hell out.” Some of the amusement slipped from his golden eyes. “A very dangerous thing for an alpha of his power.”
“The men who attacked me are dead.” She distinctly remembered sending one to hell. “So there was no need—”
“Aidan thinks more is at play. More involved in the game than just two humans deciding they were going to kill you. After all, they were packing wooden bullets.” He walked to Aidan’s desk and lifted one blood-stained bullet. The bloody bullets had been lined up in a neat little row on top of the desk. “Wooden bullets mean they were after special prey. They knew what you were, and they were ready to see you die.”
She swallowed. Twice. “How—how did—” Jane broke off. Okay, no, she would not keep talking to him without a shirt on. “Turn around.”
He quirked one brow but did as she asked. Paris was the charmer, the lady killer. So, yes, he’d probably seen hundreds of women without their tops, but he wasn’t seeing her that way.
She sat up and quickly grabbed for a nearby jacket—one that smelled of Aidan. She pulled it on and rose to her feet. Her steps weren’t even shaky as she paced away from the couch. Definite improvement considering that when she’d arrived in Aidan’s office, just breathing had been hard.
Jane headed for the bathroom. She’d wash off the blood that still marked her body, get the extra clothes that Aidan kept for her in the bathroom closet, and then she could square off with Paris.
“You shouldn’t keep taking his blood.”
Jane’s steps faltered. “Um, I was dying.”
“That’s a habit you have. A rather nasty one.” He turned to face her. “Do you just expect him to appear these days? Kind of like Lois Lane and Superman? You think you can tackle anything because your safety net will always be there to save the day? To save you?”
He was angry and that wasn’t like Paris. Normally, he was the mellow one. And… “I’m not Lois Lane. He’s not Superman.” And she wasn’t waiting around for anyone to save her.
“Right. Not Superman.” Paris nodded. “Aidan’s an alpha werewolf and you’re a vampire. The two of you should stay as far away from each other as possible.”
Even with the coat, a chill skated over her body. “Do we have a problem, Paris?” Because she hadn’t thought so but…
Jane was still new to the vamp life, but she realized there were plenty of werewolves out there who didn’t like what she was—didn’t like her.
I just didn’t suspect Paris was one of them.
Testing now, she eased out a quick breath and said, “When you’re near me, do you want to attack?” Because that was the werewolf way. Get close to a vamp and primitive instincts take over and—
“You made yourself different.”
She didn’t know what he meant.
“Aidan’s blood,” Paris gritted out. “You had too much of it before your transformation, so when you became a vampire—that blood of his changed with you. You’re not just a vamp, Jane. You’re more—hell, I don’t even know what you really are.”
That was…insulting?
Scary?
Both, Jane decided. Definitely both.
“He changed you,” Paris said, a muscle jerking along his hard jaw. “And I’m worried that you’re changing him.”
“I-I need to get the blood off me.” No, what she needed was to get away from Paris for a few moments because Jane didn’t know what to say to him. She turned away. “Excuse me a moment, would you?”
“Stop taking his blood.”
Her hand grabbed the bathroom’s door frame. “You know I can only take werewolf blood.” She’d tried to drink human blood—both bagged and from a live source. She’d vomited it right back up. Jane licked her lips. “You’re right. Aidan’s blood did change me—it altered something inside of me so that I crave werewolf blood.”Not human blood. “If I didn’t get it…” Her hold tightened on the door frame. “I would die.”
Silence.
Then, after a tense moment, Paris asked, “Will any werewolf’s blood work? Or is it just Aidan’s that you crave?”
Would it? Jane didn’t know. It wasn’t as if other werewolves had been offering up their blood for her to try. She hurried into the bathroom, shut the door and made certain not to look at herself in the mirror.
The whole mirror-avoidance routine wasn’t because of the old legend about vamps not having a reflection. She still had one.
She didn’t look because she was afraid she’d see a monster staring back at her.
With a quick flick of her wrist, Jane turned the water on in the shower. Aidan had one lush bathroom—and the shower was certainly big enough for two.
But she didn’t linger to enjoy the hot water. She showered briskly, watching the blood turn the water red before it disappeared down the drain. Paris’s words had gotten beneath her skin. Changing Aidan.
Was it even possible for a vamp to change a werewolf? She had no clue. But Jane knew someone who might be able to answer that question…
Too bad that someone was the vampire who’d broken her neck a few days before. Vincent Connor. He was a powerful born vampire who she really didn’t want to see, not ever again.
