by Cynthia Eden
The alpha protected his pack.
Garrison’s lips parted. “H-help—”
The ceiling groaned again. Jane bent, grabbed his arm and she jumped out of that gaping hole in the wall. She leapt into the air, still holding Garrison tightly, and for a moment, she could hear the whistle of the wind around her. The people below her were screaming, she could see their open mouths, but she didn’t hear those screams. Just the wind. Her body was light, weightless. She was soaring.
She was flying.
She was—
Falling.
Shit.
Garrison slipped from her hold. She tried to grab him, tried to grab—
She hit the concrete. The wind stopped whistling. Everything just stopped.
***
When Jane slammed into the concrete, the watcher’s breath left him in a quick rush. He’d been standing in the crowd, blending perfectly because he’d followed Jane’s lead and taken a firefighter’s uniform. It had been easy enough to slip up behind one of the firefighters…and to slit his throat. The poor bastard was currently dead—and naked—in a nearby dumpster. It was so easy to hide dark deeds in chaos.
Jane had just come hurtling from that building, dragging some smoking redhead with her—literally, the dumbass had smoke rising from his clothes—and they were both on the ground.
When she hit the pavement, no one moved at first. He watched, waiting for Jane to leap up and race to her werewolf lover.
Only she didn’t move.
People began to inch toward her.
“Stay back!” A woman yelled. Then he saw the flash of a badge. “I’m police captain Vivian Harris, and I’m ordering everyone to stand the hell back so I can assess the scene and help these people!”
First of all…they weren’t people. And second…they sure seemed pretty far from the whole “help” stage to him.
He backed away from Jane and turned his attention to Aidan.
Aidan Locke. Werewolf alpha. He’d met the wolf before, and he sure hadn’t been impressed then. Aidan was covered in burns, but he was obviously still alive. His breath hissed out, and his eyelids were flickering.
“J-Jane…”
How unsurprising. Even hurt, his first thought was of her.
I’ll make sure she’s your last thought, too. After all, that was part of his job. To stop their bond. To shatter the link between them.
Soon enough, they’d tear each other apart. But right then, he had another assignment. He slipped away from the crowd and moved toward the ambulance on the right. Three ambulances were at the scene but he focused on this one. The one that housed Paris Cole.
Aidan’s best friend.
Aidan’s pack mate.
One EMT was in the back of the ambulance with Paris. A brace was around Paris’s neck and Paris…he looked like hell. But then, that was expected considering the bomb that he’d left for the wolves up in that apartment. John Smith. Not his real name, of course. He couldn’t use his real name now. It would have tipped off Jane and Aidan too much.
“How is he?” he asked, trying to sound concerned. And he was a bit concerned. If Paris was already dead, this little experiment wouldn’t work. He’d have to find another guinea pig. Guinea wolf?
The blonde EMT jerked at his voice and glanced up at him. “I don’t even know how he’s still alive,” she said, voice breathless. “But I’m praying he can make it to the hospital. Did you see him? He came from the second story!”
“They all did,” he said quietly. “The building was collapsing. I don’t think they had a choice. It was jump or die.”
Her eyes widened.
“I have training,” he said, still trying to sound like he cared. “Let me help you. There isn’t anything else I can do back there.” He jerked his thumb toward the fire. Then, without waiting for her response, he climbed into the back of the ambulance.
His gaze focused on Paris’s neck. The brace was there, so…did that mean his neck was broken? The guy is still breathing. So that means this shit should work. His hand reached into his pocket.
“I’ve got this,” the blonde said quickly. “My partner will be here soon and—”
He drove a needle into her neck. She immediately slumped over. The drug was fast, it knocked out its prey immediately, but unconsciousness only lasted for mere moments. He had to work fast, especially if her partner really was coming back.
He reached inside his borrowed uniform and took out another vial. One that was filled with a thick, red fluid. Blood.
