Okay, now the fire was a little too hot. Or maybe she was a little too hot. Jane edged back.

“We weren’t supposed to be together,” Alerac continued, and his fingers brushed back her hair. “And Lorcan wanted to make sure that when you were free, you didn’t remember me.”

His head bent.

She tensed.

His lips brushed over her throat.

A shiver slid over her. That shiver had nothing to do with nervousness and everything to do with desire. Her sex was suddenly aching. Her nipples were tight. When she’d taken his blood before, it had been as if a gate had broken open inside of her. She’d been flooded with emotion. Need.

Lust.

For him.

“The bastard thought I’d be long dead by the time you were free. That you wouldn’t remember what he’d done.” His voice roughened even more. “I showed him.” Another sensual press of his lips along her throat.

Her knees were starting to feel funny. “Why would you be…long dead?”

His head lifted. “Werewolves aren’t immortal.”

She’d never get used to those glowing eyes. Eyes that saw in to her.

“You were locked away.”

“Locked away?”

“I don’t know where. I couldn’t find you. I looked and I looked, but you were gone.”

Her lips had turned desert dry. “For how long?”

She’d demanded the truth, but in that instant, Jane didn’t think she wanted to hear—

“Two hundred years.”

No, she definitely hadn’t wanted to hear that truth.

Chapter Five

Jane was in his home. Where he could keep her safe.

He could hear the rush of the shower’s water pounding down on her. After he’d told her that she’d been imprisoned for over two hundred years, he’d expected more questions. Instead, she’d turned and headed up the stairs without a word.

He’d followed her.

He felt like he was always fuckin’ following her.

She won’t get away again.

He stood before the closed bathroom door. Jane was inside. Naked.

He’d stripped off his own shirt. Now he wore only a pair of loose jeans that hung on his hips.

Did Jane realize just how delicate his control was? Probably not. She didn’t seem to understand just how desperately his beast wanted her.

His wolf had been denied its mate for far too long.

He couldn’t be denied any longer.

The water stopped.

Rustles. Whispers.

Move away. It would be wise to move away from the door. To give her some space, but…

The wolf within him wasn’t letting him move. The man was at the end of his rope. Too hungry for her. Too desperate to reclaim what had been stolen from him.

No, he shouldn’t have lived for two hundred years. But he hadn’t been about to give up.

Sometimes, you didn’t realize what you had until it was gone.

The door creaked open.

Jane stood there, clad only in her towel.

Once you realized just how valuable some things—some people—were, you’d fight even the devil to get them back.

For her, he’d fight anyone. Everyone.

Her gaze lifted to find his. “Alerac…”

He reached for her. Kissed her before she could speak again. He loved her taste. It drove him wild.

Her skin was soft beneath his hands. Still wet from the shower. He wanted to lick that skin. He wanted to lick every single inch of her body.

Mate.

He’d never claimed her as his mate before. He wouldn’t make the same mistake again.

He lifted her up against him. Held her easily in his arms. She was so small and delicate. When they’d first met, and she’d still been more human than vampire, that delicacy had scared him.

She’d been too breakable.

He’d waited to take her then, so desperate for her to change and become a full vampire—so that he couldn’t hurt her.

A werewolf’s passion wasn’t an easy thing. Rough. Wild. Savage.

After waiting for so long now, that savagery was just beneath his surface.

His claws wanted to come out. He wanted to snarl and howl and take.

But the man held onto control. Barely.

He carried her toward the bed. Put her on the heavy covers. Pulled back to stare down at her.

Did she want him? He inhaled, desperate to see—

“Why do I feel this way?” Her voice was a husky stroke right over his skin. “No matter what happened before, I shouldn’t want you this badly.”

Yes, you should. “There’s nothing wrong with desire.” Not a damn thing.

Her wet hair spread behind her on the bed. The towel was knotted between her breasts.

She stared up at him. Her eyes were so blue. As blue as the skies over Ireland, the home she’d once had. “I don’t know you,” she whispered.

You did. “Then get to know me.” At first, he’d wanted her to get all of her memories back. But now, in truth, there were parts of their past that he never wanted her to remember. Selfish? Yeah, but it would be easier to forget those parts.

The betrayals. The lies.

He reached for her hand. Brought it to his lips. He kissed her knuckles and turned her hand over so that he could score his teeth over her palm.

Her breath hissed out.

“Your body knows me, and I know it.” That towel needs to come off. He had to make this good for her, before the beast took over for him.

Too long.

“I’ve dreamed of you in this bed.” A stark confession from him.

Jane shook her head. “I never have dreams. Only darkness.”

When he’d lost his sight, she’d been the only light in his darkness.

He licked her palm. Then Alerac inhaled the tempting scent of her arousal. She wanted him. She feared him, but she wanted him.

He put her hand back on the bed. Let his fingers trail up the silken skin of her thighs.

“J-just so you know…” she told him, watching him with desire shadowing her eyes. “This isn’t because I owe you for my life.”

His fingers eased up a few more inches, pushing away that towel. “Then what is it about?”

She rasped out a quick breath. “Desire.”

Oh, he was well acquainted with desire.

“It’s not natural, the way I feel about you,” she whispered. “I shouldn’t want you this much.”

Yes, she should. “Maybe your body just remembers what your mind can’t.”

“Don’t…”

The one word had his head jerking up. If she was telling him to stop, to back away, he would.

For her, he’d do anything.

But then she said, “Don’t hurt me.”

She fuckin’ broke his heart. The heart too many had tried to carve right out of his chest. The heart he’d given to her two centuries before.

“I won’t.” Then he was unknotting that towel. Peeling it away from her body. She was just as she’d been in his dreams. Those perfect, round breasts with their pink-tipped nipples. The soft curve of her stomach. The lush flare of her hips.

