Chapter Seventeen
“Never do this shit again,” Aidan whispered as he brushed a kiss over Jane’s lips. They were upstairs in his office and she’d just dressed in the last spare pair of clothes he had for her.
Aidan made a mental note to buy the woman more clothes to keep on hand at his club—lots of them—because he seemed to keep ripping her outfits to shreds.
Jane turned toward him, one brow raised. “What shit? You’d definitely better not be talking about the sex…”
His hand wrapped around her waist and he pulled her close, bending to press a quick kiss to her lips. Making love, sweetheart. You taught me that. “I mean you, risking your life, when I’ve gone over the fucking edge.”
“But don’t you see, Aidan? I’d go over the edge with you, any day.”
She would, she had.
He kissed her again. Then he put his forehead against hers. Time for some hard truth. “I lost myself.” He knew it. “I was being ripped apart and I couldn’t stop it. I wanted pain. I wanted blood. I wanted death.” That shamed him.
“But you didn’t kill anyone…though you will owe your guard a serious apology bonus for that slice you gave him.”
Aidan winced. Dammit, he hadn’t meant—
“You came back.” Her voice was soft. “Whatever was happening on the inside, you beat it. You’re strong and you’re sane and you’re here with me.” Her smile made his heart ache. “Just the way it’s supposed to be.”
He could stare at her smile forever.
But….
Her smile slipped. “We have to go and talk to Drew. I have to settle things with him.” She pulled from his arms.
And he felt colder. “I was going to kill him.” Aidan wouldn’t lie, a big part of him still wanted to kill that little bastard for all that he’d done. If Jane hadn’t stopped him…
“I know,” she said.
He looked into her eyes and realized that she did know—exactly how he felt. All of his secrets. With Jane, his soul would always be bare.
But that was okay because he knew her secrets, too.
“I need to question him. Find out just what the hell is happening. It just…it doesn’t make sense to me that he’d hire Roth. And all those tests? Drew wouldn’t do that. It doesn’t fit.” She turned and marched for the door. “The pieces aren’t going into place. I’m missing something.”
He followed her down the stairs.
She was halfway down the stairs when she froze. “How did Vincent know we’d be at Roth’s?” Jane slowly turned to face him. “I didn’t…everything was happening so fast that I didn’t even question how he was there. I raced into the alley after you and he just…he appeared.”
Yeah. “The vamp has a bad habit of doing that.”
Jane licked her lips. “I can never detect his scent. He hides it somehow.”
With magic.
“I don’t know if he was there before we arrived,” Jane said, her gaze sharpening with suspicion. “Or if he arrived when we raced outside.”
Aidan stared into her eyes. “There was an awful lot of blood at that scene.”
“Only there was no blood on Drew’s knife. Or on him.” Her breath came faster. “If he’d just cut Roth’s throat, there should have been spray on him. There wasn’t.”
He strained, trying to remember. Had there been blood on Vincent?
“No blood was on Vincent,” Jane said, a frown tugging down her lips. “But he could have moved so fast, used that vamp speed…he could have killed Roth and never gotten so much as a speck of blood on him.”
While Drew wouldn’t have been so fortunate. “Drew was following us.” Aidan thought this through. “He could have been watching Hell’s Gate and when we left, he tailed us.” And Aidan had already been so fucking on the edge he hadn’t even noticed the guy. “He was coming to kill us—”
“But Drew hadn’t killed Roth.” She spun around and raced down those last stairs. “He didn’t do it but Vincent sure as hell could have!”
He’d never liked that damn vamp. They rushed outside and—
“Jane!”
And they saw Heider shoving his way through the crowd on Bourbon Street. The guy was huffing and puffing and appearing absolutely terrified.
Jane ran toward him, but Aidan beat her to the ME. He grabbed the guy, holding tight to his shoulders.
“You…won’t answer your damn phone,” Heider wheezed. “Neither will Captain Harris.”
“I’m not answering because my phone was confiscated by you,” Jane replied. “Remember, when you put me in a body bag? You got all my belongings and I didn’t exactly have the chance to get them back.”
