by Cynthia Eden
But Paris just growled. And he was jerking his head, trying to see around Aidan to look at Jane.
“He…He had some of my blood.” Jane’s voice was halting. “At Dr. Bob’s lab…I told you that Paris bit me. He kept that blood down.”
But it sure hadn’t calmed him down from the look of things.
“I can give him more,” Jane said quickly. “Just to tide him over.”
But Aidan shook his head, and even though he hated to say it, he had to voice his fear. “What if your blood makes him…worse, Jane?”
She sucked in a sharp painful breath.
Shit. “Your blood is changing me.” Why deny it? He figured they all needed to get past the denial stage. “We have no idea what it could do to him.”
Vincent gave a grim nod. “Can’t believe I’m saying this but…I agree with the alpha.”
Paris snarled. Spittle flew from his mouth.
“He shouldn’t even be a vamp,” Vincent added “We don’t want to fuck things up any more than they already are.”
“So I’m fucked up now?” Jane’s voice had gone completely flat.
No, to him, she was completely perfect but…
I don’t want her giving up her blood. Aidan pushed his forearm against Paris’s mouth. He felt those fangs slide deep into him, sinking hard and then—
Paris stilled. His lashes had closed when he bit Aidan. For a moment, they stayed closed as if he were savoring his meal, but then his lashes slowly lifted. The wildness seemed to fade from his golden gaze, the insanity cleared for a mere instant in time.
And Aidan was staring into his friend’s eyes again.
Paris tore his mouth from Aidan. Blood dripped from his lips. “K-kill…me…” Paris rasped out the words.
Aidan shook his head. “No, you don’t want—”
But Paris nodded, even as the sanity began to seep from his gaze. “Kill me…” Then, in a quick rush, he whispered, “Before I kill you.”
And Paris lunged toward him, snapping the chain that bound his right wrist. Aidan grabbed his friend and slammed Paris back, ramming Paris’s head into the heavy stone of the wall.
Thunk.
Paris dropped to the floor.
“You killed him!” Annette cried.
But Aidan shook his head. “He’ll rise again in a few hours.” Because if you wanted to kill a vamp, there were only a few tricks that really worked.
A stake to the heart.
A beheading.
Fire.
Annette scrambled to Paris’s side, her fingers flying over him.
Aidan’s hands clenched into fists.
“Well, that bought us a bit of time.” Vincent inclined his head toward Aidan. “Why don’t we finish this outside?”
Aidan would like to finish him outside. Ending the vamp’s life had never been more tempting but…
We need him, for the moment. Jane had been right. So Aidan turned on his heel and walked away. He forced himself not to look back. If he did, he’d just see Paris’s prone body. He’d hear his friend, begging him…
Kill me.
It was the job an alpha was supposed to perform—stopping blood-lust crazed vamps from hurting others. But…to kill Paris?
That’s a job I never hoped to have.
***
Jane watched as Aidan walked away. His steps were rough, angry, and his hands were still clenched into tight fists.
“And that’s the guy you think you want to spend eternity with?” Vincent mumbled under his breath. “Right, good luck with all of that.”
Jane’s gaze flew over to lock with his. “We need to secure Paris.”
“I think the massive brain trauma that your boyfriend just gave him is security enough for the moment but…” Vincent turned away, headed for a closet, and came back with a new manacle and chain. In moments, he’d replaced the one that Paris had so effortlessly ripped from the wall. “That will hold him.”
Maybe.
Annette was sitting on the floor near Paris, her legs tucked neatly under her. Her hand was lightly stroking his cheek, such a tender touch.
A lump rose in Jane’s throat. She could see it now—the connection between Paris and Annette. “How long have you loved him?”
Annette’s hand stilled. “Don’t be ridiculous,” she said, her voice emotionless. “I hardly know the man at all.” Then she reached into her bag and pulled out—was that dirt? Sure looked like it. And Annette was sprinkling the dirt around Paris’s body.
“What are you doing, witch?” Vincent demanded.
Annette’s head turned, a bit snakelike, and her eyes locked on him. “I’m no witch.”
