by Cynthia Eden
“I hear them, Liam,” Alerac said. But he didn’t move.
Jane frowned. She didn’t hear any sirens. She was getting that their senses were a lot better than hers. Scary since Jane had already thought that her vision was pretty sharp. She could see well in the dark, could catch a scent from half a mile away, and she’d once heard a baby cry from four blocks down the road.
Just how good are their senses? Jane wasn’t sure she wanted to find out.
“You don’t know me.” Alerac said this with certainty.
She nodded.
She didn’t know him, and he’d just left a street corner full of blood behind him.
“I know you,” he told her. There was something in those words, an intimacy, that had her body tensing.
“You’ve been found, little vampire,” he murmured as his shining gaze held hers. No wonder he’d worn sunglasses in the bar. Those eyes would have scared all of the humans right out of the place. “Now that you’ve been found, you’re going to find yourself in the middle of a war.”
“I-I don’t want a war.” The other wolves were shifting back into the forms of men. Coming to stand around them. Glaring. They all seemed to hate her.
All but Alerac.
He looked at her as if—as if he wants to devour me.
She didn’t want to be a snack for the big, bad wolf.
Alerac wasn’t looking away from her. “Some will want to kill you. They’ll want to torture you just to hear you beg.”
This couldn’t be happening. She wasn’t in to the torture scene, not at all.
“Some will want to use you. A pawn with no fuckin’ clue.”
Her eyes narrowed. “What is it that you want?”
To use her? To torture her?
That glowing stare drifted over her face. “You. I’ll keep you alive, but in return, I get you.”
Then she could finally hear the sirens, too. Like screams in the night.
“Live or die, your choice,” the one he’d called Liam said. “Just choose fast.”
She didn’t want to die. What waited for someone like her on the other side? Jane was afraid to find out. If she was a vampire, did that mean she was some kind of abomination? “Live,” she said, lifting her chin.
Alerac smiled. “Good, because you really didn’t have a choice.”
Her lashes flickered.
Liam tossed some clothing and shoes at Alerac. He dressed in an instant, then he was pulling her toward him. “Come on!”
“But my truck—”
“You don’t need it. You don’t need anything from your old life.”
They were in front of a motorcycle. He climbed on. Motioned for her to jump on behind him.
She slid onto the bike.
“Wrap your arms around me.”
Tentatively, her fingers settled around his shoulders.
“Come closer. Hold me tighter.”
Her breath whispered out. She slid closer. Her breasts brushed his back. Her arms dropped. Her hands curled around his stomach.
The motorcycle growled to life, with a growl much like Alerac’s own. Then they were lunging forward. Racing into the night.
She didn’t look back at the bodies. She turned her face against his shoulder, and Jane tried to figure out how she was going to survive with the werewolf.
A werewolf who seemed particularly skilled at killing vampires.
***
That sure hadn’t gone according to his damn plan.
Lorcan Teague stood in the shadows. The swirl of police lights flashed around the street, a sickening blue illumination that had his eyes narrowing. Humans were hurrying around the scene. Snapping pictures of the bodies. Looking for evidence. Roping everything off with their yellow police tape.
Vampires had attacked someone here.
They’d attacked the woman known as Jane Smith.
Only there should have been no such attack. He hadn’t sent out the order for Jane to be taken in. What would have been the point? Jane was supposed to go off with the werewolf alpha.
In order for her blood to become stronger, she had to go with the beast.
He’d planned so carefully.
But it looked as if another player had entered the game. Someone who was screwing with his agenda.
That wouldn’t be tolerated.
He turned away from the scene. He inhaled the scents in the night. The werewolves had fled one way.
Vamps…my own kind…had gone another.
His fangs stretched and burned in his mouth.
Someone was about to pay the price for betrayal. It would be a very, very high price indeed.
Chapter Three
He drove until he could see the red streaks of dawn sweeping across the sky. Alerac didn’t want to stop, he wanted to keep right on driving until he had Jane safe with him and back at his home. Where he could be certain no more vampires would attack her.
But the sun wasn’t her friend. Hadn’t been, since her twenty-fifth birthday. He should know. He’d been there that day. He’d covered her with his coat, trying to shield her from the light that burned her now.
The motorcycle braked near the rundown motel. They were still in Florida. Still miles to go before he felt secure enough.
But Liam was already hurrying inside. Securing the rooms for the group. Alerac knew that the humans at the motel thought they looked like a motorcycle gang. He’d heard the whispers when they’d all ridden up on their bikes.
The human staff members weren’t completely wrong.
They were a gang, of sorts.
He turned off the bike. Jane was already sliding off the seat, trying to get away from him.
He caught her hand, brushed his fingers over her pulse. Enjoyed the way it sped beneath his touch. “We’ll stay here today.” But he’d make other arrangements soon. As long as Jane was covered, safely away from that sunlight, his pack could keep traveling. It would be easy enough to acquire a van for their use.
