by Cynthia Eden
It didn’t exactly work out well to have loaded firearms around mental patients.
A guard stood just a few feet away, watching the exchange between Jane and Vivian.
“I can talk to the prisoner,” Vivian assured her. “You don’t have to do this.” Vivian’s suit didn’t sport so much as a single wrinkle and her hair was pulled back in a twist, emphasizing the elegant lines of her cheeks and jaw. Her coffee skin gleamed, even under the horrible lights, and her gaze was steady as it focused on Jane.
Sympathy. Jane could see the emotion in her captain’s eyes. Vivian pitied her. Just when Jane had thought things couldn’t get worse. I want Vivian’s respect, not her pity.
Jane’s shoulders straightened. “Drew hasn’t talked to anyone else. He’s not going to speak, not unless he’s talking to me.” She had to go into that little room and see her brother. She’d been dreading this meeting…dreading it from the moment she realized that death wasn’t going to keep her in its tight grip. Drew would know that she should have died after that shooting spree that he’d initiated. And when she walked into that room…
What will happen then?
“Just make sure the security camera in his room is turned off,” Jane whispered. “We don’t exactly want anyone getting a record of this little chat.”
Vivian knew the score. After all, she was a werewolf, one of the many wolves in positions of power in New Orleans.
“Don’t worry,” Vivian assured her as she inclined her head toward the silent, watchful guard. “That’s already been handled.”
The guard nodded back toward her.
Another werewolf? And to think Jane hadn’t even been aware of the werewolves, not until a few months ago. How quickly things had changed.
“Your brother has been restrained,” Vivian told her. “So you don’t have to worry—”
Jane’s sad smile stopped her words. “I don’t have to worry that—what? He’ll try to kill me? Been there, done that.” But she still hesitated to put her hand on the door knob and open the damn door. Coward. I am a coward at my core. Jane licked her lips and risked a quick glance at Vivian once more. “Are we good?” She blurted out those words in a really, terribly awkward way.
Vivian’s dark brows shot up. “Good?”
Jane waved her hand between them. “Yeah. Me. You. Me being all…” Jane pointed at her mouth. Vampire-like. Only there was no “like” to it. She was a vampire. And as a werewolf, how did that make Vivian feel? Did it—
“You don’t come at my throat, you don’t start draining any humans, and yes, we’re good,” Vivian said briskly.
But Jane still had to push. “You don’t…feel the urge to attack me?” It was that way for other vampires. Aidan should have killed her as soon as she’d transformed. Paris should have gone for her throat but…
They hadn’t.
Because I had so much of Aidan’s blood in me. Werewolf and vampire all combined.
“I don’t,” Vivian said simply. Her head cocked. “You want to tell me why that’s so?”
I’m a crazy vamp-slash-werewolf. That’s why. Jane knew her smile was weak as she said, “I’d better go and talk to my brother.” Before any non-werewolf guards started their shifts and wondered why the video surveillance in Drew Hart’s room wasn’t working.
Squaring her shoulders, Jane took a deep breath. Then she reached for the handle on his door and she stepped inside.
The walls were yellow. Cheery. Sunlight spilled through the blinds and through the bars that were on the lone window.
A sharp gasp came from the right and Jane’s head turned—and her eyes clashed with a gaze that was just as dark as her own. Her older brother, Drew, was in bed. Strapped down to the bed. His dark hair was a stark contrast to the white pillow case. His body strained on the bed as he twisted and heaved against the restraints. “Mary Jane.” His gaze widened as he seemed to drink her in. “Thank God…Mary Jane.”
She shut the door behind her and then Jane pressed her back to it. Not a wooden door—metal. Reinforced. She stared at her brother as her heart twisted in her chest.
“You’re okay.” His voice was rasping. “So glad you’re okay.”
She was far from okay.
“I had to kill the werewolf, you understand that, right?” His hands had fisted. “He was evil. Dangerous.”
“Aidan isn’t evil.” She couldn’t move. Her brother’s face was lined, pale, showing the strain from his recent hospital stay. But she’d read the reports on him—he was healing fast. Almost too fast.
