Chapter 27
Chapter twenty-seven
Jack
“I don’t like you going in on your own,” Julian announced from the driver’s seat where we idled outside the school.
“I won’t be.” I squeezed his hand. “Tate is just down the hall in Kyren’s room, and Kyren is likely lurking about as usual. But I can’t bring you in with me. I have to do this part on my own.”
“But we don’t know for sure that Xinyi didn’t have anything to do with it,” Julian countered, trying to make me see reason. “And for all we know, Iris is hiding out here with her. No one found her body.
My lips pressed into a thin line.
I understood Julian’s concern. I really did. He’d almost lost me… again. I’d almost lost him, for real. Everything since the bust had been going great. Why did I want to rock the boat?
But this was Xinyi. She was my friend. I needed to know if she was alive. That would tell us Iris survived, at least. And if she was, then I could ask her about Iris and her part in all this.
Whether or not Xinyi betrayed me too, I just… I had to know.
“Just… wait here.” I patted his hand. “You’re not a professor anymore. It’d be weird if you were loitering around campus.”
Julian grabbed my hand, pulling me back into the car. His hand cupped my chin when I got near. “I can just say I’m visiting my girlfriend.”
His lips pressed against mine, and I was tempted to let him deepen the kiss, but I knew he was only trying to delay me.
Pushing back, I shook my head with a silly happy grin. “Stop trying to distract me. The sooner this is done, the sooner this is all over.”
“Fine,” Julian sighed, placing his hands on the steering wheel, his fingers flexing against the leather. “But you better not die on me.”
“I won’t.” I chuckled and closed the door behind me.
The walk through the academy felt surreal. Just a few months ago, I’d first stepped onto campus with a determination to prove myself to the Guild and my parents. I’d only been thinking of the mission.
I hadn’t expected to make friends like Xinyi and Iris, let alone find love. I’d just wanted to get in and get out.
Then everything changed.
Tate swooped in with his easy-going smile and hard-to-say-no-to puppy dog eyes. Even knowing what I knew now, about Kyren and his sire, all of it, I’d still do it.
But it wasn’t just about the mission. It was like my mom said — I’d finally found what I’d been fighting for.
I nodded and said hello to a few students on my way to the dorms. It was Saturday, so there wasn’t any class. However, I wasn’t a hundred percent certain Xinyi would be in her room. I had to check, though.
“Hey!” Flynn, the string bean werewolf, greeted me. “Where have you been? Did you get tired of being my lab partner?”
I chuckled. “No. Sorry. Had some family things come up. Did you at least get a new one, at least?”
Flynn scratched the side of his neck and grimaced. “Yea, but they’re not as good as you.”
I nodded politely, anxious to see Xinyi but not wanting to lose another potential friend. “How are things with the pack?”
I didn’t notice any new bruises on the scrawny guy, but that didn’t mean the wolves weren’t still picking on him.
Flynn’s face broke out into a wide grin.
“Actually, they’re great. I finally stood up to those bullies.
See, they were picking on this witch with mismatched eyes, Tabby.
She’s in a few of my classes. Anyway, I waited for her to use her powers on them, but she never did.
Well, I wasn’t about to let them hurt her.
So, I got up in their faces and told them to leave her alone. ”
“Oh really?” I bobbed my head, only half paying attention. “Did they listen?”
Flynn shook his head, lifting his hands up and shrugging. “Definitely not. I got knocked out cold. But when I came to, Tabby was there, and the other wolves had taken off. I don’t know what she said, but they haven’t bothered me since.”
Curious how a witch with no powers could intimidate a pack of wolves, but it wasn’t my business. It seemed it all worked out in the end.
“That’s really great, Flynn.” I patted him on the shoulder. “I’m happy for you. I’d love to chat some more, but I’ve got to be somewhere. I’m coming back to school soon, so see you in class?”
Flynn smiled and nodded. “Oh yeah, sure. See you there.”
I ignored everyone else as I stalked through the halls until I reached the Vampire’s Crypt. Taking a deep breath to prepare myself for the worst, I stepped inside.
The inside was exactly as it had always been. Nothing had changed, even if I had. Students loitered in the common area. Others went in and out of the coed bathroom. I bypassed all this and made for the stairs that led to the basement where the vampire dorm rooms were.
Passing by Kyren and Tate’s room, the door wide open, I locked eyes with Tate, who stood there by the door waiting. If anyone found it odd, they didn’t comment as I brushed past them toward Iris and Xinyi’s.
My heart thudded hard in my chest. My hands grew clammy. Then I was standing there before a closed door. Normally, I’d have tried to listen before knocking but the rooms were soundproof, even to me.
