Chapter 8 Julian
Chapter eight
Julian
Ever since class with Jack and that… wolf, I’d been in a bad mood.
Everything pissed me off. The students talked too much; I snapped at them.
They didn’t participate enough; they were lazy and wasting my time.
The cafeteria didn’t have any more of the coffee I liked; I almost pulled a knife on the cafeteria worker.
The end of the day couldn’t come any faster. I had office hours after dinner and needed to decompress before I had to take on the idiotic questions I’d no doubt be subjected to for the next two hours.
How any of these creatures had lived this long was a miracle.
Either our hunters weren’t as skilled as I thought, or the masses were better at hiding their crimes from under our noses.
I knew at least half a dozen names I would be passing on to President Fleming to investigate, and that was from this semester alone.
I couldn’t help but wonder how many more would end up tasting the hunter’s blade before the school year ended.
As I walked up to my apartment, my tension didn’t lesson.
Would Jack be in there again?
I couldn’t figure out if I wanted her there or was dreading her appearance. Just being near her was pure torture, having her in my space — alone — was even worse.
At least when we were on the same hunting team, we didn’t have time to get caught up in feelings. We were too busy tracking down our prey. Then, after missions, we could ignore each other. Each of us pretended the other didn’t exist outside of missions and debriefings.
Here was much harder.
She was in my classes, where I had to interact with her. Outside of class, we had barely been in contact except for the occasional update, and each one of those had been a little piece of hell itself.
Unlike after our missions, even if I wasn’t interacting with her, I still saw her around campus. In the lunchroom. In the hallways. With them.
There wasn’t a single moment of respite except when I hid away in my apartment at the end of the day. But even that she had taken away from me.
I needed to put my foot down. Tell her that it was inappropriate for her to hide in my apartment.
That she had to find somewhere else to take refuge.
Yes, that’s what I’d do. She could pout and complain all she wanted, but it was her idea to expose her identity.
She had to take responsibility for her actions.
Every thought I had about telling her off disappeared the moment the scent of blood hit my nose. Not just any blood… Jack’s blood.
I dropped my briefcase by the door, shoving the unlocked apartment door open. Panic pounded through my chest as I practically ran through the apartment, each step like a chant telling me to get to Jack by any means necessary.
Bypassing the empty kitchen, I darted down the hallway. The shower was running in the bathroom where the scent of blood was the strongest. I threw open the door, hands braced on either side of the door, my heart racing as I got ready to go into medic mode when I came face to face with Jack.
Sitting in her bra and jeans on the sink counter, she had a length of string in between her teeth as she struggled to sew up a cut dripping down the backside of her arm. Her eyes drifted to mine from where she was working and she dropped the string, offering me the needle.
“Finally,” she huffed as if it was my fault she was wounded in my bathroom. “Do you know how hard it is to close this kind of cut where it is? I might be flexible, but I just don’t bend that way.”
Scowling, I dropped my arms and took the needle from her. “You about gave me a heart attack. You could have texted me.”
Jack arched a brow, shifting so I could reach the cut she was trying to sew. “I didn’t think that was necessary, it’s not like it’s a fatal wound. Besides, I thought I could do it myself.”
I grunted and turned her arm toward me, my fingers moving over the edges of not one but three stripes across her arm. “Hunting werewolves again?”
She shrugged, then hissed as I thread the needle through her flesh. “You should get a real first aid kit in here. What kind of hunter are you?”
I eyeballed her, then focused my attention back on what I was doing. “The kind that is undercover as a professor. I didn’t think I’d need to patch anyone up at the school.”
Jack snorted. “We might be undercover, but that doesn’t mean that the rebels won’t try to hurt us. You should get better supplies.”
“And maybe you shouldn’t go out hunting alone,” I shot back, carefully working my way across the biggest and deepest cut. “These are pretty deep. Must have really pissed them off.”
She avoided my gaze, her free hand picking at the dried blood on her jeans. “I may have antagonized them… a little bit.”
