Eternal Flame (Night Watch #3)(34)
Author: Cynthia Eden

Her back teeth clenched. “Yes,” she gritted out. She’d been angry and so scared. Because her mother had been gone. She’d been in that house, just her and—

“Your stepfather died in that fire.”

She didn’t speak.

“Did you want him to die or did the fire get out of control? It would have been so easy to burn out of control….”

Jana laughed. Zane didn’t get it. Was he really trying to give her a way out? “I wanted the bastard to die. I stared at him, and I thought, over and over, that I wanted him to die.” She swallowed. “And then flames raced across his skin and he started screaming for me to help him.” Bitch, f**king help me! Help me!

Zane stared down at her, and his gaze seemed too intense.

“I wasn’t going to let him touch me.” Her voice sounded hollow. “I wasn’t going to let him punch me again, and I told him—” She cleared her throat. “I told him if he tried to hit me once more, I’d kill him.” So many bruises. So many broken bones. Her mother had always been there with excuses when anyone asked what happened. She fell down the stairs. Jana’s a clumsy girl. You’d think a thirteen-year-old would know how to ride a bike better, wouldn’t you?

Her fingers brushed across her jaw. It had been wired shut for weeks after the fire. “I warned him,” she said. “It was his fault,” she’d told herself this over and over, “that he didn’t listen.”

Zane’s lips parted. “Jana …”

Her hand flew up and hung in the air between them. “Don’t.” Anger fired the word. But he shook his head. “I can’t—”

“I don’t need your pity.” She knew pity when she heard it. “I’m not some damaged kid who needs you to hold her and make everything better.” Not anymore, dammit.

“I know that.”

“Greg Burgess deserved what he got.” Because if she hadn’t killed him, he would have killed her, and she knew it. “I didn’t expect the fire, and afterwards, hell, no one believed me. They thought I’d set everything up … staged the scene and lured him to his death.” Bastards. The DA had said her jaw had been broken from the force of the blast. He’d said she was too close when she ignited the accelerants and that she’d been thrown across the room.

What accelerants? She’d burned Greg with her power.

But Greg, the bastard, had always kept plenty of booze around. And they’d been in the garage when the fire started. With the oil and gas and …

You’re lying, girl. You set the fire. You burned that man alive. The DA’s voice was so clear in her mind, even after all these years. Did he beg you for help?

Yes, he had.

“You were protecting yourself.” Zane’s voice was a low rumble and she glanced back at him. His hands were clenched into powerful fists, and the faint lines near his eyes looked deeper than before.

“I was,” she said, and it was true. Greg’s ghost didn’t haunt her anymore. Jana took a long, deep breath, and then she let her lips curl. Because she wasn’t a victim, and Zane needed to see that. She wasn’t some damsel he needed to rescue.

She could rescue herself. In the fairy tales, she wasn’t the trapped princess. She was the fire-breathing dragon, and she’d burn anyone who got in her way. She had.

“I killed to protect myself then.” True. “But I’m not a scared girl anymore.”

Zane’s head tilted a bit to the right as he studied her. “So the others you’ve killed? Were you protecting yourself then?”

The rush of anger broke through her control. Did she need to give him a whole damn life story? Did she have to justify every move? “You want to compare kills? Your hands have blood on them, too, Zane!”

“I never claimed they didn’t.”

“You might be one of the good guys, but you’ve crossed the line for duty, I know you—” His laughter stopped her cold.

Jana blinked. “Am I missing a joke?” The guy had a real piss-poor sense of humor. Good in bed, lousy humor-noted.

The laughter faded, but his lips maintained that slight twist of amusement. “Ah, Jana…” He shook his head. “I have to know … What in the hell ever made you think I was one of the good guys?”

Chapter 9

A good guy? Oh, the woman had it wrong. Very, very wrong. When he’d listened to her story about her dick of a stepfather, the last thing he’d felt was good. If he’d known Jana back then … I would have gotten rid of the bastard for you.

Now he understood so much more about her, and Zane realized … he and Jana were a lot alike. Maybe too much.

So young when we first killed. So much power.

Jana shook her head and stared up at him a bit blankly, all that wild, dark hair loose around her face. “You are a good guy, Zane. You-you work for Night Watch. You’re a hunter.”

“You mean a licensed killer.” He shrugged and tried to keep his voice careless. Real hard when the woman was making him care more than any other had. “They pay me to hunt, but even if they didn’t, do you really think I’d be doing anything else? Some of us were born to hunt. To kill.” He paused deliberately. “But you know that better than anyone else, don’t you?”

That pink tongue swiped out again and his c**k hardened. Down, boy. Not now. He hadn’t meant to give in to the lust before. Wrong place, wrong time. But he’d watched her while she’d been out, he’d-dammit, worried-and when she’d woken, he’d wanted.

He wasn’t used to not taking what he wanted. So he’d taken her.

And had one hell of a fine time. But I still want more. With her, I always want more.

What was he going to do about that problem?

A veil seemed to fall over her face. “How’d you get us away from the Feds?”

He shrugged. “It wasn’t that hard.”

“Bullshit. I-I remember being in front of Dusk.” Her forehead wrinkled. “I remember—”

“Why did you go there?” he interrupted, inching closer to her. He had the feeling the woman might break and run at any moment, and that wasn’t an option. She wasn’t going to leave him.

She blinked.

“Why’d you go back to Dusk?” That point had been bothering him. “Did you have a contact there?”

Her eyes-such a deep blue-widened. “Guess you could say that.” Her shoulders rolled. “The bastards from Perseus came after us too fast. I knew someone at Dusk must’ve tipped them off about us. Demons aren’t exactly trustworthy.”