Chapter 24
TWENTY-FOUR
JACK
“Hey.” Bardoul dragged me outside the library and took me behind the building near the parking lot.
I wasn’t in the mood for dealing with anything or anyone today. All I wanted was a nap.
Sleep hadn’t been my friend recently. I was still processing everything with Rawling, struggling with what came with finding my bear, and I was trying to get my schoolwork strong enough for my scholarship.
I’d been doing really well this semester, until…
until I wasn’t. I had time, but that meant taking it away from sleep.
“We have to talk.”
“Can it wait?”
“Remember when I said we were delaying the inevitable?”
“Yeah.” And I still resented that, because by “problem”, he meant Rawling.
“Yeah, well, we can’t do that anymore.”
That had me stopping dead in my tracks.
“Would you be quiet?” I spoke through my gritted teeth, and then pulled him between two buildings. We weren’t exactly in private.
“What are you doing?” He tried to yank his arm from my grasp and failed miserably.
“Use your brain, Bardoul. This isn’t a conversation to have in front of everybody.”
“I know that. I didn’t say what it was about.” As if careful word choice made it okay.
What I wouldn’t do to have Bardoul not know any of this. I had enough to worry about without wondering what he was going to do next.
“We need to report Rawling.” Even though he was whispering, I was sure everybody on campus heard him.
“They have to know. If he could possibly be… it’s not safe for him to be here.
You’re smart, Jack. You know the history.
It’s soaked in blood, and all that blood comes from hunters.
What if we hide it and he is a hunter? What if someone else finds out first and they know we knew?
Then we’re the ones getting in trouble.”
He kept talking a mile a minute as if speaking more words made his point less awful. And worse than that, I hated how freaking right he was about most of it. But he could be 100% correct and I still wouldn’t do it.
Rawling was my brother in all the ways that mattered. I almost lost him when he gave birth. I couldn’t risk losing him again.
“They kill once, and Mika was that kill.” I couldn’t remember if it was one hunter, one kill, or the hunter killed once every twenty years. The first one, I thought. But like Phelan said, they were just the boogeyman.
But what if I was wrong? What if Bardoul was right?
Thank gods, a group of students walked past us, trying to find a place to smoke where they wouldn’t get caught.
It gave me the opportunity I needed to get out of there.
Bardoul wasn’t happy that our conversation ended abruptly, but no good could’ve come from me staying there.
I wasn’t in enough control of my bear on a good day, and with my emotions running that hard, things could get ugly quickly.
I had to see Rawling. But I didn’t know where he was but I was pretty sure Phelan was home. He opened the infirmary door as I knocked.
“Perfect timing. I need to talk to you.”
I knew that leaving her in someone else’s care had been difficult for them both, but this couldn’t wait.
“Come with me to my room. We have to talk. I promise it will be quick.”
He reluctantly agreed. We didn’t speak on the walk, and when we got inside, I went straight in. “Bardoul wants to inform people about Rawling, that he might be a hunter or a regular human.”
“He. Can’t. Do. That.” Phelan’s eyes flickered, his beast close to the surface. My bear wasn’t intimidated, but I was a little. His wolf was one of the most terrifying in Sombertooth.
“We can’t just tell him what to do. He would be more determined than ever to out Rawling.” I plopped on my bed. “But even if we could convince him and he’d listen, I’m starting to think he might be right on some things.”
“We are not doing this again,” Phelan snapped.
“People keep trying to make Rawling into something he’s not.
Everyone has this idea of who he is and who he should be.
” He ran his hand through his hair and began to pace the small area in my room.
I felt horrible, but hiding my conversation with Bardoul from him wouldn’t do anyone any good.
“No one can let my mate just be. From the time he walked in here, he’s been treated horribly by so many people, and we’re gonna just pile on and add to that? Because what? Because some mythological creature was attached to some of the rumors? He’s been through enough. Fuck, he almost died.”
“You don’t need to remind me he almost died,” I said. “I’ve had nightmares about it.”
“And you think I don’t?” He was pissed, as well he should be.
“Listen, I want this to be over and done with too, but Bardoul had some good points.” I went on to tell him about our entire conversation. It was good that Bardoul wasn’t in the room, because Phelan was holding on by a thread. Someone would’ve left there bleeding, and my money was on Bardoul.