Liam exited the motel’s office and headed back toward him. The werewolf tossed Alerac a room key. He caught it easily, fisting his fingers around it. “You’ll stay with me,” he told Jane. As if there was another option. Hell, no, he didn’t trust any other wolf with her.
He didn’t trust anyone else with her.
“Kent and Finn, you take the first watch,” Liam ordered.
The two werewolves nodded. Their curious gazes kept drifting to Jane.
Everyone in his pack had heard whispers about her.
Now they all wanted to get close to the legend.
As he advanced toward the motel, Alerac kept Jane at his side. He sent a hard, determined, back off glare to the others.
Jane didn’t speak until they were inside the small room. One bed. King-sized. Plenty of room for them both.
The last time I was in bed with her…
Well, that time had ended in plenty of bloodshed.
And with her disappearance.
He slammed the door shut behind them. “You can rest here while the sun’s high.” Vampires were always at their weakest during the day. That part of the old story was true enough.
She had stopped in the middle of the room. Her eyes were on the bed.
How he’d like to strip her and take her on that bed.
The wolf inside was clawing at him, so desperate for the woman he’d been denied for far too long.
More than a lifetime. Hell, more than two lifetimes. Did she have any idea what he’d done for her?
He exhaled slowly. Forced his muscles to unclench.
If she knew, she’d probably be running. Screaming.
Instead, she turned slowly to face him. Her hair brushed across those glass-sharp cheekbones. “I don’t like being in the dark.”
His brows rose. “Most vamps do.”
“That’s not what I—” Jane began, frustration flashing across her face, but then she stopped. Seemed to catch herself. Or maybe she just thought better of yelling at him. She cleared her throat and said, �
��I don’t know about the others.” She tightened her hands into little fists. “I just know about me. Until tonight…” She gave a broken laugh. “I thought I was the only freak out there.”
Anger hummed through him, and Alerac found himself crossing the room in quick strides. “You’re not a freak.” If anyone dared to call her that with him near…
Last mistake that person would make. Last.
Her smile was sad. “Everything I know about the world, I’ve pretty much learned from TV. I don’t remember anything about my life until six months ago. I even had to teach myself to read and I-I’m still not very good at that.” Shame whispered beneath that confession.
The instant she is free…I want her to forget. Lorcan’s words drifted through Alerac’s mind. The bastard. Alerac had thought he just meant that she would forget the pain of her imprisonment. All of those desperate years that she’d been trapped.
But Lorcan had taken every instant of her life away. Every memory.
“I need a witch.”
Jane blinked at him. “Do what now?”
Not just any witch. He’d need a very powerful one. “You’re under a spell.”
She looked at him as if he were crazy. A growl worked in his throat. “I turned into a wolf right before your eyes. You’re a vampire. Did you truly think nothing else out of the ordinary existed?” The shadows were full of monsters. She needed to realize that fact in order to keep surviving.
“Maybe I didn’t want them to exist.” A quiet confession.
What would he have to trade in order to the get the aid of a powerful witch? The price would be high. It always was. “We’ll get your memory back.”
Her head tilted as she stared up at him. “Do I want it back?”
No. There was no way that she could want to remember her imprisonment. Maybe I can keep that part from her. Maybe I can get a witch who will pull up only memories before the day she traded her life for mine.
“How do you know me? Were we…were we friends?” Before he could answer—and he didn’t want to lie, not to her—Jane shook her head. “Heath told me that you tracked vampires. That you killed them.”
True enough. He’d killed countless vampires over the centuries.
“Are you going to kill me?” Asked so softly as fear slid into her eyes.
“If I wanted you dead, I could have killed you behind Wylee’s Bar.” He could have killed the bouncers and her. Instead, he’d let the men live.
For her.
Jane swallowed.
“Your death isn’t what I want.”
“What do you want?”
“I already told you,” and because he couldn’t keep his hands off her, not for even another second, he pulled her against him. “You.”
When her lips parted in surprise, he took her mouth. The kiss should have been softer. She was delicate, almost broken, and he hated that. He wanted her strength back. Wanted her passion.
Yes, he should have used gentleness with her. Care. But he wasn’t human, and easy wasn’t the way of the beast.
His tongue thrust into her mouth as he lifted her up against him. So small. He took three steps, and he had her body pinned against the wall.
He would have gone straight for the bed, but he was trying—in his way—not to scare the hell out of her.
The wall seemed the safer alternative.
Maybe.
Her taste. Her fucking taste was incredible. The first time he’d kissed her—he still remembered that moment—he’d gotten a little drunk off her.
He was getting drunk right then.
She tasted of paradise, of every pleasure he’d ever had. Woman and temptation. Sweet wine.
Secrets in the dark.
His hands were wrapped around her waist. His fingers brushed just under her breasts. He wanted to lift up his hands. To touch her nipples. Pretty, pink nipples.
She wasn’t kissing him back.
She had to feel the thick arousal pressing against her. The way he had her lifted up, there would be no missing it.
She wasn’t kissing him back.
His mouth eased from hers, just for a moment. “Kiss me back.” Growled words, and not what he’d wanted to say. He’d wanted to say…
Need me. Desire me. Crave me.
