And since he already knew how to walk soundlessly…
Jane will keep him distracted. I’ll get my pack mate and the voodoo queen. And we will fucking destroy Vincent.
A simple enough plan.
Stronger together.
He slipped into that back room, but when he saw Paris, Aidan stilled. Paris had his arms locked around Annette and the guy’s fangs were bared right over her throat, as if he were about to gorge on her blood.
Shit! No! I can’t let him—
Aidan leapt forward, a roar ready to burst from his lips but—
Someone else screamed. A high, quick scream of warning. The cry didn’t come from that back room. It came from what sounded like the front of the building.
Where Jane is.
But at the cry, Paris’s head whipped up. His eyes locked on Aidan and Paris stared at him not with a mindless, bloodlust filled gaze, but…
“It’s Aidan.” Paris’s lips curved into a grateful smile. “That’s who I sensed coming, not Vincent. It’s just Aidan.”
His hands fell away from Annette.
Aidan frowned.
Annette bent and brushed away the dirt near her feet. “Finally, alpha. Shit, do you know how nervous I was getting?”
Nervous…or scared?
Aidan’s stare swept over Paris as his friend yanked at the manacles on his ankles. “Had to…act like I was still…deranged.” Paris ripped away the manacle from his left foot. Then his right. He shot a quick glance at Aidan. “You’re sane, too, right? Because Vincent was telling us you were destined to go over the edge.”
“I did,” Aidan said flatly. “But Jane pulled me back.”
The scream had faded away. It hadn’t been Jane’s scream, he knew that. Vincent wouldn’t kill Jane, he couldn’t. The bastard needed her. She was his end.
“It was Vincent all along,” Annette said quickly. “He hates wolves. He wants to eradicate them all. He’s using Jane’s blood to do it—he says it’s poison to wolves.”
Not exactly. Dangerous, but not lethal.
“Jane is taking care of the bastard,” he told them. “Distracting him while I get the two of you to safety.”
“I’m not fucking leaving,” Paris threw back. “I owe the bastard, I owe—”
Blood.
The scent teased Aidan’s nose. His head turned as the sound of footsteps shuffled closer.
“Ah, Aidan,” Annette began, her voice shaking a bit. “There’s something you need to know about Vincent…and Lena…”
Vincent appeared in the doorway. Blood soaked his shirt. One of his arms was locked around Jane’s neck and his other hand…it gripped a bloody, wooden stake. He had that stake pressed to Jane’s chest.
“Jane.” Vincent said her name with fury—with betrayal. “You lied to me. Aidan still lives.”
Aidan’s claws were out. His beast was now fully under his control—beast and vamp—and both were ready to tear into Vincent.
“Yeah, well,” Jane didn’t sound even a little afraid. Just pissed off. Brave. My Jane. “You lied to me from day one, so I figure that makes us even.” Her gaze jerked toward Annette. “I drove that stake into his heart and he didn’t go down. Why the hell not? Want to enlighten me on what I’ve missed here?”
Before Annette could speak, Vincent laughed. “You’ve missed plenty, Jane. You all have.” His mouth brushed against Jane’s cheek. “Ever wonder how your brother knew to fire silver bullets when he attacked on that college campus? I was the one to give him the gun. I was the one to visit him and tell him there were dark, dangerous threats out there…that there were creatures he needed to fear, not just vampires.”
“He wouldn’t have listened to a vamp,” Jane’s voice was strained. “Not Drew—”
“He didn’t know what I was. I made sure of it. Just as I made sure that Aidan’s little compulsion trick wouldn’t work on your brother.”
How the hell could he do that?
But…
Lena had crept up behind Vincent. Aidan’s gaze darted to her.
Magic. Fucking magic.
“I visited your brother often over the years. Never when you were around, of course.” Mocking laughter slipped from him. “I guess you could even say I gave him poison, too. A slow poison of hate that ripped into his mind. Humans can be so easy to manipulate.”
Jane yanked against his hold, but Vincent’s grip didn’t falter. And the stake kept pressing right over her chest.
“Lena…” Vincent called.