My eyes darted from her face to the wound, suspicion filling my chest. “And why exactly where you out hunting wolves in the middle of a school day?”
Not answering me, I tugged a little harder than necessary on the string.
“Ow, fuck, Julian.” She tried to pull her arm away from me, but I held tight. “You’re supposed to be patching me up, not hurting me further.”
“Then stop avoiding the question.”
Jack’s almond-colored eyes bore into mine. “You’re not my superior right now. I don’t have to tell you anything.”
“Fine. Patch yourself up.” I went to drop the needle.
“Now hold on a second.” Jack grabbed my hand and scowled. “You’re a real dick you know that?”
I kept my gaze locked with hers. “And you’re still trying to avoid the question. Why were you on an unauthorized hunt in the middle of a school day?”
Rolling her shoulders, she cracked her neck and then winced. “I was just blowing off steam. And it wasn’t unauthorized. Tristen told me about them.”
My hands continued to sew up her arm, moving from one slash to the next until they were all closed as well as they would be. Her fast-healing abilities would take care of most of the damage, sewing it up only helped it along.
I wet a washcloth and swiped around the edges, trying to get as much blood off as possible. “And did President Fleming know you were going out to hunt on your own?”
Jack chewed on the inside of her cheek before she answered, “I didn’t tell him.”
“Jack.”
“Hey, he assumed I was with you,” Jack pointed out. “I just didn’t… correct him.”
When she turned her face away from me, I grabbed her by the chin, forcing her to look me in the eye. “Do you have any idea how dangerous that was? How reckless?”
“I was fine.” Jack pulled her arm away from me. “I had it under control.”
"Sure you did. That’s why you had to sneak in here to get patched up.” I stepped back, letting her slide off the counter.
She pursed her lips, moving toward the shower. “It’s just a scratch.”
“If that were true, you wouldn’t need stitches.”
Jack unbuttoned her jeans and pulled them down, leaving her in a black and blue lace thong.
Swallowing thickly, I jerked my eyes to the ceiling. “What are you doing?”
Jack snorted and laughed dryly. “Showering of course. You’re acting like you haven’t seen me naked before.”
The sound of her pants dropping to the floor filled my ears, then what I assumed was her bra. I closed my eyes, not trusting myself not to accidentally look.
She was right. I’d seen Jack naked before. Several times over a course of a few hours. Except this wasn’t then. We were so all over each other that night that I hardly remembered if I’d even spent much time looking at her body closely.
Curiosity ate at me. Wondering if she looked the same or if she’d gained any new scars since the last time. And I’d be lying if the desire to look at her didn’t have something to down with my own caged need for her.
“That’s beside the point. I’m your superior. It’s not proper.” It was hard to sound authoritative without looking her in the eye, and her responding laugh told me as such.
“God, you’re such a prude.” The shower door opened, steam billowing out across the ceiling before it clicked closed again. “You can look now.”
Slowly, I dropped my gaze, thankful for the privacy frost that hid most of her body from my eager gaze.
Still, I could make out every curve of her body.
Her arms as they moved over her head, lifting her hair while she turned.
I forced myself to take a step back and then another, my eyes trained on her silhouettes every movement.
I cleared my throat. “You could have showered in your room.”
“That’s too far away.” Her hand reached for something and then the squelching sound of soap followed by the scent of my body wash hit my nose. “What if someone saw me? How would I explain all the blood?”
I barely registered her words, entranced by every swipe of her hands over her body. Finally, I snapped myself out of it, focusing on the counter as I leaned against the door frame.
“That’s precisely why it’s so dangerous for you to be going on hunts. Not to forget the fact that you went alone, but you are on an undercover mission right now. If they know you are a hunter, then the other supernaturals will clam up and you will ruin any progress we’ve made.”
I hoped reprimanding her would help remind me that, while currently I wasn’t her superior, once this mission was over, I would be so again.
So I couldn’t pull that shower door open and spend the next hour licking the water from her skin.
