Rage building, Alerac charged, “You realized you had to act fast, or you were about to lose your payday.”
“Stop it!” Jane grabbed Alerac’s arm and tried to yank him away from the doctor. Not happening. Even on his weakest day, he was far stronger than she could imagine. “You don’t know what you’re talking about! Heath is here to help me!”
No, he wasn’t.
“Two minutes,” Alerac told her. He kept his hold on the squirming doctor. “That’s how long you have before the others get here.”
She stared up at him with those big, blue, f**k-me eyes. “O-others?”
So many enemies. All eager to use her. “Come with me,” he told her, “and I’ll make sure you live.”
She shook her head.
If that was the way she wanted to play it.
“I don’t even know you, Alerac O’Neill!” She yanked harder on his arm. “But I know Heath. I trust him.”
She shouldn’t.
“He saved my life! Helped me to—to live in a world I don’t know.”
Then Alerac felt it. The hard, fast slice of a blade in his chest. A silver blade. There was no mistaking that familiar burn.
His gaze shot to the doctor. The man wasn’t squirming any longer. He was smiling. “I know how to kill your kind,” Heath whispered.
Silver. Right to the heart.
Normally, that was an effective method for killing a werewolf.
He backed away from the doctor.
Jane got a look at his chest and the knife protruding from it. She screamed.
Normally. Alerac’s knees gave way. He sank to the floor. His fingers curled around the knife’s handle.
Heath grabbed Jane’s hand. “Let’s go!”
If Jane left, she’d be dead.
But she wasn’t running. She was staring at Alerac with horror filling her eyes.
“Jane, come on!” Heath jerked her toward the door.
Wrong move.
The guy had probably just bruised her.
Alerac slowly pulled the knife out of his chest as the smoke drifted from the wound. “You don’t know anything about my kind,” he said to the doctor. The knife hit the floor. He didn’t need that weapon. Razor sharp claws burst from his fingertips. “But you will, human. I promise, you will.”
Heath dragged Jane through the broken door. She’d caught sight of Alerac’s claws. And, judging by the fear flying across her face, she hadn’t been prepared to see them.
The woman looked as if she’d never seen a werewolf’s claws before.
Fuckin’ Lorcan. He’d done this to her. Taken away her past. Destroyed her memories.
“Run, Jane, hurry!” Heath’s shout.
Alerac followed them to the doorway. The sound of approaching engines could be heard clearly now. Those growls were too close. “Go with him,” Alerac called, “and he’ll turn on you.”
Jane’s breath panted out, but she pulled away from Heath. Whirled back to face Alerac.
“Trust me.” He wanted her to come to him. To take that step. Willingly.
But Jane shook her head. “I don’t know you.”
Then she jumped into her truck. Heath was already inside, sitting next to the passenger door. Jane floored the vehicle. It lurched forward.
Heath glanced back. Flipped him the middle finger.
A low whistle came from the Alerac’s right. “I guess we get to kill that human, huh?” Liam. Alerac had known that the wolf waited just outside the building. Liam hadn’t attacked because Alerac had told him to stand down.
But now…that human…
“He’s a dead man.” Alerac lifted his hand to his chest. His heart hurt, but it would heal.
With his shift.
The shift that was already pulsing through him.
Jane wasn’t getting away, and he wouldn’t fight the men who thought to take her in human form.
No, for their crime, they’d face his beast.
And they’d all die.
***
“Turn left,” Heath’s words snapped out, and Jane automatically yanked the wheel to the left. The truck heaved, then jerked into the narrow gap between two buildings.
Her white-knuckled grip on that steering wheel never eased as Jane spared a fast glance for Heath. “Did you see his hands? And why was he burning when you hit him with the bat?”
“Because it was silver. And because he’s a freaking werewolf.”
A werewolf. “What?” She slammed on the brakes. The pick-up shuddered to a stop.
“Don’t stop! Keep driving!” Heath glanced over his shoulder. “He’s going to come after us. I heard that once a werewolf gets your scent, he doesn’t lose it. He’ll track us—now shove down that damn gas pedal!”
No, she wasn’t moving. Wasn’t going anywhere. “How do you even know about werewolves?”
Vampires were real. Okay, they had to be real. Because she was a vampire. But werewolves?
Her head was throbbing, the temples feeling like they were ready to burst.
“I know because after I found you, I did some checking.” He was sweating. And she could see the pulse beating frantically along his throat. “I was trying to help you, Jane. That’s all I’ve ever wanted, since the first moment I found you.”
She stared at him as the truck’s engine idled. Heath. Her only real friend in this messed up world. “You’re the first thing I remember.” She’d been walking, lost, slipping and falling her way through the swamp. The sun had been rising. She’d been so weak that her whole body shuddered.
I’ve got you.
He’d been there. Wrapping a blanket around her skin. Protecting her. Helping her
A doctor. Out in the swamp on his afternoon off from work. Poor guy. He’d probably never expected to find someone like her.
Someone who’d been starving. But not for food.
Blood.
He’d given her transfusion after transfusion in his small, isolated office. He’d realized she was…different.
Heath had protected her before she’d even realized that she needed protecting.
He’d even been the one to get her the job at Wylee’s. She didn’t have any paperwork, no Social Security card or driver’s license—Jane had nothing. Hell, she’d even had to pick out her own name.
But Heath had called in some favors that Hannah owed him, and she’d been able to get paid under the table. And been able to survive.
“You trust me, don’t you, Jane?” He asked her. Heath’s hand rose. He brushed back the hair that had fallen over her left eye.