Chapter Fourteen
“I need a doctor!”
The scream came from the front of building, jarring Annette. She had been trying to scry in the chunks of glass she had left, but she’d seen nothing. Paris had been silent and watchful behind her and Garrison…
He’d been a guard dog. She wasn’t even sure how long the guy had been pacing the perimeter around her and the frantic scream had her crashing back to reality.
At that scream, Garrison lunged out of the back room. She rose, about to follow.
“Don’t.” Paris’s rough voice. “Stay with me.”
She looked back at him. He still seemed sane, so maybe the blood he’d taken had turned the tide for him. Perhaps it was her imagination, but he just appeared better to her. She hoped it wasn’t just wishful thinking.
“I’m bleeding!” The plaintive voice cried out. “Take me to a hospital! Take—”
She grabbed her gun and made sure it was hidden behind the loose skirt of her dress. Then she took up a position in the middle of that room. Anyone coming through that door would have to go through her before getting to Paris.
A few moments later, she also saw their guests.
“I’m back,” Vincent Connor said, flashing her a tired smile as he sauntered into the back room. “And I’ve brought friends.”
He had his hands clamped on the shoulders of a man with dark hair and dark eyes, a man who seemed familiar to Annette though she’d never met him in person before, she was sure of it. Deep gashes covered his neck and jaw, obvious signs of a wolf attack.
Just which wolf had the guy pissed off? And why was he there?
Garrison was glaring at the injured human, but not attacking. Not yet, anyway.
And there was a woman in the little group, too. A woman with pale, blonde hair and bright green eyes. Heavy gold bracelets—bands?—curled around her wrists.
“Just what friends are these?” Annette murmured. She made sure to keep her position in the middle of the room, and Garrison hurried to her side.
“This…” Vincent’s hold tightened on the bleeding human. She was surprised he hadn’t decided to take a bite with all that tempting blood flowing. “This is Drew Hart. The human who has been fucking everything up for us.”
“Vampire bastard!” Drew cried out. “You let me the fuck go, right now, you—”
“Lena…” Vincent sighed out the name. “Make him stop talking.”
The blonde waved her hand toward Drew. Instantly, his lips clamped together and he stopped speaking.
“Thank you.” Vincent didn’t look the blonde’s way. His gaze was on Annette. “How’s our wolf? Still rabid?” Then he made a show of glancing around her.
She bristled. “No, he’s—”
“Not freaking rabid,” Paris muttered from behind her.
Surprise flashed on Vincent’s face. “He speaks…and with sense, too.”
Lena inched forward.
“Where’s Aidan?” Annette demanded. Her hand tightened on her weapon.
Vincent glanced over at Lena.
Sadness flickered on her face. “When I saw him last, the darkness had taken him over. He’d lost the battle and was running wild into the night.”
What? No, no way. He—
“Aidan had two beasts inside of him, a werewolf and a vampire.” Lena’s voice was so soft that Annette had to strain in order to hear her. “That’s not the way things were meant to be.”
Paris is carrying two beasts.
“They ripped apart his sanity. Only bloodlust and rage are left in him now.” Lena shook her head. “I tried to warn Mary Jane Hart, but she wouldn’t listen to me.”
Drew frantically shook his head. Blood dripped from his wounds.
Vincent’s teeth snapped together.
“Mary Jane went after him.” Lena’s shoulders fell. “But I’m afraid that when she finds Aidan, he won’t be the man she needs. He may not even be a man at all.”
Paris was dead silent behind Annette and tension seemed to be rolling off Garrison.
“I tried to tell Jane.” Vincent shoved Drew down onto his knees before him. “She wasn’t meant to be with Aidan. The consequences of their mating would be disastrous. Now, she’ll see for herself just what I meant.”
Annette backed away from him. Her gaze fell to her broken scrying mirror. Those precious chunks…
And for just a moment, she saw something. A quick flash.
Of Hell.
***
Hell’s Gate. Jane followed Aidan’s scent back to the club on Bourbon Street. His haven. The place where it had all started for them.
She’d met Aidan just outside of Hell’s Gate while working her first case as a homicide detective. A woman’s dead body had been dumped near the club. Of course, that particular victim hadn’t stayed dead, not for long. And Jane’s world had quickly spun out of control.
Slowly, she approached the entrance to Hell’s Gate. The guard stood as she neared. “Ms. Jane…” Troy looked over his shoulder at the closed door. “You shouldn’t…I don’t think you should go in tonight. Something isn’t right.”
Troy had claw marks on his stomach. She’d smelled his blood from a block away. Jane swallowed. “Aidan did that to you?”
He nodded.
Shit. “When I go inside, lock the door behind me. Then go back to the werewolf compound and get that wound treated, okay?”
But he didn’t move. Troy’s eyes—one blue and one green—stayed locked on her. “It isn’t safe for you.”
“I can handle him.” She sounded way more confident than she felt. “But everyone else needs to stay away for now.” Until she had her Aidan back. And she would get him back. There was no alternative for her. Whatever she had to do in that place, she’d do it. Jane wasn’t about to lose him. They’d already been through too much together. She wouldn’t give him up now. “Lock the door behind me,” so they wouldn’t get any unexpected visitors, “then go,” Jane ordered.