I had to go in blind.
Something slid along the back of my neck, more of a caress than anything. Without having to look, I knew it was Kyren’s shadows trying to comfort me, letting me know I wasn’t alone.
Taking a deep breath, I lifted my hand and knocked on the door.
It took a few minutes before the doorknob shook and then twisted open. Xinyi appeared in the doorway, sagging into the door as if it were holding her up.
I’d never seen her like this before. Her hair was greasy and messy around her face, her eyes puffy without make-up or her usual bright smile. She wore an oversized shirt, leaving her legs bare. A large white bandage covered the side of her neck.
“Oh, Jack!” Xinyi’s eyes widened, then dropped to the floor. “What are you doing here?”
I paused, staring at her for a long moment, then into the darkness behind her. “I think you know why I’m here.”
Xinyi lifted her gaze, her mouth opening and closing while she struggled to say something. “Uh… well… now’s not a good time. Maybe you should come back —”
“Let her in.”
Xinyi’s shoulders bunched around her ears at the gravelly voice. Slowly, she backed up, taking the door with her until it was wide open. Light from the hallway poured into the room barely, showing a figure on the bed.
The bedside light clicked on, and it took everything in me not to gasp at the sight before me.
The gorgeous Greek goddess that had once been Iris was gone. Her face and skin had slashes crossing over her olive skin in a pattern that I recognized as one of the hunters that had been at the club with us.
What wasn’t from a dagger was the large chunk missing from her throat, exposing the muscle and tendons there. She wore a long-sleeved shirt that sat strangely along her form, leading me to believe there were more chunks taken out.
“Enjoying your boyfriend’s handy work?” Iris croaked, her voice cracking with each word. “While you were saving your hunter, your wolf decided to snack on me.”
I swallowed, not sure what to say to that. She had just tried to shoot Tate and then ended up shooting Julian instead. Did I say sorry? Or that she deserved it? I wasn’t sure anyone deserved this?
“Why aren’t you healing?” I swallowed the bile that tried to come up. Most vampires would have healed within the first twenty-four hours, more if they’d fed well.
Iris tilted her head to the side. “A gift from your hunter friend, after your boyfriend mauled me. I tried to feed to heal. They fought back. I barely escaped without losing my heart, only to realize they’d put something on their daggers. Now, not even blood will heal me.”
Xinyi whimpered, trembling in the corner of the room, her hand going to the bandage on her neck.
“Xinyi,” I said softly, coming to her side, “it’s okay. She can’t hurt you anymore.”
“I’m sorry, Jack,” she said through sobs. “I didn’t know. I would have told you. But she… then… I thought she loved me.”
Xinyi sank to the floor, her face buried in her knees as she cried.
“Useless, pathetic cow,” Iris snarled. “All she had to do was befriend you, and she couldn’t even do that right.”
I thought she’d done a good job. At least, I was fooled. Still, it made something lighten in my heart to know that Xinyi hadn’t been in on the whole plan to kill me what not.
Xinyi sniffed, lifting her head. “Are they going to kill her?”
My lips twisted to the side. “I… uh… don’t know. That’s up to the council to decide. Usually, yes.”
“I’m going to die.” A chorus of ugly sobs came from Xinyi.
“Oh, shhhh,” I tried to reassure her, wrapping my arms around the smaller woman. “We’ll figure something out. I won’t let you die, I promise.”
Iris snorted. “Don’t make promises you cannot keep. Your council will want to use me as an example no doubt and, once I’m gone, your little friend will be gone too. How sad.”
Her words showed no genuine sympathy for Xinyi’s position. She didn’t even care that she was probably going to die herself. Only that she was going to hurt me in the process.
I shot her a glare. “I’m sure we can make some kind of exception. How does being buried in concrete for the rest of eternity sound to you? Then Xinyi lives, and you become nothing but a dried-up husk.”
Iris hissed at me, but it seemed she was too injured to do much more than glower at me.
“We could break their bond.”
My head whipped toward the open doorway where Tate stood. “What? I thought that wasn’t possible.”
Tate kept his gaze on Iris while he spoke. “There have been a few cases. Kyren told me about before. It doesn’t always work. and I’m not sure the process. but I’m sure we can find a witch willing to try.”
“Did you hear that, Xinyi?” I rubbed her back soothingly. “We’re going to find a way to get you out of this. I promise.”
While I watched Julian and another hunter come in and cuff Iris, leading her out into the hallway where students gasped and cried out in terror at the mess that Iris had become, I stroked Xinyi’s head, hoping that for once everything I was promising her would come true.