7. Julian
Chapter seven
Julian
It was simply dumb luck that I’d decided to see what I could find out about the murdered vampire at the dorms right then. If I hadn’t been trying to procrastinate grading papers, I might have missed this chance to see Jack.
However, hearing those two words out of Jack’s mouth as if we were simply a student and professor running into each other in the hallway was like a bolt through the heart.
These last few weeks had been torturous.
Earlier had been the first time I’d laid eyes on her in weeks, and even then, I wasn’t able to look at her as long as I wanted to. Not with all the other hunters’ eyes on me, watching my every move. All I wanted to do was wrap her in my arms and beg her not to put herself in any more danger.
I knew it was cowardly of me, but I couldn’t even bring myself to call her, let alone see her. All I could see in my mind when I thought of her was her bruised and bloodied body lying dead on the ground, and it’d be all my fault for not being there to help her.
Now, seeing her here in the middle of the academy, it was taking all I had in me not to pull her against my chest and kiss her until neither of us could breathe.
I took a step toward her, pushing my glasses up my nose.
“What are you doing here?”
“Why?” Her shoulders tensed, her arms crossed over her chest. “You going to tell on me?”
“Jack…” I breathed, shaking my head. “I’m not going to tell on you.”
“Good, then I have to go.” She turned her back on me, and I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t let her walk away from me again.
Closing the distance between us, I cupped her elbow urging her to stop. “Please, Jack, wait.”
Jack paused and glanced down at my hand on her. I dropped my hand but didn’t back away.
“I’m surprised you even want to talk to me,” Jack said softly, not meeting my gaze. “You haven’t since…”
“I know,” I began and then caught the eye of a student passing by. I pressed a hand to her shoulder. “Can we talk somewhere else?”
Jack licked her lips and then nodded, noticing what I was seeing. “Fine. Your office?”
I shook my head. “No, not there. Weaver is—”
“Weaver?” she scoffed. “Tristen put fucking Weaver in my place? That butt-kissing nerd hasn’t ever even been on a hunt, let alone outside the guild. What makes you think he can do my job?”
“Jack, shhh.” My eyes darted around for anyone who might be listening in. “My apartment?”
Sighing, she threw her hands up. “Fine. But only for a minute. I have to get home before my guards notice I’m gone.”
I didn’t comment on the sarcasm in her voice as I led her toward my apartment. I knew Jack wasn’t happy about the way things had gone down. She likely felt betrayed by her parents, the guild, and, worst of all, by me.
I couldn’t imagine someone telling me I couldn’t be a hunter, the one thing I spent my entire life training to be and had only ever wanted to be.
Occasionally, I’d imagine what my life would have been like if my parents hadn’t been hunters. What kind of person would I have been? Would I have gone into a different kind of profession?
From my time here at the academy, I knew for sure it would not have been teaching.
At least, not book teaching. I had no problem teaching the cadets back at headquarters, showing them how to do escapes and reversals or how to get the best of their opponent.
Maybe I’d have been a sports coach of some kind.
Plenty of people thought my personality and zeroed-in focus on hunting came from my parents dying at the hands of vampires. But I liked to think it’d always been there. The hunt for the truth and need for justice, to protect the weak. Maybe I’d been a cop of some kind in another life?
“Did you hear me?”
Jack’s voice pulled me from my thoughts. I peered down at her, frowning.
“My apologies. My mind drifted.”
Jack’s brows furrowed, her lips thinning. “If you’re not even going to listen while I talk, what is the point of us going to your apartment?” She paused in the hallway of the teacher’s quarters, giving me an annoyed scowl. “I don’t have time to listen to another one of your lectures.”
I dragged my fingers through my hair, pulling it out of its low bun. “Please, Jack. I promise, no lectures.”
Her expression softened minutely and then breathed out, “Fine.”
We quickly made it to my room without further incident. Jack stalked into the apartment as if she owned the place. Her presence took up the entire living area.
Jack didn’t wait for me to invite her to sit down or ask me to get her a drink. She strode right up to my fridge like she owned the place and pulled out the bottle of wine as if she knew it would be there and helped herself to a large glass, leaning against my kitchen island.
“You wanted to talk,” she snipped, sipping from her glass. “So talk.”
I grabbed a coaster and set it beside her elbow. Which, of course like a brat, she blatantly ignored, sitting the glass directly on the island.
I sighed and pinched the bridge of my nose. “Are you being difficult by design or just to annoy me?”
“A bit of both.” She smirked, licking a drop of wine from her lips. Lips that I had a few weeks ago been allowed to kiss, to taste. Up until she almost ripped my heart from my chest in her unyielding need to do everything on her own.
Trying my best to ignore the way she was purposely egging me on, I sat on the back of my sofa opposite of where she stood in the kitchen. I let my hands drop to the sofa’s back, forcing myself to breathe and not snip at her the way I would as her commanding officer.
“Jack…” I began, unsure how to put my feelings to words. I spent the last few weeks rehearsing what I’d say to her over and over again. Replaying what happened and wishing for a different outcome. And yet now, faced with the chance, my mind went blank. “I want you to understand—”
“That doesn’t sound like the start of an apology,” she quipped, cutting me off.
