by Cynthia Eden
Just what…he wondered…would it take to interest a woman like her? His hand tightened around the balcony’s railing.
She gave a grim nod and then started walking toward Hell’s Gate. Anticipation flooded through him. He’d puzzled over her that day. He’d reassured some fucking panicked werewolves that she wasn’t a threat. That he was handling her. That she was his problem. His.
He’d figure out why she was different. He’d take care of her.
Aidan headed down the stairs, and when he reached the landing on the bar’s first floor, he saw that she was only steps away from him. She looked small and fragile, human, but he was willing to bet his sexy little detective had a gun tucked under her jacket.
Had she heeded his advice, though? Had she gotten herself some very much needed silver bullets? In this town, if she was truly going to step into his world, she’d need to better arm herself.
Knowing that eyes were on him—they always were—he stalked up to her and put his hands on her shoulders.
“All right, Locke,” Jane began, her voice sharp. “We need to—”
He kissed her. Mostly because he’d been curious about the way she would taste. He’d wondered how her lips would feel beneath his. He’d wondered…would the connection he felt for her wane with a taste? Or would it grow?
It fucking grew.
Because her lips were parted. His tongue could slip right inside, and it did. He pulled her closer, and her head tipped back. Her hands flew up and grabbed onto his arms, but she didn’t push him away, a good thing considering the eyes on them in that club.
Her small nails sank into his arms. And her sweet tongue—it tasted him, too.
The kiss wasn’t soft. Wasn’t a kind little public peck. He kissed her with a ferocious hunger, as if she were already naked in a bed under him. And she kissed him back with the same wild need.
He hadn’t expected it.
Hadn’t expected to feel the beast within him practically howling in pleasure because he’d found someone he wanted. Craved.
Someone he would have.
His cock shoved against the front of his jeans and since he was holding her so tightly, there was no way Jane missed his hard-on. A few more seconds, and he wouldn’t care about their audience. Hell, right then, he didn’t care. He wanted her clothes gone. He wanted to taste every single inch of her, and his beast sure wanted to take.
She shoved him back.
He went back, but only because he needed to get his splintering control in place. His heart was racing too fast. His breath heaved out, and his claws—he’d barely stopped them from springing out in that crowded bar.
“What in the hell are you doing?” She touched her lips. Lips that were swollen and red from his mouth.
He caught her hand. Laced his fingers through hers. “Missed you, too, sweetheart,” he murmured.
Her eyes widened. “What—”
Aidan pulled her through the crowd, heading for his office. People wisely got the fuck out of his way as he passed by them, pulling Jane in his wake. She was muttering behind him, and he even found her mutters cute, which meant he had a huge problem on his hands.
But where Jane was concerned, what else was new?
He let her hand go and shoved open the door to his office. Not really surprising him, Jane froze, not crossing that threshold. Her dark gaze cut suspiciously toward him.
He gave her a smile. A bit hard, considering the way his dick still shoved against his jeans, but he managed a wry, “Come into my lair,” for her.
Her eyes slid toward his office. Then back to him.
“Promise,” Aidan added. “I won’t bite.” Unless you ask. Then I’ll be happy to oblige.
Chapter Six
She crossed the threshold. Aidan followed her, making sure to lock the door because he didn’t want anyone else coming in after them. The office was sound-proofed, a very necessary precaution when other werewolves were in the area—their super sensitive hearing could mean secrets got spilled.
He wasn’t in the mood to spill secrets.
He saw Jane touch her lips again as she paced in front of his desk. “What was that about? Why did you kiss me?”
Propping his shoulders against the door, he leaned back and let his gaze sweep over her. “I want to fuck you.”
She stopped pacing.
“I thought the kiss made that pretty clear.” He lifted a brow. “Was I too vague? Should I try again?”
“You’re not supposed to say things like that.” Her voice had gone hoarse.
She obviously had him confused with a human. Her mistake. “What am I supposed to say? That you’re beautiful? That you charm me? That I look at you and ache?” His laughter was rough. “Those lines are for mortals, not for me. That isn’t the way I work.”
After drawing a quick breath, she took a step toward him. “How do you work?”
“I’m a very primitive kind of guy.” That was the flat truth. “When I see something I want, I take it.”
“I’m not something. I’m someone.”
“And I’m not the flowers and candy type. I am the type who’ll give you so much pleasure you’ll scream until you’re hoarse.”
She stared at him. “Got it. You’re the way too overconfident type.”
He laughed. Damn, but she was fun. “You can judge for yourself if I deliver on my promise.” Aidan pushed away from the wall and reached for her.
“No!” Jane gave a sharp shake of her head. “Don’t touch me! That’s just—that’s not why I’m here.” She frowned at him. “And I think you’re just trying to throw me off track.”
Maybe he was. Maybe he’d kissed her because he wanted her—he did want to fuck her until she screamed with pleasure—but he also wanted to protect her. Kissing her in public like that, showing the other wolves there just where he stood with her…
No one will hurt her. At least, not until he figured out just what secrets lovely Jane was hiding from him. Secrets would come out, they always did.
“Why are you here?” Aidan asked her, keeping his voice soft.
“Melanie.”
