Chapter 22
Chapter twenty-two
Julian
I hesitated to leave my apartment the rest of the day. Not because I was afraid of running into Jack’s dads again, but because they had given me a lot to think about. Besides, I had work to do and a coven to find.
Which I still wasn’t having any luck finding.
Giving up for now, I changed into my workout clothing and went through my paces. I did push-ups, sit-ups, and was in the middle of a set of jumping jacks when there was a knock on my door.
Stopping mid-jump, I groaned. What now?
I’d never been this popular back at the guild. Hunters knew how important our downtime was. No one just knocked on my door in the middle of the day. They’d at least call or text first.
Grabbing the towel I had off to the side, I wiped the sweat off my brow as I padded over to the door. This time, I paused at the side table and grabbed my gun, holding it in one hand while I turned the knob.
Pulling it open, the last person I’d ever expected was standing at my door.
“Hey.” Tate heaved in air, his hands on either side of my door. “Is Jack here?”
My brows furrowed. “I… what? No. What are you doing here?”
Once he caught his breath, Tate pushed past me into my apartment.
“Please by all means, come in.” I sighed and followed after him into the living room where Tate looked around the room, sniffing the air. “She’s not here.”
“I can see that.” His dark gaze turned to linger on me, taking in my low hanging sweatpants and sweat covered chest. “Working out?”
“Yeah.” I threw the towel over my shoulder, not putting my gun down as I crossed my arms over my chest. “Didn’t particularly feel like going to the gym today. A lot of testosterone there I’d rather avoid.”
Tate ignored the pointed look I sent his way. Either he didn’t care about the insult I threw his way or his mind was on something else.
“Look, I need to find Jack. Have you seen her?”
I frowned, finally hearing the desperation in his voice. “Not since last night. What is it? What’s wrong? Is she hurt?”
Suddenly, I was the one starting to get impatient for answers. I grabbed the wolf by the arms and stopped him.
“Tate. Answer me.”
His heart was racing, his skin as sweaty as mine, and his gaze darted to mine before moving away again. He dragged a hand over his hair and tugged his lip ring between his teeth.
“I don’t know what to do. She just took off.”
I watched his face closely. “What do you mean she took off?”
“She just… ran away.” He pulled away from my grasp and sat on the arm of my couch. “We were in the courtyard. Everything was going fine and then she suddenly started to freak out. I don’t know what caused it exactly and then…”
He swallowed visibly, his gaze lifting to mine, fear and shock in his gaze. “She froze me.”
“Froze you?” My brow furrowed, not understanding what he was saying. “Did she say something that—?”
“No, no.” Tate shook his head. “I mean, she literally froze me. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t talk. Fuck, I couldn’t even blink. I was lucky whatever happened let me breathe, or I’d be dead right now.”
My mind twisted around his words, trying to make sense of what he was saying.
How could Jack have frozen him? She didn’t have any magic powers.
She wasn’t a witch. For her to be able to force him to literally freeze in place, she’d have to have…
Suddenly Antoine’s face flashed through my mind, and something occurred to me.
Kneeling in front of the panicking werewolf, I tried to keep my voice low and calm.
“I need you to tell me exactly how it happened. Did she cast some kind of spell? Throw a potion? How did she freeze you?”
“I don’t know, man.” Tate shook his head. “She was already a bit spooked when I got there. Probably the dead crows. That’d spook anyone, bad luck, I’m sure.”
“Dead crows?”
“Yeah, there were a bunch of them, just lying there on the ground in the courtyard.” He waved his hand in front of him to illustrate his point. “She seemed really upset about it. Does she have a thing for crows?”
“No.” I sighed, looking down at the ground. “But her dad does.”
Tate was quiet for a moment. “Is that where the crow thing comes from on their sigil? You know, I always wondered why a crow—”
“Tate.” I snapped my fingers in front of his face. “Wonder later. What happened next?”
“Well, I got her to calm down, and we started talking about my family issues, and then, of course, the subject of Kyren came up and what would happen if I had to choose between them. I thought I was doing a good job reassuring her I wouldn’t just leave her for him… ” He trailed off, his gaze dropping.
“I must not have cause her heart rate picked up, and anxiety was pouring off her in wave. I reached for her.” He paused and swallowed again. “I was just trying to comfort her. I hate seeing her like that. She’s always so strong, you know? Sometimes it’s hard to remember she’s still just human.”
“Yeah,” I murmured, “I get how you feel. Jack has a tendency to do that.”
“Well, I reached for her, and she suddenly shouted at me, ‘Stop!’” His eyes went wide, his hand out in front of him pausing for a second before dropping his arm. “And I just… did. I stopped everything but breathing.”
He huffed a laugh. “I supposed I was lucky for that at least.”
I almost fell back on my ass at his words. It was as I feared. Jack hadn’t used some spell or potion to freeze the wolf—she’d used her voice. A command, just like her dad, Antoine.
The magnitude of this discovery had me dumbfounded. She was already a miracle, a logistical anomaly. There had never been a child of two human servants, at least none that we had ever heard of. We didn’t really know what that meant for her.