Heider opened his mouth, closed it. Frowned.
“Heider,” Aidan snarled.
The ME’s frightened gaze shot to him. “Annette,” his voice broke on the name. “Something is wrong. She needs help and the vampire—that scary ass freak Vincent—he was there.”
Vincent.
“I tried to get the captain but she wasn’t answering her phone, Jane wasn’t answering—so I came here, to you.” Heider lifted his chin and stared at Aidan. “You’re alpha, right? That means you handle the paranormals in this town.”
Aidan let go of the doctor and his fingers twined with Jane’s. “We do.”
“Good…then get to Annette. She needs you. Something bad is going down.” Heider backed up a step. Sweat coated his forehead. “I mean, it has to be bad, right? If the voodoo queen is scared…”
If Annette was scared, the situation wasn’t just bad.
It was a nightmare.
“Go to the werewolf compound in the swamp,” Aidan ordered.
Heider immediately lifted his hands. “Hold on, hold on, I’m the human here—”
“Vivian will be there. She always loses her cell signal when she goes out there. So if she’s not answering her phone, she’s still there. Get her and the other wolves and tell them what’s happening.”
Heider blinked. “What is happening?”
“We have a vamp who needs his ass put down.” Finally. I’ve been waiting to kill that bastard. “And the wolves are going to war.”
“C-can’t I just keep calling her?” Heider gulped and pulled out his phone. “I…I can just keep trying. She’ll get a signal eventually. I can—”
“Bob.” Jane said his name flatly.
He flinched.
“I know this is scary,” Jane said and her voice softened. “I know this is far more than you signed on for—”
“I’m human,” he whispered. “Not a paranormal. I get involved in this war, and I’ll be dead.”
“You’re already in this war,” Aidan said. Didn’t the guy see that? Heider had been working for the wolves for years.
“It’s okay to be afraid,” Jane continued, firing a fast frown at Aidan before focusing on Heider once more. “But we need you. I need you. Vincent is trying to destroy us—not just wolves but I’m afraid he’s out to destroy anyone in his path. We need to stop him.”
Heider swallowed and managed a weak nod.
Jane’s hand squeezed his shoulder. “Go out to the werewolf compound. The wolves know you, they’ll listen to you. Get them back to town. Get Vivian.”
“And then bring them all to us,” Aidan said. “We’ll be at the old club near the cemetery.”
Heider swiped his hand over his forehead. “You assholes really need to get better cell service out at that compound.”
Aidan stared at him.
“I’m going!” Heider snapped. “I’ll find the wolves and you just—you make sure that bastard doesn’t hurt the voodoo queen, okay?” He turned away. “I…I like her, too. Dammit, you paranormals have got to stop growing on me…” His footsteps rushed away.
Jane gazed at Aidan. “Are you ready for this?”
Ready to destroy the vampire who’d tried to take Jane from him? Ready to stop the bastard who’d thought to attack his pack? “Hell, yes.”
It was Vincent who wouldn’t be ready for them.
***
They made a pit stop before they headed for the confrontation with Vincent, a fast little stop by the Voodoo Shop. Jane picked up some needed supplies and then they raced to the site of what she knew would be her last stand against Vincent.
Jane stood outside of that little building. The old BDSM club. When she’d first become a vampire, Vincent had brought her there. He’d chained her up, he’d given her blood, he’d acted as if he were helping her but…
All along, just what was your master plan, Vincent?
She and Aidan could have gone in there, fangs bared, claws out, but…
Vincent would have expected that. He’d been playing them all along, so now, it was time for her and Aidan to play him.
So she lifted her hand and she pounded on the door. She didn’t kick it in, in a giant show of force, but, oh, she was so tempted. Kicking it in would reveal that she knew Vincent’s game. Playing the scene another way…that would give Jane the chance to get killing close to Vincent.
The door opened a few moments later. Only Vincent wasn’t the one who greeted her. Lena stood there, her gaze oddly sad. “You shouldn’t come inside,” Lena murmured.