The way he craved her.
He put his mouth against hers once more. His tongue swept over her lips. Pushed into her mouth.
And her tongue—yes!—she kissed him back.
Her nipples tightened against his chest. Her hips arched toward him, and her nails sank into his shoulders.
He liked the sting of pain.
Liked her mouth moving on his even more.
She kissed him with a tentative hunger, as if just discovering her desire again. He would help her to yearn, to need. He would guide her, show her every fuckin’ thing about his body.
About the passion they had together.
Her legs lifted. Wrapped around his hips.
He thrust against her, helpless. Dammit, he wanted in.
She was sucking his tongue. Giving a little moan in the back of her throat. His cock was so swollen he hurt, and the only relief would come from her. He’d thrust into her, drive as deep as he could go. Her body would remember him. She’d respond just as she had before. “Keira…”
She shoved against him.
Because it was her, he let her go. Alerac eased her to the floor, then he dropped his hold. He stared at her, breath heaving, desire like a red haze before him.
“Wh-what did you call me?” Her breath came as fast as his. Her eyes were wide, filled with passion—and fear.
“Keira.” He said her name deliberately.
Her hands flattened on the wall behind her, as if she needed the support. “That’s…me?”
“Yes.” His Keira. She would be his again. Always. No one would take her from—
“No.” A definite shake of her head. “Don’t call me that, understand? I-I know you think you know me but…” Another fast shake of her head. “I don’t know you. And I don’t remember being her.”
But she was Keira. Lost, but finally found.
“I’m Jane.” Her voice was husky. Arousing. “Jane Smith. That’s the name I chose. The only name I know.” She lifted one trembling hand from the wall. Touched her chest. “That’s me, not K-Keira.”
She was wrong.
“You and Keira…you were…lovers?”
“You and I were lovers.” The words snapped from him.
She flinched.
And he remembered the way she’d run away with the human. The doctor. While Alerac had been bleeding, she’d fled with Heath. Their hands had locked. She’d gone to that rundown building seeking the doctor.
With her memories gone, had Keira turned to another? To that bastard?
His claws burst from his fingertips. “Were you with him?”
She jumped away from that wall. Moved so fast. Vampire fast. And in the next instant, she had half the room between them.
He tried to leash his beast, but the possessive fury filling him was too strong to fight. “Your doctor,” he gritted out. “The man who left you during that vampire attack. Were you with him?”
Her eyes were wide. “If I say yes, what happens?”
Fuck, fuck, fuck!
He whirled for the door.
She grabbed him. Forced him back toward her. “I wasn’t with him.”
He couldn’t see past the fury of the beast.
“I wasn’t, okay? And even if I had been…”
His gaze fixed on her face.
“Why does it matter so much to you? I was here for six months.” Her words broke at the end. “My face was splashed in the paper. I was on the news. A lost woman with no memory.” She licked her lips. “No one came for me. I didn’t matter to anyone.”
Lie.
“You matter more than you know.” But he couldn’t talk to her any more. Couldn’t stand there and inhale her scent. She’d wanted him when they kissed. He’d caught the
sweet smell of her desire.
No, he couldn’t stand there, not with his beast so close to the surface. That was why he’d turned for the door.
Why he had to leave.
To protect her, while he still could.
“Don’t try to leave the room. My pack is guarding you, and they won’t let you go.” He pulled from her. Spun around and grabbed the door knob.
“Your eyes…”
That whisper stopped him.
“They always glow. The other wolves—after they transformed—the glow in their eyes faded.”
He nearly smashed the door knob in that instant. “I’m not like the others.” His glow never faded. It couldn’t.
Lorcan had cut out his human eyes. It had taken a very long time for the beast to regenerate new eyes for him. When those eyes had finally come back…
Not the eyes of a man.
And they never would be.
Just as he would never be a man.
He yanked open the door. Then Alerac walked into the sun, leaving his vampire behind before he lost all control.
***
Tracking the traitorous vampires was easy enough. They’d left plenty of blood in their wake.
As the sun rose, Lorcan knew that those bastards would be seeking shelter. Unlike him, they weren’t at full power during the light.
But they didn’t know his secrets. He’d been trading in magic—and even in science—for centuries. He knew that he was destined to become the most powerful vampire to ever walk the earth.
Soon, with the right mix of blood coursing through his veins, he would be unstoppable.
Lorcan approached the house alone. He didn’t need an army. He could fight this battle on his own.
When he reached the door, he knocked lightly.
And then some fool actually just swung the door open.
Lorcan smiled at him. Inhaled. A human. One who carried a familiar scent. Jane. Only that wasn’t her real name. To him, she would always be Keira. “You’ve made a mistake,” he said to the blond human.
The vampires in that house rushed toward him. Attacking with claws and fangs.
Lorcan shoved the human aside. He would deal with him very, very soon.
He slashed out with his own claws. Took the head of one vampire. Disemboweled another. Drained a third. The blood flowed and screams filled the air.
