“What do you want?”

“I already told you,” and because he couldn’t keep his hands off her, not for even another second, he pulled her against him. “You.”

When her lips parted in surprise, he took her mouth. The kiss should have been softer. She was delicate, almost broken, and he hated that. He wanted her strength back. Wanted her passion.

Yes, he should have used gentleness with her. Care. But he wasn’t human, and easy wasn’t the way of the beast.

His tongue thrust into her mouth as he lifted her up against him. So small. He took three steps, and he had her body pinned against the wall.

He would have gone straight for the bed, but he was trying—in his way—not to scare the hell out of her.

The wall seemed the safer alternative.

Maybe.

Her taste. Her fucking taste was incredible. The first time he’d kissed her—he still remembered that moment—he’d gotten a little drunk off her.

He was getting drunk right then.

She tasted of paradise, of every pleasure he’d ever had. Woman and temptation. Sweet wine.

Secrets in the dark.

His hands were wrapped around her waist. His fingers brushed just under her breasts. He wanted to lift up his hands. To touch her nipples. Pretty, pink nipples.

She wasn’t kissing him back.

She had to feel the thick arousal pressing against her. The way he had her lifted up, there would be no missing it.

She wasn’t kissing him back.

His mouth eased from hers, just for a moment. “Kiss me back.” Growled words, and not what he’d wanted to say. He’d wanted to say…

Need me. Desire me. Crave me.

The way he craved her.

He put his mouth against hers once more. His tongue swept over her lips. Pushed into her mouth.

And her tongue—yes!—she kissed him back.

Her nipples tightened against his chest. Her hips arched toward him, and her nails sank into his shoulders.

He liked the sting of pain.

Liked her mouth moving on his even more.

She kissed him with a tentative hunger, as if just discovering her desire again. He would help her to yearn, to need. He would guide her, show her every fuckin’ thing about his body.

About the passion they had together.

Her legs lifted. Wrapped around his hips.

He thrust against her, helpless. Dammit, he wanted in.

She was sucking his tongue. Giving a little moan in the back of her throat. His cock was so swollen he hurt, and the only relief would come from her. He’d thrust into her, drive as deep as he could go. Her body would remember him. She’d respond just as she had before. “Keira…”

She shoved against him.

Because it was her, he let her go. Alerac eased her to the floor, then he dropped his hold. He stared at her, breath heaving, desire like a red haze before him.

“Wh-what did you call me?” Her breath came as fast as his. Her eyes were wide, filled with passion—and fear.

“Keira.” He said her name deliberately.

Her hands flattened on the wall behind her, as if she needed the support. “That’s…me?”

“Yes.” His Keira. She would be his again. Always. No one would take her from—

“No.” A definite shake of her head. “Don’t call me that, understand? I-I know you think you know me but…” Another fast shake of her head. “I don’t know you. And I don’t remember being her.”

But she was Keira. Lost, but finally found.

“I’m Jane.” Her voice was husky. Arousing. “Jane Smith. That’s the name I chose. The only name I know.” She lifted one trembling hand from the wall. Touched her chest. “That’s me, not K-Keira.”

She was wrong.

“You and Keira…you were…lovers?”

“You and I were lovers.” The words snapped from him.

She flinched.

And he remembered the way she’d run away with the human. The doctor. While Alerac had been bleeding, she’d fled with Heath. Their hands had locked. She’d gone to that rundown building seeking the doctor.

With her memories gone, had Keira turned to another? To that bastard?

His claws burst from his fingertips. “Were you with him?”

She jumped away from that wall. Moved so fast. Vampire fast. And in the next instant, she had half the room between them.

He tried to leash his beast, but the possessive fury filling him was too strong to fight. “Your doctor,” he gritted out. “The man who left you during that vampire attack. Were you with him?”

Her eyes were wide. “If I say yes, what happens?”

Fuck, fuck, fuck!

He whirled for the door.

She grabbed him. Forced him back toward her. “I wasn’t with him.”

He couldn’t see past the fury of the beast.

“I wasn’t, okay? And even if I had been…”

His gaze fixed on her face.

“Why does it matter so much to you? I was here for six months.” Her words broke at the end. “My face was splashed in the paper. I was on the news. A lost woman with no memory.” She licked her lips. “No one came for me. I didn’t matter to anyone.”

Lie.

“You matter more than you know.” But he couldn’t talk to her any more. Couldn’t stand there and inhale her scent. She’d wanted him when they kissed. He’d caught the sweet smell of her desire.

No, he couldn’t stand there, not with his beast so close to the surface. That was why he’d turned for the door.

Why he had to leave.

To protect her, while he still could.

“Don’t try to leave the room. My pack is guarding you, and they won’t let you go.” He pulled from her. Spun around and grabbed the door knob.

“Your eyes…”

That whisper stopped him.

“They always glow. The other wolves—after they transformed—the glow in their eyes faded.”

He nearly smashed the door knob in that instant. “I’m not like the others.” His glow never faded. It couldn’t.

Lorcan had cut out his human eyes. It had taken a very long time for the beast to regenerate new eyes for him. When those eyes had finally come back…

Not the eyes of a man.

And they never would be.

Just as he would never be a man.

He yanked open the door. Then Alerac walked into the sun, leaving his vampire behind before he lost all control.

***

Tracking the traitorous vampires was easy enough. They’d left plenty of blood in their wake.

As the sun rose, Lorcan knew that those bastards would be seeking shelter. Unlike him, they weren’t at full power during the light.

But they didn’t know his secrets. He’d been trading in magic—and even in science—for centuries. He knew that he was destined to become the most powerful vampire to ever walk the earth.