There was something about that woman…Jane couldn’t decide if Lena was as evil as Vincent or if she was another victim.
“Where is Aidan?” Lena asked as she looked over Jane’s shoulder. “You two…you’re stronger together.”
Goosebumps rose on Jane’s arms. That was something that she and Aidan only said to each other. For that woman to know… “You’re not a witch, are you?”
Lena gave a barely perceptible shake of her head.
“What are you?”
Footsteps pounded toward them. “Jane!” Vincent’s bellowing voice.
“Imprisoned,” Lena breathed back. Then she stepped away.
Vincent ran toward Jane, a broad smile on his face. What she was doing was a huge gamble. But Vincent wouldn’t know that Dr. Bob had found her. Especially if she came in, playing it cool and…
Jane started to cry.
Grieving.
The tears weren’t hard to summon. After all, when she thought of how close she’d come to losing Aidan, pain knifed right through her body. It had been a near thing, all because of the asshole who was staring at her with his own fake emotion—concern.
“Jane?” He reached for her shoulder and pulled her inside. Pulled her close to him. “Jane, what happened?”
She looked down at her hands. They were shaking. Rage would do that to a woman. Make her shake. “I…killed him.”
He sucked in a sharp breath. His arm wrapped around her and he pulled her close. “I’m so sorry.”
No, you’re not.
“He was b-beyond reason,” Jane stumbled over the words. “Trying to take my blood, trying to attack with his claws…” She blinked back her tears and stared up at him. Saddened. Grief-stricken. “What happened to him?”
Lena shuffled away from them. Jane could hear the faint rustle of footsteps in the far back room—was that Annette and Paris? And where was Drew—was her brother even still alive?
“I don’t know what happened,” Vincent replied. “Such a terrible situation.”
Liar.
Jane’s hand slipped beneath her jacket. Her fingers curled around the wooden stake that she’d brought with her.
“It’s going to be all right, Jane,” Vincent assured her as he pulled her even closer. So close that she could feel his heart beating. “I’ll help you.”
Oh, I don’t think you will.
Since she was close enough to feel his heart beat…that meant she was more than close enough to kill. Sometimes, you didn’t see your enemy coming, not until it was too late. Vincent had taught her that. “I-I need to see Paris and Annette. I have to tell them—”
His head lifted and he stared down at her with a solemn expression. “I’m sorry, Jane.”
Are you? Are you really?
“Paris attacked Annette. He…he went as crazy as, well, as I think Aidan did. She got too close to him, she made the mistake of trusting him, and…he ripped out her throat.”
Jane didn’t move.
“He came for me, then,” Vincent said, his jaw hardening. “And I had to stop him, Jane.”
She kept staring at him, as if she were shell-shocked.
Lena waited in the shadows, just a few feet away.
Jane’s fingers were itching to take that stake and plunge it into his heart but the cop in her…the cop that always demanded justice, the cop that never took on the role of judge, jury, and executioner, she hesitated.
“I lied,” Vincent suddenly confessed.
She let her brow furrow.
“I do know what happened.” His lips twisted down in sadness. “Werewolves…their beasts aren’t meant to transform. It drives them mad. Aidan had your blood, Jane. Your blood is what drove him over the edge. It mutated his cells, changed him. Destroyed him.”
Her skin was absolutely icy right then. And the hand hidden beneath her coat had a death grip on the stake.
“Alphas keep their blood on hand for their pack, right?” He was speaking quickly, as if he’d just figured something out. “Aidan must have given his contaminated blood—contaminated because of you—he must have given it to Paris. That’s why Paris changed.” Horror flashed on his face. “The whole pack could be changing. If they got the contaminated blood, they could all become mindless predators. But don’t worry, I’ll help you stop them.” He nodded decisively. “We’ll put them all down. We’ll—”
“End them?” Jane cut in, finishing for him.
He smiled. “Yes, if that’s what we must do…”
Sick sonofabitch. “I’m going to end someone,” Jane snapped. “But it’s not them.”
Lena gave a fast, warning scream.
But it was too late. Jane yanked up her stake and drove it right at Vincent’s heart.