The blonde stepped closer to him. She always seemed to be in the shadows, waiting for Vincent to call her up.
“I do wish you’d eliminate those three,” Vincent ordered, his voice bored, as if he’d just told Lena to take out the trash. “Aidan Locke. Paris Cole. And not-so-great voodoo queen, Annette Benoit. I wish you’d get rid of them right now.”
Like he gave a shit what Vincent wished.
“I’m sorry,” Lena said. She lifted her hands. The gold around her wrists gleamed.
“Fuck me,” Annette whispered. “We are so dead.”
Not yet. Not by a long shot. Not—
“She’s a djinn,” Annette told them, turning desperate eyes on Aidan. “There shouldn’t be any of her kind left, but he has her bound to him…I think that’s what those bracelets are—they’re chains for her. She has to do exactly what he says and—”
And Vincent had just wished for Lena to end them.
A blue smoke drifted from her fingers and it came right at Aidan. He opened his mouth but…
Aidan started to choke.
“No!” Jane screamed.
“I’m sorry,” Lena whispered as she slipped by Jane and Vincent.
Aidan couldn’t breathe. Annette was coughing next to him. Choking. She hit the floor first and Paris tried to grab her to pull her into his arms. Paris lifted her up and tried to run, but the strange blue smoke just tightened around them.
“A death cloud,” Vincent called. “One of my favorite tricks…”
Each breath just brought more of that blue cloud into Aidan’s lungs. So…
He stopped breathing. He rose to his full height. He could hold his breath a long fucking time.
He’d always been able to do so.
And he’d do it now, for as long as it took.
Vincent was staring at him, his expression becoming bemused, and behind the bastard…
A new enemy waits.
Because Aidan had just spotted Drew Hart. The bastard’s lips were clamped tightly shut and he had blood covering him. He was creeping forward, a human completely outmatched but Vincent wasn’t looking back to see that new threat. He was too busy holding tight to a fighting Jane. He didn’t see…
Aidan smiled at Vincent. The vampire bellowed his rage. “You should be fucking choking to death, wolf!”
Screw you.
And Drew Hart attacked. He jumped on Vincent’s back, clawing at him with his fingers, going for his eyes. Vincent let go of Jane.
She snatched the stake from his fingers and shattered it in her grip.
Vincent sank his teeth into Drew’s throat. He ripped, he tore, and blood flew—
Aidan grabbed Jane’s hand. They needed to get away. His blood was throbbing in his veins. His heartbeat thundered in his ears. Paris and Annette were on the floor.
“It’s her!” Jane yelled, pointing at Lena. “We have to stop her!”
Drew’s body fell to the ground. He twitched as blood pumped from his throat. Vincent was still crouched over Drew’s body, as if he’d attack again. “Worthless,” Vincent snarled at him. “Just a human…one in the way. You shouldn’t have taken Jane out of that basement so long ago. You should have left her so that Thane and I could finish what we’d started…you were always fucking in the way!”
Aidan grabbed the bastard by his shoulder. He swung Vincent around to face him. “Guess who’s in your way now?” He drove his claws into Vincent’s chest, sinking them in as deep as they would go. “I am.” The
blue smoke drifted into his lungs. Burned.
Vincent screamed, a cry of rage and pain. But then…he looked down at Aidan’s claws in his chest and he started to laugh. “You can’t kill the unkillable. You’re going to fall, and I’ll be alone with Jane. Soon enough, I’ll get her to see things my way. Soon enough—”
“Hey, asshole!” Jane called.
Vincent’s head whipped toward her. Jane had grabbed Lena and she had one hand locked around the nape of the woman’s neck. “Let’s level the playing field, shall we?” Jane glanced at Lena. “Sorry, this will hurt…” And then she rammed Lena’s head into the nearest wall. Lena sank to the floor, sprawling, unconscious.
The blue smoke immediately vanished.
Aidan sucked in a deep breath. Game the fuck on.
He yanked his claws from Vincent and attacked again. Faster. Harder. The blood flew, the vamp stumbled back, but he didn’t go down.
