CHAPTER TWENTY || JEREMY #2
The young vampire froze, eyes widening and lips parting. His whole body went rigid, fingers splayed. He let out a strangled sound, halfway between a whimper and a gasp. When his eyes widened further, they’d turned the exact color of her spell.
Tension thrummed through the bond between Thierry and me.
I caught a fragment of his memory. This exact thing had happened to him.
He’d seen so many faces. His maker’s. Godric’s. And worst of all, his brother’s. A wound that had never healed, now ripped open and raw again.
The agony was so close to what I’d felt after Ian’s passing that I gasped aloud. I hadn’t realized until that moment how much pain he really carried.
Thierry shot me a miserable look. Please, stop it. I don’t want you in my head right now.
I swallowed hard, nodded, and tried to back away from him mentally.
He was right—it wasn’t fair that I could see into his mind, his memories. That he couldn’t hide anything from me.
I refocused on the scene.
Crisscrossing webs of light bloomed from a point in Quinten’s chest, radiating in all directions, vanishing through the concrete walls. Poppy blazed like a Roman candle. The light swelled, blinding.
It was like watching a supernova being born.
My wolf whined inside me. I screwed my eyes shut and turned away. But the sheer power of it drove me to my knees, doubling me over.
Tears burned. Nausea swept through me, threatening to turn my stomach inside out.
How the hell was everyone else just standing there? Ethan had said he’d stop it if things got out of hand. Where the hell was he?
After what felt like an eternity of clutching the floor with half-shifted hands, the power Poppy had called flowed into the spell and out of the room. In its wake, a heavy finality settled.
I breathed out a shuddering sigh of relief and opened my eyes.
The light was gone.
I stayed kneeling, tension draining. I could breathe again.
It took me a moment to realize everyone in the room was staring at me.
Thierry reached out and hauled me to my feet. Concern vibrated off him. “Are you harmed?”
I stared at him. “You’re joking.”
“You can see from the total lack of amusement on my face that I am, in fact, not joking,” he said. His gaze raked over me, searching for injuries and finding none—though I could sense he was a heartbeat away from offering me his blood.
Poppy stood behind him, staring like I was the lunatic here. They all did. Ethan and Nathaniel approached, wary. Simone frowned thoughtfully.
“How are you all so calm?” I demanded.
“Did something happen?” Thierry asked aloud, but in my head, he added, Did the spell target you?
I shook my head. The power had ignored me. It had focused entirely on Quinten. But just because I hadn’t had a nuclear bomb dropped directly on me didn’t mean I hadn’t still been caught in the blast radius.
Ethan spoke. “You saw it, didn’t you?” He frowned. “You saw the spell.”
He said it like he hadn’t seen or felt anything strange. How was that possible?
“You did, didn’t you?” Thierry pressed, eyes searching mine.
I nodded.
His lips pursed, thoughtful.
Ethan glanced at Poppy. “What did you see?”
“We will discuss it later,” Thierry said. At the same time, through the bond, I felt him decide it was best to sit me down, get a stiff drink into me, and make sure I wasn’t about to fall to pieces. Which meant I probably looked about as shell-shocked as I felt.
Before I could react, he threw my arm over his shoulder and wrapped an arm around my waist. Then he blurred us up the stairs.
We paused only long enough for him to wrench open the door to the main floor.
Then the hallway blurred again. Strangely, it wasn’t as bad as it should’ve been. I didn’t like giving up control, but trusting Thierry not to harm me was easy. And he was right—I needed to get away from that room.
He hesitated, considering. Through the bond, I sensed his thoughts. It was still early, and the bar wasn’t busy, but there were a few people inside. If it were him, he’d want privacy. He decided against the bar.
“Sweeping me off my feet?” I said as he paused at a steel door, pressing his hand to a sensor. “Pretty sure that’s my job. Also, I can walk. I think.”
Thierry snorted. Then he whooshed us up another flight.
He set me down on the third floor and caught me by the shoulders when I stumbled. “Aren’t werewolves supposed to have super speed and reflexes?” His tone was both annoyed and amused.
