Again? That “again” part really scared her.

“You…protected me,” Jane said softly. The bullets had hit Alerac. Her hand rose up, before she could even think about what she was doing, and she touched his chest. Her fingers slid over that heated skin.

He tensed beneath her. “Be careful.”

“Your wounds are gone.” No more blood. Nothing at all.

“The shift heals me.” The words were clipped.

Her hand stilled on his chest. She stared up into his eyes.

And realized that his mouth was just inches from hers.

She also realized that her heart was thundering in fear, yes, but there was also more happening to her.

I want his mouth.

Just where in the sweet world had that thought come from?

His eyelids flickered. “I can give you everything that you want.”

“Uh, just not here, mate,” said the wolf with the angry eyes. That wolf also shared Liam’s faint accent. “Local cops will be coming soon. They’re on the way.”

“I hear them, Liam,” Alerac said. But he didn’t move.

Jane frowned. She didn’t hear any sirens. She was getting that their senses were a lot better than hers. Scary since Jane had already thought that her vision was pretty sharp. She could see well in the dark, could catch a scent from half a mile away, and she’d once heard a baby cry from four blocks down the road.

Just how good are their senses? Jane wasn’t sure she wanted to find out.

“You don’t know me.” Alerac said this with certainty.

She nodded.

She didn’t know him, and he’d just left a street corner full of blood behind him.

“I know you,” he told her. There was something in those words, an intimacy, that had her body tensing.

“You’ve been found, little vampire,” he murmured as his shining gaze held hers. No wonder he’d worn sunglasses in the bar. Those eyes would have scared all of the humans right out of the place. “Now that you’ve been found, you’re going to find yourself in the middle of a war.”

“I-I don’t want a war.” The other wolves were shifting back into the forms of men. Coming to stand around them. Glaring. They all seemed to hate her.

All but Alerac.

He looked at her as if—as if he wants to devour me.

She didn’t want to be a snack for the big, bad wolf.

Alerac wasn’t looking away from her. “Some will want to kill you. They’ll want to torture you just to hear you beg.”

This couldn’t be happening. She wasn’t in to the torture scene, not at all.

“Some will want to use you. A pawn with no f**kin’ clue.”

Her eyes narrowed. “What is it that you want?”

To use her? To torture her?

That glowing stare drifted over her face. “You. I’ll keep you alive, but in return, I get you.”

Then she could finally hear the sirens, too. Like screams in the night.

“Live or die, your choice,” the one he’d called Liam said. “Just choose fast.”

She didn’t want to die. What waited for someone like her on the other side? Jane was afraid to find out. If she was a vampire, did that mean she was some kind of abomination? “Live,” she said, lifting her chin.

Alerac smiled. “Good, because you really didn’t have a choice.”

Her lashes flickered.

Liam tossed some clothing and shoes at Alerac. He dressed in an instant, then he was pulling her toward him. “Come on!”

“But my truck—”

“You don’t need it. You don’t need anything from your old life.”

They were in front of a motorcycle. He climbed on. Motioned for her to jump on behind him.

She slid onto the bike.

“Wrap your arms around me.”

Tentatively, her fingers settled around his shoulders.

“Come closer. Hold me tighter.”

Her breath whispered out. She slid closer. Her br**sts brushed his back. Her arms dropped. Her hands curled around his stomach.

The motorcycle growled to life, with a growl much like Alerac’s own. Then they were lunging forward. Racing into the night.

She didn’t look back at the bodies. She turned her face against his shoulder, and Jane tried to figure out how she was going to survive with the werewolf.

A werewolf who seemed particularly skilled at killing vampires.

***

That sure hadn’t gone according to his damn plan.

Lorcan Teague stood in the shadows. The swirl of police lights flashed around the street, a sickening blue illumination that had his eyes narrowing. Humans were hurrying around the scene. Snapping pictures of the bodies. Looking for evidence. Roping everything off with their yellow police tape.

Vampires had attacked someone here.

They’d attacked the woman known as Jane Smith.

Only there should have been no such attack. He hadn’t sent out the order for Jane to be taken in. What would have been the point? Jane was supposed to go off with the werewolf alpha.

In order for her blood to become stronger, she had to go with the beast.

He’d planned so carefully.

But it looked as if another player had entered the game. Someone who was screwing with his agenda.

That wouldn’t be tolerated.

He turned away from the scene. He inhaled the scents in the night. The werewolves had fled one way.

Vamps…my own kind…had gone another.

His fangs stretched and burned in his mouth.

Someone was about to pay the price for betrayal. It would be a very, very high price indeed.

Chapter Three

He drove until he could see the red streaks of dawn sweeping across the sky. Alerac didn’t want to stop, he wanted to keep right on driving until he had Jane safe with him and back at his home. Where he could be certain no more vampires would attack her.

But the sun wasn’t her friend. Hadn’t been, since her twenty-fifth birthday. He should know. He’d been there that day. He’d covered her with his coat, trying to shield her from the light that burned her now.

The motorcycle braked near the rundown motel. They were still in Florida. Still miles to go before he felt secure enough.

But Liam was already hurrying inside. Securing the rooms for the group. Alerac knew that the humans at the motel thought they looked like a motorcycle gang. He’d heard the whispers when they’d all ridden up on their bikes.