Chapter 7 Kyren
Chapter seven
Kyren
I stood at the end of the hallway, my shadows clinging to Tate’s form through sheer force of will.
Their desire to jump from Tate to Jack was harder than when I first learned to control them.
Some would say that they were reacting to my desire to be near her, but I was firmly avoiding that thought pattern.
When Tate closed in on Jack, so close to her that he could have kissed her, I had to practically strangle my shadows to keep them in place. Jealousy and anger burned through me at Tate’s ability to be close to Jack when I couldn’t.
Tate’s feelings were all over the place.
Amusement, irritation, smug satisfaction.
And that was all before he even stepped out of the classroom.
The urge to burst into the room just to see what was causing those emotions had surged through me.
Watching Tate interact with Jack from the shadows was painful.
I knew I had told him I didn’t care. That he was free to be with Jack if he wanted to be. It wasn’t like we hadn’t had other lovers outside of each other before. This would just be like that… except at one point, she’d been mine too.
“You going to hide forever or come out already?”
My eye lifted to meet Tate’s dark ones. He leaned against the edge of the wall, arms crossed, brow raised, a tiny smile on his lips.
I scowled. “I’m not hiding.”
Tate pushed off the wall, shoving his hands into his pockets. “Could have fooled me.”
Walking away from him, I felt his presence follow close behind me. We passed a few people in the hallway, who gave me curious and wary looks.
Not surprising considering how I reacted to Jack’s news.
I could have just used my shadows to teleport away from him, but that would be cowardly. Clearly, he wanted to talk, and I didn’t want to shove anymore of a wedge between us than there already was.
Strangely enough, Tate was silent until we reached the first floor of the building, and I headed toward the parking lot where my car was waiting.
“You should just talk to her instead of spying on her from the shadows,” Tate commented at last, pulling me to a stop.
I swung my keys around my finger, turning to him. “You’re wrong. I wasn’t spying on her. I was checking on you.”
Tate snorted. “Sure you were. If that’s what helps you sleep at night.”
My shadows whipped out, wrapping around his throat and lowering his face toward mine.
“You are what helps me sleep at night.” I nipped at his lower lip before releasing him.
Tate’s self-satisfied grin dipped slightly. “Do you think she still has them?”
“What?” I cocked my head.
Tate’s shoulders bunched up, his eyes dipping to the sidewalk. “Her nightmares.”
I swallowed at his words. I knew exactly what he was talking about. I wished I didn’t. It would make all of this so much easier. For weeks, I had snuck into Jack’s bed and held her. Not that she knew at the time, but it seemed to help settle her when she cried out in her sleep.
Knowing what I know now, it wasn’t hard to imagine what she was dreaming about. While I’d never experienced that type of trauma, I was sure for a child it had to have left scars. Scars that, even as she pretended she was alright to everyone else, took their toll on her while she slept.
It didn’t matter. She wasn’t my problem anymore. Someone else would have to chase away her nightmares. Besides, I doubted she wanted me there. The spawn of the vampire who caused her nightmares.
And yet, a part of me wanted to run back to her, climb into her bed like always, and chase those bad dreams away.
“Kyren?”
My eye jerked back up to Tate’s concerned ones. Forcing my facial expression to show nothing, I stared hard at him. “That’s none of my concern.”
“But Kyren…” Tate grabbed for my arm, but I shrugged him off, letting my shadows wrap around me.
I appeared inside my car, the windows tinted so dark that no one on the outside could see in. But I could see out of them, where Tate stood not too far away, his hand still outstretched.
He stood there for a long moment before his fingers closed into a fist. His face filled with such anguish I wanted to kiss those crinkles in his brows away.
My fingers tightened around my steering wheel, the maroon leather creaking beneath the pressure. Even if there wasn’t a blood bond between us, I would still want to comfort him and yet, I couldn’t bring myself to move toward him.
Maybe that made me a coward, but I couldn’t face him or her. Not now. Not yet. I was still wrapping my head around the face that the woman I loved, obsessed over, practically stalked, was the daughter of my enemy.
Fate truly was cruel.
I pushed the button to start my car, and the engine vibrated beneath me as it came to life. Where would I go?
My instincts were telling me to stay. To find Tate, to find Jack, and to make this right. Except I didn’t know how.
If I made up with Jack, did that mean I was turning my back on my sire? As his only spawn, it was up to me to get vengeance for him. That meant showing the Durands the same pain they caused me in equal measures.
Vengeance would require an equal sacrifice. Someone in the Durand family that would hurt the same way that they hurt me by taking my sire away from me. Seeing as I was the child of the vampire killed, logic would demand that I take their child from them.
But that would mean… Jack.
I glared at my steering wheel as if it was the vengeance that was causing me so much grief.
It wasn’t just the need for vengeance that ailed me.