“We do,” I shot back. “I’m just not used to being manhandled by grabby ancient vampires.”
“I’ll have you know, I’m not ancient . I’m still well within my prime,” Thierry huffed. He opened the wooden door into a dimly lit apartment and pointed at a plush red velvet sofa. “Sit there and touch nothing. I will pour us a drink.”
I shot him a sideways look. His frosty expression didn’t match the concern I could feel thrumming between us.
I did as he asked.
In the kitchen, Thierry set to work, giving me space to collect myself.
Strangely, I already felt calmer here. The whole place smelled like him—like mate. Deep forest and rich earth, growth and new life, a hint of petrichor after summer rain. My wolf wanted to drop to the couch and bury its nose in it. Thierry wouldn’t be amused.
So I sat like a normal human and focused on breathing. Hard to believe watching a spell had rattled me this much. But I hadn’t seen just any spell. I’d seen a cosmic force reshaped at the whim of an immeasurably powerful witch.
Thierry returned with two tumblers of ice, a bottle of amber liquid tucked under his arm.
I eyed him while he poured us both doubles. “Thierry, what the hell are you doing?”
Though it was obvious. He was taking care of me. Again.
Then it hit me. He’d prioritized me over knowing what had happened to Quinn. He still didn’t know if the spell had worked.
I swallowed hard. Thierry wasn’t one for nice words, but his actions were unfailingly kind.
He handed me a glass.
“Well, drink it or don’t,” he said crossly—though I could feel the annoyance was mostly for show. Dropping onto the couch beside me, he took a sip of his own drink and gave me a sideways look. “Though it is twenty-six-year-old scotch, and if you waste it, I’ll be very upset.”
“What else is new?” I muttered, sipping. Then had to stop myself from downing it—the stuff was fantastic. The pack’s bar in Crescent Springs didn’t carry anything this smooth, even top shelf. I couldn’t stop my eyes from sliding shut with pleasure.
“You need to knock that off,” Thierry huffed. “Immediately. Please.”
“Can’t,” I smirked. “I’m naturally adorable. You’ll just have to learn to live with it.”
“You may not be wrong,” he said unhappily, not meeting my gaze. “About learning to live with it, that is. Since murdering you to sever the connection is off the table.” He paused. “Probably.”
“Probably,” I agreed.
I was calmer now. The weight of Poppy’s spell was already fading, soothed by Thierry’s concern.
A silence stretched between us—too vast to cross, and yet nothing at all. I considered filling it by kissing him. I knew from the shape of his thoughts he half-wanted me to. But if I wanted him to open up, it had to be on his terms, not mine.
“Are you aware your friends are goddesses?” I asked instead.
His lips twitched. He gave me a sidelong look that matched the relief I felt at breaking the silence. “Poppy and Simone? They’re both quite powerful, yes.”
“Poppy can rewrite the laws of the universe. And Simone’s power…” I trailed off. “Yeah, ‘goddess’ is a pretty damn good descriptor for both of them.”
Thierry frowned. “I wasn’t aware wolves could sense it when a vampire uses their hypnotic powers.”
“Me either,” I admitted with a shrug. “There’s nothing in the pack’s lore about it. And I guess I’ve never been around a vampire long enough to see it in action. But it’s a type of magic, and wolves can sense magic, so that tracks.” I paused. “And it’s not like you’ve tried using your powers—”
I broke off as it hit me: he was ancient, exceptionally powerful, and absolutely could have used his mind-control abilities on me.
Or on anyone, to get whatever he wanted.
He could probably make me disappear with a single command laced with that hypnotic magic.
Wolves resist most forms of control, but we aren’t immune.
And Thierry had never once considered it.
“Stop that,” Thierry chided. “I’m not a wanker. That’s all that means.”
“I thought the blood bond only went one way.”
“Your mind is alarmingly simple and easy to read, even without magic,” he sniffed.
“Why do you do that?”
He took another sip, his expression wary. “Do what?”
“Pretend you don’t give a shit, even though it’s abundantly fucking obvious you do.”
He sighed, shaking his head. “Jeremy, don’t do this.”
