***

Jamie yanked open the door and put his claws at the werewolf’s throat. Sean froze with his hands up in the air. Then he demanded, “Fuck me, man, is that how you answer a door?”

“It is when I smell Latham’s scent.” And his brother’s scent was definitely on Sean. Jamie grabbed the guy and hauled him inside. “Want to tell me what the hell is happening?”

Sean swallowed. “He’s coming for you.” His gaze darted to the bed. “For her.”

That had been the plan. Before.

“You’ve changed your mind, haven’t you?” Sean charged. He shoved away from Jamie. “Dammit, I knew this would happen. I saw the way you were looking at her in that bar. When she said she was gonna drink from me…shit, you went postal.”

Postal? Huh. Jamie had thought that he’d held onto his control pretty well. All things considered. He had remembered that Sean was his best friend. So he hadn’t shoved his claws into Sean’s side.

“She was the big secret weapon.” Sean marched around the bed. “You were supposed to use her, not fall for her.” Sean’s gaze drifted from Iona’s still body back up to Jamie. “I guess you are more like your brother than you want to think.”

In an instant, Jamie had his friend against the wall, and his claws were out. “Don’t.” There were some lines that he wouldn’t even let Sean cross.

“Don’t what?” Sean demanded, not backing down at all. “I trusted you. I gave you my loyalty, my life. Latham’s a twisted freak, but he managed to walk the thin sanity line until he met her. Your brother couldn’t have her, and he went batshit. If she wasn’t his, then she was nobody’s. He locked her up and—”

Jamie’s fist and claws drove into the wall as his fury erupted. “He was always batshit! I saw it from the moment he came to the pack. He’d get off on torturing the weak. Hell, he almost killed you when you were only six.” But Jamie had stopped him. He’d always had to stop him. Story of my life. “You don’t remember, but I do. How the hell do you think you became an orphan? He was the one to kill your parents. He was the one who came after you. I told my father. I told him, but no one would believe me. Why would a wolf attack his own kind?”

Sean stared at him with stunned eyes.

“Because he’s a demented psychopath,” Jamie said, answering his own question as he yanked his claws out of the wall and stepped back. “And I am nothing like him.” He turned away from Sean and glanced over at the bed.

Iona’s eyes were open. She was sitting up in bed. Staring at him. Shit.

“You want her just as much as he does,” Sean said from behind him, but the werewolf’s voice shook with pain and sorrow.

I shouldn’t have told him like that. Sean deserved better. To him, Sean was his brother, not Latham.

“Remember your big plan?” Sean said and now he was getting angry. So Jamie wasn’t really surprised when the guy said—right in front of Iona—that, “Part of that plan was that I’d let Latham find me. I’d offer him a deal. Tell him that you’d trade her for peace.”

Jamie’s eyes were on Iona. “That was just a lie to bring him out. To get him to face me. I wasn’t going to make a deal.” I wouldn’t trade you. He’d thought to defeat Latham, not to actually give Iona to the bastard.

She just stared back at him. He couldn’t read a single emotion on her face or in her eyes.

“I held up my part of the agreement,” Sean snapped. “I went to him. Found him while he was torturing some human named Greg. I told Latham, and now he’s coming to meet you. Latham sent me to deliver a message. He wants you and the vamp to meet him at her old compound, at midnight.”

The plan had been to draw out Latham. To force him to face-off against Jamie. Only…Jamie had planned to be riding high off the rush that came from Iona’s powerful blood. Finally, a fair fight between the brothers. He’d planned to drink and drink from her.

Then use her to distract his brother so that he could go in for the kill.

I can’t. Because what if he was wrong? What if he wasn’t strong enough? And if Latham got to Iona…

Iona cut her gaze to Sean. She studied him a moment, then gave a curt nod. “We meet at midnight.”

No. Jamie hurried toward her. He leaned over the bed and had to fight to keep his hands off Iona. Don’t touch her when your claws are out. You can hurt her. “I’ll go after him myself. You don’t need—”

“I was supposed to be the instrument of your vengeance.” She pushed from the bed. Walked right by him. “And now you don’t want to use me?”

The blood memories. So she had gotten them all while she slept. No more hiding. His shoulders stiffened. “You know.”

Her burning gaze touched on him and said that she did.

“Good,” he told her and meant it. “Because I don’t want any more lies or secrets between us. I was an idiot then. I didn’t know you, and I thought—I thought who you were didn’t matter.” But she’d gotten under his skin. Into his very blood and soul. “You matter,” he said, the words too simple.

A furrow appeared between her eyes. “You expect me to believe—”

He hated that he had an avid audience watching his every word. Jeez, could Sean not give them some privacy for an instant? “I expect you to believe that I was an idiot. I was bent only on getting my own justice, and I didn’t realize the cost to you.”

Her breath seemed to come faster. Her eyes blazed. “You tied us together. For me to live, I’ll have to keep taking your blood.”

Shame burned through him. “I’m sorry, I—”

She waved away his apology with an angry swipe of her hand. “And you think I’d just let you waltz out there and face Latham alone? If he kills you, I’m dead, too.”

He realized the enormity of just what he’d done to her. Like an apology was gonna cut it. “I don’t plan on dying. I’ll kill him, and when this is over…”

“What? We’ll stay together, because you’ve bound us?”

He shook his head. “I’ll give you as much blood as you need, anytime you want it. You don’t have to stay with me. You can…” He stopped and cleared his throat. I want her with me. But he wanted her happiness more. “You can go anywhere you want,” Jamie forced himself to say, “do anything you want, and I’ll make sure the blood is always sent to you.” He’d be her personal donor, for as long as she wanted.

Forever.

She closed in on him and put her hand on his chest. Right over the heart that just seemed to beat only for her now. “And what about you? If you don’t get my blood, you won’t be the all powerful werewolf that you so desperately want to be.”

