Pate waited.
“We were walking home together one night when the werewolves attacked. It was a pack of them, and they closed in on us as we screamed.”
Shane’s teeth were fully extended in his mouth. Fucking werewolves…
“You weren’t bitten,” Pate said as he studied her with avid interest. “Obviously.”
“No.” Voice softer, she said, “I wasn’t.”
“And I’ve never heard anything about the senator’s daughter being a werewolf.”
Olivia’s mouth closed. Because Shane was watching her so closely, he saw the faint flicker of her eyelashes.
And Pate must have seen that telling movement too, because he pounced and asked, “Is Chloe Quick a werewolf?”
Olivia just stared at him.
A long sigh slipped from Pate. “You are making this too hard.”
“Chloe Quick is my friend.”
Pate circled around her, like a lion, closing in on his prey. Shane didn’t move.
“You want to find out why monsters attack…” Pate mused. “The senator is supporting you, giving you upclose and personal access to the monsters. Why? Why is he doing that? Is it because you both want to help Chloe? She’s changed, she can’t control her beast, and you’re trying to save her?”
“Chloe doesn’t need saving,” she said softly.
“Who does?”
Olivia jerked back against the chair. “We all do. My research can help so—”
“I’m done with this.” Pate waved his hands in disgust. “I don’t have time to waste this way.” He nodded toward Shane. “Bite her. Make her talk.”
“No!” Olivia’s desperate cry. Her gaze jerked to him. “Shane, no!”
“Do it, Shane,” Pate said. “Then you can make her tell us what we need to know.”
That was the way things were supposed to work. But this wasn’t a typical situation. “My bite doesn’t work on her.”
“What?” Shock was clear on Pate’s face.
Shane brushed back Olivia’s hair, revealing the faint marks he’d left on her neck. His marks. “Controlling her that way isn’t an option.”
The room got very, very quiet then. Shane knew Pate was absorbing the full magnitude of this revelation. As ancient as Shane was, he should have been able to control anyone or anything.
There were only a handful of vampires who could claim to be older than Shane. And with the vamps, age brought power.
“A djinn,” Pate said. “Sonofabitch, I didn’t want that shit to be true.” Then he turned and reached for the instrument table. He picked up the knife. “I guess we have to do this the hard way.”
“St-stop!” Olivia shouted.
“Pate…” Connor began, a nervous edge in his voice.
“I’ve never met a djinn. The last one was supposed to have been killed about twenty years ago, after he went on a killing spree and took the lives of everyone in his path. Humans. Werewolves. Vampires.”
Olivia shook her head. “I’m not…I’m not!”
Pate was staring down at the gleaming edge of that silver knife. “If she’s a djinn, we have to bind her power so she can’t hurt anyone.”
“I’m not hurting anyone!”
Pate advanced with his knife.
“Stop it!” Olivia shouted again. “I’m not some genie! I don’t live in a bottle! I don’t grant wishes!”
The knife was getting close to her. Pate was less than a foot away. “That’s not how it works,” Pate told her softly. “Real djinns are dark, governed by need and passion. They like the surge of wild power that fills them every time they use their magic. Lives don’t matter to them.”
“That isn’t me!”
“There is no bottle to bind you. Your powers are controlled another way. Blood and fire.”
Her breath was coming in fast, frantic heaves. Shane could see the shudder of her chest.
“If you control a djinn, you have enormous strength. The djinn can grant your wishes. Give you anything and everything you want. Your every heart’s desire.”
The knife was held easily in his hand.
“Or the djinn can twist your desires,” Pate murmured, a dark edge in those words. “Turn your wishes and dreams into nightmares.”
“Shane…” Olivia’s gaze locked on his. “Help me! Please!”
“No one can help you now,” Pate told her, “not if you really are a djinn.” And he lunged forward with the knife.
Chapter Seven
Olivia screamed and turned her head to the side because she didn’t want to see that knife coming at her. She expected to feel the blade slicing across her skin. Expected to feel the white-hot pain as it sank into her.
Instead, she heard…a pained grunt. The clatter of something falling onto the floor.
The thud of flesh hitting flesh.
She cracked open one eye and turned her head.
Then she cracked open both eyes.
The knife was on the floor.
Pate was pinned to the wall by a seriously enraged looking Shane, and the other guy—Connor—was trying to pull Shane off his prey.
She twisted her wrists, jerking and pulling, trying to break free of the cuffs so she could get out of there while she had the chance.
“Let him go, Shane!” Connor snarled.
Shane tightened his hold on Pate’s neck. “You never hurt her! You don’t go after her with your knife! She’s mine!”
That deafening roar pretty much terrified Olivia. She jerked again at the cuffs, but she wound up falling and her chair crashed to the floor. At that sound, all of the men turned to stare at her.
Her gaze met Shane’s. Her terror doubled right then, because the man he’d been before was gone. The vampire was fully ruling him in that moment. She could see it. His eyes had darkened with power. His teeth were fully extended and wicked sharp.
The chair had broken beneath her. She scrambled to her feet and made a mad dash for the door—
Except she didn’t get to the door. She got right to the edge of those strange markings on the floor, and it was as if she’d just slammed into some kind of invisible wall.
“Not…going…anyplace…” Pate gasped out. “Djinn!”
The cuffs bit into her wrists. Her hands were still behind her back, and those cuffs seemed to hurt her more with every second that passed. “What’s happening?” There was nothing there, nothing she could see, but Olivia was trapped.