I’d spent the last decade or so hating the Durands and everything they stood for.
Just last year, I was complaining to Tate every moment I could about how I wanted to rip their family apart, sink my fangs into their precious daughter, drain the life from her body.
Well, I had unintentionally sunk my fangs into her, and yet I couldn’t imagine her screams of pain being better than the sweet cries of ecstasy.
I could still taste the memory of her on my tongue, her blood pumping through her veins into my mouth as I pumped my cock into her tight pussy. Feeling it clench around me, her hands clinging to me, pulling me closer, urging me harder.
She never flinched from my shadows. Even Tate had been hesitant to let them touch him at first. But Jack… she accepted them as a piece of me. I wanted to shove them inside every one of her orifices until she passed out from how many times she’d come apart.
Now, I didn’t think I’d ever get the chance.
I slammed the palm of my hand against the steering wheel with a growl.
A slew of curse words came from me as I pressed the heel of my palms to my eyes.
How did everything get so out of control?
Maybe I should never have come to this school.
Then I’d never have met her, and I wouldn’t be in such a bind. I just—
A knock at my window froze my thoughts. I lowered my hands, turning my head toward the sound, thinking it was Tate come to push me once more.
Instead, standing in the place Tate should have been was Gavin, his stupid grinning face framed by the door frame. For a hot moment, I contemplated ignoring him. I wasn’t really in the mood to exchange pleasantries. Especially not with a bottom feeding, suck up, who was shy of a decade old.
Gavin bragged to anyone who would listen about how many humans he’d fed from, implying that many times it ended in more than just feeding. Whether he meant killing or fucking, he didn’t really seem to care who heard him.
It would get him staked one of these days.
Sighing, I pushed the button to lower the window. The parking lot lights lit up behind him, giving him a more menacing presence. Though anyone who was scared of this scrawny pointed nose pendejo deserved to be eaten.
“Yes?” I kept my tone bland. I didn’t want to encourage him to stay longer than necessary.
“Hey, Kyren.” Gavin leaned forward, placing his hands on the edge of my window.
“Glad to see you haven’t fled campus. We had bets on if you’d come back.
” He chuckled and puffed his chest out. “I bet you’d come back.
No way, Kyren runs from a human bitch. But I mean you can get pussy anywhere, but that Durand pussy must be prim—”
Before I knew what was happening, my shadows shot out, grabbing Gavin by the throat, yanking him half into the car. My eyes burned into his as I snarled in his face. “Do not talk about her that way.”
Gavin’s eyes bulged from his head, the need for air not a problem so much as the threat of my shadows ripping his head off. He braced himself on the door, trying not push away, his voice strained.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean anything by it.”
With a growl, I threw him back, glaring at the vampire on the pavement.
“I have other business to attend to—” I revved my engine about to peel out of the parking lot when Gavin quickly threw himself back onto my car door.
“I’m sorry, really. I just thought that you hate the Durands… and their bit—” A low growl of warning from me made him adjust. “Their daughter is here. I figured you’d want to get some revenge, and I know the people who can help you.”
I stared at him for a long moment. I knew there were whispers of vampires and other supernaturals alike who thought as I did and didn’t like the way the new council was going, putting all these restrictions on us as if we were some primitive beings who could be policed.
Until now, no one had approached me on the subject.
I’d always been in the mindset that we could police ourselves and didn’t need any human hybrids telling us what we could and couldn’t do.
It was beneficial to all our kinds to stay under the radar.
This desire to acclimate with the humans didn’t make sense to me.
We weren’t human, so why pretend to be one?
Still, I wasn’t sure this group of radicals were the ones I wanted to be associated with in my quest to bring us back on track. Though the rest of the supernatural world wasn’t my problem. I had only one goal in mind, and that was to bring pain and misery onto the Durands.
Or at least, it had been.
Gavin took my silence for an invitation to keep talking. “We have a meeting on Thursday. Third floor chemistry 305. If you’re interested—”
“I’m not.”
Without any further explanation, I rolled up my window and pressed on the gas. Gavin jumped back as I zipped by, pulling out of the academy parking lot and onto the open road.
I hadn’t realized that my open disdain for the Durands and Jack’s reveal would bring me so much attention.
Even if I were interested in helping take down the current council, I wouldn’t associate with anyone who let Gavin into their faction.
We had more than enough of a bad reputation without adding blowhards to it.
While I drove away from school, my mind and heart were still there, wondering what Jack was doing. If she was being hounded by the students. If anyone had made threats.
The very thought of someone getting to her and me not being there. The image of her bleeding and broken, staring at the shower stall wall, came to mind. My foot pressed harder on the accelerator.
No. If anyone was going to cause Jack harm, it would be me. Her pain and suffering were mine and mine alone, and I wouldn’t let anyone else take it away from me.