“He also won’t live forever without your blood,” Sean pointed out as he crept closer to them. His voice was controlled now, but Jamie knew the control was an act. I’m sorry, Sean. He’d kept the secret about Sean’s parents for too long. But if he’d told Sean the truth back then, the guy would have gone after Latham.

And gotten killed.

Sean was just a foot away now. Shoulders up. Head back. Eyes too determined. “All my research showed—”

Iona’s head jerked toward him. “Research? What research?”

Sean’s face reddened. “There’s…ah…a few mated werewolf and vampire couples these days. When they share blood, they stop aging. We even found one couple that had been together for seventy years, and the werewolf doesn’t look a day over twenty-five.”

Iona’s gaze came back to Jamie. So much suspicion in that gaze. He hated that look. I want her trust.

She didn’t appear to be in the mood to give it to him.

“So as long as you have my blood, you get to live forever, huh? I’m betting your brother,” Iona said the word like the curse it was, “knew all this, too. That’s why he just wouldn’t take my hell, no for an answer when he asked me to mate with him.”

“I’m killing him…” Latham would never touch her again.

“No, I’ll do that. I can fight my own battles, and pick my own mate.”

A mate that isn’t you. He knew exactly what she meant. His fingers lifted. Curled around the hand that she still had pressed over his heart. “It isn’t just your battle. He took my family.”

“Mine fuckin’, too,” Sean snarled.

Jamie flinched.

Iona’s small, pink tongue slid over her bottom lip. “I-I know.” Her gaze darted to Sean. Jamie saw the sympathy in her stare, then her stare returned to him.

“I won’t let him keep hurting and torturing. I will stop him.” Then, he confessed his shame, “As I should have stopped him years ago.” Because if he had, then none of this would ever have happened. His parents’ deaths. The slaughter of the wolves in their pack. Her imprisonment. “I won’t walk away this time.”

He was alpha now. He’d been ten when Latham killed Sean’s family. Jamie’s father hadn’t believed his tale. He’d said it was a child’s wild imagination.

Latham had been furious with Jamie for trying to reveal his slaughter. His brother had found him, separated him from the others…As soon as I’m alpha, I’ll take your head, brother. Latham’s threat had whispered through his head so many nights when he’d been a child.

But now…I’m coming to take your head, Latham.

Jamie had fought to be strong. He had his wolf, a fierce, powerful beast that knew how to battle. How to survive. How to conquer.

And his blood had woken Iona. Only an alpha’s blood could have woken her. He was an alpha. The power was inside of him, as it had always been. Maybe that was why Latham had hated him so much. Maybe his brother had known that, one day, the life-or-death battle would come between them as they fought for dominance.

That day is now.

“I thought you were different.” Iona’s voice was so soft now. Not soft because of sadness, but because of the fury he saw blazing in her eyes. “Why couldn’t you have been different?”

“I am different.” He pressed her hand harder against his chest. “I’ll prove that to you.”

But she laughed and the sound cut into him. “There’s nothing to prove. I’m in your blood, wolf. I know you.”

He pressed his lips to hers. Kissed her hard and deep and wild. Kissed her with all of the consuming passion and lust that he felt for her. “And you’re in mine,” he gritted out against her lips. “I feel like you’re a part of me.”

Sean cursed and backed the hell away from them.

Jamie’s gaze searched hers. Her breath heaved but she didn’t speak.

He did. “You’re a part that I didn’t even know was missing…the best part of me.” His heart.

Then, because it was what he had to do, Jamie stepped away from her. He turned to face Sean. “I’m sorry about your parents. I didn’t tell you…because I knew you. Even at six, you would have challenged him. You would have died.” He hadn’t been powerful enough to save Sean. Not then.

And he’d kept the secret, kept it for so many years, because Latham’s power had just continued to grow. Jamie hadn’t wanted to risk his best friend’s life. He’d protected him the only way he knew how…by staying silent.

It wasn’t a time for silence any longer. It was a time for vengeance.

Jamie exhaled slowly. “If Latham said midnight, then we’re getting there as soon as night falls. We’re not going to give him a chance to set a trap.” They were only going to let Latham die.

“Of course, there’s going to be a trap,” Iona said, but her voice wasn’t quite steady. “With Latham, there’s always a trap. Werewolves in the shadows, vamps ready to betray their own kind, witches with their spells…”

“He doesn’t have a witch this time,” Jamie pointed out with a fast glance her way. “So there’s no power for him there.”

“Isn’t there?” Iona asked as she swept past him. “Latham doesn’t make mistakes when it comes to battle. He killed Brian, yes, but I’m betting that was only because he’d already found another witch who was more powerful. A witch he’ll try to use against us in our midnight battle.”

The kick in his gut told Jamie that she was right.

“So we need to be ready to fight that witch with our own magic.” From the corner of his eye, Jamie saw the flames begin to dance over Iona’s hands. “And when it comes to magic, this time, I will be holding my own.” The flames flared higher. Jamie’s eyes met Iona’s. The gold in her gaze matched the flames.

Beautiful.

Death had never been so gorgeous. Latham was a fool. Against them, he’d have no chance.

Time for his brother to die.

Chapter Seven

“I want you to bite me.”

Iona blinked at the low, growling words. They were inside the heavy walls that had once surrounded her old home, and the scent of ash teased her nose, a reminder of the fire and death she’d dealt earlier.

Her head turned so that she faced Jamie. Sean was about fifty yards away, perched carefully at the top of the west side wall. A group of trees grew near the wall, partially concealing Sean as he watched…and held a rifle equipped with silver bullets.

“My blood can increase your power,” Jamie told her as his gaze searched hers. “You know it can. A werewolf’s blood can amp you up for the battle.”