Bound By The Night by Cynthia Eden

that bar. When she said she was gonna drink from me…shit, you went postal.”
    Postal? Huh. Jamie had thought that he’d held onto his control pretty well. All things considered. He
had
remembered that Sean was his best friend. So he hadn’t shoved his claws into Sean’s side.
    “She was the big secret weapon.” Sean marched around the bed. “You were supposed to use her, not fall for her.” Sean’s gaze drifted from Iona’s still body back up to Jamie. “I guess you are more like your brother than you want to think.”
    In an instant, Jamie had his friend against the wall, and his claws were out. “
Don’t.”
There were some lines that he wouldn’t even let Sean cross.
    “
Don’t what?” Sean demanded, not backing down at all. “I trusted you. I gave you my loyalty, my life. Latham’s a twisted freak, but he managed to walk the thin sanity line until he met
her.
Your brother couldn’t have her, and he went batshit. If she wasn’t his, then she was nobody’s. He locked her up and—”
    Jamie’s fist and claws drove into the wall as his fury erupted. “He was always batshit! I saw it from the moment he came to the pack.  He’d get off on torturing the weak. Hell, he almost killed you when you were only six.”  But Jamie had stopped him. He’d always had to stop him.
Story of my life.
“You don’t remember, but I do.  How the hell do you think you became an orphan? He was the one to kill your parents. He was the one who came after you. I told my father. I
told
him, but no one would believe me.  Why would a wolf attack his own kind?”
    Sean stared at him with stunned eyes.
    “Because he’s a demented psychopath,” Jamie said, answering his own question as he yanked his claws out of the wall and stepped back. “And I am
nothing
like him.”  He turned away from Sean and glanced over at the bed.
    Iona’s eyes were open. She was sitting up in bed. Staring at him.  Shit.
    “You want her just as much as he does,” Sean said from behind him, but the werewolf’s voice shook with pain and sorrow. 
    I shouldn’t have told him like that. Sean deserved better.
To him, Sean
was
his brother, not Latham.
    “Remember your big plan?” Sean said and now he was getting angry. So Jamie wasn’t really surprised when the guy said—
right in front of Iona
—that, “Part of that plan was that I’d let Latham find me. I’d offer him a deal. Tell him that you’d trade
her
for peace.”
    Jamie’s eyes were on Iona. “That was just a lie to bring him out. To get him to face me. I wasn’t going to make a deal.”
I wouldn’t trade you.
He’d thought to defeat Latham, not to actually give Iona to the bastard.
    She just stared back at him. He couldn’t read a single emotion on her face or in her eyes.
    “I held up my part of the agreement,” Sean snapped. “I went to him. Found him while he was torturing some human named Greg. I
told
Latham, and now he’s coming to meet you. Latham sent me to deliver a message. He wants you and the vamp to meet him at her old compound, at midnight.” 
    The plan had been to draw out Latham. To force him to face-off against Jamie. Only…Jamie had planned to be riding high off the rush that came from Iona’s powerful blood. Finally, a fair fight between the brothers. He’d planned to drink and drink from her.
    Then use her to distract his brother so that he could go in for the kill.
    I can’t.
  Because what if he was wrong? What if he wasn’t strong enough? And if Latham got to Iona…
    Iona cut her gaze to Sean. She studied him a moment, then gave a curt nod. “We meet at midnight.”
    No. Jamie hurried toward her. He leaned over the bed and had to fight to keep his hands off Iona.
Don’t touch her when your claws are out. You can hurt her.
“I’ll go after him myself. You don’t need—”
    “I was supposed to be the instrument of your vengeance.” She pushed from the bed. Walked right by him. “And now you don’t want to use me?”
    The