They were paws. Long, dark, sharp claws sprang from those paws.
Bones snapped and popped.
The vampire leader tried to fire at Jane again, but his gun just clicked. The vamp spun away, rushing for the closest SUV, but he never made it.
A big, snarling black wolf launched at him.
The vamp screamed.
The sound was cut off.
More howls filled the air.
She wanted to cover her ears. Wanted to pretend that a massacre wasn’t happening just feet away from her.
Humans had to be close enough to hear those sounds. Those howls. The screams. The police would come. Right?
She stumbled back. Her hip hit the metal of her truck. Get in. Get away. She started to climb inside.
“Sorry, love, but you aren’t leaving him again.”
Another man was there—another man who’d moved too dang quietly. He grabbed her arms, pulled her close. Thanks to her enhanced senses, she could see him clearly in the darkness. She stared into his eyes. Golden. Angry. “He’s killing for you. The least you can do is hang around and watch the blood.” His smile was cruel. “I thought your kind liked the blood.”
Her stomach was cramping. Nausea rising in her throat. No, she didn’t like the blood. She hated it. The first time she’d actually tried to drink it, she’d vomited. She craved the blood and despised it at the same time.
Yes, she was screwed up. She knew it.
“Please,” Jane whispered. “I just want to go home.”
His eyelids flickered. The man before her was handsome, far too perfect, with even features. He had thick brown hair and angry eyes. Such incredibly angry eyes. His rage seemed completely directed at her. He scared her. They all did.
What was new?
She was a vampire. She should have been able to make others fear. She couldn’t.
“Don’t worry. He’ll take you home.”
The words sounded like a threat.
Probably because they were.
There were no more screams then. The silence penetrated her awareness. She looked back over her shoulder.
The wolves bent over their fallen prey. The vampires were dead. So much blood soaked the pavement.
And the black wolf, the biggest beast there, was stalking toward her. His green eyes glowed—glowed with that same startling intensity that she’d seen back at the old bar.
She shook her head.
The wolf began to shift. It wasn’t some instant process. The fur seemed to melt from him. His bones snapped and reshaped. The paws on the ground became tanned hands. He rose slowly, lifting his head so that his shining eyes met hers.
Jane realized she’d forgotten to breathe.
He was naked. The muscles of his chest rippled. And as he continued to advance, her gaze dropped over him. She frowned when she saw the markings on his chest. A tattoo. One with intricate lines that covered the flesh right over his heart. Flesh that should have been sliced open from Heath’s attack. Yet the flesh appeared completely healed.
Her gaze wanted to drop even more. She wouldn’t let it. Instead, Jane made her eyes rise, and she held that glowing stare as he closed in on her.
Alerac stopped just in front of her. “You’re welcome.”
Her lips parted.
His head lowered toward hers. “That’s twice that I’ve let you run. Don’t try for a third time.”
The words were a rumbled whisper of menace.
“You won’t like the punishment I give if you flee from me again.”
Then he was taking her arm. Her body brushed against his naked flesh. She gasped at the contact and tried to pull away.
Yeah, that wasn’t happening. The wolf had a strength she’d never seen before.
Or, if she had, Jane didn’t remember it.
But then, I don’t remember anything before that swamp. Six months. That was as far back as her memory went.
Six short months.
“Don’t run,” he said softly.
Her gaze flew to the street. To the pile of bodies. She flinched.
Alerac’s hold tightened on her. “I get that you don’t remember, okay? Let me help you out. That prick vampire? All of his men? They were here to get you, to force you to come back with them. They’re working for a guy named Lorcan.”
The name meant nothing to her.
“He’s a master vampire,” Alerac said in that deep, rumbling voice of his. “He’s also a sadistic bastard who wants to make you suffer.” He pulled in a deep breath. “I’m not about to let him get his hands on you again.”
Again? That “again” part really scared her.
“You…protected me,” Jane said softly. The bullets had hit Alerac. Her hand rose up, before she could even think about what she was doing, and she touched his chest. Her fingers slid over that heated skin.
He tensed beneath her. “Be careful.”
“Your wounds are gone.” No more blood. Nothing at all.
“The shift heals me.” The words were clipped.
Her hand stilled on his chest. She stared up into his eyes.
And realized that his mouth was just inches from hers.
She also realized that her heart was thundering in fear, yes, but there was also more happening to her.
I want his mouth.
Just where in the sweet world had that thought come from?
His eyelids flickered. “I can give you everything that you want.”
“Uh, just not here, mate,” said the wolf with the angry eyes. That wolf also shared Liam’s faint accent. “Local cops will be coming soon. They’re on the way.”
“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.”