Chapter 30 Tate
Chapter thirty
Tate
After watching Jack run out of the room, I couldn’t help but feel like something was wrong. She hadn’t reacted the way someone normally would from missing an appointment with their advisor. When she pulled away from me, it almost killed me.
My head turned to my boyfriend still watching where Jack had run out. “Kyren, are your shadows still following her?”
He shook his head. “No, I was… distracted.”
I huffed, fingers curling into the sheets. “So we have no idea where she is going or what she is doing? Great.” I fell back against the bed, staring up at the ceiling. “If I’d known she’d freak out like that, I never would have —”
“No,” Kyren’s voice cut me off. “This isn’t your fault.” His shadows wrapped around me and pulled me up the bed, his hands finding the sides of my face. “Do not feel bad for this.”
My lower lip pushed out, and my gaze dropped. “I can’t help it. We made her mad.” I grabbed at my braids, tugging on them as I thought about her reaction. “And… there was panic in her eyes. Didn’t you see it?”
Kyren tipped my chin up. “There’s nothing we can do if she doesn’t confide in us.”
“That’s such bullshit.” I let out a low growl, shoving away from Kyren to wrap my arms around my knees. “Who said you had to wait for them to tell you they wanted help? Jack needs our help. She needs us. I don’t want to wait until she shares. I want to help her now.”
Kyren rubbed a hand up and down my back. “I know, mi lobo. I know.”
She didn’t come back right away. I tried to distract myself with homework, scrolling on my phone, but not even our favorite show kept me from thinking about Jack and where she was. It wasn’t until the sun had fully risen that I jerked out of bed only half dozing, my nose twitching.
“Wake up.” I smacked Kyren.
Kyren grumbled and sat up, rubbing his eyes.
“Do you smell that?”
Before he could answer, I was already out of bed and yanking on my sweatpants, not bothering with my shoes before I headed for the door.
“Is that what I think it is?” I asked, waiting for him to catch up, bouncing on my heels while he had to get completely dressed.
Kyren’s gaze hardened. “Jack’s blood.”
We stalked out of the bedroom and raced through the hallway. With how early it was for most students, the hallways were deserted, and no one lingered in the common room as we followed the scent of Jack’s blood all the way to the bathroom.
There was no sign of anyone in the bathroom, the darkness illuminated by the automatic lights after we stepped in. The scent of blood was stronger here, but there was no sign of her.
A single shower stall was on, the sound of water hitting tile echoing off the walls.
“Jack?” I asked, stepping toward the stall. “Princess, is that you?”
A single sucked-in breath and sniffle was the only answer I received.
Glancing at Kyren, we stepped toward the stall.
A part of me wanted to rush in and scoop her up into my arms, demand she tell me why she was bleeding, and what all that was earlier.
While another part was scared to know what was behind that curtain, a fear that I hadn’t had since I was merely a werewolf and not so hard to kill.
I pulled the curtain back to show Jack’s helmet and a bag I’d never seen before. The stall wasn’t large enough for both of us to fit, so only one of us could fit inside to open the next curtain. A black blob mixed with skin and blood curled up in the corner of the stall.
Kyren’s growl hit my back, and I agreed with his sentiment. Whoever did this to our girl was dead. Dead in a slowly painful manner that lasted for days before buried, so dead even dogs couldn’t find their bodies.
“Princess,” I murmured, reaching out to brush her hair away from her face. “Are you hurt?”
There was so much blood on her, and yet only some of it smelled like her. The rest was someone else’s. A part of me was relieved at that fact, yet it didn’t dim the terror at seeing her like this.
“No,” she said, her words so small.
Kyren pushed past me, squeezing into the small shower stall fully dress. “Who did this to you?”
Jack shook her head, not answering.
Even with our bond only going one way, I could feel Kyren’s rage and protectiveness. They wafted off of him in waves. I nudged him out of the way, resulting in a glare, while I tried to get Jack to respond to us.