Unfortunately, he was the only man who might have the answers that she needed.
She dried off and opened the nearby closet. Aidan kept her clothes in there—his, too, of course. He had to keep extra clothes on hand because when he shifted into the form of a wolf, well, his shirts and pants had a tendency to shred.
And when your lover was a werewolf who had incredible strength…my clothes tend to shred when he takes them off me.
So…extra clothes.
She pulled on fresh jeans and a loose shirt and after sliding her shoes on, Jane hurried back to face Paris. He was standing in front of Aidan’s desk, a wooden bullet still cradled in his fingers.
“I don’t want to hurt Aidan.” The words came from her, stark and desperate and so very true.
His head lifted. “I know.” He’d rolled up the sleeves of his white dress shirt. “That’s why you and I are about to have a little experiment.”
“Experiment?” Jane didn’t like the sound of that. She shook her head. “No, I have to go. I need to get out there and do damage control on those bodies—”
“Aidan will make them vanish. We both know he’s good at cleaning up paranormal messes.” He’d rolled the sleeves of his shirt all the way to his elbows. “Your genetic tests showed that your blood cells looked like Aidan’s. That you were a vamp with wolf power flowing through you. Aidan thought that you could only drink from werewolves because you needed the blood of your own kind to survive.”
“And I have been surviving on his blood.” Just his—only Aidan’s. The idea of biting someone else wasn’t exactly appealing. Actually, that idea made her nauseous. Having a blood diet was bad enough. Letting her teeth sink into someone else?
No, thank you.
Though technically, she had bitten one other werewolf, but the guy had met a fast and brutal death shortly after that bite. So…
Paris cleared his throat. “Well, let’s see what happens when you take my blood.” He stepped toward her. “Because I can’t have you endangering my alpha. I can’t let you change him anymore.”
Her gaze darted down to his wrist. When she concentrated hard enough, she could hear the racing thud of his pulse. Paris was nervous. So was she. “I don’t want your blood.” It was true. She didn’t. She hated drinking blood, but at least when it came from Aidan, she could tolerate it.
“Jane…” His face was hard. “There is more at play here than you realize. You want to protect Aidan, don’t you?”
Always.
“Then try my blood. Because I would damn well rather you change me than him.” He offered his wrist to her.
Jane’s hand flew up and her fingers curled around his hand. Her fangs weren’t even out. Take his blood? Every part of her rebelled against the idea. He isn’t Aidan. He isn’t.
And…she only wanted Aidan.
“No.” Jane shook her head. “I can’t.”
“Jane.” The faint lines near his mouth seemed to deepen. “I have to see what you’re doing to him. I need to feel the changes myself so that I can help him, too. He’s my best friend. I can’t have him walking through fire alone.”
Wait…in that little scenario…was she the fire?
Before she could tell him that she was not damn fire, the office door opened. Jane and Paris turned together, with her still holding his hand.
Aidan stood there. His bright blue stare swept over them and lingered on their hands. He blinked, once, twice, and the tension in the room seemed to ratchet up.
“Someone want to tell me…” Aidan said, voice low, too low. “What the hell is going on?”
“Nothing.” Jane dropped Paris’s hand. “Nothing is—”
“I want Jane to bite me.” Paris straightened his shoulders. “That’s what’s happening.”
Jeez. Just once…once…couldn’t Paris have lied to Aidan? Would that have broken the bro code too much?
Very slowly, Aidan shut the door behind him. “Want to tell me why?” His eyes glowed with the power of his beast. “Why you want my Jane to put her teeth in you?”
Paris jerked up his chin. “Because it’s too dangerous for her to keep taking from you! You’re changing, Aidan! You can’t give her any more blood—we both know it. You—”
In a flash, Aidan was across the room. He’d grabbed Paris by the front of his shirt. “Jane drinks from me. Only me.” His voice was so…deadly. She shouldn’t have found that scary growl to be sexy. She was probably messed up on the inside. Because I do think it’s sexy.
“Aidan, let him go.” Jane sprang forward and shoved between the two men. “I’d already said I wasn’t drinking before you got here. He’s just worried about you. That’s all. Because he’s your friend.” As if Aidan needed that reminder.
Aidan stared at Paris. “She drinks from me.” A cold order.
Paris gave a grim nod. “But at what cost? Do you even realize what’s happening to you?”
“I am in full control.” That was the alpha talking. She could hear the authority in Aidan’s voice.
“I sure as hell hope so.” Paris backed away. “For everyone’s sake.” Then he headed for the door.