At her words, Drew’s dark brows shot up. “Isn’t…isn’t evil. Isn’t?” Drew heaved against the restraints once more. His handsome face reddened. “I shot him! Are you saying he’s still alive? He should’ve died! He should’ve—”
“You shot me.” She kept her voice flat with an effort. Her brother had apparently been dead silent for days but the minute he saw her…
I knew he’d talk.
“You jumped in front of him,” Drew muttered. “I never meant to hit you. I was so scared. So worried…but you’re here. You’re alive.”
And she couldn’t help it. Jane shook her head.
He stopped struggling against his restraints. “Mary Jane?”
“You have to let go of all that rage you carry inside,” she told him, her chest still burning. “It’s destroying you. I saw it…for years. Like a festering wound. Just getting worse and worse, never better. I stayed away from you because I saw what you’d become. I thought I was making it all worse. Making you remember…”
Vampires. Death.
Hell.
She took a step away from the wall. Then another. She walked slowly until she reached the edge of his bed, then she stared down at Drew. His hair was mussed, sweat beaded his brow, and his eyes….
“You killed me, Drew. You did that.”
“No!” He screamed the denial. “I was just trying to stop the werewolf! He’s a monster! He thought you loved him!” Drew gave a hard, negative shake of his head. “You don’t belong with someone like that. Something like that!”
“I do love him.”
Drew shook his head.
“And I love you.” That part hurt so much. “Even with what you did, I still love you.” That was why it hurt so much to look at him. When Jane gazed at her brother, she remembered the boy who’d pulled her from hell one dark night. A dirty hand, reaching out to help her.
Her side seemed to burn. Her side—her scar. The twisting mark that she’d been given when she was just eleven years old. A twisted, sadistic vampire named Thane Durant had broken into her home. He’d killed her mother and step-father, then he’d tied Jane to the table in the basement. He’d pulled out a soldering pen and burned the Greek letter Omega into her skin as she screamed.
Omega. The end. Is that what I am?
“You aren’t dead, Mary Jane.” Drew wasn’t screaming any longer. He was whispering. “I see you. You’re right here. You’re breathing. You’re talking. You’re—”
Jane leaned down close to him and in his ear, she whispered, “I’m a vampire.”
His whole body jerked as he tried to pull away—from her. Her gaze slid to his forearm and the tattoo there, a tattoo of the Greek letter Omega. A tattoo to match her burn. Only he’d chosen to get that tattoo. He’d said he’d done it to remind him of her.
The pain in her heart just got worse.
“If you get free,” Jane asked him, “what will you do?”
He wasn’t looking at her. Just staring at the far wall.
“Will you come after me again? Go after Aidan?”
Again, no answer. Drew just kept staring at that wall as if it held all the secrets in the universe.
Her laughter was sad. “The silent treatment, huh? Aren’t you tired of that bit?” Then, driven too far, Jane just broke. She caught his chin in her hand and wrenched his face toward her. She stared at him, their faces inches apart. “I am not your enemy.”
His jaw hardened. “Get
me the fuck out of here.”
“What will you do,” Jane asked again, “if you get free?” Because she could still feel the fire of his bullet going into her chest.
“I won’t stop,” he rasped. “Not until I destroy the monsters.”
She jerked back from him, as if she’d been burned. Again. Jane marched into the bathroom, her gaze searching frantically around. And then—then she looked into the mirror. She hadn’t wanted to look in the mirror at Aidan’s place…because I knew I wouldn’t like what I had to see. But, sometimes, you had to face the monsters. Her eyes narrowed as she stared at herself. Jane drew back her hand and drove her fist right into the mirror. It shattered.
She grabbed a big chunk of that mirror and marched back to Drew.
The door to his room flew open. Vivian stood there, her body ready to attack. “Jane, what happened?”
Jane just shook her head, and she shoved that broken mirror before Drew’s face. “Take a good long look in there,” she ordered him. “And you’ll see a monster staring back at you.” Because I’m not the only monster in the family.
