“Don’t even think about it,” Annette whispered. “I’m not on your menu.”
But he smiled at her. “Love, you are the menu.” Then he leapt to his feet and charged right at her. The chain that fed into the top of the wall broke—the stupid chain that had been manacling both his wrists—as he lunged to attack. So much for the new chain Vincent had brought to use.
In the face of Paris’s attack, Annette didn’t move. She didn’t flinch. She didn’t back away. She waited.
Paris slammed into the invisible force field created by the dirt of the dead and by her power. He howled. The sound was very, very wolf-like. So his beast is still there. Good to know. She’d been afraid that his wolf was dead.
Not so.
“What…is…happening?” Paris yelled. He shoved his hand against a wall that was there—one he couldn’t see.
“You’re being restrained,” Annette told him simply. “Until you’re more…yourself.”
He snarled.
She picked up a bag of blood and tossed it to him. The blood sailed right over the line of dirt. “Drink up,” Annette urged him. “Because I need my Paris back.”
Greedily, he grabbed the bag. He tore into it with those razor sharp teeth and started to guzzle the blood. He guzzled and guzzled and… “Don’t watch me,” Paris whispered.
She stiffened.
His gaze held hers. “It…shames me.”
That was her Paris talking. He was coming back. Bit by bit. “You don’t need to be ashamed with me.” She reached for another bag and tossed it toward him.
He caught it. Still stared at her.
“It’s going to be okay,” Annette whispered to him.
But Paris gave a sad shake of his head. “No…now I’ll never be good…enough for you.”
Her heart hurt. “You are good enough. Monster or man, it doesn’t matter to me.” It had never mattered. “But next time, don’t be so slow making your move, got it? You want something, you want someone, you act.” Because life was too fragile. Too quick. And even her magic couldn’t stop all the bad things in the world. “Paris…” Annette sighed his name. “I won’t let you go.” That was her shame. That she needed him so much, that she’d come to care for him so much, that she would make any deal, use any dark trick, to keep him with her. I won’t lose you to death.
No matter what it took.
***
Garrison rushed into the ME’s new lab, and when the doc saw him—
Dr. Heider jumped to his feet and put his hands into the air. “Don’t hurt me!”
Garrison frowned at the guy, but then he realized Heider was staring at the bloody knife he gripped in his hand. Humans. “The voodoo queen told me to bring you this.” He dropped the knife onto the doc’s desk. “It’s got Paris’s blood on it, and she wanted you to test it.”
Heider inched closer to the knife. “Test it? I ran exams on Paris’s blood earlier. The results were clear…the guy’s a vamp.”
Garrison’s jaw hardened. “Run new tests. Using this sample.”
“It’s probably contaminated to hell and back.” Heider sniffed. “I mean, you were just running around town with the sample…”
Garrison growled. He might not be an alpha, but he was still a wolf. “Run the tests.”
“Right, tests.” Heider nodded. “But it’s not like the results will change. Not like someone can go back from being a vamp.” Hider pulled on a pair of gloves.
“Annette also said…” Garrison cleared his throat. “She wants you to compare the results to Jane’s blood.”
Heider hesitated. “Got to say, at this point, I’m surprised Paris actually still has a head. I would’ve thought the guy would be well on his way to the afterlife by now.”
Garrison growled once more. “Careful, doc. That’s my pack member you’re talking about. But, yeah, he’s still got his head.” And Garrison wanted the guy to keep it. He liked Paris. Paris was his friend, and Garrison didn’t have enough of those.
Heider’s gloved fingers gingerly picked up the knife. “A vampire killed your family,” he said as he turned away from Garrison. “Shouldn’t you hate them all?”
“I do hate the vamp who took my parents.” Rage would always twist in him when he thought of that bastard. “But that guy is nothing but ash now. He can’t hurt anyone.”
Heider was taking some samples from the knife.
“I don’t hate all vamps.” The words just seemed to slip from Garrison. “I don’t hate Jane.” He couldn’t hate her. As for Paris…“Like I told you, Paris is pack.”
Heider was silent as he ran his tests. Garrison just stood there, shifting a bit from foot to foot and glancing at the body bag to his left. Why the hell would anyone want to work with the dead all day?
“You haven’t felt the urge to attack Paris?” Heider’s voice drifted to him.
Garrison rubbed the back of his neck. “At…at first, I could feel my beast and he wasn’t happy but…but the more blood that Paris took, the better it got.”