Bitter Blood (Blood and Moonlight Book 3) (15 page)

His heart drummed in his chest. He bent next to Jane, right in that blood, and put his hands on top of hers. “Who did this?”

Roth’s lips parted. He was trying to speak, but no words were coming out. Had his attacker severed his vocal cords?

Shit, shit.

Roth began to jerk beneath his hold. “He
isn’t
going to make it, Jane,” Aidan snarled. The human was going to die, any moment, unless…

Unless Aidan gave him blood. Alpha blood might just give the guy the strength to hold on a bit longer, but…

I don’t know what my blood will do to him.
Werewolf and vamp blood…straight to a human? Just what kind of monster would he make then?

“No, Aidan,” Jane said as if reading his mind. “It’s too risky. We don’t know—”

A guttural cry broke through Jane’s words. That cry didn’t come from Roth—the guy was barely breathing. Instead, that choked cry of fury came from the man who’d just lunged through the broken doorway, a man with dark hair and eyes too much like Jane’s.

Drew Hart had joined their little party. The bastard lifted his hand and Aidan saw the glint of the knife he held. “Found you,” Drew shouted as he stared at Aidan. “Now I
end
you.” He charged across the room, barreling straight for Aidan with that knife gripped tightly in his hand. Aidan was willing to bet the weapon was made of silver.

Jane leapt to her feet. “Drew, stop!” She ran at him.

Oh, the hell, no. Aidan had played this scene once before. It hadn’t ended well, and he would
not
be repeating that nightmare. He grabbed Jane’s arm and yanked her behind him even as Drew sliced down with the knife.

The knife slammed straight into Aidan’s heart. And it burned. Smoke rose from Aidan’s chest.
Right, knew it was fucking silver.

Drew laughed. “I…just had to wait for my moment…when you were distracted…
got you, got…”

“Aidan?” Jane’s voice was broken.

He looked down at the knife in his chest. “Silver.”

“Right, you bastard!” Drew yelled, spittle flying from his mouth. “It’s—”

Aidan yanked out the knife. More smoke drifted up from the blade. “Stung,” he allowed. “But it sure as shit didn’t end me.”

Drew’s eyes widened in horror. “What? How? No! You’re a werewolf! You told me—but I knew before, long before I set foot in this town—I was prepared for you! I was—”

Aidan lunged forward and he shoved that knife right against Drew’s throat.

Jane’s brother stopped talking. He barely seemed to breathe. The blade was pressed to Drew’s skin. It would be so easy to slice that skin right open.

“I’m not just a werewolf any longer.” Aidan bared his fangs. “So silver to the heart won’t stop me.” He considered the matter for a moment. “I’m not sure anything can stop me.”

Drew paled.

“But I know how to stop you,” Aidan said. And he was going to enjoy this. “I’m going to cut off your head. Cleave it straight from your body, and then you won’t ever hurt me or what’s
mine
again.”

“Aidan…” Jane’s voice. Still lost. Still…stunned. “Aidan, I—”

He didn’t look back at her. He didn’t hear Roth’s wheezes any longer and he knew the bastard was gone. His gaze slid to the left. To the photos on the wall. Photos of
his
Jane, though some of the images had been ripped down. “What did you do?” Aidan asked Drew. “Kill the bastard and then just lie in wait for us?”

Roth had been the bait. And Drew—

“Mary Jane!” Drew cried out. “He’s a fucking beast! Stop him! He’s going to
kill
me!”

Jane’s fingers curled around Aidan’s shoulders.

“I’m your family!” Drew’s voice was breaking. “I just…I wanted to help you!
I was protecting you! Always!
”

“No, you dumbass. You were the one killing her.” Aidan let the knife’s blade cut into Drew’s skin and blood began to trickle down Drew’s throat. “You killed her and you killed Paris.”

Drew shook his head and that rough movement just made the knife slice deeper. “Paris? Like, Paris, France?”

“Like my
friend
Paris.” The scent of the blood was getting to him. Bloodlust and rage were combining within him.
Why slice his throat? I can drain the bastard dry. I can make him beg for death. I can rip his world apart with one bite.

“I don’t know any Paris!” Drew yelled.

“You were working with Roth, weren’t you?” Aidan snapped his teeth together. “And what…Paris was just in the fucking way? A distraction that you needed to make?”

Drew kicked him and raked his fingers over Aidan’s face, drawing blood.

Aidan dropped the knife. It clattered to the floor.

Drew blinked, looked at the knife, then back at Aidan. “You—”

Aidan lifted his claws. “I don’t need the knife.” He would take the man’s head all too easily without that weapon. His claws drove right for Drew’s throat.