His back teeth clenched. “She’s gone, and she won’t be coming back.” Again.
“You said she was a vampire.”
Aidan tapped his chin. “Is that what I said?” Actually, he thought he’d said that vampires—
“I called the ME. Didn’t get into the whole bullshit fight about why he didn’t seem to remember seeing Melanie the first time she was on his table.”
He didn’t let his expression alter.
“I just demanded a report,” Jane said. “He told me wood splinters were found near her heart, in her heart. So I’m guessing she’d been staked, just like a vampire.”
They needed to be clear on this. “Melanie Wagner died the night you found her outside of Hell’s Gate. Whatever was in that alley—it wasn’t her any longer.”
Her shoulders squared. “Tell me everything. I want to know it all.”
He didn’t speak.
“Now you get quiet?” Her hand brushed through her hair. “Tell me what’s happening in this town. Vampires, werewolves—let me know what I’m up against! Because I’m not just going to give up. Melanie is my victim. My job is to give her justice. I need to stop her killer.”
“You’re willing to go up against a vampire?”
She swallowed. He caught the change in her scent, the quick flash of fear. His wolf liked that scent, but the man—Aidan didn’t like for her to be afraid. In fact, he wanted to make sure that she never experienced another moment of fear for the rest of her life.
“Tell me,” Jane said again. “Tell me everything I need to know.”
She needed a drink for that. Good thing he kept some whiskey handy. After all, he did own a bar. Without a word, Aidan went to the cabinet near his desk. He grabbed for the whiskey—twenty years old, and a gift he’d gotten when he’d come into power in New Orleans—and he poured her a glass.
She crept closer to him, and
when he offered her the drink, her brows furrowed.
“Sweetheart,” he drawled, “I’m about to rip your little world apart. Take the drink, you’ll thank me for it.”
“Like my world hasn’t been ripped apart before.” Jane swiped the drink from him and then she just tossed it back and downed it in two fast swallows.
“Uh, you were supposed to sip that,” he said.
She slammed the empty glass down on the cabinet. “Maybe I wanted more than a sip.”
Mental note—the woman could definitely handle her alcohol. She hadn’t so much as blinked when she downed the strongest whiskey he had.
Now she was tapping her foot, being all impatient and—still—sexy.
“You’re a werewolf,” she said.
“Guilty.” He flashed her a wide, wolfish smile.
“Do you…do you become an actual wolf?”
“If the mood is right.” If he got angry enough and the beast took over. If he let his control go just enough, then yeah, he’d shift. But most werewolves wouldn’t go that far. Most couldn’t. They got claws and sharp teeth, enhanced senses and extra strength. Only a precious few could actually shift. The bloodlines had become too weakened over time. “But I’m the exception, not the rule. For a modern day werewolf, you’re mostly looking at a guy with extra strength and amped up senses.”
“What about that little talent of making people forget?”
He stared at her.
“I was supposed to forget, remember? Is that something that all werewolves can do, or just you?”
“Most werewolves have a certain talent for…persuasion.” Her suspicion was plain to see so he added, “But my gift is stronger. I don’t just persuade, I control.”
Usually.
Not with her.
“How many werewolves are running around this city?”
“About fifty.”
“Jesus.”
“They’re just like humans—they look like humans. So they get angry or aroused and a bit of their beast side comes out, nothing to worry about. Werewolves actually want to stay hidden. They want to live with humans.”
She nodded. “Keep talking.”
“Werewolves aren’t the problem here. I handle them.”
“Because you’re the werewolf police.”
Was she mocking him? He couldn’t tell. He poured himself a whiskey and sipped the hell out of it. “I keep my city in line. I make sure no werewolves get too caught up in—”
“Persuading humans to do things?”
Yes. Because power could be too addictive. “Persuading. Going wild and using claws. The usual.”
She paled.
“It’s not the werewolves that humans need to fear. It’s the vampires. We’ve been keeping them out of this city for a long time now.” A really hard task considering the way the vamps flocked to New Orleans. Like there was some kind of beacon for them.
“So…” She licked her lips, a quick swipe of that sexy pink tongue. “When you say vamps…are we talking turning-into-bats, burning-in-sunlight, I’ll-drink-your-blood creatures? Or are they different, too?”
Vampires were his natural enemies. When a werewolf came around a vampire, the urge to kill exploded within him. There was no reason. There was no sanity.
There was just instinct.
Normally, the fights were brutal. Vicious. Last night, with Melanie, he’d held back. Only because he was strong. He’d felt a stirring of pity for her, and he’d ended her hell quickly.
“They’re different,” Aidan told her. If she was stepping into this world, she needed to be ready. Better to be armed with as much knowledge as possible. “Sunlight doesn’t do anything to them. They don’t ignite if the light hits them. They’re just—they’re stronger at night. The dark gives them strength, so most vamps come out then. They drink blood. They have an insatiable appetite for blood, especially the newly transformed.” Pity stirred within him once more as he remembered Melanie. “Those are the ones who don’t have a shot. All they know—it’s bloodlust. It consumes them. I’ve seen a newly turned vamp kill his own mother, his father, his sister—and never stop.” Not until Aidan had stopped him. He wouldn’t ever forget that carnage. The scent of blood had drawn him to the little house at the edge of the swamp. He’d gone in and walked into a bloody nightmare. The vamp had still been feeding on his sister.
