Bitter Blood (Blood and Moonlight Book 3)(15)

“Aidan isn’t evil.” She couldn’t move. Her brother’s face was lined, pale, showing the strain from his recent hospital stay. But she’d read the reports on him—he was healing fast. Almost too fast.

At her words, Drew’s dark brows shot up. “Isn’t…isn’t evil. Isn’t?” Drew heaved against the restraints once more. His handsome face reddened. “I shot him! Are you saying he’s still alive? He should’ve died! He should’ve—”

“You shot me.” She kept her voice flat with an effort. Her brother had apparently been dead silent for days but the minute he saw her…

I knew he’d talk.

“You jumped in front of him,” Drew muttered. “I never meant to hit you. I was so scared. So worried…but you’re here. You’re alive.”

And she couldn’t help it. Jane shook her head.

He stopped struggling against his restraints. “Mary Jane?”

“You have to let go of all that rage you carry inside,” she told him, her chest still burning. “It’s destroying you. I saw it…for years. Like a festering wound. Just getting worse and worse, never better. I stayed away from you because I saw what you’d become. I thought I was making it all worse. Making you remember…”

Vampires. Death.

Hell.

She took a step away from the wall. Then another. She walked slowly until she reached the edge of his bed, then she stared down at Drew. His hair was mussed, sweat beaded his brow, and his eyes….

“You killed me, Drew. You did that.”

“No!” He screamed the denial. “I was just trying to stop the werewolf! He’s a monster! He thought you loved him!” Drew gave a hard, negative shake of his head. “You don’t belong with someone like that. Something like that!”

“I do love him.”

Drew shook his head.

“And I love you.” That part hurt so much. “Even with what you did, I still love you.” That was why it hurt so much to look at him. When Jane gazed at her brother, she remembered the boy who’d pulled her from hell one dark night. A dirty hand, reaching out to help her.

Her side seemed to burn. Her side—her scar. The twisting mark that she’d been given when she was just eleven years old. A twisted, sadistic vampire named Thane Durant had broken into her home. He’d killed her mother and step-father, then he’d tied Jane to the table in the basement. He’d pulled out a soldering pen and burned the Greek letter Omega into her skin as she screamed.

Omega. The end. Is that what I am?

“You aren’t dead, Mary Jane.” Drew wasn’t screaming any longer. He was whispering. “I see you. You’re right here. You’re breathing. You’re talking. You’re—”

Jane leaned down close to him and in his ear, she whispered, “I’m a vampire.”

His whole body jerked as he tried to pull away—from her. Her gaze slid to his forearm and the tattoo there, a tattoo of the Greek letter Omega. A tattoo to match her burn. Only he’d chosen to get that tattoo. He’d said he’d done it to remind him of her.

The pain in her heart just got worse.

“If you get free,” Jane asked him, “what will you do?”

He wasn’t looking at her. Just staring at the far wall.

“Will you come after me again? Go after Aidan?”

Again, no answer. Drew just kept staring at that wall as if it held all the secrets in the universe.

Her laughter was sad. “The silent treatment, huh? Aren’t you tired of that bit?” Then, driven too far, Jane just broke. She caught his chin in her hand and wrenched his face toward her. She stared at him, their faces inches apart. “I am not your enemy.”

His jaw hardened. “Get me the f*ck out of here.”

“What will you do,” Jane asked again, “if you get free?” Because she could still feel the fire of his bullet going into her chest.

“I won’t stop,” he rasped. “Not until I destroy the monsters.”

She jerked back from him, as if she’d been burned. Again. Jane marched into the bathroom, her gaze searching frantically around. And then—then she looked into the mirror. She hadn’t wanted to look in the mirror at Aidan’s place…because I knew I wouldn’t like what I had to see. But, sometimes, you had to face the monsters. Her eyes narrowed as she stared at herself. Jane drew back her hand and drove her fist right into the mirror. It shattered.

She grabbed a big chunk of that mirror and marched back to Drew.

The door to his room flew open. Vivian stood there, her body ready to attack. “Jane, what happened?”

Jane just shook her head, and she shoved that broken mirror before Drew’s face. “Take a good long look in there,” she ordered him. “And you’ll see a monster staring back at you.” Because I’m not the only monster in the family.

His gaze locked on his reflection.

“Aidan never did anything to you. He never would have gone after you. And me…well, I just wanted to love you. You are the only family I have left.” The mirror was shaking in her hand.

Vivian crept closer to the bed. “Jane…”

“You destroyed your own life, Drew.” She was just sad now. “What comes next, well, it will be on you.” She moved away from the bed, taking the mirror with her as she and Vivian headed for the door.