“
No!”
Jane threw her body into Aidan’s, shoving him away so that his claws just raked over Drew, slicing deep into his jaw and neck.

Drew screamed in agony.

Jane and Aidan hit the floor. He roared as he pushed her to the side and leapt to his feet.
My prey. My fucking prey.

“Aidan, stop.” Jane had jumped to her feet, too. She stood in his path. Drew was running for the door and Jane was shielding that bastard. “Aidan…”

“
He dies.”

That she would dare to stand there and protect Drew Hart…after all he’d done.
Jane’s life. Her blood on the ground. And the fucker just went for my heart.

The control he’d tried so hard to hold ripped away in that moment. The fire of his shift swept through him only…

Aidan didn’t shift, not completely. His muscles seemed to double in size. His claws grew longer, darker, harder, and his fangs sharpened even more in his mouth. He let out a guttural roar.

Jane stepped back. “Aidan?”

Nothing stops me.

“Aidan, stop!” Jane grabbed his arm. “Something is wrong. You’re not—”

He yanked her close. His fangs went for her neck.

“Aidan?” Now her voice was soft, scared.

Apples and lavender wrapped around him.
Jane. My Jane.
And his fangs were raking at her throat. He was about to savage her.

My Jane.

He tore from her and rushed for the door.

His prey was already on the stairs. Did Drew think he was going to get away? To have the chance to run again and attack Aidan once more? To try and take out Jane?

No. It ends. The end is here.

Aidan was Drew’s fucking end.

He grabbed the banister.

Drew was on the ground floor. He’d grabbed the knife, tricky bastard. Like that was going to do him any good.

Aidan leapt over that banister and shot straight down. His feet touched the floor even as Drew yanked open the building’s main door.

“Aidan!” Jane’s desperate shout followed him. “Aidan,
wait!
”

He wasn’t going to wait. He was going to rip Drew Hart apart. Aidan’s shirt was stained with blood—his blood—but the wound had already healed. He could feel the tightness of the skin. He’d never healed that quickly. Never had such strength pulsing through his body.

I can do anything. No one will stop me.

He chased Drew outside. There were other humans on the street, but they were far away.

“Help me!” Drew screamed.

The fool was begging for help? After what he’d done?

“Help—”

Aidan grabbed the bastard and hauled him into the alley, then he slammed Drew against the stinking wall there. “No one’s going to help you,” Aidan told him. “You’re going to fucking die right here.”

The long slashes he’d made on Drew’s jaw and neck dripped blood.

Blood. So much blood.

“She’ll hate you!” Drew yelled. “You do this…
you will lose Jane!”

The fool dared to talk to him about Jane? When Drew had been the one to set this nightmare in motion? Aidan’s fangs flew toward Drew’s throat.

“Stop.” A soft voice. Feminine.

And Aidan found himself freezing. Not because he wanted to stop. Not because he wanted to spare the SOB before him. But because magic held his body immobile.

“He’s strong,” that same feminine voice said, a bit breathless now. “I can’t hold him for long so if you want his prey to live, you’d better do something
now.
”

Aidan wanted to look toward that voice, but it was as if his whole body had locked down. His wolf—the beast that hadn’t shifted fully before—was clawing at his insides, desperate to get out. To attack this new threat.

Footsteps rushed toward him and Drew was yanked out of his grasp. Drew was yelling and screaming and—

“Quiet.” Not a woman’s voice, not this time. A man’s voice—deeper and
familiar.

Using every bit of his strength, Aidan managed to slowly turn his head—a few precious inches—and he saw Vincent Connor with his hands clamped around Drew’s shoulders.

“I’m saving your ass,” Vincent snapped at the screaming man. “So cut out the damn noise before
I
decide to bite you.”

And Jane was right behind him, staring with horror at the scene.

Staring with horror at me.

“I’ll take him back to my building,” Vincent said.

The old damn BDSM club.

“Don’t worry, Jane. I’ll keep him alive until you come.” Vincent nodded toward Aidan. “Try to calm down your beast. If that’s even possible.” Disgust beat in his voice. Then, in a flash, he was gone.

And he’d taken Drew with him.

Aidan erupted. “No!” He howled his fury into the night.

“Can’t hold him any longer.” It was the other woman’s voice again. Sounding even weaker. “Never felt power…like his.”

And the magical force that had held Aidan in check broke. He lunged forward but Jane grabbed his arms. She put herself right in his path, between him…and the woman with long, pale blonde hair. Blonde hair and green eyes that glittered in the darkness.

“Aidan, calm down.”

There was blood on Jane. Roth’s blood. The scent just drove him wilder.
No control. No restraint. The darkness is taking over.

“We have to talk, Aidan,” Jane said quickly. “We have to figure things out. We have to—”

“Get. The. Fuck. Away.”

