Better Off Undead - Cynthia Eden Page 0,79

to leave him.” That truth went straight to her soul. “I always just wanted…to be with Aidan.” And she would be with him, until the end. “I’m sorry,” she said to Aidan once more. They both knew how this story would end.

Monsters didn’t get happy endings, no matter what they wanted to pretend. It just wasn’t in the cards for them. “Go,” Jane said to Vincent and Annette. The mark on her side—that stupid burn she’d carried for so long—seemed to ache.

Vincent looped his arms around Annette. They vanished. And Aidan…he turned his glowing eyes back on Jane. She sagged to her knees. A tired smile curved her lips. Aidan crept closer to her. She lifted her arms. “Can I see you as a man? Just once more?”

The wolf stilled.

“While I enjoy your beast,” Jane murmured, “it’s the man I love. I want to see him again. Can I see him again? Please? Just once more?”

And…the wolf lowered its head. The beast’s body shuddered. He gave a pain-filled, desperate cry, one that chilled her already cold skin. The fur slid away from him, seemed to melt. Strong, muscled flesh appeared. Claws vanished and Aidan’s hands were pressed to the ground. She saw his wonderful, thick hair. And when he tilted back his head to look at her…a trembling smile curved Jane’s lips. “Hello, Aidan.”

He rose, not speaking.

Probably because he was trying not to kill her and battling his primal instincts took all of his energy.

“I have control right now,” Jane said. “I-I don’t know how long it will last, but…but I feel in control. Do you?”

He still didn’t speak, but he did take a step toward her.

“I remember trying to breathe at Tulane. Gasping. Vincent…” She remembered his hand on her throat. Jane swallowed. “One minute, I was on that campus, then suddenly, I was in that alley outside of the ME’s building. Smoke was all around. You were there. I-I bit you, and I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry.” He was back in the body of a man, but his voice was definitely still beast-like.

He reached out to her. Jane didn’t flinch. She didn’t try to run. She just…knelt there. Waiting. She’d had a choice to make.

Now he had to make a choice, too. Kill me. Or love me.

“You…still smell like you’re mine,” Aidan rasped.

She wouldn’t cry. “And you still look like you’re mine. My werewolf. My Aidan.” She rose to her feet and stood on her toes. When he didn’t attack, Jane pressed her lips to his. “I wish we’d had forever.”

“I do, too.” He pulled her against him and held her tight.

She heard the rustle of footsteps behind her. Too late.

Aidan…he was distracting me. He was—

“I’m sorry, my Jane.”

She tried to yank out of his arms, but he held her too tightly. She caught a fast glimpse of Paris. He had something in his hand. Something—

He injected her.

“Told you that would come in handy,” Paris muttered.

Jane’s veins began to feel cold. Her knees buckled, but Aidan scooped her into his arms.

“I love you, Jane,” Aidan said. And it was the man talking, not the beast.

The man killed me?

Her lashes slipped closed. At least there was no pain this time. If she was dying again…

At least there is no pain.

Chapter Eighteen

Jane looked so helpless.

Aidan swallowed the thick lump in his throat as he stared at her. She was strapped down to an exam table, heavily sedated—sedated enough to knock out a damn elephant. Or an alpha werewolf. The vial Paris had taken from Annette had certainly come in handy.

After they’d drugged Jane, he’d brought her back to his home, the estate deep in the swamp. Aidan had only kept his most trusted wolves with him…and a few other needed individuals.

Dr. Bob Heider was currently curled over his microscope.

Annette was staring into her scrying mirror.

Paris was staring at Annette.

And the bastard vampire Vincent…well…Garrison had a gun pointed dead-center at the vamp’s heart. A gun that was loaded with wooden bullets.

“The gun isn’t necessary,” Vincent stated for what had to be the twentieth time. “I’m not here to hurt anyone. As I told you from the beginning, I want to help Jane.”

Something inside of Aidan just broke at the guy’s words. He flew toward him, caught the vamp’s neck in his hands and snarled, “The way you helped her when you broke her neck?”

Vincent blanched. “She was already dying. Did you want me to prolong her suffering? You couldn’t get to her, you were barely breathing yourself! And your blood kept…changing her.