Very special blood. He opened Paris’s mouth and emptied that blood inside. “You were supposed to die today,” he whispered. “But maybe this is even better.” Paris swallowed automatically, a reflex that made things so much easier. When he was sure that Paris had gotten the blood down, he shoved the empty vial into a pocket. Then he leaned over Paris once more. “I don’t think your neck is broken…” And Paris was starting to get color in his cheeks already. That just wouldn’t do.
After all, he did need a good test subject.
“Here, let me help you with that.” Fitting, considering the way Mary Jane Hart had been transformed. Smiling, he put his hands on either side of Paris’s neck and he yanked, twisting as hard to the right as he could.
Paris jerked, then shuddered…and lay very, very still.
“That’s so much better.” He hurried from the ambulance. He jumped down just in time to see…
Jane. Being zipped up into a body bag.
Ah, Jane…I know you won’t stay dead.
So did his boss.
***
Jane opened her eyes and sucked in a deep breath. Darkness surrounded her, complete and total. Her body ached and her fangs throbbed in her mouth. She strained, trying to see through the dark, trying to find light, but there was nothing.
Where is Aidan? What happened to me?
Her hands lifted and she discovered that something was over her. Some kind of—of fabric? Hard, rough. She kicked out with her legs and found that they were trapped, too. It was as if she were sealed up in something. Locked up.
Bagged.
Oh, my God, no. Understanding hit her with a brutal punch. A body bag.
Revulsion built in her chest and she clawed at the bag above her head. Clawed until it ripped beneath her fingers and cool air spilled down to her. Air and light and—
“Easy, Jane.”
She stilled.
A hand—with slightly plump fingers and super soft skin—touched her wrist. “You’re okay,” that reassuring voice told her. “A whole lot of humans just saw your swan dive out of the burning building, so Vivian and I had to do the best damage control we could.” He pulled her up, easing her out of the bag.
She stared at Dr. Bob Heider, chief medical examiner. The medical examiner’s eyes were worried behind the tortoiseshell frames of his glasses. The lines on his face were deeper and he smelled of smoke.
Wait, maybe that’s me. I’m the smoky one.
“Had to tag you and bag you,” he murmured, wincing a bit. “After all, everyone on the scene thought you were a corpse.”
“I’m not.” The words came out sounding funny because her fangs were fully extended. She was so freaking thirsty.
She was also sitting in the remains of her own body bag. Jane knew this horror scene would play through her head too many nights to come. Just what I needed. A new nightmare.
“Well, if we’re going to get technical,” Dr. Bob began, voice taking on that weird musing tone of his.
Her eyes narrowed on him. “Aidan.” He’d better not be in a body bag, too—
“He still had a pulse on scene.” Dr. Bob’s lips turned down. “Vivian saw to it that he and Garrison were taken out to the werewolf compound for treatment. She’s with them, don’t worry. She’ll make sure they are taken care of.”
“You should be with them. You’re the doctor who knows the score about them.” Long before she’d stumbled into the werewolf world, Dr. Bob Heider had been on Aidan’s
payroll. Dr. Bob was the ME who always handled the paranormal cases. Or rather, he was the doc who made sure the paranormal victims never found their way into civilian hands. “You could help Aidan! You could—” But Jane stopped. She’d just realized that her hand looked funny. Dr. Bob still gripped her wrist with his soft fingers but her…her nails were wrong. Too long. Too sharp. A dark black.
They weren’t nails at all. They were claws.
Claws like a werewolf would have. She’d clawed her way out of that bag.
“I saw them at the scene,” he told her and his fingers slid away from her wrist. “Once I glimpsed that new manicure job of yours, I figured you’d need me when you woke up.” He paused. “After all, the alpha can heal from anything, right? But you…I didn’t know about you.”
Tears stung her eyes. She couldn’t look away from those claws. “How do I make them go away?”
“I don’t know.”