Jane’s eyes widened. “What?”

“
Get the fuck away.”
His words were guttural. He could barely force them out. The blood scent was driving him crazy.
Get away before I hurt you.
Because he was afraid he’d crossed a line, there was no going back. He was being swallowed by the darkness. Consumed. And…

I like it.

“Aidan, let me help—”

He grabbed her and shoved Jane against the wall of that alley. That filthy, disgusting wall. His fangs snapped down to her throat and hovered there. He wanted to bite her. He wanted her blood, but if he tasted her right then…

Will I stop?

His head slowly lifted. He stared into Jane’s eyes and saw her fear. He could smell her fear.

Jane should never fear me. I should be the one who protects her, always.
But something was wrong.

He
was wrong.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. And then he jerked away from her. He raced toward the entrance of the alley, feeling the shift hit him. The beast hadn’t come out before—the vampire within him had dominated up in that apartment—but the wolf was emerging right then, and nothing could stop it. Fur burst along his skin. His bones snapped. He howled at the pain because it was an agony far deeper than he’d felt with a shift before. And when he left that alley…

Aidan wasn’t a man any longer.

What in the hell just happened?
Jane pushed away from the alley’s wall, aware that her knees were shaking. Aidan had been going for her throat—and not in the sexy, lover-like way he’d done back at his club.

He’d been out for blood. Hers.

“I’m guessing he isn’t always like that.” The feminine voice drifted to her, a little weak.

Jane looked at the woman who stood a few feet away. The blonde who’d just appeared with Vincent. The lady was taller than Jane, probably around five foot ten. She wore jeans and a t-shirt, with small, black boots on her feet. She looked utterly normal right then, but Jane knew the woman was packed with magical power. After all, Jane had seen what the blonde did to Aidan.

“No,” Jane murmured as she approached the newcomer. “He’s not.” Her gaze swept over the woman. The blonde wore thick, gold bangle bracelets around her wrists. “You’re Vincent’s witch.”

The woman took a step back. “Is that what I am?”

She was so not in the mood for games. “Lena,” Jane snapped out. “Vincent told me your name.”

“What else did he tell you?” Now Lena seemed vaguely curious.

“That you were strong.” Jane took another step toward her. “That you were the reason the guy can pretty much vanish in an instant, a little trick that I don’t know of any other vamp performing.”

“Umm…” Lena smoothed back her hair, even though it was already perfectly in place. “He does owe that trick to me.”

Jane moved to walk around her, but Lena side-stepped, blocking her path. Jane’s brows shot up.
Oh, sister, you do not want to be doing that.

“You shouldn’t go after him right now.” Lena’s voice had dropped. “He’s…he seemed rather dangerous, and I do believe he told you to get the ‘fuck away’ from him.”

“Aidan needs me.”

“I think the guy needs a whole lot right now,” Lena muttered.

Jane’s eyes narrowed on her. “Why didn’t you stop him from fleeing?”

“Because the guy is strong—too strong for me to hold for long.” But Lena actually seemed…happy…about that fact. “Didn’t anticipate that power. Bet Vincent didn’t, either.”

Jane moved to the left.

The witch moved, too.

“Seriously, get the hell out of my way,
now,
” Jane ordered. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

“And I don’t want to be hurt anymore.” Sadness flashed on Lena’s pretty face. “But we aren’t always given options. If you follow Aidan tonight, you will lose him.”

“What? Did you look into a scrying mirror and see that?”

“A scrying mirror?” Lena shook her head. “Never used one. I don’t see the future, just the present, and I can see that right now…that man is fighting for his sanity. No,” she rolled back her shoulders. “I think he’s fighting for his soul.”

And Jane was just standing in an alley, talking shit with a witch she’d just met. “All the more reason for me to
get to him.
”

“If he hurts you, he’s lost, and he knows it.” Lena’s gaze swept over Jane’s face. “Go to him now, and he’ll cross a line that will send him straight to hell.”

Okay, enough of this crap. “Move…or I’ll move you.” She wasn’t afraid of a witch’s power.

Lena stared at her a moment longer. “The end, Jane. Do you see? It’s all been leading to this moment. For so many centuries, everything has been building up to this.”

“To this?” A dark, smelly alley? The lady wasn’t moving so Jane just grabbed her—and moved her. “This moment is me choosing to follow Aidan. Me
choosing
Aidan. I know he’s suffering, I can see it—”

“The darkness is swallowing him. His two halves…wolf and vampire…they were fighting for supremacy within him. Didn’t you
see
that?” Lena demanded.

Jane marched to the edge of the alley. Lena rushed behind her.

