He kept coming. Stalking her. Closing in.
“No,” the answer slowly growled from him. “Usually, we just kill our prey and move on. But I needed their blood.”
“Why?”
His jaw was clenched tight. “You.”
Jane could only shake her head.
“You changed me. After you, I wasn’t just a werewolf.” He sounded angry, enraged—at her? “I had to feed from them. I didn’t want their blood. I wanted—”
He broke off. She was pretty sure her heart had just jumped right into her throat. “You wanted my blood,” Jane finished.
“I guess you addicted me.” Still angry. “You changed me. Made me into something other than the wolf I’d always been. I stopped aging. I didn’t die, and the hunger for the blood grew.”
So—what? He was some cross between a vampire and a werewolf?
“It wasn’t just about feeding.” Those images were in her head, and Jane couldn’t get them out. “You—you tortured them.”
“Yes.”
No denial. She’d hoped for one.
But he just stood there, watching her.
“Why?” Jane demanded.
“Because they deserved the pain that was coming to them. They were there that night. They took you. They trapped you.”
“And you killed them.”
A little shrug. “It’s what I do.”
He terrified her. “No one should speak of death so easily.”
His eyes narrowed. “What did the vampires look like in your dreams?”
She wanted to put distance between them. To run.
I can still feel his touch on my skin.
“T-two were chained in a dungeon.” That was what it had looked like. Just like a medieval dungeon that she’d seen on a history channel special once. “One was blond. The other had brown hair. You killed the blond first, and then—then you turned on the other one, even though he said…” She couldn’t finish.
“Dunstan said that he didn’t know where you were.” He raked a hand through his tousled hair. “He lied. It was his ship that took you across the ocean. Your blood that I’d found still staining the floor of the vessel.”
Nausea rolled in her stomach.
“He deserved exactly what he got.” There was no remorse from Alerac. “They all did.”
She shouldn’t ask. She shouldn’t, but she did. “How many?”
He stared back at her.
“How many vampires have you killed?”
Then he smiled at her. Lifted his hand. Stroked her cheek. “My Jane…I stopped counting long ago.”
She knocked his hand away. Shoved him away. She’d thought that she could trust him. That he could help her.
But he was just as much of a monster as the creatures that had come after her. Killing. Not caring. Again and again.
“Jane.” Anger beat in her name as he squared off against her. “You don’t know what they did—”
She locked her arms around her body. Escape. It was all she could think of. “How long until you drink from me?” He’d said that her blood addicted him. That she was the one he truly wanted.
Now, too late, she realized it wasn’t about physical love. Or even some kind of emotional attachment that had linked him to her across time. To him, her blood was power.
And he wanted as much power as he could get.
“I could have taken your blood when I took your body.” Cold words. Brutal words.
True words.
“I didn’t,” he said.
No, he hadn’t, but she remembered a moment when his teeth had edged over the curve of her shoulder. When she’d felt just a flash of pain.
Then he’d pulled back.
“You wanted to,” she whispered.
One dark brow rose. “Are you going to pretend that you didn’t want to taste me? Because I’ll know that you’re lying. I saw your fangs.”
Fangs that were emerging, even then. She clamped her lips closed, horrified.
“It’s what we are,” he said simply, shrugging. “When we fight and when we f**k, the bloodlust rises within us.”
She didn’t want bloodlust. She just wanted—
I don’t know! But it isn’t this!
“We can’t fight nature.”
She wanted to try. “You found me in Florida. Then you brought me here…because my blood makes you stronger?”
His eyelids flickered. “I brought you here to keep you safe.”
She knew he was lying to her. Jane shook her head. “Try again.”
Before he could speak, she heard someone calling his name. Then Liam was shoving open the bedroom door. The werewolf glanced at her—a fast sweep with his eyes that took in her sheet-clad body—then focused completely on Alerac. “We have company.”
The way he said it, Jane knew he wasn’t talking about the good kind of guest.
Alerac spun toward him.
“Ryan,” Liam said flatly. “He must have heard that we have her.”
Alerac marched for the door.
“Wait!” She hurried after him.
Alerac didn’t slow.
So she grabbed him and made him stop. “Who is Ryan?”
Jane didn’t like the look that Liam and Alerac shared.
“Who is Ryan?” Jane repeated.
“A vampire.” It was Liam who spoke. “A very powerful, very angry vampire.”
Great. “Someone else who wants me dead?” Maybe they should just make a line.
Alerac glanced down at her hand as it curled around his arm. “I have a…truce…of sorts with Ryan.”
“A truce that will be ending,” Liam muttered. “You know it’s gonna be over.”
Alerac nodded. “I will speak with him. Have the guards escort him to cabin on the ridge. I’ll meet him there.”
So he was just waltzing off to meet this Ryan guy? “I want to come with you.”
“No.” An immediate and hard denial. “If he sees you…” Alerac exhaled. “I’ll have an even worse battle on my hands.”
“Is he the one who has been trying to kill me?” The vampire who’d sent men after her? Twice?
“Lorcan has been hunting you. As for Ryan, I’ll find out exactly what he wants.” His focus shifted briefly to Jane’s face. “He won’t be a threat to you.”
That wasn’t the answer she’d wanted.
But it appeared to be all that she was getting.
Alerac left her, with Liam following right on his heels behind him. There were murmurs in the hallway. Jane put her ear to the door and heard—Alerac was putting guards on her! Men to make sure that she didn’t leave the bedroom.