Bitter Blood (Blood and Moonlight Book 3)(23)

Oh, God. She’d killed Paris. She’d killed Aidan’s best friend. She’d done this.

Dr. Bob curled his hand around her shoulder and—

Paris’s eyes flew open. He sucked in a sharp breath.

What?

His lips curled back from his teeth and she saw his growing…fangs.

“Fuck me,” Dr. Bob swore as his hold tightened on Jane’s shoulder. “You did this.”

***

He hurt.

Aidan eased open one eye. He saw the familiar dark wood furniture of his bedroom. Saw the huddled figure of Police Captain Vivian Harris as she stared down at him from the right side of his bed.

“Jane…” Her name slipped from him. Jane needed to know about what had happened. She’d been on the phone with him. She’d been asking him to control her brother…

Then hell had exploded all around him.

It did more than explode…for a while there, I swear I was being dragged right down to hell. For a moment, he’d lost everything.

“The burns have faded,” Vivian told him, her voice brisk. “I didn’t think that even you could come back from damage that bad.”

He opened his other eye. Sat up. Groaned as he felt the weakness in his body. Weakness and…

Hunger.

“You risked your life for Garrison.” Now her voice was more angry than brisk. “If Jane hadn’t gone into the fire after you, hell, you and the pup would both be dead—”

He grabbed her wrist. “Jane.” His hand was trembling. He was trembling. He was so damn weak.

And he swore he could still feel the flames, melting away his skin. Destroying him. Killing him. Then…

Hunger…

Aidan swallowed. He ran his tongue over the edge of his teeth. His canines were sharp. Too sharp. “Jane…wasn’t in the fire.” Jane had been on the phone with him. She’d wanted him to help her brother.

The only help is death.

“Yes, she was there.” Vivian met his stare directly. She’d always done that—never flinched away. She was one of the few werewolves who’d never feared him and who’d always had his back. “The woman ran into the fire and threw you out of that building. She knocked a wall down to do it, but…”

No. No. His hold tightened on her wrist. “Where is she now?” He needed to see her. Needed to make sure she never went into another f*cking fire again.

Jane saved me? And he couldn’t remember. He could only recall fire. Flames eating at his flesh. Garrison begging him to run.

But Aidan hadn’t been able to leave the other wolf. He’d known Garrison would never survive the flames. He’d tried to protect him but—

Chill bumps rose on his skin. The fire was too strong. Too strong even for me.

“Jane’s with Dr. Heider.”

He freed Vivian and rolled to the edge of the bed. Aidan stood up.

And promptly fell on his ass.

“Aidan.” She sighed his name as she bent to help him up. “I just watched your body completely regenerate over the course of hours. You should have been dead. You—damn, alpha, you looked like you’d literally walked through hell. Your skin was melting.”

Okay, that wasn’t the best image to carry around, but he knew she spoke the truth. He’d felt it melting. He’d felt hell. Hell had wanted to hold tight to him but…

I came back.

“I get that you want to rush off to find Jane, but you aren’t one hundred percent, not yet. So…” She shoved him back on the bed. “Keep your ass here until you finish recovering. Jane is tough. She saved you, right? She can handle a few more hours on her own.”

It didn’t make sense to him. If Jane had gotten him out, why wasn’t she with him? Jane wouldn’t just leave him.

Vivian’s gaze darted away from him. “Sleep longer. We’ll talk more later.” She turned and headed for the door, her steps quick. “I’ll let the others know that you’re nearly back to fighting form.” Her hand reached for the door knob.

“Was Jane hurt?” A vampire should never have gone into the fire. She’d risked death…

For me.

They seriously needed to get the hell out of town. Away from blood and fires and danger. Maybe they should go on a cruise or some shit. Do what normal people did for a change. Cruises left from New Orleans nearly every day. They could go drink some rum in Grand Cayman.

“Jane was hurt…a little,” Vivian allowed. She hadn’t looked back at him.

A lot. “She’s alive.”

Her shoulders squared.

“Look at me.”

She turned. “She is alive but…”

He hated buts.

“But it was best for us to remove her from the scene in a body bag. People—humans—had just watched her fly out of a second story window and crash head-first into concrete. I wasn’t sure if you were going to make it or not, so I couldn’t count on you hunting down all of the witnesses and making them forget about Jane. So…we zipped her up.”

He grabbed for the bed covers. “Body…bag?”

“The humans at the scene bought the act. She was knocked out, barely seemed to breathe, and Dr. Heider was the one who pronounced her dead.” She paused. “Undead,” Vivian muttered.