Bitter Blood (Blood and Moonlight Book 3)(18)

“I need you to make him forget,” she said, voice soft. “Can you come to the Hathway Psychiatric Facility? I—I hate asking, you know I hate asking, but I’m afraid he’ll just attack again if you don’t use your power on him to make him forget and—”

“I can’t.”

“Wh-what? Aidan, please, okay? Please. This is me, begging you for—”

“You never have to beg me for anything.” He could hear the others in the hallway. They’d just opened a door. It gave a long squeak.

“Then do this for me. Just—”

He wished that he could help her. “My power doesn’t work on him.”

Silence. “What? Aidan, no, that’s not—”

“I thought it did, the first time I met him. I thought I got him to tell me his secrets, but he was holding back on me.” Aidan had been over that scene, again and again, in his mind. “That’s how he was able to attack. He fooled me, Jane.” It wasn’t something he was proud of admitting. It was something that enraged him. “So making him forget isn’t an option. If you think Drew won’t stop coming after us, then the guy needs to stay locked up or he needs to be taken out.” There were only two options, and Aidan knew which option he favored.

Kill the bastard.

The problem was that the bastard in question was Jane’s brother.

A brother who fired f*cking silver bullets at me. Aidan still didn’t know where the guy had gotten those bullets. Drew had acted shocked to learn Aidan was a werewolf. But if he already had silver bullets, where had the f*cking shock come from?

“I can’t kill my own brother,” she whispered.

Why not, baby? He killed you. But Aidan didn’t say those brutally true words.

Another door squeaked open, the sound coming from the back of the hallway. Garrison and Paris were continuing their search. They were—

Snick.

A bitter, acidic scent hit Aidan’s nose. He whirled, every primal instinct he possessed screaming at him. “No!” Aidan bellowed as he dropped the phone and rushed down the hallway. “Get out! Get—”

Paris turned toward him. His face showed his shock—and his fear. He must have caught the scent in the air, too. Maybe he’d heard that faint snick sound. Paris was starting to run back toward Aidan.

Garrison still stood frozen in the doorway. His head jerked at Aidan’s roar. He looked at Aidan, utterly terrified, his wide gaze holding the same wild fear that it had possessed when he was a child. When Aidan found him covered in blood, cowering in that death-filled house that had been Garrison’s home.

“Aidan?” Garrison mouthed his name.

Then the flames erupted. They shot out of the room behind Garrison and the force of that blast lifted him up, throwing the younger wolf toward Aidan.

And then the fire seemed to swallow them all.

***

The sunlight poured down on Jane as she stood just outside of the Hathway Psychiatric Facility. That light was too bright. Too hot. “Aidan?” Jane whispered.

But there was nothing. No response. No whisper of breath. Not even any beeping to signal they’d been disconnected.

“Aidan?” She’d heard him yelling for someone to get out. There had been fear in his voice. Aidan wasn’t normally afraid. He wasn’t…

The bright sky was suddenly dark. Her head tilted as she stared up at a big, black puff of smoke that was rising in the air, rising near the French Quarter.

Jane slowly lowered the phone as she stared at that smoke. Aidan. No, no, it didn’t have to be him. The smoke did not have to be related to Aidan. It didn’t have to be, but—

Her chest hurt. She felt as if someone were trying to carve out her heart. Trying to take her heart right from her.

She started running down the stone steps that led to the street.

“Jane?” It was Vivian’s worried voice, calling out after her. “Jane, we need to—”

Jane didn’t stop. She ran for her car. She dialed Aidan again on her phone, but he didn’t answer. The phone just kept ringing.

Be okay. Be alive. Be—

A strong hand grabbed Jane’s shoulder and spun her around.

“What’s happening?” Vivian demanded as her hold tightened on Jane.

Jane tried to think—tried to shove back the fear that wanted to swallow her so she could focus. Captain Harris. Vivian had connections she could use. “I’m afraid something happened to Aidan…”

I’m afraid…The very stark truth that cut straight to her soul.

I’m afraid.

***

Fire engulfed the historic building at the edge of the French Quarter. The windows had exploded and glass littered the street. Jane ran toward the two-story building, leaving her car haphazardly parked near the curb, and fighting her way past the firefighters and cops who’d just arrived. Broken glass crunched beneath her boots and her frantic gaze stayed on that blaze.

Aidan might not be inside. He might not. He might—

“Get the hell off me!” A dark, dangerous bellow. A familiar bellow that stopped Jane in her tracks. “I have to get back in there—my best friend is in that building!”

Her gaze whipped toward that voice. Paris. He was there, currently being held back by five police officers. His clothes were half-burned. Singe covered him, and she could see blisters on his face and arms.