“How do I—” But then her head snapped up. She stared at him, her mind slowly processing all that he’d said in the moments after she’d woken. “Aidan…and Garrison.” Aidan was alive. Alive! Dr. Bob had said they’d been taken to the werewolf compound—she knew that safe haven was hidden deep in the swamp. But they hadn’t been the only werewolves in the fire. “What about…Paris?”
Dr. Bob looked away from her.
No, he wasn’t looking away. He was looking at the other black body bag on the nearby exam table.
“No.” Jane shook her head. “That’s not happening.”
“His…his neck broke, Jane. When he came flying from the building—”
“When I threw him from the building.” Her body started shuddering. Jerking.
Dr. Bob swallowed. “He didn’t make it. If we’d been able to give him Aidan’s blood sooner, it might have made a difference, but…by the time I reached him in the ambulance, he was dead. The EMT was working frantically on him, I tried to help her, but…there was nothing to be done.”
Jane shoved at the bag that still imprisoned her legs. She jumped from the slab—slab, table, whatever the hell it was—and staggered toward Paris. Her claws ripped into his bag, pushing it out of her way. His face was so still. Burned, blistered. His eyes were closed, his heavy lashes casting shadows on his cheeks.
Paris had always been so handsome. The ladies’ man. Charming.
And…
Now he’s dead. Because of me. “I tricked him into going back inside.” Her words tumbled out. “Acted like he was the one going to rescue Aidan when I knew I’d be going into the flames, too.”
“Jane…” Dr. Bob began.
“I did this.”
Oh, God. She’d killed Paris. She’d killed Aidan’s best friend. She’d done this.
Dr. Bob curled his hand around her shoulder and—
Paris’s eyes flew open. He sucked in a sharp breath.
What?
His lips curled back from his teeth and she saw his growing…fangs.
“Fuck me,” Dr. Bob swore as his hold tightened on Jane’s shoulder. “You did this.”
***
He hurt.
Aidan eased open one eye. He saw the familiar dark wood furniture of his bedroom. Saw the huddled figure of Police Captain Vivian Harris as she stared down at him from the right side of his bed.
“Jane…” Her name slipped from him. Jane needed to know about what had happened. She’d been on the phone with him. She’d been asking him to control her brother…
Then hell had exploded all around him.
It did more than explode…for a while there, I swear I was being dragged right down to hell. For a moment, he’d lost everything.
“The burns have faded,” Vivian told him, her voice brisk. “I didn’t think that even you could come back from damage that bad.”
He opened his other eye. Sat up. Groaned as he felt the weakness in his body. Weakness and…
Hunger.
“You risked your life for Garrison.” Now her voice was more angry than brisk. “If Jane hadn’t gone into the fire after you, hell, you and the pup would both be dead—”
He grabbed her wrist. “Jane.” His hand was trembling. He was trembling. He was so damn weak.
And he swore he could still feel the flames, melting away his skin. Destroying him. Killing him. Then…
Hunger…
Aidan swallowed. He ran his tongue over the edge of his teeth. His canines were sharp. Too sharp. “Jane…wasn’t in the fire.” Jane had been on the phone with him. She’d wanted him to help her brother.
The only help is death.
“Yes, she was there.” Vivian met his stare directly. She’d always done that—never flinched away. She was one of the few werewolves who’d never feared him and who’d always had his back. “The woman ran into the fire and threw you out of that building. She knocked a wall down to do it, but…”
No. No. His hold tightened on her wrist. “Where is she now?” He needed to see her. Needed to make sure she never went into another fucking fire again.
Jane saved me? And he couldn’t remember. He could only recall fire. Flames eating at his flesh. Garrison begging him to run.
But Aidan hadn’t been able to leave the other wolf. He’d known Garrison would never survive the flames. He’d tried to protect him but—
Chill bumps rose on his skin. The fire was too strong. Too strong even for me.
“Jane’s with Dr. Heider.”
He freed Vivian and rolled to the edge of the bed. Aidan stood up.
And promptly fell on his ass.
