Bitter Blood (Blood and Moonlight Book 3)(14)

Right. Fabulous. “I think you’d better focus more on getting out of the city. Aidan isn’t a man you want as an enemy, but you sure have pissed him off.”

His lips thinned. “I don’t run from wolves.”

Maybe you should.

“Goodbye…for now, voodoo queen.” He gave her a little bow and then sauntered away.

She put his card on her table, right next to her broken chunks of glass. She stared into the glass and, for just an instant, she saw fire.

Fire…

And a vamp rising.

***

“You sure you can handle this?”

Jane glanced over at her police captain. Vivian Harris stood with her in the too bright hallway of the Hathway Psychiatric Facility. Vivian’s badge was pinned to her belt, but the captain didn’t have her weapon with her—both Jane and Vivian had been ordered to surrender their weapons at check-in.

It didn’t exactly work out well to have loaded firearms around mental patients.

A guard stood just a few feet away, watching the exchange between Jane and Vivian.

“I can talk to the prisoner,” Vivian assured her. “You don’t have to do this.” Vivian’s suit didn’t sport so much as a single wrinkle and her hair was pulled back in a twist, emphasizing the elegant lines of her cheeks and jaw. Her coffee skin gleamed, even under the horrible lights, and her gaze was steady as it focused on Jane.

Sympathy. Jane could see the emotion in her captain’s eyes. Vivian pitied her. Just when Jane had thought things couldn’t get worse. I want Vivian’s respect, not her pity.

Jane’s shoulders straightened. “Drew hasn’t talked to anyone else. He’s not going to speak, not unless he’s talking to me.” She had to go into that little room and see her brother. She’d been dreading this meeting…dreading it from the moment she realized that death wasn’t going to keep her in its tight grip. Drew would know that she should have died after that shooting spree that he’d initiated. And when she walked into that room…

What will happen then?

“Just make sure the security camera in his room is turned off,” Jane whispered. “We don’t exactly want anyone getting a record of this little chat.”

Vivian knew the score. After all, she was a werewolf, one of the many wolves in positions of power in New Orleans.

“Don’t worry,” Vivian assured her as she inclined her head toward the silent, watchful guard. “That’s already been handled.”

The guard nodded back toward her.

Another werewolf? And to think Jane hadn’t even been aware of the werewolves, not until a few months ago. How quickly things had changed.

“Your brother has been restrained,” Vivian told her. “So you don’t have to worry—”

Jane’s sad smile stopped her words. “I don’t have to worry that—what? He’ll try to kill me? Been there, done that.” But she still hesitated to put her hand on the door knob and open the damn door. Coward. I am a coward at my core. Jane licked her lips and risked a quick glance at Vivian once more. “Are we good?” She blurted out those words in a really, terribly awkward way.

Vivian’s dark brows shot up. “Good?”

Jane waved her hand between them. “Yeah. Me. You. Me being all…” Jane pointed at her mouth. Vampire-like. Only there was no “like” to it. She was a vampire. And as a werewolf, how did that make Vivian feel? Did it—

“You don’t come at my throat, you don’t start draining any humans, and yes, we’re good,” Vivian said briskly.

But Jane still had to push. “You don’t…feel the urge to attack me?” It was that way for other vampires. Aidan should have killed her as soon as she’d transformed. Paris should have gone for her throat but…

They hadn’t.

Because I had so much of Aidan’s blood in me. Werewolf and vampire all combined.

“I don’t,” Vivian said simply. Her head cocked. “You want to tell me why that’s so?”

I’m a crazy vamp-slash-werewolf. That’s why. Jane knew her smile was weak as she said, “I’d better go and talk to my brother.” Before any non-werewolf guards started their shifts and wondered why the video surveillance in Drew Hart’s room wasn’t working.

Squaring her shoulders, Jane took a deep breath. Then she reached for the handle on his door and she stepped inside.

The walls were yellow. Cheery. Sunlight spilled through the blinds and through the bars that were on the lone window.

A sharp gasp came from the right and Jane’s head turned—and her eyes clashed with a gaze that was just as dark as her own. Her older brother, Drew, was in bed. Strapped down to the bed. His dark hair was a stark contrast to the white pillow case. His body strained on the bed as he twisted and heaved against the restraints. “Mary Jane.” His gaze widened as he seemed to drink her in. “Thank God…Mary Jane.”

She shut the door behind her and then Jane pressed her back to it. Not a wooden door—metal. Reinforced. She stared at her brother as her heart twisted in her chest.

“You’re okay.” His voice was rasping. “So glad you’re okay.”

She was far from okay.

“I had to kill the werewolf, you understand that, right?” His hands had fisted. “He was evil. Dangerous.”