When it closed behind him with a soft click, Jane’s shoulders slumped. “That was awkward.”
Aidan didn’t speak.
“I-I wasn’t going to drink from him.” Just so they were clear. “He’s worried about you. About what might happen and—”
Aidan grabbed Jane and pulled her close. Her hand flew against his chest as he lifted her up, holding her easily, and his mouth crashed down on hers.
The kiss was hard. Rough. Deep.
Hot.
So very Aidan.
And she loved it. Her mouth met his eagerly, her tongue tasting him, her body already yearning because when they kissed—they ignited. Imploded.
The chemistry between them had always been off the charts. But lately, since her change…
She wanted him even more.
For a vampire, physical lust and blood lust combined. Desire went soul-deep. Her hunger wasn’t sated with quick sex. She needed more. Longer. Hotter.
Aidan.
“You healed?” He bit the words off against her mouth.
“Yes…”
He whirled her around. Sat her on the edge of his desk and shoved her legs apart. Jane’s hands flew back, slamming onto the surface of his desk, narrowly avoiding a collision with his laptop as she fought to find her balance.
“Need to be…in you…” And his voice was that rough growl again. The one that made goosebumps rise on her skin. That made her nipples pebble.
That made her wet.
“I want that, too,” Jane whispered as her hands curled against the desk. Aidan, in her. Sinking deep. Her nails scraped over the wooden surface and Aidan’s fingers—he was yanking at the button of her jeans, pulling down the zipper, then pretty much jerking the jeans and her shoes right off her.
Her underwear vanished with the jeans. A very good thing. The cool air hit her skin and Jane let out a quick gasp when Aidan’s hands came back. Big, strong hands. They pushed her thighs farther apart and then his fingers were stroking into her. Pushing into her sex even as his thumb worked her clit.
That was her Aidan, all right. Zero to implosion in way less than sixty seconds.
“Aidan—” Jane began, desire sharpening her voice. The room was sound-proofed, so she knew no one outside would hear them. When you had a bar that was normally packed with werewolves and their enhanced hearing, you had to take precautions—hence the soundproofing. She knew she could yell, could scream with her climax, and no one but Aidan would hear her.
Only Aidan.
“Can’t wait,” he gritted.
She nodded. Did she look like she wanted him to wait?
“Too scared…” His eyes were definitely glowing. “Too…pissed.”
Uh, oh. “Aidan?”
He’d jerked open his own jeans. His cock—big, long, fully erect—pushed at the entrance to her sex. Their eyes met, then he drove deep.
So deep that she lost her breath.
So deep that her whole body shuddered.
So deep…Jane thought that for a moment, they were one.
The bond is always there with him.
Her nails scraped over his desk, then she was grabbing his shoulders. Holding on tight. She could handle all of him now that she was a vampire. No worries about him hurting the delicate human. She could have him all, and all—all was exactly what she wanted.
He withdrew, then slammed into her. Again and again. Her fangs burned in her mouth, the bloodlust aroused by her physical desire for him. But Jane kept her lips clamped shut. This wasn’t some life-or-death emergency, she wasn’t going to bite him again—especially not with Paris’s warnings fresh in her mind.
His hand was between their bodies. His thumb still stroking her clit and her orgasm built, her whole body quaking. It was so close. She was—
Aidan put his mouth at the curve of her shoulder, right there, at the bottom of her neck. She felt the press of his teeth and then he…he…bit her.
Pleasure lashed through her and she squeezed her eyes shut. Her legs were locked tightly around his hips and her body arched against him, rocking hard again and again as the climax erupted. She couldn’t get enough air to scream, couldn’t do anything but take and take that pleasure as he thrust into her once more…
And then he was the one erupting. She felt the hot splash of his release inside of her, and then Aidan was pulling his mouth from her and roaring out her name.
She rather liked that roar.
Her heartbeat thundered in her ears. Her body quivered. Her sex pulsed. And slowly, very slowly, her lashes lifted as she stared at him and—
There was blood on his mouth. A little drop of blood that had dripped from the corner of his lips.
Her blood.
Only…
Since when do werewolves drink blood?
Her thundering heartbeat seemed to stutter as she stared into his eyes. Eyes that were still glowing too bright with the power of his beast.
Aidan licked the drop of blood away. “You taste fucking delicious,” he whispered.
A shiver slid over her body. A shiver that had nothing to do with pleasure and everything to do with fear. Paris’s words whispered through her mind once more…
I’m worried that you’re changing him.
She…was.