“Aidan.” She sighed his name as she bent to help him up. “I just watched your body completely regenerate over the course of hours. You should have been dead. You—damn, alpha, you looked like you’d literally walked through hell. Your skin was melting.”
Okay, that wasn’t the best image to carry around, but he knew she spoke the truth. He’d felt it melting. He’d felt hell. Hell had wanted to hold tight to him but…
I came back.
“I get that you want to rush off to find Jane, but you aren’t one hundred percent, not yet. So…” She shoved him back on the bed. “Keep your ass here until you finish recovering. Jane is tough. She saved you, right? She can handle a few more hours on her own.”
It didn’t make sense to him. If Jane had gotten him out, why wasn’t she with him? Jane wouldn’t just leave him.
Vivian’s gaze darted away from him. “Sleep longer. We’ll talk more later.” She turned and headed for the door, her steps quick. “I’ll let the others know that you’re nearly back to fighting form.” Her hand reached for the door knob.
“Was Jane hurt?” A vampire should never have gone into the fire. She’d risked death…
For me.
They seriously needed to get the hell out of town. Away from blood and fires and danger. Maybe they should go on a cruise or some shit. Do what normal people did for a change. Cruises left from New Orleans nearly every day. They could go drink some rum in Grand Cayman.
“Jane was hurt…a little,” Vivian allowed. She hadn’t looked back at him.
A lot. “She’s alive.”
Her shoulders squared.
“Look at me.”
She turned. “She is alive but…”
He hated buts.
“But it was best for us to remove her from the scene in a body bag. People—humans—had just watched her fly out of a second story window and crash head-first into concrete. I wasn’t sure if you were going to make it or not, so I couldn’t count on you hunting down all of the witnesses and making them forget about Jane. So…we zipped her up.”
He grabbed for the bed covers. “Body…bag?”
“The humans at the scene bought the act. She was knocked out, barely seemed to breathe, and Dr. Heider was the one who pronounced her dead.” She paused. “Undead,” Vivian muttered.
His eyes narrowed.
“We got her out of there. She’ll wake up with him. He’s got a new lab that he’s using and he took her there.�
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Right. Because his last lab had been destroyed—Aidan remembered that destruction all too well.
“He’ll check her out and then I’m sure Jane will be rushing back to your side.” Vivian gave a hard nod. “So rest, alpha. Your mate is safe.”
For the moment. “The place was wired to explode. The minute Garrison opened that back bedroom, he triggered a bomb. I heard the snick of the detonator. I only had seconds to get Paris out—” He gave a rough laugh. “He’s going to be pissed at me for throwing him through the window.”
“No.” She turned away. Yanked open the door. “I’m sure he won’t be pissed at all.” Moments later, the door closed behind her with a soft click. He heard the pad of her footsteps as they faded away.
And…
Aidan heard her crying.
Strange. Vivian never cried. She never showed any weakness at all.
She was lying to me.
He slipped from the bed and pushed to his feet once more. Dizziness swept through him. Dizziness and a dark, twisting hunger.
A hunger for…
Blood.
He staggered toward his bathroom. His hands gripped the granite countertop and he stared at his reflection. His skin was a light pink, but there were no deep blisters. No blood. He could remember the horrible agony of his flesh burning. The smell had made him wretch. He’d been trying to think of a way to get Garrison out of there, but the fire had been out of control.
He’d been about to collapse, in so much agony, hurting beyond measure. Desperate and…
Hungry.
He leaned toward the mirror and saw that his canines had lengthened. Sharpened. Sure, that happened sometimes—his teeth got sharper when he shifted into the form of a wolf.
Only he wasn’t shifting right then.
She’s changing you. Paris’s voice whispered through his mind.
There was a soft knock on his bedroom door. He inhaled and recognized his visitor’s scent. “Come in!” Aidan called, his hands still gripping the countertop.
The door opened. Footsteps shuffled inside.
“Vivian said…she said you were okay.”
Aidan shoved away from the sink. He stalked back into his bedroom. Garrison was there, pale, blistered, and…