Eternal Flame (Night Watch 3)

So Jana let her fire burn. It raced toward him. She controlled it perfectly. The flames caught his legs but didn’t touch the girl. The vampire whirled back, screaming, and lunged for her. The fire surged up, consuming him as the girl cried and stared at Jana in horror.

“She didn’t understand that I was trying to help her. To her, I was just another monster.”

As her voice filled his head, he realized then that Jana hadn’t spoken, not out loud anyway, from the moment she’d first whispered, “Come in …”

He was in her mind, her words floating through his head, and she was guiding him. Showing him the things she wanted him to see. Telling him about her past. Baring her soul. A soul that wasn’t perfect. Tarnished, just like his. But one that wasn’t evil.

“They sent me after a shifter about a year ago. Told me he’d been cutting the throats of co-eds in the area.” Again, her voice was only in his head. Soft, flowing. Jana.

“But I never went for a straight kill on my targets. I watched first, and he-he wasn’t doing anything wrong. I followed him for a solid month, and I never saw him even raise his voice to anyone.”

An image flashed before him. A man, thin, tall, with bright blond hair. He walked down the road with the streetlights flickering over him.

“He was a wolf shifter. They told me all wolf shifters were psychotic. That he had to be put down to stop the killings.” Her breath rasped out. Her scent surrounded them.

The man stopped at the mouth of an alley. A woman screamed. He ran inside. Two men had a woman pinned between them. They were ripping her shirt while she screamed and begged for them to stop.

“He shifted and saved her. Those men will wear his marks for the rest of their days, but the girl didn’t get so much as a scratch from him.”

Not a killer’s M.O.

“When Perseus found out I hadn’t eliminated him, well, they weren’t pleased with me.”

Jana and the wolf faced off. Another dark night, this one with a full moon. Perseus agents were in the background, easing close with guns ready.

“They set us up to meet. A recipe for death.”

The wolf stared at her, his muscles locked. Saliva dripped from his fangs.

“I was supposed to burn him.”

The wolf threw his head back and howled. A long, sad wail of mourning. Then he walked to her and lowered his muzzle.

“He wasn’t attacking me. He wasn’t attacking anyone. So I stood back, and I let him go … and he wasn’t the last.” But Perseus hadn’t liked that.

“Just because you’re a monster, it doesn’t mean you’re evil. I broke into Beth’s office. I found out that she’d been doctoring the files. That wolf-his girlfriend had been killed by a human serial killer. The killer slashed her throat, and she bled out before the shifter could get to her. Yeah, the shifter had killed, but he killed the bastard who murdered his girlfriend. Not anyone else. All those other girls … a human murdered them all.”

But Perseus had still put the shifter on their hit list.

“Guess the powers that be at Perseus didn’t like that I started questioning their orders. …”

Jana lay bound to a hard metal table. Two men in white lab coats loomed over her.

“But I was tired of being their pit bull.”

“You should have just done your job, Jana. Killed the freaks and done your damn job.” Beth’s voice. She stepped forward, her arms crossed over her chest. “We don’t tolerate failure here.”

“Bite me.” The words came, slow and sluggish because they’d drugged her.

Beth’s lips tightened. “The wolf is going to die. It’s a matter of time. He’s going to die and so are you.”

Then the two men reached for her, scalpels in their hands.

“They liked pain.” She swallowed. “I wasn’t the … only one they worked on. While I was with them, I saw-I saw the supernaturals they brought in. Those doctors cut them open. Hell, they did it while they were alive. They cut them, and they tortured them just to see how much pain they could take. We were all just experiments to them.”

And he saw the blood-soaked images. One after the other.

“They made a mistake with me. They needed to keep me conscious while they cut into my head, and they didn’t drug me heavily enough.”

The damn scalpels glinted. Each bastard had one gripped in a white-gloved hand. “Today we slice into that brain. Let’s see if she’s wired to burn.”

Jana’s eyes had gone to the men. Marked them. Even as Beth’s high heels tapped across the tiled floor, Jana let the power swell. The heat spread through her as the charge grew, burning hotter, hotter as it swelled with her rage. The fire erupted.

He jerked back, almost feeling the flames on his skin. But, no, that hadn’t been real. The room was cold. Ice cold. Jana stood before him. Just her. No flames.

“They’ve improved on their drugs since my last … stay.” Again, he heard her thoughts because he was still in her mind. “They’re keeping the room cold to further lock down my power. Unless I can charge up, I’m going to be powerless, and they know that.”

She stepped forward. Closing the space he’d created when he stumbled back. “I need to get warm.” Whispered in his mind. The fingertips she pressed to his cheek seemed so cold. Not like Jana’s hot touch. “Help me.” When she exhaled, he saw a faint puff of white near her lips. Too cold.

He wanted to help her. After what he’d seen … fuck, life wasn’t black and white, he knew that. Jana wasn’t the heartless assassin he’d originally pictured. But he’d already known that, even without slipping into her past.

His gift. He didn’t just pick up on thoughts when he went into someone’s mind. He saw the person’s life. Hell, that was one of the many reasons he never went inside a human’s head.

Sometimes, you didn’t want to see the dark deeds that should stay hidden.

Jana’s past wasn’t pretty, but then, neither was his.

“Sex can charge me.” The words echoed in his mind though her lips never moved. “When the lust burns inside, it’ll push back the fog from the drugs and help me to fight the cold.” Her gaze held his. “Don’t let me be weak when they come back for me.”

Zane swallowed.

“Please.” Her whisper broke the air and broke him.

His mouth pressed against hers even as his hands reached for her. He pulled her close, so close, crushing her against him. There’d be no time for finesse. No gentle loving. The ass**les out there could come in at any moment, and he’d be damned if he left her weak.