Chapter 19 Kyren
Chapter nineteen
Kyren
I stood outside Tate’s room while he said goodnight to Jack, leaving her to get ready for bed before stepping into the hallway with me.
“Is she alright?”
Tate glanced away from the door and gestured for me to follow him down the hallway. When we were far enough away, Tate leaned against the wall, his arms crossed over his chest.
“She’s fine as far as I can tell. Practically passed out the second her head hit the pillow.”
I waited, knowing Tate had more to say.
“I just don’t get it.” Tate sighed, leaning his head against the wall. “First, the lying about going to the bar and then wanting to be bitten. Even that was weird.”
Weird? Yes, it had been strange. Except Tate clearly had an opinion on it, one that I wanted to hear before I voiced my own thoughts.
“It was like…” He pushed off the wall, pacing back and forth. “Like she’d never been bitten like that before.”
“But Alora…?”
“Exactly!” Tate threw his hands up. “If Alora had bonded to Jack, then at least she’d have bitten, and unless Alora is a complete asshole, she’d have distracted her with sex or had someone else do it like we did.”
Tate wasn’t wrong. I didn’t know a single vampire who bonded to a human who didn’t want to spare them the pain of the bond.
Kleon had told me about a few who would bond humans to themselves as a form of punishment.
A way to get back at people that wronged them before they were changed into vampires.
Jack didn’t seem the type to be changed for revenge.
Then there was her blood.
I couldn’t get the taste of her out of my mouth. The only person I’d ever tasted as good as her was Tate,. a werewolf. And Jack wasn’t a werewolf. She wasn’t a witch.
Still, there was something old in her blood. Not the same way in a human servant’s tasted like that of their vampire master. Which meant she certainly wasn’t a normal human servant.
So what the hell was she?
The only thing I knew for certain was that I wanted another taste.
“What about Cletus?”
My eyes flicked back to Tate. “What about him?”
Tate arched a brow, his barbell glinting in the light. “You’re just going to let him go unpunished?” He let out a taunting laugh. “That’s nice of you.”
I growled, stalking past him. “Come on,” I growled as I stalked past him. “We’ve got a wolf to hunt.”
We made it back to the Hair of a Dog quicker than usual. Probably because I was speeding, not that anyone in this town would stop me. They took one look at my car and looked the other way.
It was good to have friends in high places… or to have threatened them enough that they stayed away.
The door of the bar swung open with a bang. My shadows rolled down my arms, spewing along the floor, filling the room with darkness with every step I took.
The patron’s eyes jerked to us. The majority of them took one look at my face and scrambled out the back.
Cletus tried to run, too, but Tate stepped into his path, partially shifted so his eyes glowed yellow and his teeth sharpened. The two werewolves growled at the other, each trying to overpower the other in aura.
“Kyren,” the bartender, Mel, shook his head, his hands up in front of him. “Whatever beef you have, take it outside. I don’t have the funds to repair the damages again.”
“Don’t worry, Mel.” I held my hand up, and my shadows shot forward to wrap around Cletus’ ankle. “I’ll be sure to clean up my mess this time.”
With a hard yank, I pulled Cletus off his feet until he was prostrated before me. The wolf growled and scrambled across the ground. My shadows wrapped around each of his limbs, holding him flat to the ground.
“What do you want? I didn’t do nothing,” Cletus protested, his body starting to crack and shift with the change.
“Now, now, none of that.” I withdrew a silver pin and stabbed it into his arm, forcing back the change.
Most werewolves were so allergic to silver that they kept a wide berth from it. Even the tiniest bit would keep them from shifting, making them virtually powerless to anyone attacking them.
It was one of the reasons I was happy that Tate had acclimated himself to silver with all his piercings. It didn’t completely remove the allergy, but it lowered his reaction to silver. After all these years, he told me his piercing barely even stung anymore now.
Cletus whimpered, breathing heavily. “What do you want? What? Is it that vamp whore? Cause she’s yours. Take h—”
He screamed as Tate’s boot slammed down on his arm, breaking it.
Tate bent down to growl in Cletus’ ear. “Talk about her like that again, and I’ll break every bone in your body.”
Cletus made a pathetic sound.
“Mi lobo, you broke him already.” My shadows tightened on his limbs, pulling them taut as his screams of agony filled my ears. “I had hours of fun planned for us.”
