Chapter 18 Julian
Chapter eighteen
Julian
Rage pulsated through my veins. My hands tightened on my gun as I seethed just barely resisting the urge to put a silver bullet in the head of the werewolf touching my girl.
Jack’s eyes met mine and widened. I tensed, ready to spring into action at her mark. Then she did the strangest thing — she shook her head.
Did she want this?
I could smell her arousal all the way from where I was standing. It, mixed with the coppery scent of her blood, told me this wasn’t just some make-out session with her new werewolf boyfriend. His little vampire master was biting her. Tasting her. Defiling her.
For a moment, I almost attacked anyway. Put a bullet through the werewolf’s head and a stake through the vampire’s heart. It would serve her right.
But the mission came first. Jack was doing what had to be done for the mission.
Maybe if I kept telling myself that, it would be true one day.
Her small cries of pleasure chased after me as I stalked away, and I hated how my body responded to it, regardless. I threw myself into my car, forcing myself not to touch my hardening cock in my pants. I would not get off on watching her being pleasured by two supernatural freaks.
I slammed my hand on the stirring wheel, my jaw clenched so tightly I feared I’d break a tooth. Once the stinging in my hand subsided, I drew in several deep breaths before releasing them.
I had to stay in control. Any misstep could get her killed. That meant I couldn’t kill her boyfriends in a jealous rage.
Because I was jealous.
I knew I’d told her earlier today I wasn’t. Told her how could I possibly be jealous of them when I’d already had her.
Like one time was enough. It would never be enough, and yet I couldn’t have her.
Jack wasn’t just some female I’d become friends and then lovers with over our time hunting.
She was the presidents’ goddaughter. She was the daughter of the most prevalent vampire house in our region.
I would never be enough for someone like her, even if I could look past her attachment to her vampire family.
I cranked the car and shoved it into gear, my tires squealing as I shot out of the parking lot and headed toward hunter headquarters.
While Jack was playing student, someone had to check in with our leaders. Unfortunately, that task has fallen to me. I was the one who got to tell them that we’d found shit all, and their precious daughter was too busy playing student to do her damn job.
I sucked in a sharp breath. No, I had to get my emotions under control. Even I could tell my bias was coming through. Jack was… doing her job. She wouldn’t screw this up. I knew her, I did. This was her chance to prove herself, and she wasn’t going to squander it on a couple of pretty faces.
The metal gates surrounding headquarters creaked open at the sight of my car, the high-tech cameras scanning my face before I even got up the drive. An expansive lawn stretched out before me.
Even after dark, a squadron of hunters went through their paces on the grounds, switching between fighting with knives, hand-to-hand, and even crossbows while their commanding officers watched over them.
Parking my car in the spot marked for me, I climbed out of my vehicle and nodded at a nearby guard. My footsteps were sure and precise, stalking up the walkway and into the headquarters building.
Once upon a time, the building had been smaller. More of a bunk house than anything. Then, under President West and Saito, it flourished. Hunters from all over the country came here to be trained before being assigned to different territories.
Every one of us was born to be one thing and one thing only, a hunter. It was in our DNA. We were quicker, healed faster, and could track a supernatural creature for miles. My parents were hunters, and they raised me to be one as well until a group of vampires got to them.
I was proud to know I came from such a dedicated breed of hunters who gave their lives for the cause.
“Fawley,” President West called out, coming down a set of stairs, the inside of headquarters looking more like a lawyer’s office every time I came.
Even pushing fifty, he still had wide shoulders and more muscle than a linebacker.
He kept his hair cut short to the scalp and his face clean shaven and, even in a suit over hunter’s gear, he looked every bit the hunter standing there. “I didn’t expect you in today.”
“President Fawley.” I followed him up the stairs, passed rooms that I knew housed classrooms on fighting supernaturals, our history, and every weapon imaginable.
“Please, call me Tristen. I’ve told you before.”
The barracks where our hunters lived weren’t part of the main building anymore.
Instead, they housed separately, so hunters could separate their work from their play.
Though many like me didn’t have anything but hunting.
It was what we ate and breathed; there was nothing more important than the next hunt.
