Chapter 26
Chapter twenty-six
Julian
An unimaginable pain ripped through my chest. My eyes squinted shut against the glare of the lights above me, figures blurred, and I fought against my body’s desire to pass out.
Jack’s scream pierced through the fog of my own agony. Hands grabbed at me and pressed on my chest, making the pain all the more excruciating.
“Hold on, Julian, hold the fuck on.” There was a scuffle and then Jack’s voice rang out, like I’d never heard it before.
“No,” she commanded. “Don’t touch me.”
“What the fuck are you doing? Grab her.” Another voice growled, and there was a bit of back and forth.
Realizing Jack had used her powers on whoever had come for her, I chuckled. “Shouldn’t use them here.”
“Oh, shut up,” Jack cried out above me. “If I didn’t use them here, then where would I?”
In the background, the rebels were still arguing over who would grab Jack. Tate and Kyren were mysteriously quiet, as was the loudmouth werewolf who Kyren had by the throat before.
I blinked up at Jack to see her hands pressed to my chest. “Get out of here,” I croaked and then coughed, blood coming up with each breath.
“No, I can’t. I won’t.” Jack shook her head, then lifted it to look at someone. “Help him. This is your fault. It’s me you want, not him.”
“Yeah, what the fuck, Iris?” Tate’s voice finally joined the conversation.
There was a loud snarl and then arguing continued around me as if I wasn’t bleeding out on the floor.
Jack muttered under her breath over me, and then her eyes lifted to someone else. “Please, if you ever loved me, help him. I’ll do whatever you want. I’ll even let you kill me, but please save him.”
I grabbed Jack’s wrist tightly. “No.”
Jack’s gaze locked with mine. “You’re dying. I don’t think now is the time to argue.”
I opened my mouth to protest further, and then a coughing fit came over me. More blood came out, and I knew I didn’t have long. The bullet had likely punctured a lung, and it was only my hunter healing abilities keeping me from dying faster.
“Jack,” I lifted my hand to brush a knuckle across her damp cheek. “I wonder… what your… fathers would… say?”
“My fathers?” She blinked down at me. “Wha—? Oh, oh!” Not speaking to me anymore, she said in her haughtiest voice. “You just wait until my fathers hear about this.”
Several people laughed, while Jack clung to my hand. What felt like a lifetime later — which in reality was probably only a minute — the doors burst open around the building, slamming against walls. The familiar sound of boots hit the floor, and I knew the calvary had come.
I might die here. Rationally, I was losing too much blood and would die soon. But at least Jack would be safe, and the mission would have been completed. I could go happily knowing that.
My eyes slid closed, the pain having numbed, and a coldness had taken over. Still, I clutched Jack’s hand on my chest for as long as I could. I knew one of us would die on a mission together. And if I was honest, I always knew it would be me saving her ass.
A shadow covered my face and then something was pressed against my lips. Wet and sticky, the copper scent burning my nose.
“Open your mouth,” a gruff voice ordered.
I turned my head, away. I didn’t know what it was but knowing I didn’t want it.
“Julian, please.” Jack’s soft hand touched my jaw. “You have to drink.”
Drink?
I weakly forced my eyes opened. The wrist above me was Kyren’s, and blood seeped from a bite mark on his arm. She wanted me to drink his blood. The very bastard who had just betrayed us, and a vampire on top of that? My parents would roll over in their grave.
“No.”
Jack huffed. “Now is not the time to be stubborn.” Her hand gripped my jaw, trying to urge me to open it. “I know you have this thing against vampires but… I need you.”
My body felt as if it were floating. I knew the end was close. But I couldn’t make myself in those last moments go back on everything I believed in.
Vampires had killed my parents. My whole life, I’d been taught to hate and despise them. ‘The only good vampire as a dead one’ had been my motto for so long.
It had taken everything in me to be around Jack’s parents without the visceral need to drive a stake through their hearts. There was no way, now, when it all came down to it, that I’d do the one thing that would destroy the very foundation I stood on.
“I won’t lose you. Not again.”
I wanted to laugh as she repeated the very words back to me. The ones I’d used to get her suspended from the guild. It was like she knew the very thing that would break all my resolve. Shatter every reason I had to not take the vampire’s blood, to heal and save myself.
Using every ounce of energy I had left, I opened my eyes, staring up into Jack’s grief stricken ones. “Okay.”
Kyren pressed his wrist to my open mouth, and his blood trickled down, covering my tongue with the sickly sweet taste of him.
I’d never had vampire blood before. I wasn’t sure how it was supposed to taste. I’d tasted my own blood and knew it was nothing like this.
My stomach tried to reject it as I forced myself to swallow. I gasped and pulled away, turning my face. The numbness in my body slowly ebbed away, and the pain returned.