Never saw that coming, did you?
***
Aidan slipped through one of the old, broken windows in the BDSM club. Silently, he made his way to the room that Paris had been chained inside. He didn’t worry about his scent giving him away. Yeah, Vincent had an enhanced sense of smell, but Aidan and Jane had picked up a potion to disguise that scent.
And since he already knew how to walk soundlessly…
Jane will keep him distracted. I’ll get my pack mate and the voodoo queen. And we will fucking destroy Vincent.
A simple enough plan.
Stronger together.
He slipped into that back room, but when he saw Paris, Aidan stilled. Paris had his arms locked around Annette and the guy’s fangs were bared right over her throat, as if he were about to gorge on her blood.
Shit! No! I can’t let him—
Aidan leapt forward, a roar ready to burst from his lips but—
Someone else screamed. A high, quick scream of warning. The cry didn’t come from that back room. It came from what sounded like the front of the building.
Where Jane is.
But at the cry, Paris’s head whipped up. His eyes locked on Aidan and Paris stared at him not with a mindless, bloodlust filled gaze, but…
“It’s Aidan.” Paris’s lips curved into a grateful smile. “That’s who I sensed coming, not Vincent. It’s just Aidan.”
His hands fell away from Annette.
Aidan frowned.
Annette bent and brushed away the dirt near her feet. “Finally, alpha. Shit, do you know how nervous I was getting?”
Nervous…or scared?
Aidan’s stare swept over Paris as his friend yanked at the manacles on his ankles. “Had to…act like I was still…deranged.” Paris ripped away the manacle from his left foot. Then his right. He shot a quick glance at Aidan. “You’re sane, too, right? Because Vincent was telling us you were destined to go over the edge.”
“I did,” Aidan said flatly. “But Jane pulled me back.”
The scream had faded away. It hadn’t been Jane’s scream, he knew that. Vincent wouldn’t kill Jane, he couldn’t. The bastard needed her. She was his end.
“It was Vincent all along,” Annette said quickly. “He hates wolves. He wants to eradicate them all. He’s using Jane’s blood to do it—he says it’s poison to wolves.”
Not exactly. Dangerous, but not lethal.
“Jane is taking care of the bastard,” he told them. “Distracting him while I get the two of you to safety.”
“I’m not fucking leaving,” Paris threw back. “I owe the bastard, I owe—”
Blood.
The scent teased Aidan’s nose. His head turned as the sound of footsteps shuffled closer.
“Ah, Aidan,” Annette began, her voice shaking a bit. “There’s something you need to know about Vincent…and Lena…”
Vincent appeared in the doorway. Blood soaked his shirt. One of his arms was locked around Jane’s neck and his other hand…it gripped a bloody, wooden stake. He had that stake pressed to Jane’s chest.
“Jane.” Vincent said her name with fury—with betrayal. “You lied to me. Aidan still lives.”
Aidan’s claws were out. His beast was now fully under his control—beast and vamp—and both were ready to tear into Vincent.
“Yeah, well,” Jane didn’t sound even a little afraid. Just pissed off. Brave. My Jane. “You lied to me from day one, so I figure that makes us even.” Her gaze jerked toward Annette. “I drove that stake into his heart and he didn’t go down. Why the hell not? Want to enlighten me on what I’ve missed here?”
Before Annette could speak, Vincent laughed. “You’ve missed plenty, Jane. You all have.” His mouth brushed against Jane’s cheek. “Ever wonder how your brother knew to fire silver bullets when he attacked on that college campus? I was the one to give him the gun. I was the one to visit him and tell him there were dark, dangerous threats out there…that there were creatures he needed to fear, not just vampires.”
“He wouldn’t have listened to a vamp,” Jane’s voice was strained. “Not Drew—”
“He didn’t know what I was. I made sure of it. Just as I made sure that Aidan’s little compulsion trick wouldn’t work on your brother.”
How the hell could he do that?
But…
Lena had crept up behind Vincent. Aidan’s gaze darted to her.
Magic. Fucking magic.