The blood we’d smelled earlier must have come from the few bites and cuts that were along her arms and face. Most of them had started to close up already, healing much faster than a normal human servant. Maybe she’d drank some vampire blood to heal faster.
Regardless, it settled a small part of me to know she wasn’t seriously hurt. Whose blood she was covered in was another story.
“Jack.” I lifted her chin. “Who hurt you?”
Her shoulders shook, her eyes hollow, as if she couldn’t really see us.
I reached over, turned the shower off, and grabbed a towel. I wrapped it around her, dragging her partly across the wet tiled floor. She was dead weight in my arms and let me do whatever it was I wanted to her.
Once I got her fully wrapped, I lifted her into my arms and carried her out of the shower. Kyren grabbed her things and followed after me. We took her to our dorm room. It was closer, and she had a change of clothing here.
Once inside, I sat her on the bed and dug through her drawers. Kyren placed her bag down and helmet on her desk before sitting next to her on the bed. Without prompting, Jack curled up against him, her head on his shoulder.
“We need to get her out of those wet clothes,” I told Kyren while I pulled a shirt and panties out for her. “I’ve never caught a cold before being bonded to you, but I wouldn’t want to risk it.”
Kyren nodded, drawing Jack away from him to disrobe her. Once she was naked, he rubbed the towel over her body, drying what he could and wiping off what leftover blood was still on her skin.
When she was dry, I helped her put on her shirt and panties and shifted her so she laid beneath the covers. She still didn’t say anything to us, her gaze staring off at the opposite wall. Kyren crawled up next to her on the bed, while I knelt beside it.
“Princess,” I tried again, hoping that, now she was clean and dry, she might want to talk. “What happened?”
Her brows crinkled, her eyes narrowing. “I…” She swallowed, licking her lips. “They attacked me.”
Kyren let out a low growl. “Who?”
I shot him a look, calling for patience. If we pushed her, she might clam back up.
Jack paused, her eyes flickering from side to side.
“There were so many of them. I…” Her hands came up and dragged through her hair, then she winced, pulling her hands down to look at them.
There was a bite mark on her hand that was deeper than the others, clearly belonging to a vampire.
Whoever’s blood she had before hadn’t been enough to heal all her wounds.
Kyren saw the mark and bit his wrist, offering it to her. “Drink.”
Her eyes barely registered the bloody wrist before her. Not waiting for her answer, Kyren pressed his wrist to her mouth, forcing the liquid down throat.
Jack swallowed at first and then shoved it away. “No. I —” She shook her head. “I killed them. Every single one of them.” She brushed her fingers over her mouth, her hand shaking. “I’ve never… not that many…”
Her words started to circle, but no matter how much she repeated them, they didn’t make much sense to me.
“It’s alright, princess,” I crooned, ushering her to lay down as my fingers stroked her brow. “You’re alright. You’re safe now. We won’t let anyone harm you.”
Jack turned on her side, her eyes staring off once more. Kyren wrapped his arms around her, holding her firm, while I sat on the ground, stroking her face, watching as her eyes slowly dipped before closing completely.
When she was asleep, my eyes locked with Kyren’s over her shoulder. “We need to figure out who did this to her.”
“They’re dead.”
His blatant reminder that our girl had killed her attackers warmed my heart, but it didn’t comfort the beast inside of me that demanded blood. It wanted retribution for her blood and pain. Every single drop that was spilled would come with a price, and I’d make sure to find someone to pay it.
“Find me someone then.” I glared at him. “Find me someone to blame for this. Because I won’t have our girl hurting, ever again.”
Kyren nodded in agreement.
I sat there and watched the two people I cared most about in this entire universe sleep. My mind whirled with the possibility of who could have attacked her. Was it someone trying to hurt us through her? Or maybe this had to do with her mistress?
Whoever it was wouldn’t make the same mistake twice. I’d make sure of it.