wanted to get it out at the scene, but you were intent on us hauling ass away from there.”
“Because I wasn’t letting the vampire get near you.” His voice was gravel rough. Before she could say anything else, the guy shoved his claws into his shoulder and pulled out the bullet. Blood gushed.
“Jesus, Aidan! Stop! You know I hate it when you do that!”
But it was too late. With a tendril of smoke rising from the wound—and another tendril coming from his fingers—Aidan dropped the bloody silver bullet into his sink.
The legend about werewolves and silver was actually true. Silver hurt werewolves, it burned them, and the longer the silver stayed in their bodies, the weaker they became. Not that she’d ever seen Aidan in any particularly weak form but…
“At least let me wash the blood away.” She wanted to take care of him. Was that so wrong? They were in a relationship, after all. Twisted and strange, but they were together. And she’d shot him. That guilt was not going away anytime soon. She reached around him, turned on the faucet and had warm water spraying down in seconds. She grabbed a cloth, wet it, and began to wipe away the blood.
Aidan stood statue-still beneath her touch. Jane risked a quick glance up at him from beneath her lashes. His face was set in stone. Such a hard, dangerous face. Not handsome, but rougher. Sexier.
She generally found far too many things about Aidan Locke to be sexy. A smart woman would have run the instant she found out that the guy was an alpha werewolf. But instead of fleeing from him…
I always run to Aidan.
Her touch was light as she cleaned his wound, a wound that was already healing. His werewolf blood was pretty amazing. Only an alpha’s blood held that healing power.
She stepped away from him and put the cloth in the sink. Rinsed away the blood. Then watched the blood wash down the drain.
“The wound doesn’t matter.” His words were a rumble from behind her. His hand closed around her shoulder and she looked up, staring at their reflections in the mirror. He was so big, around six foot two, maybe six foot three, with wide, powerful shoulders. His hair was dark, thick, and his eyes were a bright blue. She always felt a little lost when she looked into his eyes.
She was so much smaller than him. Jane had always wished she were taller, but she knew that she looked like some kind of ballet dancer. Fragile, delicate—that was her build. She had to work twice as hard to be taken seriously at the police station, but she did it—she’d do anything for her job.
Keeping others safe had been her mission for years. Her goal, ever since she’d been eleven years old and her life had been ripped apart.
I won’t let the same thing happen to others.
But the deaths kept coming. And the monsters weren’t stopping.
Once more, her gaze fell to the sink. And the blood keeps flowing.
“He wanted you.”
She stiffened.
“The vamp in the alley was there because the asshole wanted you.” Aidan turned her to face him, caging Jane between him and the sink. “I’m not going to let him get his hands on you.”
Jane focused on keeping her breathing steady. Her heartbeat was racing in her chest and fear had tightened her muscles. “Another vamp after me, huh? Guess it must be a day that ends in Y.”
“Jane…” He growled her name. And normally, she found that growl of his crazy sexy.
“It won’t stop, we both know it.” Her voice was rough. Hard. Very close to her own growl. “The paranormals out there—they know what I am. You know. And as much as we both want to pretend things are fine, they aren’t.” They couldn’t be.
Because Jane wasn’t just a human, some mortal who’d fallen in love with a werewolf and was trying to make that weird relationship work.
According to Aidan, according to the nightmare that was her new life…she was something…more.
A vamp-in-waiting. A born vampire. If she died a violent death, then some sort of insane adrenaline burst was supposed to ignite in her blood during those last precious moments before her heart stopped beating. She would die, but only for a short time. She’d wake as a vampire—one of the strongest immortals ever.
Born vampires were exceedingly rare.
And…incredibly powerful.
Evil. Let’s not forget the evil part. She didn’t want to go from being a protector to being the monster in the dark who preyed