A kid, maybe ten or eleven.
The vamp? He’d been hardly more than eighteen. Not even old enough to buy alcohol.
“How does someone become a vampire?”
“A few are born that way.” Those were the really scary bastards. The too-powerful vampires that were very, very hard to put down. Now, he was careful as he told her, “Genetic throwbacks, to a time long gone. They age normally unless…”
“Yeah, okay, don’t trail off like that.”
“Unless they die violently in the prime of their life. Something happens then. A trigger. Adrenaline kicks up their dormant genes, and they come back. They wake up—and they’re vampires.”
“So some people are just walking around with ticking time bombs inside of them?”
“Very few.” Precious fucking few. “Most are made.”
“How.” Not a question.
“A vamp feeds. Gorges. Takes enough blood to kill his prey, but right before that prey takes her last breath, the vamp gives her some of his blood.” He knew this had been the way for Melanie. “Those few drops are all that’s needed. The prey will die, for just a short while, and wake up to the bloodlust.” And he pitied anyone who got in that vampire’s path.
“That’s why you were at the morgue last night. You knew Melanie would wake up and be a vampire.”
He nodded. “I suspected she would. I saw the bite marks on her neck, same as you.” But bite marks didn’t mean a victim automatically became a vampire. Thanks to advances in science, there were ways to tell if a new bloodsucker would rise. He’d gone and talked to the ME. The plan had been to keep Melanie’s body secure until they were sure that she would change. Garrison and the rest of the clean-up crew had been given the job of tying up that loose end, only—
I wound up being the one who had to stake Melanie.
Her hand rose and slid along the slender column of her throat. “You put a stake in her heart.”
“She was killing a man when I found her. She came at me, fangs bared, eyes wild. I stopped her.” His hands clenched into fists. “Or should I have let her keep going? Vamps get an extra power rush when they have werewolf blood. She could have fed from me and then gone out and killed ten humans. Maybe twenty or—”
“Stop it.” She spun away from him.
“I’ve been keeping the vamps out of this town for a while now.” And he’d been keeping the body count to a minimum. “I’ll find the guy who did this to Melanie. I’ll stop him.”
Jane glanced over her shoulder. “Because you’ll stake him?”
“Stake him. Take his head.” Another sure fire way to kill a vampire. “Burn his ass to ashes.”
Jane flinched.
“Those are the three ways that work best. Otherwise, a vamp will just keep coming at you.”
Her shoulders hunched. “Vampires. Freaking vampires.”
Don’t forget the werewolves, sweetheart.
“That whiskey wasn’t even nearly enough for me,” Jane said. Slowly, she turned back to face him. “Who else knows about all this?”
He didn’t let his expression change.
“I’m guessing there are people in power here who know, right? Government officials in New Orleans? No way everyone is in the dark. No way you persuade everyone to forget.”
There were some secrets he could share with her, and some he couldn’t.
When the silence stretched too long, she let out a frustrated sigh. “And what was up with the dead guy? I mean, I’m supposed to buy that it’s just coincidence that right after I meet you and learn about all this craziness—and have to deal with a staked vampire—I suddenly have someone tr
ying to abduct me? Someone who winds up dead, with silver bullets in him.”
His gaze flickered to her.
“The ME confirmed that to me. And since your fingertips were burning when you dug the bullet chunks out of your body earlier—a truly crazy thing to do by the way—I’m guessing the person who shot you is the same one who shot the man we found.”
He’d figured the same thing. “His friends turned on him because they knew I had his scent. I was tracking him. You’d seen his face—you could ID him. He screwed up, and the guy paid for it with his life.”
“His friends? They hardly sound like friends to me.” She wrapped her arms around her stomach.
Aidan inclined his head. “They were probably more like business associates.”
“Hired to do a job.” Her voice lowered as she mused, “And abducting me was the job? Why?”
Now he went to her, taking his time about it. Jane backed up until she hit his desk. Aidan kept closing in on her. He didn’t touch her, though, but he leaned in close and put his hands down—palms flat—on either side of her body, caging her between him and the desk. Her scent wrapped around him. Tempted him far too much. “Maybe someone else found out that you were…special.”
“Because you couldn’t make me forget?” Her words were a husky whisper. “How would they even know that?”
“Someone saw you.” It was the only thing that made sense to him. “Probably outside of Hell’s Gate, when you first found Melanie. Someone saw you there, and then that same person saw you when you found Melanie the second time. The watcher realized you’d forgotten nothing.”
“Someone is stalking me? Is that what you’re saying?”
“Someone is…interested in you, now.”
Her eyes were so wide and dark. “Melanie’s killer.”
That was who he suspected. “It would make sense the vamp would want to go back and find his new creation. Only Melanie wasn’t out feeding—she’d been put down.”
“She wasn’t an animal. You don’t put down people!”
She wouldn’t understand. Jane still didn’t grasp the way the paranormal world worked. “She was rabid. She would have killed anyone in her path.”