How in the hell did Vincent keep standing? Keep living?
“I don’t think he can die!” Jane shouted. “I drove my stake right into his heart—and the bastard just yanked it back out!”
Vincent stood in the middle of that room, blood soaking him. Aidan was in front of him, Jane had just circled behind him, and Paris was to his left. Annette stood to Vincent’s right, staring at him with eyes gone even darker with the swirl of her power.
Never count out a voodoo queen.
“Can’t be killed,” Annette said, her voice weak but her spine straight. “His djinn must have given him that power, the darkest of all gifts.”
And, once more, Vincent laughed. “She did! You fools, did you really think I’d come at the wolves and not have stacked the deck in my favor? You can stake me, and I won’t stop. You can take my head, and I’ll still come back. I’ll always rise…again and again. I’m immortal. Eternal. There is no end for me.”
“Annette,” Jane suddenly snapped. “Step to the side. The freaking side, now!”
Annette looked down at the floor. Understanding flashed on her face a second before she jerked to the side.
And Jane shoved Vincent—she shoved him hard to the spot that Annette had been in just moments before.
Then Annette and Jane were both on the floor, on their hands and knees, scrambling to push the line of dirt closed so that it circled around Vincent.
Vincent’s face tightened with his fury and his hand flew toward them. Aidan surged forward but—
“The dead can’t cross my line.” Annette leaned back on her haunches and glared up at Vincent. “So take that, you bastard.”
Vincent roared his rage. He threw his body forward, but he seemed to slam straight into an invisible wall.
He was caged.
Jane heaved out a rough breath. “That should hold him, for now.” She rose to her feet. Aidan grabbed her and pulled her close. She smiled at him. “You okay?” Jane asked.
Jane was alive—hell, yeah, he was okay.
But…
Horror flashed on her face. She shoved Aidan to the side even as Vincent bellowed his rage again. But Jane didn’t run toward Vincent. Instead, she ran to the fallen form of her brother.
The left side of his throat was ripped open. His eyes were wide, terrified. His lips were still clamped together and weak moans came from him.
“Drew?” Jane fell beside him. She grabbed his hand. “Drew!”
He was struggling to speak, but no words emerged.
“Djinn!” Annette bellowed.
And Aidan saw that Lena was slowly rising to her feet. Blood trickled down her temple.
“I know the rules.” Annette jerked her head toward Vincent’s enraged form. “Vincent has something of yours, right? What the hell is it? How does he control you?”
Lena touched her chest. “He has my heart.”
“Uh…” Paris shuffled a bit closer to Aidan. “Tell me she doesn’t mean that literally.”
Aidan was afraid she might. He had no clue how to deal with a djinn—he’d actually thought those creatures were just myths until about five minutes ago.
“Where is it?” Annette demanded. “Where’s your heart?”
“Lena!” Vincent shrieked. “I control you! I own you—kill them! No, no, make them kill each other! Get them to turn on each other—rip each other apart!”
Lena took a swaying step forward. “I…have to…obey…”
Screw that shit. Aidan took a menacing step toward Lena.
“I don’t want to hurt that woman,” Paris’s voice rumbled. “But I will. I will kill her if I have to do it.”
It was looking as if they would. It was…
It—
He saw the gleam of gold around Vincent’s neck. Aidan’s eyes narrowed as he stared at the small gold chain…a chain that he’d noticed on Vincent before. The vamp was hardly the sentimental type…
“Annette, can I still cross your line?” Aidan demanded. But he didn’t wait for her to answer. He surged forward—
And hit an invisible wall.
Sonofabitch. He’d feared that after his battle with the darkness, he’d altered. Now he was wolf and vampire. Beast and undead.
And he couldn’t get past the line. Fuck.
Vincent started laughing, that cold, twisted laughter of his. “Realized what I carry, didn’t you alpha?” He jerked up the gold chain. A ruby hung from that chain. “You locked me in here, but that means you locked yourself out. No one can get to me…and I’ll keep control of my djinn. I’ll have her kill you all, then free me and then—”
Annette flew over that line of dirt.
Paris bellowed.
