She caught his hand and held tight. “Then I’m an abomination. You know I have both wolf and vamp running through my blood, too. But I’m not going crazy. I’m not turning psycho and attacking everyone in sight. You won’t do it, either! I know that you won’t—”
“I wasn’t born to be a vampire, Jane. You were.” His expression was tormented. “Right the fuck now, I want to sink my fangs into you. I want that sweet blood of yours on my tongue, and I want my cock in you. I have a hunger for you that’s not ending. It’s getting stronger and deeper with every moment that passes.”
“You think I don’t want you just as much?” She remembered the wild need that had burned to life inside of her when he’d taken her blood. “Because to be clear, I do, Aidan. I do.”
“You don’t understand.” The lines near his mouth deepened. “You aren’t seeing the danger.”
“Because it’s you!” Jane nearly yelled. “There isn’t any danger for me when I’m with you! Don’t you get that, Aidan? You’re my safe zone. My anchor. I’m not afraid when I’m with you.” She stared into his eyes, needing him to understand this. Needing it to go bone deep. “I won’t be afraid when I’m with you.”
He gazed back at her.
Jane exhaled and turned away from him. “Let’s go downstairs. I want to hear what that EMT has to say, too, and—”
“You will be afraid of me, Jane.” His voice came out low, without any emotion. “Before I’m done, I’ll terrify you.”
***
Vivian dragged the blonde with her as they hurried down Bourbon Street. The woman was still clutching a hurricane in her hand, and her steps were weaving as she struggled to keep up with Vivian and not spill her precious drink.
“I want to go back!” Sharon called. “I need more drinks!”
Vivian rolled her eyes. “You need to get your ass sober, woman.” She got it—she did. Sharon had been crying into her hurricane when she arrived. Sharon was convinced that she’d done something to cause Paris’s death. Like there isn’t already enough guilt going around on that one.
“I’m going to lose my job,” Sharon mumbled. “When my boss learns that I passed out on a patient…he’ll think I was drinking on the job.”
“Yes, well, the fact that you’ve been chugging drinks all morning isn’t going to help that case out any,” Vivian retorted. She could see Hell’s Gate up ahead. Good. Now to get Sharon inside and let Aidan work his magic.
“I wasn’t drinking.” Sharon jerked to a stop.
A stop? Now? When they were so close?
Sharon stared down at the drink in her hand. “I was trying to save him. I wanted to help. But when I-I opened my eyes…I was lying on top of him. My hands were at his throat. And his neck…it was broken.”
Vivian snatched the drink from Sharon’s hand. “I don’t think you’re strong enough to snap a man’s neck.”
Sharon blinked at her. “I…I lied.” A stark whisper.
Does the woman even realize she’s talking to a police captain? Vivian had identified herself earlier but…
“I told everyone on scene that he’d broken his neck during the fall. He didn’t. It happened in my ambulance. It must have been me.” She shuddered. “It was me. Me, me—”
“Stop that shit,” Vivian ordered flatly. They’d already been through this guilt routine at the bar.
Sharon stopped. She blinked at Vivian.
“You want to know what happened in that ambulance? Then you come with me, right the hell now.” She’d questioned Sharon for a while before and gotten the woman to mumble an admission about the man who’d appeared in the ambulance, then Sharon had clammed up. Aidan will take care of that situation.
“H-how can you find out the truth?”
“I have a friend who can help you remember what went down. Remembering things like that, well, it’s his specialty.”
Hope flashed in Sharon’s gaze. “You mean it? He…he sounds like some kind of amazing friend.”
Vivian steered her toward Hell’s Gate. “Oh, yes,” she murmured. “Trust me, he is.” Aidan’s the kind of friend you don’t want to piss off.
***
Roth Sly stumbled into his apartment, and the soft footsteps of his guest followed him right inside.
“You were hired to follow Jane,” the guy groused. “What the hell kind of screw-up are you pulling? If you can’t do the work, I can sure as hell pay someone else for the job.”
Jane.
Roth glanced to the right, to the images that he had pinned to his cork bulletin board. Shots of Mary Jane Hart were up there. Mary Jane with her gun drawn as she faced a thief. Mary Jane as she prowled through a cemetery. Mary Jane as she stood outside of Hell’s Gate with that big, dangerous bastard Aidan Locke at her side.
Roth quickly glanced away from those photos even as he edged closer to the bulletin board. Without looking directly at the image of Jane again—for some reason, he just didn’t want to do that—he reached out and grabbed the photos. He tossed them into the trash.