He blinked. “I-I didn’t mean any disrespect.”
Annette rose to her feet. “I’m a voodoo queen, just like my mother, like my grandmother, like my great-grandmother. Power flows through my blood and through me. I get that you use a witch to work spells for you, and that’s just grand for you. But I am Annette Benoit, and no one uses me.”
He held up his hands. “My apologies,” he said very formally. “I won’t make that mistake again.”
“You’d better not.” Her gaze cut to Jane. “What I’m doing…I’m protecting all of us. And Paris. The dirt from the dead will keep Paris enclosed within the circle I create. He won’t be able to get out and attack us. So we should have a chance to figure out what’s going on—how we can help him.”
“Dirt from the dead?” Jane repeated carefully.
“Dirt taken from a cemetery under the light of a full moon.” Annette rolled one shoulder in a delicate shrug. “You’d be surprised what things hold incredible power in this world.”
Jane thought she was looking at someone who held incredible power right then.
“I’ll stay with him,” Annette said, giving a quick nod. “Go talk to Aidan. Go…try to stop some of the chaos that’s taking over this town.”
Vincent had turned on his heel and stalked away. But Jane didn’t move to follow him. Because, to her, Paris turning into a vamp seemed like the biggest chaos right then. She should stay and—
Annette’s lips curled down in a sad smile. “Your world is going to rip apart, Jane. I hope you’re still standing when it’s all over.”
Great. More murky warnings from Annette. Must be Tuesday…or Wednesday…or Thursday. Or any day. “It would help me so much,” Jane told her quietly, “if you just said what I needed to avoid. You know, before I became a vampire, it would have been awesome if you just said, ‘Jane, don’t go to Tulane! Your ass will get messed up there!’”
Annette blinked at her. “It doesn’t work that way.”
“If you know something bad will happen, you should tell me! What good is having an all-seeing friend if she won’t tell me exactly what she sees?” Jane threw her hands into the air and turned away.
She’d only taken a few steps when Annette’s soft voice stopped her. “Are we really friends now?”
Jane glanced back at her. “Yes, I think we are.”
Annette licked her lips. “I can’t see things…as well as I used to. The future, I mean. My mirror shattered and…” Once more, she shoved her hand into her bag. This time, she pulled out a few chunks of black, broken glass. “This is all I have left. So when I look, I see bits and pieces.”
“You can still share those bits with me.”
Annette nodded, but she still hesitated. “You owe me, Jane. Do you remember that? Once, you promised that you would pay me back a favor. You’d give me something I wanted, no questions asked.”
She didn’t exactly remember the no questions asked part but…
“Help me save Paris,” Annette pleaded.
Tears stung Jane’s eyes again. “I did this to him. I was just trying to get him out of the fire—I never meant—”
Annette’s dark gaze held hers as Jane’s words tumbled to a halt. “Help me.”
“I will,” Jane promised. “But not as some favor I owe. But because Paris is my family, too. I want him back. I want
to fix this.”
But inside she worried, she feared…
There are some things that can’t be fixed.
***
As Jane’s footsteps faded away, Annette knelt beside Paris once more. She brushed back his hair, and her fingers drifted over his cheek.
Paris Cole had been fighting darkness for most of his life. It didn’t seem right that the darkness should now try to claim him. No, not right at all.
How did a werewolf become a vampire?
Jane changed the rules, for all of them. Annette had known that truth, she just hadn’t wanted to face it. Now, there was no choice, not for any of them.
Carefully, she spread out the chunks of her precious black mirror. She would have to forge a new mirror soon, but building a mirror like that would drain her power, and with all the danger coming to their town, she couldn’t afford to be weak, not even for a moment.
So the new mirror had to wait.
Her fingers fluttered over the chunks of glass. When she’d touched Paris’s cheek, a drop of his blood had gotten onto her finger. Now, she smeared that blood on a chunk of the glass. She wanted to look into that mirror, and see Paris fighting the darkness. She wanted to see him surviving. Having his control back.
She stared into the glass and her heart chilled.