She grabbed the ruby, snapped the chain and threw the prize to Aidan.
Annette gave them the heart even as Vincent grabbed her in his arms and sank his teeth in her throat.
“No!” Paris cried. His fists drove into the invisible shield, again and again.
Aidan’s fingers curled over the ruby. “Djinn,” he said, staring at Vincent with fury hardening his heart. “You’re free.”
There was a clatter. From the corner of his eye, he saw that the bracelets that had circled Lena’s wrists had fallen to the ground.
“Voodoo queen…to me.” Lena suddenly ordered.
And invisible hands seemed to rip Annette right from Vincent’s grasp.
“Fucking bitch!” Vincent roared.
Lena’s expression never altered. She waved her hand at Drew. “A brother can speak…”
Drew gasped. “Jane…s-sorry…so…s-sorry…L-love…”
He didn’t get to say any more. Not because of a djinn’s curse. But because he’d just taken his last breath. Jane’s shoulders hunched. Her grief seemed to fill the room and then she leapt to her feet. She ran toward Vincent— “Undo your spell on him, Lena! Your spell, your magic, whatever the hell it is!” Jane shouted. “Take away his power so he can die!”
But Vincent licked his blood-stained lips and raised his hand. He shook one finger at her. “That gift, once given, can never be taken away.” He leaned closer to Jane, stepping right up to the line that caged the dead. And the undead. “You’ll never be free of me. Long after your lover is ash on this earth, I will still be here…waiting, for you, Jane. Waiting for us to bring about our end.”
Jane shook her head. “No, no—”
“Yes,” Lena said, voice rasping and sad. “I’m sorry but…that gift doesn’t go away. He cannot end. Cut him into a thousand pieces, and he will regenerate. Burn him, and the ash will merge to produce a man. It’s the darkest gift, I warned him of that…the gift that requires the highest price. He wanted to be a creature that couldn’t ever be banished from this world, so he became a monster with no soul. That was his price…”
Aidan curled his arm around Jane and pulled her back against his body. Your lover will be ash. “You still don’t understand what you’ve done, do you, Vincent?”
Jane’s brother was dead.
The djinn was free.
Paris was holding tight to Annette.
&n
bsp; And Jane…
Aidan and Jane were still standing.
“I’ve already died once,” Aidan told Vincent, keeping his eyes locked on that soulless bastard. “And I came back. Your brilliant plan to end werewolves? It backfired. I’ll get Heider to run all of his tests, but I know what he’ll find…just like Jane, I’ve stopped aging. Death isn’t standing over me, waiting, because I’ve already defeated that bitch once. So I won’t be going anywhere. I’ll spend forever at Jane’s side. I’ll watch her back and I’ll love her. And you will never hurt those we care about again.”
Vincent’s face crumpled. “No! No! She was the end—”
“We saved Paris, too. Now that he’s stronger, we know how to keep werewolves who transform sane…they just need enough blood, fast enough. Werewolf blood. You didn’t destroy the werewolves. You just made us stronger.” Now it was Aidan’s turn to smile. “And my whole pack will be here soon…”
“Doesn’t matter.” Vincent shook his head once, hard. “I can’t be destroyed! I can’t—”
“A stake might not take you out, losing your head might not even stop you, but…” Jane said, cutting through his words, “but you can spend an eternity in hell.”
Vincent stilled. “Wh-what?”
“I hope you’re ready for the end,” Jane told him. “Because for you, it’s coming.” She turned in Aidan’s arms and stared up at him.
Yes, they were thinking the same damn thing. He could see it.
They couldn’t kill Vincent…
But they could stop him. They could contain him.
His end. It was fucking at hand.
Chapter Eighteen
New Orleans Homicide Detective Jane Hart stalked through the cemetery. The heavy stone mausoleums rose up around her and the statues seemed to watch every step that she took. It was long after midnight, and the cemetery should have been deserted…
Jane turned right.
And found a voodoo queen waiting for her. A bandage covered Annette’s neck. “It’s done,” she said simply.
Paris curled his hand around Annette’s shoulder and she settled back against him.