I had to keep a professional line between us. For my sake and hers.
“If they haven’t figured out that I’m a hunter based on who my parents are, I doubt they will now,” Jack explained and then — fuck me — bent over giving me a fuzzy view of her shapely ass through the shower glass.
“Besides, I could tell them I got attacked because I’m a Durand.
They’ll believe that quicker than that I’m a hunter undercover looking for rebel groups. ”
I rubbed my eyes under my glasses. “You just admitted that you didn’t need to shower here. So that tells me you either didn’t think of that before or you’re just doing this to torture me. Either way, I’m close to the end of my patience.”
The water shut off, and she popped her head out the door, water dripping from her hair onto the floor. “What are you going to do? Spank me?”
I didn’t bother answering her obvious attempt to get a reaction out of me. “You’re dripping everywhere.”
Not giving her the chance to tempt me further, I grabbed a towel and handed it to her. She took it with a smirk and had mercy on me as she wrapped it around herself in the shower before stepping out.
I tried to keep my eyes on her face and not the way the water slid over her body, dipping down her neck and making a path between her breasts. My eyes jerked up to meet her amused gaze.
“Your need to blow off steam didn’t have something to do with a certain werewolf, would it?” I hated to ask, but this was my mission too. If she was going to be out putting herself in danger every time she had a fight with her boy—ex-boyfriends, then I needed to know.
“Possibly,” she muttered, drying her hair with another towel. The one wrapped around her body barely held on for dear life over her generous curves.
I sighed. I had to do something about this before it got out of control. Today’s training sessions came to mind, and I had an idea. One that would push me to the limits of my restraint but would at least keep the mission safe.
“Maybe we should start up our training again.”
Jack paused in her drying, eyes narrowing. “I’m not a child.”
Daring to take a step towards her, I kept my hands in my pockets so I wouldn’t reach out and see if her skin was just as soft as it was the first time we were together. “Perhaps if you didn’t act like one, I wouldn’t have to treat you like one.”
Jack closed the two steps between us, her nose crinkling up in such a cute way that made me want to bite it.
“If I’m a child,” she murmured, “then what does that make you for fucking me?”
I grabbed her hips, pressing her to my front, letting her feel how hard I was just from being in her presence. “My fucking you,” I said quietly, “had nothing to do with your age and everything to do with that smart mouth of yours.”
Her eyes fluttered closed before she forced them open again, defiant. “Oh, so now you’re admitting it happened. Look who’s making progress.”
“I never said it didn’t happen.” I let my eyes drift down to her lips and then back up to her eyes, seeing the desire there. “I’m saying it shouldn’t have.”
“But it did.” Jack pressed herself tighter against me, hands grabbing at my shirt. “I thought we were on the same page and then you pretended I didn’t exist. I was just another one of your soldiers.” Her face crumbled slightly, her voice low. “Why am I not enough?”
That single line made it click.
This wasn’t about me. It was about Kyren.
I could pretend otherwise. I could pretend that the way she was looking at me was because she wanted me and not that she was trying to forget them.
Fuck, but part of me wanted to.
Desperately.
Except I just… couldn’t. I wanted her. But not like this. Not because of them.
I cupped her wrists, pulling her hands away from me as I stepped back from her, breathing out a calming breath. “You can borrow some clothes,” I said roughly, “and then you need to leave.”
Jack watched me confusion and hurt crinkling her brows. “You’re rejecting me… again?” She huffed a laugh. “Of course you are. God forbid you ignore protocol.”
She tried to shove past me. I caught her arm, careful not to touch where she was injured.
“This isn’t about protocol, Jack,” I growled, leaning my face close to hers. “I won’t be your substitute for them.”
Jack jerked her arm from me grasp. “I never asked you to be.”
She stalked down the hallway and into my bedroom, slamming the door behind her.
I leaned my head back against the stone wall and closed my eyes. I didn’t know how much longer I could survive being so close to her.