“I visited your brother often over the years. Never when you were around, of course.” Mocking laughter slipped from him. “I guess you could even say I gave him poison, too. A slow poison of hate that ripped into his mind. Humans can be so easy to manipulate.”
Jane yanked against his hold, but Vincent’s grip didn’t falter. And the stake kept pressing right over her chest.
“Lena…” Vincent called.
The blonde stepped closer to him. She always seemed to be in the shadows, waiting for Vincent to call her up.
“I do wish you’d eliminate those three,” Vincent ordered, his voice bored, as if he’d just told Lena to take out the trash. “Aidan Locke. Paris Cole. And not-so-great voodoo queen, Annette Benoit. I wish you’d get rid of them right now.”
Like he gave a shit what Vincent wished.
“I’m sorry,” Lena said. She lifted her hands. The gold around her wrists gleamed.
“Fuck me,” Annette whispered. “We are so dead.”
Not yet. Not by a long shot. Not—
“She’s a djinn,” Annette told them, turning desperate eyes on Aidan. “There shouldn’t be any of her kind left, but he has her bound to him…I think that’s what those bracelets are—they’re chains for her. She has to do exactly what he says and—”
And Vincent had just wished for Lena to end them.
A blue smoke drifted from her fingers and it came right at Aidan. He opened his mouth but…
Aidan started to choke.
“No!” Jane screamed.
“I’m sorry,” Lena whispered as she slipped by Jane and Vincent.
Aidan couldn’t breathe. Annette was coughing next to him. Choking. She hit the floor first and Paris tried to grab her to pull her into his arms. Paris lifted her up and tried to run, but the strange blue smoke just tightened around them.
“A death cloud,” Vincent called. “One of my favorite tricks…”
Each breath just brought more of that blue cloud into Aidan’s lungs. So…
He stopped breathing. He rose to his full height. He could hold his breath a long fucking time.
He’d always been able to do so.
And he’d do it now, for as long as it took.
Vincent was staring at him, his expression becoming bemused, and behind the bastard…
A new enemy waits.
Because Aidan had just spotted Drew Hart. The bastard’s lips were clamped tightly shut and he had blood covering him. He was creeping forward, a human completely outmatched but Vincent wasn’t looking back to see that new threat. He was too busy holding tight to a fighting Jane. He didn’t see…
Aidan smiled at Vincent. The vampire bellowed his rage. “You should be fucking choking to death, wolf!”
Screw you.
And Drew Hart attacked. He jumped on Vincent’s back, clawing at him with his fingers, going for his eyes. Vincent let go of Jane.
She snatched the stake from his fingers and shattered it in her grip.
Vincent sank his teeth into Drew’s throat. He ripped, he tore, and blood flew—
Aidan grabbed Jane’s hand. They needed to get away. His blood was throbbing in his veins. His heartbeat thundered in his ears. Paris and Annette were on the floor.
“It’s her!” Jane yelled, pointing at Lena. “We have to stop her!”
Drew’s body fell to the ground. He twitched as blood pumped from his throat. Vincent was still crouched over Drew’s body, as if he’d attack again. “Worthless,” Vincent snarled at him. “Just a human…one in the way. You shouldn’t have taken Jane out of that basement so long ago. You should have left her so that Thane and I could finish what we’d started…you were always fucking in the way!”
Aidan grabbed the bastard by his shoulder. He swung Vincent around to face him. “Guess who’s in your way now?” He drove his claws into Vincent’s chest, sinking them in as deep as they would go. “I am.” The blue smoke drifted into his lungs. Burned.
Vincent screamed, a cry of rage and pain. But then…he looked down at Aidan’s claws in his chest and he started to laugh. “You can’t kill the unkillable. You’re going to fall, and I’ll be alone with Jane. Soon enough, I’ll get her to see things my way. Soon enough—”
“Hey, asshole!” Jane called.
Vincent’s head whipped toward her. Jane had grabbed Lena and she had one hand locked around the nape of the woman’s neck. “Let’s level the playing field, shall we?” Jane glanced at Lena. “Sorry, this will hurt…” And then she rammed Lena’s head into the nearest wall. Lena sank to the floor, sprawling, unconscious.
