Zoe and Finn dropped Heath on the floor. The doc hit the wood and moaned. A pitiful sound.

An annoying sound.

Jane attempted to hurry toward the guy.

Smothering a sigh, Alerac just blocked her path.

“Would you stop that?” Jane snapped at him.

No, he wouldn’t, because he didn’t trust the guy. “You searched him for weapons?” Alerac demanded of Zoe and Finn.

Zoe glanced up at him. “No guns. No knives. No stakes.” Her nose wrinkled. “Just a bloody and beat-up human.”

“Where’d you find him?”

“He was dumped on the south side of our land,” Finn answered quickly. “Found him when I was patrolling to make sure Liam hadn’t come back.”

Dumped—or delivered?

“Pl-please…” Heath muttered. “Help…”

Jane shoved Alerac out of her way and knelt next to the doctor. She turned him over, and when she got a good look at his face, Jane gasped.

His nose had been broken. His left eye was swollen shut. Blood dripped from his mouth—aw, did the doc lose some teeth?—and gaping wounds covered his throat.

“He’s…insane…” Heath whispered. “You…you have to help me…”

Zoe and Finn were still standing close by.

“You need to be taken to a hospital,” Jane said. She looked over at Zoe. “We’re going to need a car to transport him.”

Heath grabbed her hand.

Alerac tensed. You’re about to lose that hand.

“N-no, hospital. I’d—I’d have to explain…the bites…”

“You’re hurt. You need help,” Jane told him. “You could die!”

“N-need blood…”

The hell, no.

Alerac marched forward. He grabbed Heath and hauled the guy to his feet. “Tell me that you’re not this much of a dumbass.”

The man blinked at him.

“You don’t seriously think,” Alerac continued, letting his disgust show, “that you can drag your carcass in here, after what you’ve done, and get blood from Jane?”

“D-dying…” Heath whispered pitifully.

“Bull.” The wounds actually seemed to already be…healing.

Healing as Alerac stared at them.

Suspicion churned in his gut. “You bastard.”

Heath tried to pull free.

Alerac wasn’t letting him go. “You were her doctor, her friend, for these last six months. She trusted you—and you…you took her blood, didn’t you?”

Heath was fighting to get free now.

Alerac turned his bright stare on Jane. “He took your blood.” Certainty. Rage.

She rose to her feet. After a moment, Jane gave a faint nod. “Samples. He said that he needed them for tests.”

Alerac shook his head. “No, he needed the blood for its power.” He lifted Heath up into the air, and the smaller man dangled above the floor. “You think I don’t know your type? Greedy, desperate, willing to trade anyone and everyone for the promise of immortality?”

Heath stopped looking quite so beaten. His lips twisted in a hard snarl. “Isn’t that what you did when you took her blood? Werewolves aren’t supposed to live as long as you have. You found out that vamp blood can extend your life. You found—”

Alerac’s claws were out. “This is the part where you die.”

“No!” Jane jumped forward. “Dammit, no!

Heath started to smile.

But then Jane continued, “We can’t kill him yet. We have to find out what he knows about Lorcan first.”

That wiped Heath’s smile away.

Alerac nodded. Then he said, “Finn, get some rope. I want to make sure this SOB is tied up tight.”

Heath was fighting now. Too late.

Jane stared at him, anger coursing through her veins. “You really were just going to sell me out that night, weren’t you? Just hand me right over to Lorcan—”

“Not to Lorcan, not then.” He huffed out a hard breath. “To the other werewolf.”

Rage nearly choked Alerac then. “Liam.”

A frantic nod from Heath. “H-he was the one I called. He arranged for the guys in those SUVs to meet us.” His words tumbled over each other. “Man, I swear, I didn’t even know Lorcan then.”

Then. Alerac dropped the bastard to the floor. “So when did you make Lorcan’s fine acquaintance?”

Heath didn’t rise from the floor. He curled in on himself. “A-after. The men who were left…they were trying to figure out how to get Jane—”

Alerac growled.

Heath flinched. “But Lorcan found us first. It was like hell came at them. Lorcan broke into the house, and he killed them all in seconds. Every last one. He took their heads.” A thick swallow. “Their organs.”

Same old twisted Lorcan.

“But he let you live?” The question came from a doubting Zoe. “Your story is crap.”

Heath’s head lifted. His eyes slid toward Jane. “He smelled your blood on me. He let me live because of that. I told him that we were friends. Th-that I could help him to find you.”

“No,” Alerac wanted to rip him apart, “what you told him was that you’d betray Jane, that you’d sell her out.” And he already had a pretty good idea of the price that Heath would have demanded. “Let me guess. You’re gonna trade Jane for immortality?” Probably a fat wad of cash, too.

Heath shook his head. “No! You don’t understand!” His eyes locked on Jane. “He doesn’t want to kill you! You’re part of his clan. He just wants you back.”

***

They’d taken the human inside.

Lorcan smiled. Either Jane would trust the doctor—or Heath would die.

When he’d first found Heath, the human had been so desperate. Crying. Begging.

Once, Lorcan had enjoyed it when his prey begged. Now it just bored him.

But he’d spared Heath because Lorcan had known that he could use the human as a distraction, at the right time.

The time is right now.

He lifted his hand to his throat. It still ached, but the pain was more of a memory. Lorcan had long ago grown used to pain—both giving it and taking it. He’d made sure that the doctor enjoyed plenty of pain before Heath had been allowed to venture to Jane’s side.