Chapter 3 - Jasper
As a rule, Jasper didn’t enjoy fighting. He saw it as part of the job, a duty that he was good at, but one he didn’t necessarily take joy in. He saw it as integral, a necessity, but not something to savor.
This time, however, Jasper enjoyed every single second.
He lunged forward, grabbing Lucas by the neck.
He bit down, drawing blood. Lucas let out a yelp of pain, squirming.
Good. Jasper wanted him to feel pain. He deserved it after what he had done.
Rage surged through him like a forest fire in a drought.
With every single attack, he thought about Nikki—how frightened she had been, how she had nearly been taken.
He was going to return that to Lucas tenfold and relish every moment.
Lucas wormed his way out of his hold and scrambled away. He lunged toward Jasper, planning on leaping onto his back. Jasper dodged nimbly, his own claws outstretched to slice across the bridge of the other wolf’s snout. Lucas howled and staggered back.
Another swipe of the claws, and they dug into Lucas’s flank.
The other wolf yelped, then whimpered. He was panting heavily, and the injury seemed to have done more of a number on him than either of them would have expected.
Jasper could see in the other wolf’s eyes that Lucas knew he’d been beaten.
He knew there was no getting out of this.
Lucas glanced behind him, searching for his way out. He glanced once more at the bristling Jasper, then sprinted toward the woods. Growling, Jasper lunged after him. He wasn’t about to let this asshole get away, not after what he had done. He’d chase him through the woods all night if he had to.
A gasp of pain echoed behind him. He turned and saw with equal parts horror and rage that Nikki was bleeding from a gash on her head, and she had scratches all over her arms. Her shirt was ripped to show more cuts, though from here, he couldn’t tell how deep or shallow they were.
He snarled, glancing between the woods and Nikki. He wanted nothing more than to tear Lucas to ribbons for what he had done to Nikki, but she was injured, and he couldn’t tell how severely.
Lucas or Nikki. There was no real contest.
Despite his rage urging him to go after Lucas to teach him a lesson, he turned away from the woods and charged back toward Nikki. She was trembling, and he could smell fear mixing with her normal scent. Fresh rage surged through him. Not right now, but soon, Lucas would pay for terrifying her.
Nikki flinched back from him, and it was only then that he realized he was still a hulking wolf. He shifted back to human and approached her slowly, the way he might a wounded animal. Tears streaked through the dirt on her face, but she didn’t recoil when he came to stand next to her.
“Are you all right?” he asked, sitting on his haunches.
“I’m fine,” she choked out. But she was lying. He didn’t have to be a genius to see that.
“It’s all right,” he said. “I’m here to help.”
Swallowing, she watched him nervously, shellshocked and shy from what had happened. He couldn’t blame her. But the look in her eyes, that haunted, almost glazed expression, sent a fresh wave of anger through him. Lucas had gotten off too easily.
He reached out and brushed his thumb gently over the gash on her head, barely touching it. She flinched.
“Sorry. How bad does that hurt?”
“Pretty bad.”
Rage rushed through him, but he tried to temper it. It wasn’t the time.
“Are there any other spots?”
She hesitated. At first, he thought it was because she was shy. It took him a moment to realize the pause came more from embarrassment or shame than anything else.
“My side,” she finally muttered, staring down at the ground.
He wanted to tell her there was nothing for her to be ashamed of, but he was too preoccupied with making sure she was okay. He took in her shirt, the jagged tears and the blood spreading across the fabric. He forced himself to bite back a snarl.
“I’m going to take a look, okay?” he muttered.
She nodded. Gently, he pulled back the shirt. She sucked in a breath, her stomach flexing.
It wasn’t as bad as it could have been; he doubted it would need stitches. But it would have been painful as hell. Lucas had done it to stop her from running.
I’m going to kill him? Jasper thought.
It was his fault in the first place. He should have been faster. He should have gotten to her sooner. If he’d been faster, instead of busy talking with Franco about patrols, she might not be hurt at all.
He pulled off his shirt and began tearing it into strips. Silently, he began to wrap the makeshift bandages around the worst of her injuries.
“It’s not too bad,” he said. “Could be a lot worse, but it’s gonna hurt like hell.”
She let out a half-laugh. “It already does,” she said. Her hands were quivering. He doubted it was from the pain.
Without realizing what he was doing, he rested his hand on hers, stilling the tremors. “It’s all right,” he said.
“I couldn’t stop him,” she muttered. He wasn’t sure if she knew she was saying it.
“You held him off,” he told her. She blinked, her eyes meeting his. “That’s something to be proud of, too.”
She didn’t respond, but he could feel her watching him while he dressed her wounds.
He didn’t glance up, too unsure of what he would do if he met her gaze at that moment.
It was taking every ounce of his willpower to remain professional when he wanted nothing more than to reassure her with kisses and gentle touches.
So he focused only on wrapping the scraps of his shirt around her waist to staunch the bleeding.
“Thanks. I should get home,” she muttered once he’d finished, pushing herself to her feet. She wobbled slightly, and he shot to his own feet. He took her elbow and held it gently to steady her.