Tate stepped over the crying wolf and wrapped an arm around my waist. “I’m sorry, Kyren. I just didn’t like how he was talking about Jack. I know, let’s make it a game. Let’s see how far you can stretch him before he passes out from the pain.”
My lips twitched. “My boy does love his games.” I knelt before Cletus, lifting him by his neck to look him in the eyes. “Now, normally, I would draw this out, make a show of it, but that vamp whore you were pawing at earlier, well, she needs me or she has nightmares. So I want to keep this quick.”
“Please. Please. I’m sorry,” Cletus whimpered. “I didn’t know she was yours.”
His pulse fluttered under my hand and, for a moment, I wanted to let him run, to chase, then I remembered how he touched Jack. What he’d called her.
I bared my fangs at him. “Now you do.”
My shadows jerked. Cletus barely had a chance to scream before his limbs were torn from his body. His head rolled on the ground, face frozen in mid scream.
Tate rubbed a hand over his face, cleaning some of the blood off. “You let him die too easy.”
“Maybe.” Licking my lips, I grimaced. Ugh, Cletus blood.
“Uh… Kyren?” Mel called from the bar. “Don’t go ripping me to pieces, but are you going to clean this up?”
I looked around the room and regretted promising to clean up. All I wanted to do was get back to Jack and crawl into bed with her. Instead, I had to hang out here, cleaning up werewolf parts.
Mel looked at Tate and me and sighed. “It’s fine. I’ll have one of the part-timers do it.”
“Thanks!” Tate beamed at Mel. “We owe you one.”
The ride home felt like it took ten times as long as on the way there. Finally, we made it back to campus, and I zeroed in on getting to Jack.
Nothing and no one else mattered until I had my arms around her.
When I went to their dorm and Tate stopped me, I almost lashed out at him. “What?”
Tate dropped his hand, his eyes dripping down to my body.
I let my eyes follow his gaze, taking in the blood coating my skin and clothing. Remnants of my time with Cletus.
“Probably should shower first.” Tate squeezed my shoulders, turning me the other way. “Jack might ignore your scent on her bed, but she definitely won’t ignore Cletus on her sheets.”
Tate led me into the shared bathroom and found us an empty stall. This late in the night, most of the students had already found somewhere to bunk down so we had relative privacy. We stripped out of soiled clothing and climbed into the stall.
It was a bit tight for the two of us, but neither of us bothered to find a separate one. If we were at my townhouse in town, we’d have plenty of space. No one around to bother us or hear Tate’s, and soon to be Jack’s, cries of pleasure.
“I know what you’re thinking.” Tate’s hand roamed over my body, soaping me up.
I arched a brow.
“You promised we’d live on campus, get the full experience. We can’t do that holed up in your house.” His hands swept down my shoulder, rubbing in circles over my chest until he flicked the sponge over my Adonis belt.
“Think of the fun we could have.” I watched him slide the sponge along my thighs, easing down each of them, but never touching me where I needed.
Blood always turned me on. Whether it was for feeding or from my enemies, both made me harder than cement, and there was only one thing I wanted to do after spilling blood.
Tate’s eyes locked with mine. “If you keep looking at me like that, I’m going to assume you forgot about getting back to Jack.”
My lips turned down. Right. Jack. I’d spent long enough away from her. She could be having a nightmare right now, and I wasn’t there to help her. If I wasted any more time here, the sun would come up, and she’d be closer to waking.
Turning, I rinsed off, ignoring the growing smile on Tate’s face.
His constant amusement about how I felt about Jack was starting to prickle me.
It wasn’t like he hadn’t been on the receiving end of my fixation before.
I spent a year watching him and building a relationship before I finally made my move.
I couldn’t put my dirty clothes back on, and I didn’t think Jack would be very forgiving if she woke up to me naked or even in a towel lying next to her. Unfortunately, that meant I had to take the time to walk to my room and put new clothes on.
A few minutes later, I stepped into Tate’s room, where he sat on his bed, back to the wall, watching me with a small smile, while he flicked through videos on his phone.
“Don’t say a word.” I climbed into bed next to Jack, my arms wrapping around her. She snuggled into my embrace immediately, breathing me in.
“I didn’t say a word,” Tate said, laughter in his voice.
My fingers stroked along Jack’s forehead as I breathed her in. This woman became more of a mystery with each day that I knew her.
I couldn’t wait to unravel all of her secrets and make her mine