The temptation of her sex—soft and pink and waiting.

He bent his head and took a breast between his lips. Licking. Sucking. Tasting. The nipple was hard and tight and he loved the way she gasped and arched toward him.

He kept tasting her, sampling her, even as his fingers slid down her stomach and pushed between her legs.

She was wet for him.

Already.

Yes.

Her hands were on his back, her nails lightly raking over his skin. He’d wanted her touch for too long.

His eyes squeezed shut as he kissed his way down her stomach.

“Alerac?”

He kept kissing her. He’d taste the need she had for him. He’d make sure to give her pleasure before the beast broke free.

Her pleasure mattered. If he made it good enough for him, maybe she’d stay, once she learned the truth.

He’d seduced her to his side before.

Can I do it again?

His hands pushed her legs apart. Her scent—so good—was making him light-headed with raw need and lust. He stroked her with his fingers, learning the secrets of her sex once more. Her hips rose helplessly toward him.

Her body tightened.

He put his mouth on her. He damn well feasted.

She jerked beneath him. Tried to pull away.

“Alerac—it’s too much!”

No, not even close.

He used his lips and his tongue and he worked that sweet flesh until he knew that her release was at hand. He could feel it approaching in the stiffness of her body, the gasps that broke from her mouth.

He pushed his finger into her. Licked the center of her need.

Jane came against his mouth.

The taste of her pleasure broke his control.

He surged back over her. When she reached for him, Alerac grabbed her wrists and pinned her hands to the bed. He could see the edge of her fangs peeking out behind her red lips. Her eyes were shining with pleasure.

Mine.

He drove into her, plunging as deep as he could go, lost to everything but her. The bed heaved beneath them. The slats groaned as he thrust. Faster. Harder.

A growl built in his throat. The wolf was pushing through his control, demanding that he mark the mate he’d lost so long ago.

He wanted to put his teeth on her, right there where her neck curved into her shoulder. The bite would claim her. Show all others that Jane belonged only to him.

And it would give him her blood. The powerful, intoxicating blood that had first addicted him.

His canines were burning in his mouth. Stretching. Sharpening. He parted his lips. Put his mouth right over that sweet spot. He sucked the flesh.

A choked scream came from Jane as she bucked beneath him. Another release. Pleasure that shuddered through her—through him.

Don’t bite her. Not yet. Not. Yet.

He yanked his mouth away from her and erupted into the core of her body. The pleasure was more than he remembered. Stronger. Consuming. Obliterating all that had come before.

Linking them.

Bonding them.

His heartbeat thundered in his ears, a mad drumbeat that wouldn’t slow. Sweat slickened his back as he slowly lifted his head.

He stared down at Jane, lost.

“Y-you’re still doing it,” she whispered, her words a husky tremble.

His brows lifted. His cock was in her body, sated, but…I want more of her. “Doing what?”

“L-looking at me…like you could devour me…”

He smiled. That was exactly what he wanted to do.

Alerac began to thrust again.

Her legs curled around his.

She met him.

The pleasure rose once more.

***

She didn’t dream of darkness.

For the first time since she’d crawled out of that swamp, Jane dreamed of blood.

Rivers of blood, enough to choke her. To drown her.

She saw men in an old chamber, a room made of stone. A fire flickered in a hearth. Voices were shouting.

Don’t kill him!

The voice that made that desperate plea…that voice sounds like me.

The chamber vanished. She never saw who was being killed there. Jane was too busy staring at a new scene.

A dungeon. Two men were chained to the walls. When their heads turned, she realized that they weren’t men.

Vampires.

“You can’t do this…” One hissed.

“Watch me,” Alerac said and—

Wait, Alerac? In that instant, Jane realized that she was seeing these images from Alerac’s point of view. She almost seemed to be inside of Alerac and looking out at the world from his eyes.

Even as Jane made that realization, the river of blood deepened. Alerac sank his teeth into the vampire’s throat and he fed.

The vampire died moments later, horror and shock still on his face.

Then Alerac turned to the next vampire.

“Don’t!” The vampire shouted, fear making his eyes flare wide. “I wasn’t there! I don’t know where she is!”

“Of course, you were there,” Alerac’s voice seemed to boom all around her. “I saw you.”

His claws reached for the vampire.

That vision—that dream—vanished. Turned into another. More vampires. Being tortured by Alerac. Being drained by him. He took their blood. Liam was with him, watching his alpha. Smiling with a sick and cold grin as the vampires died.

“I’ll find her,” Alerac promised. “Even if I have to kill every one of you.”

“No!” Jane jerked up in bed, the scream breaking from her lips.

Her heart drummed, shaking her chest, and the sheets were tangled around her naked body.

In the next instant, the bedroom door flew open. Alerac stood there, dressed in his jeans, nothing else. “Jane? What’s happening?”

I saw you kill—you killed my kind.

She’d been told that Alerac was a master when it came to killing vampires. She’d just seen the master up close and personal on his kills.

He rushed toward her. His claws were out.

She flinched.

Alerac stilled. His eyes narrowed. Those bright eyes. Too bright. That gaze swept over her. Then his lips tightened. “Been dreaming, have you?”

She jumped from the bed. Wrapped the sheet around her body. She’d been moaning in that bed beneath him just hours before. Moaning beneath a man who killed so easily. “I don’t dream.”

He went back and closed the door behind him. Blocked that one wonderful exit. “No, I guess memories aren’t dreams, are they?”

She could still feel him on her body. “M-memories?”

“When you took my blood, I knew it would happen.” He shook his head. His claws vanished. “Just a matter of time. With my luck, I should’ve known the visions would come the first time you slept.”