Bitter Blood (Blood and Moonlight Book 3)(51)

More important things were happening. “I saved you,” Jane said again.

He pulled out another towel. Big, fluffy, white. With the same care he’d shown her before—as if he were afraid a touch would bruise her—Aidan carefully dried her skin. Then he wrapped the towel around her body.

“Aidan?” Jane prompted.

His hands fell away from her.

“I burned and I died, Jane.” Stark. Cold. “My last thought was of you. I can remember that. The flames were eating my flesh, I hurt so much, and all I wanted…it was just to see you again.”

Tears stung her eyes. “You—you were breathing. I got you out.”

He started to speak, but then stopped. He turned from her and paced to the small closet in the bathroom. He pulled out a pair of faded jeans and yanked them on. Then he jerked a soft, black t-shirt over his head.

Jane stood there, wrapped in the towel, goosebumps covering her skin, and feeling more vulnerable than she’d ever felt before.

Aidan reached for her spare clothes. He offered them to her. “Dress…then we’ll talk.” His jaw clenched. “It’s…too hard to focus when I can see you like this.”

Then he turned his back on her and walked away.

Jane stood there a moment. The clothes were on the sink near her. And all she could hear was…

I died.

She dressed with shaking hands and hurried out of the bathroom. Aidan was standing in front of his desk, with his back to her. She wanted to run to him and wrap her arms around him, but something held her back.

That something? It was fear. Plain old fear.

“I was changing before the fire,” Aidan spoke without looking at her. He was running his fingers over the top of his desk, as if tracing something there. “I knew it. I started to crave blood and…my instincts changed.”

His instincts. “You mean the urge to kill every vamp on sight?”

Finally, he looked back. “Yes.” There was a pause. “And the blood that I craved the most? Jane, it was your blood.” He swallowed. “And I still crave it.” The words seemed to be a warning.

She wasn’t in the mood for warnings. She moved closer to him.

“I died in that fire. You were my last thought. But…I came back.”

“Vamps don’t rise that fast,” she whispered. He’d died violently, with a vampire’s blood in his system. Okay, yes, technically, that might make him change but— “Werewolves aren’t supposed to become vampires.”

“I did. Paris did. I think we can just screw that ‘supposed to’ shit straight to hell.”

Jane flinched.

“I came back. I woke up burning and I woke up…” His gaze slid down to her neck. “Hungry.”

She had to touch him. Jane’s hand pressed right over his heart. “You woke up as you. You came back totally—”

“Vivian had seen to it that I was given blood before I even opened my eyes, Jane. Plenty of it. Vivian wanted to make sure I was strong so she did what she thought was best. She didn’t even realize that she was strengthening a vampire, but that was what she did. That’s how I held onto my control. But my control is getting weaker. There’s a darkness growing in me, and I feel it becoming stronger every single second.”

His heart thundered—too fast—beneath her touch.

“I’m worried about what I’m going to do.”

“You aren’t going to do anything wrong!”

He smiled at her. “The wolf in me didn’t stay dead, Jane. It came back, too. A wolf and a vampire living in one body…and they’re trying to tear me apart.”

Her breath seemed to freeze in her lungs.

“I’m afraid I’ll hurt you,” Aidan said.

“You won’t.”

But his hand slid over her neck, moving down to brush over the mark he’d left on her. The mark that, even with her new healing powers, hadn’t faded. “I already did.”

“Aidan…”

“You are mine, Jane. And I can’t let you go.”

Had she asked to be let go?

“I worry about what I’ll do…when you finally run from me.”

That—that was crazy. “Do I look like I’m running?”

“Not yet.”

But you will. She could practically hear those words whispering in the air between them.

“No,” Jane fired back. “I’m not going to—”

The phone rang, shrilling loudly on Aidan’s desk. He glanced at it, his eyes narrowing, and she thought he’d ignore the call because, you know, they were in the middle of important shit. But then he reached for the phone. “Locke,” he growled.

Jane could hear the caller all too clearly. It was Vivian, and she said, “Aidan, I’ve got one of the EMTs, Sharon Lawson. She swears that Paris was alive when she first brought him in her ambulance, but something happened…she blacked out for a moment and when she woke up, he was dead. His neck was broken and Sharon is swearing to me that wasn’t the case before she passed out.”

Fury darkened his face. “Why the f*ck didn’t she say something to someone before?”

“Because she’s a human,” Vivian said, her voice soft. “And she’s terrified. She has vague memories of a man climbing into the back of the ambulance with her, but considering that her patient died on her…Sharon is blaming herself. I found her in a damn bar, just down from you on Bourbon Street. She’s trying to drink herself into oblivion.”