Something that Jack wanted to be part of, and yet she had a choice. Why she would choose this life over anything different?
“How’s our Jackie doing?” Tristen asked, pushing open his office door and offering me a chair. He lifted a decanter of scotch, and I shook my head, declining.
“She’s fine.” I sat in the opposite chair, one foot propped on my knee.
Tristen’s eyes flicked up to mine as he sat down. “Now, I’ve known you most of your life, Julian. You’ve never answered a question with such lack of detail. Or emotion.” He wiggled his mouse, waking his computer up. “So, what’s up?”
I sighed, unsure of how to explain what was going on without showing too much of my own thoughts and opinions on it.
“Durand… is adjusting. I’m concerned that she’s not able to focus on the mission and play student.”
Tristen bobbed his head. “That’s understandable. Jack’s spent so much time being a hunter that she forgot how to be a real girl. It would make sense that being thrust into an environment like the academy might be a bit jarring for her.”
I straightened, rubbing my palms together. “Then you agree? We should send someone else in.”
“Now, now.” Tristen pulled back. “Don’t be so hasty. Jack might be inexperienced with the world outside of hunting, but she is, if anything, a professional. I trust her to do what’s right for the mission.”
I paused. The image of Jack being pinned between the two supernaturals earlier vividly came to mind.
“Unless you have something to report that proves she’s unfit for this mission?” Tristen watched my face with the keen eye of a leader.
Pushing the image aside, I shook my head. “No. Nothing to report.”
Tristen shifted in his seat, clicking a few buttons on the computer as he spoke. “So, what news of the rebels? Do we know if any of these rumors are true? Maybe a name or two to offer up to the councils?”
My teeth gritted together at the mention of the council.
We were hunters. We shouldn’t be answering to the council.
We were the law, not them. This mission shouldn’t even have been given to us.
It had to do with their leadership, not us.
We handled creatures who got out of line, who made a mess, went on killing sprees.
Why do we care if a few vampires hated the Durands?
Shoving down my prejudices, a habit that was becoming more and more of an effort, I focused on giving my report.
“While Durand has been focusing on the students, I’ve been working on the faculty. Listening for any hint of trouble.” I shifted in my seat, recounting what I heard. “I sent Durand to the bar tonight, but I don’t think she found anything useful.”
“And Jack?” Tristen glanced away from the computer. “Did she find anything out from the students?”
I reached up to push my glasses up my face, then remembered I hadn’t worn them tonight in anticipation of a fight. “A few of her human servant friends mentioned some vamps that were complaining about the council, about the Durands.”
“Did she get names?”
“Not yet. She was working on it.”
Tristen watched me, his brow lifting. “Anything else to report?”
I pressed my lips into a thin line, fighting with myself to keep what happened tonight to myself and letting him know.
If I told him, they’d surely pull Jack out of the mission, wouldn’t they?
If not, then they think she was doing what was needed for the mission and then they’d question my reasoning for reporting it. Then they might try to keep us apart.
It might be for our own good. We should be kept apart.
Me being her commanding officer, her team leader, wasn’t doing either of us any good. She wanted to fight; I wanted to keep her safe. Even though I knew, I knew she could handle herself better than most of the blood-born hunters.
If not for my protective feelings over her, then because of that night. That one perfect night that had started in a hunt and ended in us hiding out in a warehouse, the rain pouring down around us, and nowhere to go until sunup. That one night had changed everything between us.
It was a mistake. Clearly. And yet, some parts of me couldn’t regret it. Even if I couldn’t have her. Even if I had to watch her fall in love with someone else from a distance.
I had that one night. I knew what it was like to have her. To call her mine.
“Julian?” Tristen snapped his fingers.
I jolted out of my thoughts. “No, nothing else to report.”
“Good.” Tristen’s chin dipped. “Then I expect you to keep watching over our girl and let us know if there’s anything we can do to help you along.”
“Yes, sir.” I knew when I was being dismissed.
Standing from my seat, I made my way through the building and back to my car. As I drove the half-hour trek back to the academy campus, I thought of Jack and the look of absolute bliss on her face while they touched and tasted her.
For the first time in a long time, I took a cold shower before going to bed alone.