Ryan burst into the cabin. Zoe was at his side, casting worried glances his way. “What. The. Hell?” Ryan demanded as he advanced toward Alerac.
Then he got a look at the bound man.
Ryan stopped. Frowned. Then shrugged as if seeing a bound human was a typical occurrence for him.
“Is there something you need to tell us?” Alerac asked Ryan.
“Sure. You’re an SOB who will never be worthy of my sister?”
Alerac smiled. “Not that.” A pause. “Are you dying?”
“Not today,” Ryan shot right back.
“The poison’s in you!” Heath yelled, straining against the ropes.
Ryan slowly stepped toward the yelling man. “And who might you be?”
“He’s the human doctor who found Jane,” Alerac told him. “And he’s also the man who’s been taking her blood.”
Ryan’s teeth snapped together. “Is he.”
“He says you’ve got poison in you,” Alerac continued with a watchful gaze. “And the only way to get a cure? Well, seems Jane has to trade her life for yours.”
“I don’t want any trade.” Flat. Instant.
Jane’s breath caught. Wait—he hadn’t denied the poison. He’d just said he didn’t want a trade. Jane studied him, trying to see past the guard of his handsome face.
“This human works for Lorcan?” Ryan’s lips twisted. “He always did like to use his lackeys. He’d get them to do his grunt work, then drain ‘em dry. The fools thought they’d get immortality.”
Heath’s eyes widened.
“All they got was a fast trip to hell.”
Heath wasn’t struggling any longer.
“Is there poison in your veins?” Jane asked him.
Ryan smiled at her. “That’s not your problem. Hell, you don’t even know me.”
No, she didn’t have memories of him. “You’re my brother.” And he’d touched her mind. When he’d sent that message to meet him at the stream, she’d actually felt him in her head. That touch had been strangely comforting. Familiar.
She’d tried to reach out to him again, using that mental link, but Jane had found nothing.
No link.
No comfort.
His face hardened. “You’re not going to offer your life for me or for some cure that Lorcan doesn’t have. I know I’ve been living on borrowed time. I’ve known it for nearly two centuries.” He rubbed his chin. “It’s my own fault. I tried to get him to make me a deal with me. After he took you away, I was willing to do anything, to trade anything, to find you.”
Her chest ached.
“Lorcan’s witch made me a potion. See, he’d let her keep living because she didn’t know exactly where you were imprisoned. He got her to create a special brew. Said that it would connect me to you.” His eyes squeezed shut. “I drank it, like a fool, and I got that deeper connection. I could hear you in my head. Crystal f**king clear. You were crying, screaming. Helpless. And those were your real cries. Your body might have frozen, but you were conscious of every moment that passed.” He ran a hand over his face. “You were aware and always screaming in your mind. In my mind. I could hear you, twenty-four, seven, but I couldn’t find you. I couldn’t free you.”
“The potion was poison,” Alerac said quietly.
“Son of a bitch,” Finn murmured, sounding shaken. “That’s twisted.”
“That’s Lorcan,” Ryan said as his eyes opened. “He gets off on playing his games.”
Zoe rocked back onto her heels. “I’m surprised you didn’t go crazy.”
“I did.”
Jane shivered. “I-I’m sorry.” The thought of him suffering, with her, for all that time...
“I sent you messages with my mind back then,” Ryan said, voice soft. Shoulders slumped. “Just like I did when I told you to meet me by the stream.”
Alerac tensed.
“Over and over, while you were imprisoned, I’d tell you that everything was going to be all right. That you would be safe. That I’d find you.” He swallowed. “But the cries never stopped, and I figured you couldn’t hear me.”
Jane could only shake her head. She’d sure heard him clearly enough when he told her to meet him at the stream. Maybe she had heard him for all of those other years, too.
Maybe she hadn’t.
“Maybe I needed to be closer, in order for you to hear me.” Ryan’s hands were fisted. “I tried a lot over the last six months.” He rolled his shoulders. “You didn’t seem to hear me then, either. You didn’t seem to hear me until I came to this wolf compound.”
I’d had Alerac’s blood by then. She frowned. She’d started to get stronger after taking Alerac’s blood. Had that made her able to finally connect with her brother’s link?
“Doesn’t matter.” Now Ryan was circling around Heath. “None of that matters now. I took the poison, and there’s no going back.”
“Why would Lorcan want you dead?” Zoe asked. “You were in his clan!”
“He thought I might one day fight him for power over the clan.” A grim smile. “He was right. Though there wasn’t exactly much left of our clan.” His attention shifted to Alerac. “Not after your wolves tore through our keep.”
“What does the poison do?” Zoe edged toward him. “Does it hurt?”
“Every damn minute,” Ryan said grimly. “It’s like fire in my veins.”
Jane swiped away a tear. When had that fallen?
“How long do you have?” Finn wanted to know.
“Now that I’ve located Keira—Jane,” he corrected almost absently, “probably only a day or two more.” But he didn’t seem to care. Why not? He should care. He was talking about his death too casually. “The potion linked me to her. The witch said it would burn brightest when I found what I sought.”
He’d sought her.
“He’s going to burn alive,” Heath whispered. His gaze swept over them all. “Burn from the inside out. Lorcan thinks he’ll die within the next twenty-four hours. But there’s a cure.”
“He’s lying.” Ryan whirled away from the human.
Jane stepped into her brother’s path. “Drink from him and see.” He might be ready to give up and die, but she wasn’t ready to let him go.