The blue smoke immediately vanished.
Aidan sucked in a deep breath. Game the fuck on.
He yanked his claws from Vincent and attacked again. Faster. Harder. The blood flew, the vamp stumbled back, but he didn’t go down.
How in the hell did Vincent keep standing? Keep living?
“I don’t think he can die!” Jane shouted. “I drove my stake right into his heart—and the bastard just yanked it back out!”
Vincent stood in the middle of that room, blood soaking him. Aidan was in front of him, Jane had just circled behind him, and Paris was to his left. Annette stood to Vincent’s right, staring at him with eyes gone even darker with the swirl of her power.
Never count out a voodoo queen.
“Can’t be killed,” Annette said, her voice weak but her spine straight. “His djinn must have given him that power, the darkest of all gifts.”
And, once more, Vincent laughed. “She did! You fools, did you really think I’d come at the wolves and not have stacked the deck in my favor? You can stake me, and I won’t stop. You can take my head, and I’ll still come back. I’ll always rise…again and again. I’m immortal. Eternal. There is no end for me.”
“Annette,” Jane suddenly snapped. “Step to the side. The freaking side, now!”
Annette looked down at the floor. Understanding flashed on her face a second before she jerked to the side.
And Jane shoved Vincent—she shoved him hard to the spot that Annette had been in just moments before.
Then Annette and Jane were both on the floor, on their hands and knees, scrambling to push the line of dirt closed so that it circled around Vincent.
Vincent’s face tightened with his fury and his hand flew toward them. Aidan surged forward but—
“The dead can’t cross my line.” Annette leaned back on her haunches and glared up at Vincent. “So take that, you bastard.”
Vincent roared his rage. He threw his body forward, but he seemed to slam straight into an invisible wall.
He was caged.
Jane heaved out a rough breath. “That should hold him, for now.” She rose to her feet. Aidan grabbed her and pulled her close. She smiled at him. “You okay?” Jane asked.
Jane was alive—hell, yeah, he was okay.
But…
Horror flashed on her face. She shoved Aidan to the side even as Vincent bellowed his rage again. But Jane didn’t run toward Vincent. Instead, she ran to the fallen form of her brother.
The left side of his throat was ripped open. His eyes were wide, terrified. His lips were still clamped together and weak moans came from him.
“Drew?” Jane fell beside him. She grabbed his hand. “Drew!”
He was struggling to speak, but no words emerged.
“Djinn!” Annette bellowed.
And Aidan saw that Lena was slowly rising to her feet. Blood trickled down her temple.
“I know the rules.” Annette jerked her head toward Vincent’s enraged form. “Vincent has something of yours, right? What the hell is it? How does he control you?”
Lena touched her chest. “He has my heart.”
“Uh…” Paris shuffled a bit closer to Aidan. “Tell me she doesn’t mean that literally.”
Aidan was afraid she might. He had no clue how to deal with a djinn—he’d actually thought those creatures were just myths until about five minutes ago.
“Where is it?” Annette demanded. “Where’s your heart?”
“Lena!” Vincent shrieked. “I control you! I own you—kill them! No, no, make them kill each other! Get them to turn on each other—rip each other apart!”
Lena took a swaying step forward. “I…have to…obey…”
Screw that shit. Aidan took a menacing step toward Lena.
“I don’t want to hurt that woman,” Paris’s voice rumbled. “But I will. I will kill her if I have to do it.”
It was looking as if they would. It was…
It—
He saw the gleam of gold around Vincent’s neck. Aidan’s eyes narrowed as he stared at the small gold chain…a chain that he’d noticed on Vincent before. The vamp was hardly the sentimental type…
“Annette, can I still cross your line?” Aidan demanded. But he didn’t wait for her to answer. He surged forward—
And hit an invisible wall.
Sonofabitch. He’d feared that after his battle with the darkness, he’d altered. Now he was wolf and vampire. Beast and undead.
