He lowered her onto the bed.
“Alerac?”
He smiled at her. “You make me happy.” As few things in this world ever had.
Jane blinked at him, and her gaze seemed to soften. Then she smiled. “You make me…happy, too.”
He kissed her again.
Started to thrust. Still not too hard, not too wild. He wanted her to come again. Endlessly. He wanted to show her all that he could give to her. Wanted to prove that their life together could be good.
If she gave him a chance.
If she wouldn’t fear him.
Her heels pushed into his lower back. “Alerac, I want everything.” And her sex clamped around him, her delicate inner muscles tightening.
For an instant, he paused.
“Everything,” she said once more, her voice a sensual demand. Then she arched toward him.
He put his hand between their bodies. Stroked her, pushed right when he knew her need was centered most.
He forced his control to hold. Forced it—
She came.
He shattered. No, his control shattered. He thrust fast and furiously now, determined to claim her, every single bit of her. When the pleasure hit him, it consumed Alerac, wiping away his past and his future. Wiping away everything.
But his Jane.
You make me happy.
He would fight for that happiness. Battle a hundred vampires. Slay any beast in his path.
As long as that path led to her.
***
He was dying.
Ryan could feel death coming. Death wasn’t cold. Wasn’t some icy touch. Death burned and twisted and cut, destroying him from the inside out.
He’d known that his time was coming. The pain had been growing.
Every moment, it had been his companion.
Lorcan and his twisted deals. He’d connected Ryan to his sister all right, a connection that had eaten away at him for too long.
He coughed, choking, and wasn’t surprised to see blood come from his mouth.
“What’s happening to you?”
Zoe. Whenever he turned around, she seemed to be there, watching him with her big, dark eyes.
“Nothing.” Death. There was no point in telling her. The witch had been clear on what he needed.
A caged beast—that sure seemed to be Zoe. And it wasn’t the first time that he’d heard that particular line. Lorcan had told him—when he tracked the SOB down fifty years ago—something similar. That his freedom lay with a beast bound by chains that no one could see.
Knowing Lorcan’s twisted streak, it had figured that the beast in question was a werewolf.
Zoe was the only werewolf he’d ever encountered who couldn’t fully shift.
But if he bit her, she’d be destroyed.
For once, he’d do the right thing. He’d keep his fangs away from her.
He coughed again. But he caught the blood in his fist so she wouldn’t see it. Then he turned away from her, smearing it on his jeans. “I’m going to check in the woods. Make sure that Lorcan isn’t around.”
“The pack is patrolling—” Zoe began.
“And I’m going to patrol, too,” he said gruffly.
Lorcan. He’d wanted to help his sister defeat their old clan leader, but he wasn’t going to be any use to her.
A brother found, then lost, all so suddenly.
Maybe she’d grieve for him.
Maybe she wouldn’t.
He didn’t look back at Zoe. She was too much of a temptation to him.
He was just passing two twisted pine trees when Zoe grabbed him. She spun him back around to face her. “I can smell your blood."
Shifter nose. He inclined his head. “Good for you. Now do us both a favor…stay away from me.”
“The pain’s worse.”
He didn’t reply. He didn’t feel like lying anymore.
“Is this really what you want?” She asked him, tilting back her head and letting that heavy curtain of hair fall over her shoulders. “To just crawl off into the woods and die? Is that what you want for your sister? For her to stumble over your body?”
He wrapped his hands around her. Dammit, mistake. Because touching her flooded him with a dark need. “What I want,” Ryan managed to choke out, “is to sink my teeth into your throat.”
“Because I’m your cure?”
“Because I want to taste you.”
She blinked at him.
Control. Control. Control. “But for once in my life, I’m trying to do the right thing.” He moved her out of his way. Then he forced his fingers to stop touching her. To just let her go. “I’m not going to destroy you.”
“The witch didn’t say that you’d destroy me. Just my beast.” Her laugh was brittle. “The beast in me hasn’t ever been anything to brag about.” Her hands lifted. Claws sprouted from her fingertips. “This is about all I’ve got. Claws and some enhanced strength. The others never wanted me here. They didn’t think I belonged in the pack.”
He ignored the pain. Just like always. Strange but, when he’d touched her, the pain had seemed to lessen. It was sure back full force now. “Alerac wants you here.”
“Alerac is still trying to atone for the sins he committed against your sister. He tries to save everyone now. Finn…” Sadness flickered across her face. “Finn was my friend. The others here only tolerate me because Alerac tells them to do it. I’m not one of them, and they know it.”
He backed away from her. His heart seemed to be squeezing, held tight in a fist of fire. “And what is it that you want from me?”
Her lashes lowered, concealing her gaze. “I’ve heard the stories. When your sister bit Alerac, he changed. Became even more powerful. I’ve seen that power with my own eyes.”
Her scent had wrapped around him. Lush. Woman.
“If you bite me, I might lose my beast.”
Um, might? Based on what the witch had said, that was more of a definite.
“But maybe I can become something else. Something even more powerful.”
Hell. She needed to get away from him. “Do you want to turn out like Liam?”
Zoe flinched.
“Because that could happen. Vamp blood isn’t exactly the safest drug out there.” For many, that was exactly what it was—a drug. An addiction.
An addiction to power and darkness.
Do the right thing. Dammit, he was. For once. “Go back to your pack. Protect the alpha. And just forget you ever met me.”
Ryan spun turned away from her. Hesitated. “Please tell Jane I said good-bye.” He hadn’t used their link to touch her mind again. Because he hadn’t wanted her to see his certainty of death.