Chapter 14
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
DECLAN/ DONOVAN
DECLAN
Donovan was trying so hard to reach Kit.
I could see it in the way he held himself, tense but open, his hands raised slightly, his voice steady even though I knew he had to be shaking inside.
Trying to explain, trying to reason with someone who had already made up his mind.
Kit’s hand never wavered on his gun. His fury rolled off him in waves, a wildfire ready to consume anything in its path. And Donovan?
He was standing in the middle of it, willing to get hurt if it meant keeping both of us alive. I clenched my fists. This was never going to end in our favor.
Kit wouldn’t stand down. Not for me. Not for Donovan. But Donovan wouldn’t let anything happen to him either. I knew that now.
He’d saved Kit’s life once. He cared about him. Even after everything, even when Kit was pointing a weapon at me like I was nothing more than a rabid animal.
If it came down to it, if I fought back, Donovan would be caught in the middle.
He’d have to choose, and I couldn’t do that to him. Not when I already knew how this would end.
I took a step back, my stomach twisting as I watched Donovan plead, watched him fight so hard to stop something that was already inevitable.
Then another step. Kit didn’t notice, but Donovan did.
His head snapped toward me, his brow furrowing. "Declan.”
I didn’t wait for him to finish. With one last look, I turned and vanished into the night.
A sharp inhale. Donovan realizing what I’d done. A curse. Him starting after me.
But I was faster, especially with this new body of mine. I ran, the cold air slicing through my lungs, the darkness swallowing me whole.
And even as I left him behind, even as I forced myself to keep going, the bond between us pulled tight, straining and stretching, like an open wound that would never quite heal.
I told myself I wasn’t leaving him. Not really. This was temporary. A brief step away, just long enough for Kit to lower his guard.
With me gone, he wouldn’t see Donovan as a threat anymore. Wouldn’t be forced into a fight he wasn’t ready for. Besides, I could use a little air. Time to think.
Time to figure out what the hell we were supposed to do next. The blood mark between us was permanent. That much I knew.
Donovan was bound to me as much as I was bound to him. No amount of time or distance could change that. But there were some things even a bond like this couldn’t guarantee.
Because if Kit somehow convinced him to go back, if he got into Donovan’s head, dredged up all the loyalty and history between them.
If Kit made Donovan believe that returning to the Guild was the right thing to do, I wasn’t sure I could stop him, and worse…I wasn’t sure I would.
Because I had never wanted to be the thing that dragged Donovan down. And if walking away was what it took to set him free, I would do it. Even if it killed me.
DONOVAN
Declan was gone.
One second, he was there, tense, coiled, ready to fight. The next, he was nothing but a whisper in the dark, slipping away before I could even open my mouth to stop him.
Rage and heartbreak warred inside me. My hands curled into fists, nails digging into my palms as I sucked in a sharp breath.
My first instinct was to chase him, to track him down and drag him back, to shake him and demand to know why the hell he thought leaving was the answer.
But then I felt it. A pull in my chest, steady and unbroken. The bond. He was still there.
Not physically, but metaphysically. The mark tethered us, an invisible thread that neither time nor distance could sever.
Declan knew that. He wasn’t truly leaving me. So why?
He trusted me, I realized. Declan believed I could handle Kit without him. I swallowed hard, forcing down the lump in my throat, and turned back to Kit.
He was still standing there, tense and on edge, his hands curled like he was moments away from reaching for a weapon. I didn’t have the patience for this.
“You need to listen to me,” I snapped, the sharpness in my voice enough to make Kit hesitate.
“I have listened,” he shot back. “And all I’ve heard is that you abandoned the Guild for a leech.”
I was in his face, my chest heaving.
“Don’t,” I growled. “Don’t call him that. You don’t know a single thing about him.”
Kit flinched, but his stubborn glare didn’t waver. “I know enough.”
“You don’t,” I bit out. “You don’t know what he’s done for me. You don’t know what he’s been through. And you don’t know what it’s like to have to choose between duty and someone you—”
I cut myself off, breathing hard.
Kit’s expression shifted. Uncertainty crossed his face. I exhaled and forced my voice to steady.
“If our positions were reversed…if you were in love with someone the Guild called a monster…would you kill them? Would you end their life just to ‘save’ them?” I asked.
