Hell’s Gate. Jane followed Aidan’s scent back to the club on Bourbon Street. His haven. The place where it had all started for them.
She’d met Aidan just outside of Hell’s Gate while working her first case as a homicide detective. A woman’s dead body had been dumped near the club. Of course, that particular victim hadn’t stayed dead, not for long. And Jane’s world had quickly spun out of control.
Slowly, she approached the entrance to Hell’s Gate. The guard stood as she neared. “Ms. Jane…” Troy looked over his shoulder at the closed door. “You shouldn’t…I don’t think you should go in tonight. Something isn’t right.”
Troy had claw marks on his stomach. She’d smelled his blood from a block away. Jane swallowed. “Aidan did that to you?”
He nodded.
Shit. “When I go inside, lock the door behind me. Then go back to the werewolf compound and get that wound treated, okay?”
But he didn’t move. Troy’s eyes—one blue and one green—stayed locked on her. “It isn’t safe for you.”
“I can handle him.” She sounded way more confident than she felt. “But everyone else needs to stay away for now.” Until she had her Aidan back. And she would get him back. There was no alternative for her. Whatever she had to do in that place, she’d do it. Jane wasn’t about to lose him. They’d already been through too much together. She wouldn’t give him up now. “Lock the door behind me,” so they wouldn’t get any unexpected visitors, “then go,” Jane ordered.
He hesitated but, after a moment, Troy stepped out of her way. Jane’s hand curled around the door handle and she opened it slowly, the hinges creaking. She stepped into the club, and it was dark inside, a cavernous darkness.
It was a good thing she could see so well in the dark.
She advanced a few feet and the door swung shut behind her. The locks turned, a loud, distinct click of the tumblers. She listened a moment and heard Troy’s footsteps fading away. Now…now she was alone with her beast.
Jane knew Aidan was there. She hadn’t spotted him, not yet, but Jane could feel him. Watching her. The hungry stare of a predator.
Was he a wolf?
Or a man?
Both?
She rubbed her hands on her jeans. She still had blood on her—Roth’s blood. She wanted to go back to his place, to search for clues, to get his damn body taken care of but…
Aidan came first.
He mattered. Because Jane was very afraid that Aidan was slipping away from her.
She walked into the middle of the club. Her gaze swept over the ground floor of Hell’s Gate. “Aidan?”
A low growl had the hair on her nape rising. Her gaze shot upward, toward the second level of the club, and she saw his hulking form.
He wasn’t a wolf, not any longer.
Her breath expelled in a relieved rush and a wide smile curved her lips. “Aidan, you’re okay!”
He began walking down the stairs, a slow, steady glide. His eyes glowed a bright blue in the darkness.
He was…bigger. The guy had always been muscled, but this was different. His arms were bigger, his shoulders far wider, his height even a few inches taller.
An alpha on steroids.
Jane licked her lips. “You’re okay,” she said again but it sounded as if she was trying to convince herself of that fact.
He didn’t speak. Jane retreated a step, then stopped herself. She forced her shoulders to straighten as she waited for Aidan to come to her.
They’d made love in this same place just a little while before. Aidan had said that he loved her, and she knew he’d meant those words. He loved her.
She loved him.
They were going to get through this madness.
Some way.
She could practically feel the threat in the air around her. It was instinctive, the way a hunted animal could sense the predator closing in.
Aidan was before her and the hard, dangerous expression on his face clearly said Jane was his prey.
He lifted his hand and his dark claws came toward her face.
***
“The alpha won’t hurt Jane.” Garrison was adamant. “He loves her.”
Annette bent to get a better view of her broken mirror chunks. She could see fire and hell. Blood and death and…
Jane.
“He won’t kill her,” Vincent agreed. “Because I don’t think he can. Beast, man, or vamp…he still thinks of Jane as his. But when the chips are down…” He exhaled slowly. “I’m afraid Jane won’t have an option. She’ll have to stop him before he turns on innocents.”
Annette stared into her glass. “The end.” That was what the burn mark on Jane’s right side symbolized. She looked up at Vincent.
“Yes,” he said. “Jane will be his end.”
Drew was straining in Vincent’s hold. Straining and still bleeding.