Bound in Death (Bound #5)(14)

Alerac stopped just in front of her. “You’re welcome.”

Her lips parted.

His head lowered toward hers. “That’s twice that I’ve let you run. Don’t try for a third time.”

The words were a rumbled whisper of menace.

“You won’t like the punishment I give if you flee from me again.”

Then he was taking her arm. Her body brushed against his naked flesh. She gasped at the contact and tried to pull away.

Yeah, that wasn’t happening. The wolf had a strength she’d never seen before.

Or, if she had, Jane didn’t remember it.

But then, I don’t remember anything before that swamp. Six months. That was as far back as her memory went.

Six short months.

“Don’t run,” he said softly.

Her gaze flew to the street. To the pile of bodies. She flinched.

Alerac’s hold tightened on her. “I get that you don’t remember, okay? Let me help you out. That prick vampire? All of his men? They were here to get you, to force you to come back with them. They’re working for a guy named Lorcan.”

The name meant nothing to her.

“He’s a master vampire,” Alerac said in that deep, rumbling voice of his. “He’s also a sadistic bastard who wants to make you suffer.” He pulled in a deep breath. “I’m not about to let him get his hands on you again.”

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*ckin’ 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.