She could see Paris, an image shimmering in her mind’s eye. He was strong. He was whole. He was…
Sinking his teeth into Aidan. Drinking from the alpha, gorging on his blood.
Annette threw the chunks of glass against the wall. A sob broke from her. “I won’t let this be your end. I won’t.” Then she began to chant, low and fast.
Who said magic couldn’t change the world?
Magic could change anything, even fate.
Provided, of course, that the magic used was very, very dark.
As dark as a werewolf’s tortured soul.
***
“He must have been given vampire blood. No other explanation for it.” Vincent paced along the sidewalk. Dawn had come, but the sun barely peeked in the sky. Darkness still hung heavily in the city.
Jane glanced at Vincent—suave, polished Vincent who barely had so much as a hair out of place, despite their hellish night. Then her gaze slid to Aidan. Her Aidan. His hair was thick and wild, his eyes blazing, and the t-shirt he wore stretched over the powerful muscles of his chest and shoulders.
It was a good thing Aidan kept spare clothes in his car. Because after that shift at the lab, he’d been stark naked.
“I never gave him vamp blood,” Aidan spat. “So try another explanation.”
“Maybe you didn’t…” Now Vincent focused on Jane. “But maybe she did.”
What? Jane held up her hands. “Slow down there, asshole. I did not. I didn’t so much as even nip the guy when he asked me to, all right? I know how werewolves feel about vamps. It’s not like I’d ever want to give him this fate.”
Her fate.
“I’ve never known of a werewolf to become a vampire,” Vincent said as he began to rub the back of his neck. “And I’ve been around a long time. It’s just…not done.”
“Uh, obviously, it’s done.” Jane pointed to the building behind them. “Got an undead buddy in there who is proof of that fact.”
Vincent’s mouth clamped shut.
Aidan crossed his arms over his chest and studied the vamp. “You’re telling me that you’ve never heard of this before? I thought your ass was alive when the Vikings were here—”
“I was a Viking,” Vincent began hotly, “so don’t tell me—”
“Because I’m not buying,” Aidan continued, cutting right over his words. “That this has never happened before. Someone knows what is going on. Someone can fix this!”
“I’ll put a call in to my witch.” Before Aidan could respond, Vincent threw up his hand. “And, yes, she’s a real witch, with more power than anyone I know.” He hesitated. “Aside from Annette Benoit.”
Jane inched closer to him. “Will your witch be able to help?”
“Possibly. Maybe. I don’t know.”
So he wasn’t exactly building them up on hope.
“I’ll get Lena out here as soon as I can, okay? She was a bit angry at me the last time I saw her, but I can convince her to help us out.”
That was something.
“In the meantime, we keep Paris here,” Vincent added doggedly. “We keep trying to feed him blood—your blood, alpha. He didn’t spit it back up, so that means he can survive on it. We give him enough, and maybe we’ll reach the guy’s humanity once more. If his control can hold, then he’ll have a fighting chance.” But he shook his head grimly. “Either you were born to change, or you weren’t. Humans weren’t meant to grow fangs, and werewolves—hell, they definitely weren’t meant to live on a blood diet.”
“The rules have changed,” Aidan said.
Jane’s head turned toward him. He was staring at her, and his eyes seemed to shine with the power of his beast. A shiver slid over her.
“You changed the rules,” Aidan said, almost as an accusation.
Another shiver. “I never meant to,” Jane said. She’d never wanted to be a vampire. That choice—it hadn’t been one that she’d ever wanted. She squared her shoulders and marched closer to him. “We’re going to find a way to help Paris.”
He stared back at her. “We are,” Jane said. “Stronger when we’re together, remember? We can do this.”
Vincent gave a bark of rough laughter, drawing her stare. “Stronger together? You two are lethal together, when are you going to realize that? A werewolf with a vampire—it’s an abomination to nature. That’s why your friend is in there suffering. Because the two of you wouldn’t fucking stay apart. How many others will you destroy before you finally get a clue?” He shook his head and turned away from them.
Aidan strode away from Jane and grabbed Vincent’s shoulder. “You and I aren’t done.”