I gulped down half my drink. “Fine. I won’t push. But, for the record, I am curious. And if you want to tell me in a week, or a month, or a year, I’ll be ready to hear it.”
Thierry stared, going even paler.
“Just like that?” His tone said he didn’t believe it. That I’d really drop it just because he asked?
“You set a boundary. This is me respecting it. Just like I’ve done every time since we met. And since we can’t talk about this—or about us being mated, or the dreams, or Godric, who you keep trying not to think about, or—”
“And he comes out swinging,” Thierry chuckled, shaking his head ruefully. “Here I was, waiting for you to take any sort of opening. It’s not always nice to be right.”
“No!” I snapped, glaring, outrage bubbling up. I set my drink down. At the flicker of indignation I felt from him at my lack of civility, I rolled my eyes and slid a coaster under the glass. “Look, I get that you’ve got secrets—”
“Oh, wouldn’t that be nice?”
“—And that you have this idea of who I’m supposed to be. And that’s okay. Because you’ll see you’re wrong soon enough. But I’m not an asshole one hundred percent of the time, no matter how much you want me to act like one.”
“Fine, then. Explain. Enlighten. Elucidate.” His voice went cold, defenses up. “What the hell are you doing right this very moment?”
“Look, I don’t want to be the guy you’re afraid of. I want to be the guy you can trust. And I know that has to be on your terms, not mine.”
The hand holding his drink trembled; he looked away sharply, like I’d struck him. Which made no sense. Anxiety wove through him.
Through the bond, I heard him think I was more dangerous than he’d imagined. That I could hear every thought. Sooner or later, each of his secrets would end up at my feet, ready to be used against him the moment I pushed. Unless he learned to block me out. Or until I was gone.
I didn’t point out the obvious—that I could have pushed. That I could’ve pulled every answer I wanted from him. But I hadn’t. Not once.
Instead, I said, “Thierry, I want you to know I don’t listen. It happens sometimes, but I don’t try to. You know that, right? That has to count for something.”
“What do you want me to do?” he demanded, glaring again—but his hand still shook. “Do you want a prize for not rooting around in my head? Yet.”
“No. I want you to tell me why you stayed.”
His glare faltered. “What?”
“You came over last night, after what we saw in the dreamscape—” my voice hitched at the memory “—I didn’t ask you to, but you did. You sorted me out, put me back to bed, and stayed until I woke up. Why?”
All his walls slammed back down. Suddenly I couldn’t read him. Interesting. So the bond had limits. Apparently, wanting to block each other out was enough.
“It’s because you can’t stand the idea of me in pain, isn’t it?”
When his defiant gaze met mine, I held it, banishing any trace of anger I felt. It didn’t feel right to make myself vulnerable to anyone—it never had—but I knew he needed me to.
“Because that’s how I feel too,” I said. “I can’t stand the idea of you in pain. I know you’re suffering—and have been for a long fucking time—and I hate it. I don’t ever want to be the cause of it.”
“We’ve known each other five minutes.”
“Wolves bring a U-haul on the second date. Besides, I’ve seen enough to know you’re actually a pretty damn good person.”
I might’ve expected anything—except what happened next. Thierry’s defiant expression crumbled. His eyes went glassy. He looked away sharply, hand shaking so badly he sloshed expensive scotch over his fingers. He set the glass down with a sharp clack.
I reached over, took it, and slid a coaster under it for him—mostly to give him a moment of silence.
“Jeremy, I hate you so much,” he said thickly, all the ice gone from his voice.
“Come on now, we both know that’s not true,” I replied gently.
All I wanted was to wipe his tears away.
Or—no.
Even more, I wanted to undo the years of pain that had made him believe he had to spend eternity alone, even surrounded by people he cared about.
“And for the record, I don’t hate you either.”
It didn’t come close to covering what I felt.
He swallowed hard. “That changes nothing between us.”
But I was pretty sure he was wrong.
Because everything felt different now.
For me, at least. And it probably always would.
After all, once a wolf falls for someone, we love them until our hearts stop beating.