“The wolf took over when he left!” Lena’s voice was breathless. “The beast doesn’t reason. It just reacts. I know, I’ve seen more than my fair share of alpha werewolves during my time on this earth. But right now, Aidan Locke is like an alpha on serious steroids. Even his mate can’t calm the beast in him.”

Jane had Aidan’s scent, and she knew she could find him, no matter where he’d gone. She looked back at the witch. “Want to bet?” She didn’t wait for an answer. She turned to the left, locked on Aidan, and she ran after the man who mattered most to her.

When he’d had her against that wall, it had been as if she were staring into the eyes of a stranger. There had been no tenderness, no love in his blue gaze. Only rage. Bloodlust. He’d looked at her as if
she
were his prey…

And she’d been afraid. Of him. Of what was happening to them both.

There were so many people on the streets. How the hell had they missed a giant black wolf rushing past them? Were the people on Bourbon that drunk already?

Jane’s pace quickened as she tried to catch up to him, but even though his scent drifted in the air back to her, Jane couldn’t see Aidan.

Maybe no one could see him…maybe he’s moving too damn fast for human eyes to notice him.
That would explain why the humans weren’t screaming in the streets.

An alpha on steroids. That was how the witch had described him.

Oh, shit, but this was going to be one hell of a night. Jane ran forward and she tried not to think about the brother that a vampire had taken away, the brother who wanted her dead.

***

“Why…are you with me?” Paris’s voice was a weak rasp.

Annette shrugged. “Someone has to keep you safe.”

He laughed. “I’m not…the one in danger.” His golden gaze dipped to the line of dirt around him, then back up to her face. “You are. Isn’t that why…you have me caged?”

He was making more sense when he talked now. Seeming a bit…saner. That was good. He’d drained more bags of blood and his bloodlust appeared sated, for the moment. She could talk to him again. Talk to Paris.

“I have you caged,” her voice was nearly as soft as his, “because if you come for my throat, I’ll have to stop you. Kill you. And I don’t want to do that.”

His lips twisted in a mocking smile, one that flashed his fangs. “Because my life matters to you?”

She wasn’t in the mood for mockery. “Yes.” A simple, true answer. “You do matter.”

He tensed. “Why didn’t you tell me that…” His words were growled. “When I was still alive?”

She held his gaze. She’d always thought he had such beautiful eyes. “Because I was waiting on you to make the first move.” Waiting on him, while she fell
for
him. Paris Cole. The true blue werewolf. The most loyal of the pack. The man of courage and honor.

The man who’d stolen a voodoo queen’s heart without even really trying.

“Too…late for a first move now.” His gaze fell from hers and his hands fisted in his lap. When they’d hauled him out of the ME’s lab and transported him to that old club, Aidan had made sure the guy was given fresh clothes—jeans and a t-shirt. He looked almost…normal. “The last thing you want is to be tied to whatever the fuck I am.”

“No, the last thing I want…” She waited for his gaze to rise and meet hers once more. “The last thing I want is to be in this world without you.”

Surprise flashed on his face.

“I’ve waited a long time for you, Paris. You’d better be worth the wait.”

And his eyes seemed to lighten. Some of the terrible tension left his face. He wasn’t a blood-crazed monster. He was…Paris. Her Paris. Coming back to her. Fighting his way back and she thought they’d have a chance together, she thought—

Footsteps raced behind her. She grabbed her gun and jumped to her feet. But when she turned around, she saw that the guy who’d been racing toward her was just Garrison. He ran toward her, but his gaze flew around the room, searching for threats.

“Garrison! What’s happened?”

Tension rolled off the guy. “Aidan sent me.” His eyes were still searching every corner of the room. “I’m here to protect you two.”

She laughed.

He glared at her.

“Garrison, trust me, I can protect Paris just fine.” She didn’t need the junior-wolf taking over the job.

“Alpha’s orders.” Garrison threw back his shoulders and suddenly didn’t look quite so young or reckless. “Paris is my friend, and I will protect him. No one is going to get to him on my watch.”

A chill slid over her. “Who’s coming to get him?”

But Garrison just locked his jaw. Did that mean he didn’t know? Or he wasn’t telling her?

“What did you find out about the blood?”

“His blood is the same as Jane’s. Doc said the cells had transformed the same way. He thinks…he thinks the blood Paris was given belonged to Jane.”

“Someone is making new monsters.” The gravel-rough words came from Paris.

Her gaze slid toward him. He lifted his hand, showing the claws that had sprouted from his fingertips. The claws of a werewolf, even though he had the fangs of a vamp. “And I guess I was one of their experiments.”

She’d never needed her scrying mirror more. Annette felt as if she were walking blind. Who was the enemy? Where was the threat coming from?

And what was going to happen next?