“Actually, I’d like to take you back to my place so I can get a better look at your injuries,” he said.
Her eyes widened, and she stiffened slightly. She bit her lip, and her eyes darted from side to side, as if she was worried about Lucas returning.
“Oh, I’m not sure,” she muttered.
“I’m worried you have a concussion,” he said. “And I want to take a better look at your injuries. I was always the best medic when we were black ops, but even I can only do so much in the dark in the middle of a deserted street.”
That was mainly the reason Jasper wanted to take her back to his place. The other reason was that he didn’t want to risk Lucas coming back. He could be sitting in wait right now.
She hesitated, but eventually nodded.
They walked in silence to Jasper’s house.
It was a large house, particularly for one person, and tucked away, though not far from the rest of town.
He could have elected to stay in the pack house, but he’d preferred his solitude after years of living in the barracks.
He pushed open the door into a spacious living room.
He watched Nikki take it all in while he guided her over to the couch.
“Take a seat. Can I get you anything?”
She gave a shaky, nervous smile. “What I could really go for is—”
“—a cup of tea?” he finished for her without realizing that he was saying it.
“Um, yes, actually,” she said.
He disappeared into the kitchen and began fixing tea.
The entire time, he kept his ears pricked, listening to her breathing, listening to her heartbeat slowly steady.
Part of him still couldn’t believe she was here in his house.
Despite his constant awareness of her in every situation, it felt surreal, almost impossible.
It was something he had never let himself imagine.
Still, he would have picked other circumstances.
A fresh spasm of rage rippled through him.
The kettle whistled. He poured it into a prepared mug, watching the water turn dark from the tea. He walked back into the living room, where Nikki was still sitting on the couch, still in an almost stupor.
“Here.” He held out the steaming mug.
Nikki took it, staring down at it with a puzzled look on her face, then back up at him. “Is this orange and cinnamon black tea?”
“Do you want something else?” he asked.
“No, no. It’s just… It’s my favorite tea.”
Shrugging, trying not to give away that he had known it was her favorite because he had seen her purchase it before, he said, “I like it, too. Just grabbed the first one I saw.”
Before she could ask any further questions, he walked over to the closet and opened the door.
He grabbed his med kit, then returned. Dampening a washcloth, he crouched in front of her and began to clean the dirt and grime from her face and arms. She hissed and stiffened every so often, but besides that, the two of them remained silent.
“I’m sorry,” she muttered when he began to wrap the bandage around her head.
He paused, frowning at her. “What are you talking about? Sorry for what?”
She ran her fingers through her grime-streaked hair. She was still trembling. “He got away,” she muttered. “You had to come back to help me instead of going after him.”
“I didn’t have to do anything,” he said. “I decided to go back and help you.”
She bit her lip, staring down at the steaming mug of tea in her hand. “He still got away because of me.”
“That’s not important right now, Nikki,” he said.
She blinked, her brow knitting together. “You know my name?”
He managed to keep his expression neutral, but only just. He hesitated, trying to figure out what to say that wouldn’t give away just how much he paid attention to her, that didn’t give away that he rarely stopped thinking about her.
“I make it a point to learn the names of everyone who comes to my classes,” he said.
“Of course.” Pink spread across her cheeks, somehow making her even prettier, despite the cuts and bruises.
“Here.” He took the tea gingerly from her hand, his fingers brushing against hers. “I’m going to switch out some of these bandages, and then I’m going to do a few brief tests to make sure that you aren’t concussed too badly.”
He redid the bandages on her stomach with actual gauze. After, he did a quick test to check the concussion, asking a series of questions and checking her vision.
“I think you’re okay to sleep,” he said, not letting on just how relieved he was. “I have a second bedroom you can use.”
“Oh.” That pink on her cheeks deepened. He tried not to think about how attractive that flush made her. She glanced up at the stairs leading up to the bedrooms. “I don’t… I wouldn’t want to be a nuisance.”
“You’re never a nuisance.” He raised an eyebrow. “Though if it helps, I can tell you that I’m insisting. I want to make sure that you’re okay in the morning. That, and I don’t like the idea of you being alone tonight after what happened.”
She bit her lip. Her hand brushed unconsciously against the bandage on her forehead. “All right,” she murmured.
“Get some sleep,” he said. “You need to rest.”
She nodded. “Thank you, Jasper,” she said. “For everything.”
“I’m glad I was able to help,” he said, fully aware of how massive an understatement that was.
He stared up the steps long after he heard the door to the guest room close. His mind spun. To give himself something to do, he grabbed the mug, took it to the sink, and began washing it.
Lucas. They had thought he’d fled the area. He was cleverer than they had given him credit for if he’d managed to stay under the radar for that long. They needed to figure out his plan before he got even bolder than he’d been tonight. Jasper had no doubts that this was only the beginning.
Lucas was after Nikki, too. Jasper didn’t know why, but it didn’t matter. The only thing he cared about was keeping her safe. The question was how best to do that.
His gaze continued lingering on the stairs, his mind spinning. The conclusion he came to unsettled him, but after running through all the other options, he decided it was the best one they could come up with in such a short time.
He just needed to figure out how to explain it to Nikki.