His gaze locked on his reflection.
“Aidan never did anything to you. He never would have gone after you. And me…well, I just wanted to love you. You are the only family I have left.” The mirror was shaking in her hand.
Vivian crept closer to the bed. “Jane…”
“You destroyed your own life, Drew.” She was just sad now. “What comes next, well, it will be on you.” She moved away from the bed, taking the mirror with her as she and Vivian headed for the door.
“Mary Jane…” Drew called.
She stopped. Looked back.
Drew smiled at her. “You won’t leave me here.”
What else was she supposed to do with him? Let him out so he could go and attack again? Go after Aidan? Hurt innocent people who got in his way?
“I didn’t leave you,” Drew reminded her softly. “When the vampire had you in our basement. When he was burning your skin and you were crying, I didn’t leave you. I got you out of there. I saved your life.”
She swallowed.
“You won’t leave me,” Drew said, utterly confident.
Jane turned away from him once more. Her eyes squeezed shut. “Goodbye.” And she walked out, as fast as her shaking legs could carry her.
He bellowed her name. She didn’t look back.
He screamed for her.
Jane kept walking. From the corner of her eye, she saw Vivian jerk her head toward the guard and then point to Drew’s room. The guard quickly ran inside.
But those screams followed Jane.
“Aidan can make him forget,” Vivian said, voice brisk. “He can make sure that your brother forgets everything that happened in New Orleans. You know an alpha werewolf can control a human—Aidan can control Drew. He can make it so that your brother—”
The screaming had stopped.
Jane looked at Vivian. “So that Drew forgets me?” Because he’d have to forget her—otherwise, she’d just be another monster that he had to hunt.
I didn’t leave you. Jane exhaled on a ragged breath. “Keep a guard with him until I can get Aidan back here.” Because only an alpha werewolf had the power to control a human’s mind that completely. Other werewolves could influence humans, could charm them, sway them, but an alpha…
Mind-freaking-control. An alpha was a whole other level of power.
“I’ll make sure my man stays here,” Vivian assured her.
Jane nodded. She looked down at her hand and realized she was still holding the chunk of broken mirror. Her reflection stared back at her.
Hello, monster.
Jane shoved that piece of glass into the nearest garbage can. Then she reached for her phone as she rushed down the long corridor. Unfortunately, there was no signal in that place.
No signal, but she could have sworn she heard the echo of her brother’s screams.
Chapter Four
Drew Hart glared at the guard who stood just inside of his room—more like my prison. The guy was tall, thin, but with an intense gaze that wouldn’t freaking leave Drew’s face.
Is he one of them? One of the monsters? For years, Drew had thought that he only had to worry about vampires, but then a werewolf had appeared, literally on his doorstep. A beast who’d worked for Aidan Locke—the bastard who thought he was going to keep Jane at his side.
“Get the restraints off me,” Drew demanded.
The guy just smirked at him. “Relax, buddy. You aren’t going anywhere. Captain Harris sent me in to keep an eye on you.”
Captain Harris…Yes, he knew her. She’d tried to interview him a few times but he’d given her nothing. Then she’d come running into his room a few minutes ago, her badge gleaming like she was some kind of big deal. She wasn’t. “I’ve got to piss,” Drew threw back at him. I am not your buddy. “I’m about to piss all over this bed. So get the restraints off.” He heaved once more. “Where are the nurses? The doctors? They should be coming around. They always come around at this time.” That had been the drill since he arrived in the looney bin. He’d gotten patched up at the hospital, then been sent to this hell.
“There was a change of plans for today.”
That wasn’t good. Just what did Mary Jane have in mind? She’d really left him—deserted him. What would happen next?
“The alpha will be coming soon,” the guard added, his eyes gleaming.
Oh, hell, no. He’d met Aidan Locke once, tried to kill him on the same day. Drew did not want to tangle with that fellow again. “I’m going to piss myself.”
The guard nodded. “Yep, that’s the reaction most folks have to Aidan.”