“Was that enough?” Jack’s voice asked, her hand still on me, trying to check me over.
“I don’t know.”
My eyes widened, and my mouth gaped open. The pain was more than anything I’d ever felt before. I suddenly sat up, my hands finding the front of Kyren’s shirt. Spittle flew as I silently tried to ask him what the hell he did to me.
“No, stop.” Jack grabbed my wrists, trying to dislodge me from Kyren. “He saved you.”
I swallowed, a weak feeling coming over me causing my fingers to release him. I slowly slid back down to the tiled floor and breathed heavily, each breath becoming easier than the last.
Something was happening inside of me. The pain had mostly dissipated, and there was a lingering pressure. Something pushing and pulling through my muscle and flesh.
“Ewww, is that the bullet?” a voice I didn’t recognize asked from somewhere above.
“Yes, Ives,” Jack snapped, shoving someone away. “He’s healing. Now get back. Aren’t you supposed to be watching some rebels?”
“Sorry, geez,” Ives muttered. “I’ve never seen vampire blood work before.”
I winced as the pressure built until something metal clinked on the floor. The bullet, I presumed.
“Hey,” Jack murmured, brushing my hair from my face. Her fingers smelled of blood.
I forced my eyelids open, blinking them several times to clear the blurriness from them. “Hey, back.”
Jack leaned over me, her face tear stained, just holding my hand like I’d disappear if she let it go.
I reached up to brush my fingers across her cheek where she must have brushed her hair, leaving a smear of my blood on them.
“You’re a mess.”
Jack laughed through a sob. “You should see yourself.”
My lips curled up in a smile that turned into a wince as I tried to sit up.
“No, don’t. Stay here.” Jack pressed her hand to my chest. “We don’t know if you’re completely healed yet.”
My lips pursed together, and I mentally cataloged my body. I was a bit sore. More as if I’d been through a rigorous workout without a cooldown than I’d gotten shot. But overall, I felt fine.
“Please, just until the medics come and check you out. For me.”
I choked out a laugh. “Why not? I already took a bullet and compromised all my beliefs for you. What’s ten more minutes?”
“Hey!” Jack smacked my shoulder making me wince. “Oh, I’m sorry.”
Letting her baby me, I tried to peer around the room. A lot had happened while I was dying. The group that had been threatening us were scattered, either dead on the ground or chained with special metal cuffs for supernaturals. Still, something bothered me.
“Where’s Kyren?”
Jack chewed on her lower lip. “He’s over with Tate, giving a statement.”
My brows furrowed. “Why isn’t he in chains?”
Blowing out a breath, Jack looked off to the side. “It was a trick.”
“What?”
She nodded her head toward a prone figure I couldn’t quite see completely around her but catch sight of auburn hair.
“Kyren was pretending to get on their side so he could rip Hamish’s heart out.” She let out a tired laugh. “He said, ‘When the captain is dead, the soldiers will flounder.’ Or something like that.” She let out an aggravated sigh. “Would have been nice if he’d let us in on his plan.”
“Yeah,” I murmured. My eyes wandered around what I could see of the room until I found the very vampire whose blood pumped through my veins.
As if knowing I was looking for him, Kyren glanced our way. He bumped Tate with his elbow, and the two of them approached us.
“Hey, how you feeling?” Tate asked, kneeling next to me.
I grunted, pushing myself up to my elbows. “Like I just got shot.”
Tate barked out a laugh. “Oh, I bet. Thankfully, Kyren was here, right?”
My gaze settled on the vampire in question who simply stared at me. “I’m not going to say thank you.”
Kyren sniffed. “Didn’t think you would.”
“If I wasn’t worried about leaving Jack with you two idiots, I would’ve rather died.”
Tate snickered. “Sure. Whatever you say.” He patted me on the shoulder. “Glad to have you back, teach.”
I rolled my eyes at the wolf, who dragged Kyren away with him. Sighing, I turned back to Jack.
“This doesn’t mean I’m bonded to him, am I?”
“Why?” Jack shifted closer to me with a sneaky grin. “Why? Do you want to be?”
I gaped at her. “No way in hell. I’d rather get shot again.
Giggling, Jack cupped my face with her hands. “Then nothing to worry about. You only drank his blood, he didn’t drink yours.”
“Thank God,” I muttered.
She pressed her lips to mine in a chaste kiss before standing. “Come on, the medics are being lazy asses over there. Let’s get you checked out, so we can get you home.”
I winced and gasped as she helped me to my feet. My eyes ate up the scene around us. The blood and carnage on the ground, the bodies, and the hunters in black guarding the few supernaturals who didn’t end up dead by their hands.
Just another normal day in the life of a hunter.
Then I noticed something… odd. My feet paused, forcing Jack to stop in her tracks.
“Where’s Iris?”