He hesitated but, after a moment, Troy stepped out of her way. Jane’s hand curled around the door handle and she opened it slowly, the hinges creaking. She stepped into the club, and it was dark inside, a cavernous darkness.
It was a good thing she could see so well in the dark.
She advanced a few feet and the door swung shut behind her. The locks turned, a loud, distinct click of the tumblers. She listened a moment and heard Troy’s footsteps fading away. Now…now she was alone with her beast.
Jane knew Aidan was there. She hadn’t spotted him, not yet, but Jane could feel him. Watching her. The hungry stare of a predator.
Was he a wolf?
Or a man?
Both?
She rubbed her hands on her jeans. She still had blood on her—Roth’s blood. She wanted to go back to his place, to search for clues, to get his damn body taken care of but…
Aidan came first.
He mattered. Because Jane was very afraid that Aidan was slipping away from her.
She walked into the middle of the club. Her gaze swept over the ground floor of Hell’s Gate. “Aidan?”
A low growl had the hair on her nape rising. Her gaze shot upward, toward the second level of the club, and she saw his hulking form.
He wasn’t a wolf, not any longer.
Her breath expelled in a relieved rush and a wide smile curved her lips. “Aidan, you’re okay!”
He began walking down the stairs, a slow, steady glide. His eyes glowed a bright blue in the darkness.
He was…bigger. The guy had always been muscled, but this was different. His arms were bigger, his shoulders far wider, his height even a few inches taller.
An alpha on steroids.
Jane licked her lips. “You’re okay,” she said again but it sounded as if she was trying to convince herself of that fact.
He didn’t speak. Jane retreated a step, then stopped herself. She forced her shoulders to straighten as she waited for Aidan to come to her.
They’d made love in this same place just a little while before. Aidan had said that he loved her, and she knew he’d meant those words. He loved her.
She loved him.
They were going to get through this madness.
Some way.
She could practically feel the threat in the air around her. It was instinctive, the way a hunted animal could sense the predator closing in.
Aidan was before her and the hard, dangerous expression on his face clearly said Jane was his prey.
He lifted his hand and his dark claws came toward her face.
***
“The alpha won’t hurt Jane.” Garrison was adamant. “He loves her.”
Annette bent to get a better view of her broken mirror chunks. She could see fire and hell. Blood and death and…
Jane.
“He won’t kill her,” Vincent agreed. “Because I don’t think he can. Beast, man, or vamp…he still thinks of Jane as his. But when the chips are down…” He exhaled slowly. “I’m afraid Jane won’t have an option. She’ll have to stop him before he turns on innocents.”
Annette stared into her glass. “The end.” That was what the burn mark on Jane’s right side symbolized. She looked up at Vincent.
“Yes,” he said. “Jane will be his end.”
Drew was straining in Vincent’s hold. Straining and still bleeding.
Paris growled.
Instantly, Annette straightened. She pointed at Drew—a still bleeding Drew. That blood scent is just going to make Paris wild. “Get him out of here! Paris might not have been able to keep human blood down, but that doesn’t mean the scent won’t screw with his mind!” She gave a hard negative shake of her head. “He isn’t like you, Vincent. Paris doesn’t have centuries’ worth of strength to hold his hunger in check.”
Vincent nodded. “No, he isn’t like me. I was born to be this way. He wasn’t.” He hauled Drew to his feet and yanked him toward the door. “Another end.”
No, nothing is ending for Paris.
Lena stared at Annette.
“I’ll secure him in the other room,” Vincent called. “Jane is going to want to see her brother when she gets here.”
He was confident that Jane would be arriving but…what about Aidan?
“He thinks Aidan will die tonight,” Lena whispered.
Annette eyed the woman.
“He doesn’t get it,” Lena added. “The man Aidan was…he’s already dead.”
Garrison took a lunging step toward her. “Liar!”
Annette put her hand on the young wolf’s shoulder. “Easy.” Too much was happening, too fast. She needed to figure things out. Paris was eerily silent behind her and she was almost afraid to look back at him.
Aidan, get your hairy alpha ass back here and help out your pack.
“Aidan is the strongest wolf I know,” Garrison said, his pride in Aidan obvious. “Nothing takes him down.”
“Jane will.” Lena seemed certain. “That’s what she was meant to be, don’t you see that? The end. His end. The end for them all.”
“Witch,” Annette muttered. “I’m really not liking you.”
Lena’s eyelids flickered. “Why do people keep calling me that?” She sauntered around the room and her toe brushed against a chunk of broken black glass. “Bet you wish that was still working, don’t you?”
Suspicions swirled within Annette. She knew there were lots of powerful paranormal beings out there but Lena…
“Lena!” Vincent roared. “I need you! Come to me!”
Lena offered Annette a faint smile. Then she turned away.
Power seemed to pulse in the air behind her as she left them.
“You need to call Police Captain Vivian Harris!” Annette shouted after her. “Drew should be in her custody! She can help us!”
Another growl built from Paris’s throat. Annette looked back at him. His eyes were darkening with emotion.
With…bloodlust.
“Here we go again,” Annette whispered and she felt her heart break a bit more.