“Don’t you think, if Rawling is questioning it, then maybe he’s the one we should listen to?” Because that’s what had me second-guessing at every turn. “We can’t blame it on pregnancy hormones anymore.”
“Postpartum hormones,” Phelan said. “Postpartum is worse in a lot of ways.”
“Listen, I’m not saying we should report him, and I know I implied that before, but what I meant was more, is he safe?”
“He’s safe. Safe like, is he protected? Yes.
I will protect him with my last breath.” He closed his eyes, his body shaking slightly.
He was fighting with his beast. I knew better than to interrupt and let the silence build until he began again.
“But if you are insinuating, ‘Is he safe to be around?’ you can just leave now and not come back.”
“This is my room.” I scented his beast. I was pushing back too hard.
There was a knock on the door. Rawling, calling us through the door. Great. How much had he overheard. We were hardly as quiet as we should’ve been.
I opened the door, and he walked right in, looked from me to his mate and back again.
“Someone said they saw Phelan here. I didn’t think it would be so you two could fight. Was it about me?”
“I wouldn’t say fighting about you so much as—” I was cut off, which was good because there was no way to end that sentence that wouldn’t sound like a lie.
“Fine, you were arguing about me.” Not that there was much difference.
We told him everything, from my conversation with Bardoul to the argument I had with his mate as he came in.
“Let me talk to Bardoul,” Rawling said. “Jack, you can come too. I’ll lay it out, and we’ll just see where it goes from there.
Because what’s not going to happen is I’m not going to have two of the people I care about the most about hiding in rooms, speaking in hushed voices about whether or not I’m dangerous. ”
“I’m sorry,” I said, and I meant it. If I could have taken back all those words, I would.
Rawling
“Let’s go.” I grabbed my mate’s hand, needing to feel our connection and his warmth.
On the way back to our room, I suggested we go out.
As much as I wanted to see my sweet baby girl, this conversation needed to happen now, and it needed to happen without interruptions and distractions.
And she was a distraction in the very best of ways.
We walked out past the parking lot and into the woods, and I let it loose. I fed him a few details from my conversation with Holden but held back the good news until we’d finished talking. “I may have said I was a human and I no longer think I’m a hunter.”
Phelan froze, the color draining from his face. I assumed it was fear. I was wrong.
“Wait. You trust Holden? You trust Holden as much as or more than you trust me?”
“Is that what you got out of this, out of this whole conversation? Please don’t tell me you’re being the jealous mate now. We have more important things to worry about.” My mate wasn’t even letting me tell him the entire story before getting weird.
He closed his eyes. “Holden is always filling your head with nonsense. He’s getting you to think about hunters again when you know they’re a story designed to keep shifter kind in line.”
Except I didn’t know that. Phelan believed it. I wanted to believe it. But that wasn’t the same.
“You don’t need that influence. If you’re not going to tell him to back off, I will.”
“We’re not doing this today.” I sucked in a long breath. “We’re not. You don’t get to decide what I hear and what I learn and who I talk to.”
“I’m your mate. It’s my job to protect you.”
“Protect me from what? From information? Because he had lots that you haven’t even heard yet. Do you really think Holden’s going to hurt me? If anything, you should be worried about Bardoul. He’s the one who wants to go blab to people who have power.”
“No, I don’t want to protect you from information. I want to protect you from people who are going to make your head start to spiral again, putting seeds of doubt in there, making you think the worst.”
“So basically listening to anyone who isn’t you!”
“You’re not listening to me.”
“Oh, I’m listening. You’re treating me like I’m fragile, like I can’t think for myself, and that I’m just a silly little omega.”
“I’m sorry, that’s not it at all.” He grabbed the back of his neck. “I’m just… I’m just—”
“Whatever the truth is, I need to know it. That’s the only way through this mess. Living in this limbo isn’t working.”
He grabbed me and held me close. “I know. I’m sorry. I’m scared.”
“Of me?”
“I know that’s what you think the conversation was with Jack, but it’s… I’m scared because I don’t want to lose you. And I don’t know how to protect you. I don’t want you to be on the dead side of history.”
The dead side of history. I never thought of it in that context before, and now I wished I never had.