A muscle jerked in Vincent’s jaw. “Still mad because I made sure she came back as a vampire, huh? You know, instead of being all enraged, maybe you should try being grateful. After all, I’m the one who made it so that Jane is around, permanently. No death for her—provided, of course, she doesn’t get herself burned to ash because she’s saving your sorry hide.”
Aidan’s eyes took on a beastly glow.
“Aidan,” Jane said quickly. “Don’t.” She knew he wanted to rip Vincent apart but… “We need him, remember? Let the guy go and get his witch. For Paris.”
Aidan held Vincent’s gaze for a moment longer. She honestly thought there was a fifty-fifty shot that Aidan would ignore her and just cut off the vamp’s head right then and there. Jane tensed…
But then Aidan was reaching for her. His fingers tangled with hers and held tight.
Vincent’s gaze dropped to their hands. “And there it is.” His lips twisted in a mocking smile. “She’ll be the death of you one day, alpha.”
And then…the vamp vanished. Oh, Jane knew he hadn’t just disappeared into thin air. He used magic to make it seem as if he’d faded into nothing. Magic provided by the mysterious Lena.
“Can’t wait to meet his witch,” Jane murmured. “I want her to take away whatever spell lets him do that shit.”
Aidan pulled her closer.
She glanced up and fury blazed at her from the depths of his blue eyes, and, hell, it was a fury that he was more than entitled to feel. Jane lifted her chin. “I’m going to make this right, I swear, I am—”
In a flash, he’d shoved her against the brick walls of that old club. His hands locked hers above her head. And his grip was…strong. Very, very strong. So strong that even with her vamp enhancements, Jane wasn’t sure she could break away from him.
“You went into the fire,” Aidan snarled.
Were they back to that? “Aidan…”
He kissed her. Angry, rough, but, jeez, it was still Aidan and when Aidan kissed her, her body reacted with an instant fever. She got turned on, she got hot, sh
e got…
I want him.
His mouth lifted from hers. “I can’t do it without you.”
Jane blinked up at him.
“I can feel myself changing. Every damn minute, my sanity…my hold on my humanity…Jane, it’s slipping away.”
Fear had her heart racing faster. “What?”
“You and Paris…you two are my anchors. You keep me in check. But now he’s in there…” And he stepped away from her. He freed her hands and started to pace. “Shit, he’s in there, chained up, and the bastard wants me to kill him!”
Her heart drummed even faster. “He’s half-mad from the change. He doesn’t know—”
Aidan scrubbed his hands over his eyes. “He knows. When he told me to kill him, he was Paris, not some blood-lust insane vamp. He wanted me to end him.” His hand fell. “And I didn’t.”
She wanted to reach out to him. Wanted to pull him close. To take away his pain. But Jane didn’t know how.
Especially since I think I’m the one who caused his pain. “Aidan…”
He drove his hand into the brick wall. The bricks cracked, chunks went flying, and Jane saw the deep indention that had been left by his blow.
“I…I’m the fucking leader.” His fist stayed embedded in the wall. His head tilted forward as his shoulders slumped. “I know what I should do. As a werewolf alpha, I know.”
His pain was gutting her. She reached out for him, but when Jane touched his arm, Aidan flinched, then he whirled toward her.
And she saw his face.
His…fangs.
They were out. Sharp. Wicked, wicked sharp. The fangs of a vampire, not a wolf.
“Aidan?”
“But I’m not just a werewolf any longer.” And even his voice had changed. Deeper. Darker. “I won’t give up what’s mine. Not my friend.”
She was frozen to the spot.
He wasn’t. He reached for her. Pulled Jane close. She could feel the hot stir of his breath on her neck.
“And not you. Not ever fucking you.” His fangs sank into her. No marking from a werewolf, but a vampire’s bite. The pain was a white-hot flash, and then…pleasure. Seeming to burn through her veins. She gasped and held on to him, shuddering. Her breasts tightened, her nipples ached, and Jane found herself pushing closer to him, needing to touch him, wanting more of him. Wanting everything. Wanting—