And he couldn’t get past the line. Fuck.
Vincent started laughing, that cold, twisted laughter of his. “Realized what I carry, didn’t you alpha?” He jerked up the gold chain. A ruby hung from that chain. “You locked me in here, but that means you locked yourself out. No one can get to me…and I’ll keep control of my djinn. I’ll have her kill you all, then free me and then—”
Annette flew over that line of dirt.
Paris bellowed.
She grabbed the ruby, snapped the chain and threw the prize to Aidan.
Annette gave them the heart even as Vincent grabbed her in his arms and sank his teeth in her throat.
“No!” Paris cried. His fists drove into the invisible shield, again and again.
Aidan’s fingers curled over the ruby. “Djinn,” he said, staring at Vincent with fury hardening his heart. “You’re free.”
There was a clatter. From the corner of his eye, he saw that the bracelets that had circled Lena’s wrists had fallen to the ground.
“Voodoo queen…to me.” Lena suddenly ordered.
And invisible hands seemed to rip Annette right from Vincent’s grasp.
“Fucking bitch!” Vincent roared.
Lena’s expression never altered. She waved her hand at Drew. “A brother can speak…”
Drew gasped. “Jane…s-sorry…so…s-sorry…L-love…”
He didn’t get to say any more. Not because of a djinn’s curse. But because he’d just taken his last breath. Jane’s shoulders hunched. Her grief seemed to fill the room and then she leapt to her feet. She ran toward Vincent— “Undo your spell on him, Lena! Your spell, your magic, whatever the hell it is!” Jane shouted. “Take away his power so he can die!”
But Vincent licked his blood-stained lips and raised his hand. He shook one finger at her. “That gift, once given, can never be taken away.” He leaned closer to Jane, stepping right up to the line that caged the dead. And the undead. “You’ll never be free of me. Long after your lover is ash on this earth, I will still be here…waiting, for you, Jane. Waiting for us to bring about our end.”
Jane shook her head. “No, no—”
“Yes,” Lena said, voice rasping and sad. “I’m sorry but…that gift doesn’t go away. He cannot end. Cut him into a thousand pieces, and he will regenerate. Burn him, and the ash will merge to produce a man. It’s the darkest gift, I warned him of that…the gift that requires the highest price. He wanted to be a creature that couldn’t ever be banished from this world, so he became a monster with no soul. That was his price…”
Aidan curled his arm around Jane and pulled her back against his body. Your lover will be ash. “You still don’t understand what you’ve done, do you, Vincent?”
Jane’s brother was dead.
The djinn was free.
Paris was holding tight to Annette.
And Jane…
Aidan and Jane were still standing.
“I’ve already died once,” Aidan told Vincent, keeping his eyes locked on that soulless bastard. “And I came back. Your brilliant plan to end werewolves? It backfired. I’ll get Heider to run all of his tests, but I know what he’ll find…just like Jane, I’ve stopped aging. Death isn’t standing over me, waiting, because I’ve already defeated that bitch once. So I won’t be going anywhere. I’ll spend forever at Jane’s side. I’ll watch her back and I’ll love her. And you will never hurt those we care about again.”
Vincent’s face crumpled. “No! No! She was the end—”
“We saved Paris, too. Now that he’s stronger, we know how to keep werewolves who transform sane…they just need enough blood, fast enough. Werewolf blood. You didn’t destroy the werewolves. You just made us stronger.” Now it was Aidan’s turn to smile. “And my whole pack will be here soon…”
“Doesn’t matter.” Vincent shook his head once, hard. “I can’t be destroyed! I can’t—”
“A stake might not take you out, losing your head might not even stop you, but…” Jane said, cutting through his words, “but you can spend an eternity in hell.”
Vincent stilled. “Wh-what?”
“I hope you’re ready for the end,” Jane told him. “Because for you, it’s coming.” She turned in Aidan’s arms and stared up at him.
Yes, they were thinking the same damn thing. He could see it.
They couldn’t kill Vincent…
But they could stop him. They could contain him.
His end. It was fucking at hand.