What? He jerked again as he fought his restraints. “Just let me go to the damn bathroom! You can tie me down again as soon as I’m done. There’s no window in the bathroom—no way out for me at all.” Then, hating it, he added, “Please.” Begging. So humiliating.
But the guard actually seemed to soften at the last word. “You’re right. Nowhere for you to go. Not like you’d get past me.” He sighed as he headed for the bed. “And I really don’t want to smell your piss on the sheets.” A few moments later, the straps were gone and Drew was lurching his way to the bathroom.
“Thank you,” he managed, voice nearly strangled. Then he shut the door on the guy. No lock, of course not. But…
Drew smiled.
The guard shouted, “I don’t hear you pissing!”
Drew flipped on the water. Then he bent down and picked up one of the broken mirror shards. The guard should have bothered to look in the bathroom. Hadn’t he heard the breaking glass? Captain Harris had sure run in fast enough.
Drew hid the shard behind his back as he left the bathroom.
“You left the water on, man,” the guard grumbled. “Conserve the damn earth, you know? Take care of it or…” The guard marched toward the bathroom, obviously intending to turn off the water himself. “Or it won’t take care of you,” the guard finished. His body brushed against Drew’s.
Drew attacked. He yanked up that shard of mirror and drove it into the man’s stomach. Once in his stomach.
Then one long slice across the guard’s throat. The better to stop any screams.
“I take care of myself,” Drew muttered. “Always.” Then he reached for the keys on the guard’s belt.
It was time for him to get the hell out of there, before Mary Jane came back with her alpha lover.
He couldn’t trust her, not anymore.
She’d changed. Now…
You’re one of them, Mary Jane.
And that broke his heart.
***
Aidan kicked open the door of the apartment that sat on the edge of the French Quarter. The place was on the second floor of one of the historic homes that dotted the area. The place had been updated, so that while the outside of the building spoke of its age, the interior was hipster trendy. He and two of his pack members rushed inside, even though he already kne
w…
The apartment is empty. He hadn’t been able to pick up any sounds from the apartment as he’d climbed up the stairs, so he knew his prey wasn’t waiting for him.
But this was the place that the video camera in that damn god-forsaken alley had been transmitting to—a laptop was still up, still sitting on a desk and a cup of coffee was even perched beside it. Aidan’s pack techs had traced the signal right to this location, and Aidan had closed in for the hunt.
Garrison strode forward and touched the mug. “Still warm,” he murmured. His red head tilted as he stared at the open laptop. “And the computer is still on. Looks as if someone was trying to delete files.”
Files…video footage? “We’ll take it to our techs.” They could retrieve the files, he had no doubt about that.
Paris began to prowl around the apartment. Aidan had picked Garrison and Paris to accompany him on this hunt…mostly because it was particularly personal and he trusted those two the most. Garrison might be reckless, but Aidan knew pack always came first for the guy.
“Fancy place,” Paris murmured. “The guy who was here has money.”
The guy liked lots of leather and big screen TVs and tech. Plenty of tech. The laptop wasn’t the only computer in the place. There were plenty of monitors and desktops. And…cameras.
Aidan had pulled strings and gotten the name of the guy who supposedly had been renting the apartment. John Smith. A bullshit name? Oh, he was fucking sure it was. And the fact that the guy had been paying in cash…You were trying to cover your tracks.
But when a werewolf was hunting, it was impossible to cover those tracks completely.
“There’s no scent here,” Paris announced, a frown pulling his lips down. “Humans always leave scents.”
“I don’t think we’re dealing with an average human,” Aidan said. If only it were that easy. “The guy knew what Jane was. He sent out his bait to lure her in, and he just watched while she was ambushed.” Which fucking pissed him off. The guy had been watching while Jane had fought for her life. He nodded toward Garrison. “Search the place. Every inch of it, got me?” Because maybe the watcher had been smart enough to cover his scent, but he might have been dumb enough to leave some other clue behind. A clue that cops—human cops—might overlook.