Soon, with the right mix of blood coursing through his veins, he would be unstoppable.

Lorcan approached the house alone. He didn’t need an army. He could fight this battle on his own.

When he reached the door, he knocked lightly.

And then some fool actually just swung the door open.

Lorcan smiled at him. Inhaled. A human. One who carried a familiar scent. Jane. Only that wasn’t her real name. To him, she would always be Keira. “You’ve made a mistake,” he said to the blond human.

The vampires in that house rushed toward him. Attacking with claws and fangs.

Lorcan shoved the human aside. He would deal with him very, very soon.

He slashed out with his own claws. Took the head of one vampire. Disemboweled another. Drained a third. The blood flowed and screams filled the air.

The human tried to run.

Foolish, foolish human.

Lorcan followed him outside and slammed the human back against a tree.

“Y-you should be weak,” the human whimpered.

“Should I?”

“J-Jane was weak in the sun.”

His eyes narrowed. “Who are you, human?” He lifted him up and rammed his head into the tree once more.

“D-doctor Heath Myers.”

A doctor. Hmm. “Jane’s doctor.” The name was familiar to him. Because he’d had eyes on Jane. On those close to her.

I should have been watching this one more closely.

Lorcan dropped the human.

“You killed them all,” Heath’s voice was hoarse. He started to wretch on the ground.

A sigh broke from Lorcan. “You’re about to join them. You aligned yourself with the wrong vampires.”

Heath swiped his hand over his mouth. “I didn’t even know I was aligning with vamps,” he muttered. “Thought it was…someone else…until tonight.”

Curious now, Lorcan bent next to the man. His eyes narrowed on the human’s face. “Let’s just see what you thought.” And he sank his teeth into the man’s throat while Heath Myers screamed.

If you wanted to look at a human’s past, all a vamp had to do was take a bite.

***

Darkness. It was always the same when she slept. Jane instantly sank into a thick suffocating darkness.

She was trapped. Her wrists shackled. Her ankles bound. The darkness was complete and consuming.

She cried out, screaming again and again, but soon her voice was gone. Gasps were all that could escape from her throat.

Her voice was broken.

She was lost.

There was only the darkness.

Tears leaked down her cheeks. She knew that she’d been left in the darkness. Forgotten. There was no rescue. No hope.

There was nothing.

“Jane.” The voice, it was new. Voices never entered her dreams.

Yet she heard a man’s voice. Low. Rumbling. Demanding.

She tried to see the man in the darkness.

He’s not there. A taunt, from within. She was alone. That was the way that she would always be.

“Jane, open your eyes.”

She could feel him, touching her cheeks. As if he were wiping away tears. She knew that she cried. The darkness made her cry. No, it was the hopelessness that did that.

Slightly rough fingertips brushed her cheeks once more.

Why could she feel him, but not see him?

“A rúnsearc,” his rumble continued, and the language—did she know it? Yes. It seemed familiar, just as his voice seemed familiar, but the memory was just out of reach.

As all memories were to her.

His hands moved to clasp her shoulders. “Wake for me. Now.”

If only she could just open her eyes for him. But it wasn’t that easy to escape the darkness. Not once it had her in its greedy grasp. She hated to sleep. Fought it with every bit of strength that she had.

To her, the darkness was death.

No escape.

His mouth pressed to hers. The touch was electric, sending a sharp pulse of desire straight through her body. His lips brushed against hers, and his tongue slipped into her mouth.

She awakened with a gasp.

And he stole that breath, taking it away from her.

His mouth lingered for an instant. She didn’t fight him, actually, Jane wanted to grab onto Alerac and hold him as tightly as she could.

He saved me from the dark.

But then he pulled back.

She realized that she was on the bed. That big, king-sized bed in the small motel room. He was curled over her, his hands now pressing into the mattress, caging her.

His gaze—would she ever grow used to that shining green gaze?—pinned her. “You were crying in your sleep.”

And he’d seen her. When she was so weak. Humiliating. “Sorry.” If you don’t want to see me cry, then don’t watch me. She held the words back, for now. Angering the big, bad slayer of vamps probably wasn’t a good idea.

“What did you dream of?”

Jane shook her head.

“Did you remember?” Alerac pressed.

Jane had to laugh. “All I remember is darkness. Having a voice that can’t scream because it’s broken.” She shoved that darkness from her mind, but she knew it would come back. It always did. “I dream of being forgotten.” Exactly what had happened to her.

Six months. Her face flashed in the newspaper and on TV. For six months. But no family had come to claim her. No one had come to tell her that she mattered.

That she was loved.

Forgotten. Yes, that was exactly what she was.

Not surprising, really. Why search for a monster?

“You were never forgotten.”

Her gaze flew to his.

The faint lines near his eyes had deepened. “I should have transported you during the day, while you slept but—but you seemed weak.”

Right. Weak. Wonderful. Just what she wanted to be thought of by this tough, scary guy. Weak probably equaled prey in his eyes.

His gaze slid over her features. “I thought it would be best if you had a day of sleep. A day to prepare for what will come.”

That sounded ominous. “What’s coming?”

His stare turned away from her as he glanced toward the locked door. “Vampires will hunt us in the night, so we must take care.”

She lifted her hand. Curled it around his chin. Forced him to look back and see her. “What’s coming?”

Those too-bright eyes seemed to burn through her. “You tempt much when you touch me. The sheets smell of you. And though you might try to deny it…” He lifted the hand that had cradled his cheek. Brought it to his mouth. Kissed the palm. Lightly licked her.

Jane shivered.

“You want me,” he said, sounding both satisfied and hungry. “And the scent of your desire drives me fuckin’ crazy.”

Her breath caught. “A werewolf’s senses…”