Kit’s frown deepened, and for the first time since this conversation started, he hesitated.
His lips pressed into a thin line, his eyes flickering with something that looked dangerously close to doubt.
For a second, I thought I had him. I thought I’d finally broken through, but then he shook his head. His expression hardened, and my stomach dropped.
“I have to report this,” he said, his voice flat. “To the Guild.”
My heart pounded. “Kit.”
“They sent me here for a reason, Donovan,” he cut me off, jaw tight. “I wasn’t just looking for you specifically. The Guild wanted me to investigate what happened to Declan’s team.”
He let the words sink in, then said, “We found them. Declan’s team.”
The world seemed to tilt.
Kit’s gaze was sharp, cutting. “Their bodies were in that barn.”
I inhaled sharply, something cold creeping down my spine.
“It doesn’t take a genius to figure out what happened. Declan was turned,” Kit continued. “Then he went rabid and wiped out his entire team.”
“No,” I said immediately. “No, that’s not what happened.”
Kit’s mouth curled in disbelief. “You weren’t there.”
“But I know,” I insisted. “It wasn’t him, Kit. You don’t know the whole story. There was a vampire. A rabid one. That thing killed the other hunters.”
But Kit was already shaking his head. “You don’t know that.”
“I do.” My voice rose, desperate now. “You know Declan. The kind of man he is—”
“The kind of man he was,” Kit corrected. His gaze burned with conviction. “But he’s a vampire now, Donovan. And you can’t tell me for sure that he didn’t do it.”
I stared at him, something in my chest twisting into a painful knot.
Kit wasn’t just here as a friend. He was here as a hunter. And the Guild was already building a case against Declan.
If they thought he was responsible…if they decided he needed to be eliminated…I knew exactly what came next.
Kit’s eyes locked onto mine, his expression grim with finality.
“Come back with me,” he said. It wasn’t a plea. It was an order wrapped in the thin veneer of concern.
I exhaled sharply, rolling my shoulders back, forcing myself to stay calm. “Kit.”
“You need to come back and explain your side of the story,” he pressed, his voice steady, his stance unyielding. “The Guild—”
“The Guild doesn’t care about my side of the story.” My voice was sharp, cutting.
I continued, “They’ve already made up their minds. I go back, and they’ll see me as one of two things. A liability or a traitor. And we both know how they deal with either.”
Kit’s jaw clenched. “That’s not true.”
I laughed, but there was no humor in it.
“Isn’t it? Look me in the eye and tell me the Guild will just listen, that they won’t throw me in a cell, interrogate me, bleed me dry for answers before deciding whether I’m worth keeping alive,” I said.
Kit didn’t say anything.
That was answer enough.
I shook my head. “No. I’m not going back.”
Kit exhaled harshly, dragging a hand through his hair. “You’re being difficult, Donovan.”
“I’m not one of you anymore,” I said, softer now. “And let’s be real, Kit. You didn’t come here to bring me back for my sake. You came because the Guild told you to. You came to drag me home.”
My lips twisted. “But that place was never home to me. Not really.”
Kit flinched. He might have argued, but we both knew the truth.
The Guild wasn’t family. It was an obligation. A burden we’d carried since the day we were old enough to hold a blade.
And I wasn’t carrying it anymore.
“My place is with Declan,” I said, finality settling into my bones. “That’s not going to change.”
Kit’s expression darkened. “Even knowing what he is?”
I stepped closer, holding his gaze. “Especially knowing what he is.”
For a long, tense moment, neither of us spoke. The forest around us had gone deathly quiet, as if the trees themselves were holding their breath.
Finally, Kit exhaled through his nose, his mouth pulling into a tight line.
“Fine,” he said, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a slip of paper. He shoved it into my hand, his touch rough, almost angry.
“That’s my number. I’ll be in town for one more day. After that, I report back to the Guild.” His gaze was hard. “You have until then to rethink your decision.”
I stared at the paper, then at him. “And if I don’t?”
Kit’s eyes darkened, the boy I’d once called my friend buried beneath years of training, of loyalty to something bigger than either of us.
“Then I’ll do what I have to,” he said.
A cold weight settled in my chest. Kit turned without another word, disappearing into the night.
I stood there for a long time, the paper crumpling in my fist, the night pressing in around me.
One day.
And then?
I wasn’t sure I wanted to find out.