“If you are just going to talk at me, thinking I’m going to agree with you and beg your forgiveness, then you can just save it.
We’ll go back to the way we were before.
Well,” she snorted, “sans me being an actual hunter anymore.”
“Jack,” I pushed off the couch unable to handle the space that was growing between us, “I didn’t mean for you to get suspended.”
“And yet… you did.”
I stopped next to her by the island. “Yes, I am aware. However, I did it from a place of lo— I mean…” I cleared my throat, trying not to squirm under her unwavering gaze.
“We both know how you can be. You went in half-cocked without telling anyone where you were going or who you were meeting. Any hunter with half a brain would have seen that it was a trap, and yet —”
“Are you saying I’m stupid?” Jack straightened her eyes hard.
“No, I’m not saying that,” I quickly added, frustration leaking into my voice. “I’m saying that you have a tendency to make split-second decisions on your own, and we are supposed to be a team.”
“You’re right,” Jack said calmly, too calm for the daggers she was shooting my way. “We are supposed to be a team. And yet, ever since we started this assignment, you’ve treated me like some child who needs babysitting rather than a grown ass woman who can make her own decisions.”
“I wouldn’t have to treat you like a child if you didn’t act like one,” I shot back, my patience wearing thin as I loomed over her.
Jack released her glass and came toe to toe with me. “And I wouldn’t have to go off on my own if everyone would stop treating me like I’m breakable.” She bared her teeth at me. “I’m not some little girl that needs protecting.”
“Yes, you are!” I shouted and then instantly regretted it as I watched her expression shutter.
“Well,” she stepped back from me, “I’m glad I know where I stand now.” Without another word, she stalked toward the door.
I couldn’t let it end like this. I wouldn’t. I spent too long pushing down my feelings for her. Now that I finally got my foot back in the door, I wasn’t about to lose her again. Not because of some misunderstood words.
“Jack!” I chased after her, my longer legs eating up the space between us. “That’s not what I meant.”
“Oh, I got what you meant,” she shot over her shoulder, opening the apartment door.
My hand slammed on the surface of it over her head, shutting it before she could run away. My breath heaved as if I’d run a mile, my heart racing in my chest.
“Let me out,” Jack demanded, not turning to face me.
A part of me expected her new powers to force me to do her bidding and yet, surprisingly, they stayed dormant.
I kept a line of air between us even though every inch of me ached to hold her. “Please, Jack. You know that’s not what I meant.”
“It’s fine,” she said stiffly, her hand tightening around the door handle. “Do you think you’re the only one who thinks I’m just a little girl who needs protecting? Do you?”
Her shoulders bunched, and I wanted to comfort her, to wrap her in my arms and tell her she was the strongest person I knew and yet… I didn’t know with a hundred percent certainty that I’d be accepted.
“I’m faster and stronger than the other hunters,” she reminded me as if I could forget.
“My senses are ten times that of a regular human servant. Now I’ve got these powers that put me on an even higher level, and…
” She huffed a laugh, before her voice went soft, “…and yet everyone still thinks I’m the weak link. ”
“You’re not,” I breathed against her ear, daring to close the distance just a tiny bit more. “You’re the strongest person I know, and I don’t just mean physically. But even the strongest person in the world still needs help sometimes.”
“Like when it’s ten on one.”
She hadn’t told me that before. All I knew was she’d been jumped by some rebels or anti-Durands. Knowing that the numbers had been so uneven made my very core shake with a combination of fear and rage.
I swallowed down the urge to yell at her, making my voice come out calmer than I felt. “Especially when it’s ten on one.”
Jack turned, and I shifted back so she could face me. Her eyes sparkled from emotion.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.” She took a deep breath and blew it out. “I didn’t want to bother risking your life if it ended up being nothing. I really did think I could handle it.”
“See? That.” I pointed out, leaning both hands on the door over her head. “You keep thinking it’s some kind of big hassle for me to have your back, when I’d rather be right there, down with you in the trenches, than waiting on the side lines, terrified I’m going to lose you at any moment.”
Her head leaned back so she could look me fully in the eyes. “I really made a mess of everything, didn’t I?” She huffed a laugh. “Even Tate yelled at me.”
“Did he now?” I brushed a lock of her hair away from her face. “I can’t imagine how you could have stopped yourself from laughing as he yipped like a little puppy.”
Jack giggled and shoved at my chest. “Stop. He’s taller than you.”
“And yet… he’s still a dog.” I shook my head with a grin. “You’re never going to convince me he’s scary.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t say that.” Jack smirked, her eyes twinkling for a different reason now. “He might not be scary, but his piercings sure are.”
My brows rose. “Piercings?”
Jack nodded with barely contained glee. “Oh yeah, they’re the most incredible things I’d ever felt in my li—” She let out a squeal as I threw her over my shoulder and strode toward my bedroom. “Julian, what are you doing?”
I smacked her on the ass. “Quiet. It’s time to learn the new meaning of incredible.”