The super strength, speed, and senses could almost be rationalized away. But this… if what Tate was saying was true, she’d inherited one of her dads’ powers. A power that not only could control someone’s very actions, but could kill.
Suddenly, the dead crows came back to mind and her panic about them. She must have accidentally killed them right before Tate showed up. It would explain why she was upset. Then for her to also turn around and accidentally use it on Tate?
She must be freaking out. Completely distraught over what she did and to who. I knew I would be.
“So…” Tate leaned forward on the couch’s arm. “Do you know where she went? I wanted to let her know I was okay. I’m sure she’s worried that she hurt me in some way, and I don’t want her to think that. It freaked me out, sure, but I know she didn’t mean to do it. Right?”
I lifted my eyes to his before standing. “No, I don’t think she did. Look, I don’t know where she is. I’m assuming you checked her room?”
“Yes, and Xinyi’s and the library and Kyren’s old room.” Tate stood, following me around the room. “Her bike is still in the parking lot, so she didn’t leave.”
I pulled my phone from my pocket and started dialing. By the time I put the phone to my ear, the call had connected. “This is Hunter Fawley, I need GPS coordinates on Hunter Durand straight away.”
The person on the other line tapped away on their computer before telling the coordinates. She was still on campus.
“Thanks.”
Shoving my phone back into my pocket, I found my shirt and pulled it over my head. Tate walked up to me, and I held a hand up.
“You should… go back to your room or wherever it is you’re staying.”
“But I want to show Jack I’m okay.”
“I understand that, but she might not want to see you or seeing you could make her more upset.” When Tate tried to protest again, I quickly added, “I’ll tell her, alright. I know about her powers and can handle this. Please, don’t make this harder on her.”
That part finally made Tate back down. He nodded grimly before starting for the door. He paused, turning back to me.
“You’ll let her know I’m alright. That I’m not mad?”
“Yes, I promise.”
He lingered for a second longer before nodding again and leaving.
Blowing out a long breath, I plugged the coordinates into my phone’s map app.
I probably should call the president about this. It would be protocol as her team lead to do so. Even if she was just any other hunter, I would be expected to call it in. But since the presidents were her godparents, they would definitely want to know.
Except I couldn’t bring myself to do it. There’d be all kinds of questions I didn’t know the answer to. What if they tried to pull her out of the academy for her own protection? I knew Jack wouldn’t want that.
No, I could find her on my own. If she wants to tell the president or her family about this, she can do it herself. I had to put her well-being first, no matter how much it went against my own instincts.
I followed the map’s directions through the academy, bypassing students and other professors. Eyes lingered on me, no doubt because of my attire, but I couldn’t worry about that right now.
The directions led me into a part of the academy that wasn’t open to the public, a section I was told was under construction, preparing for more classrooms and more labs to be available next year.
Ducking under a plastic wall, I searched around, looking for clues as to where she might have hidden. The map told me she was in the area, but it couldn’t pinpoint exactly where she was hiding.
“Durand?” I called out, listening for something, the sound of her breathing or her heart beating. A good hunter knew how to slow down both so that we weren’t detected by our prey before we attacked. While we weren’t on a hunt, she could be implementing the same skills to hide from me.
I lifted my nose in the air and sniffed, searching for her delicate scent in the strong stench of paint and sheet rock mud as I went.
I called her name a few more times before ducking into another room, and there she was. Curled up on the windowsill ledge, her knees drawn up to her chest, staring out the window.
“Jack?” I said softly, approaching her as if she were a skittish animal rather than a fellow hunter.
Her head slowly turned toward me. Face blotchy and eyes red, it was clear she had been crying. She didn’t respond, pulling her arms tighter against her chest, her head down on her knees.
I knelt next to her, not touching her. “The wolf told me what happened.”
She didn’t say anything for a moment, then her head turned to look at me.
“Is Tate okay?”
“Yeah, he’s fine.” I smiled slightly. “Came banging on my door, demanding I find you. I thought it was your dads again, wanting to threaten me some more.”
Her brow crinkled. “My dads came to see you?”
Slowly, I placed a hand on her leg. “They just wanted to make sure I was keeping you safe. They love you. Just like Tate does…” I dipped my eyes. “Like I do.”
“I killed them, Julian.” Her voice cracked with emotion, tears filling her eyes.
“The crows. Yeah, he told me.” I nodded, smoothing my hand up and down her leg. “They were just crows, Jack.”
“But it could have been Tate.” She shoved up suddenly, stalking across the floor in front of me. “I could have killed him. I didn’t even know I had this power until a few minutes before, and I already used it on someone I care about. What’s to say it won’t happen again and I actually kill someone?”
“That’s not going to happen,” I reassured her, shifting up to sit where she had been. “You’re going to get a handle on this, I promise.”
“How do you know?” she cried out as she stopped in front of me. “How do you know? I can’t even say anything without worrying that I’m going to accidentally use it on someone and make them stop breathing or something.” She waved a hand toward me. “You’re in danger just being here now.”
I grabbed her wrist and pulled her to me until my knees touched hers. “I’d gladly put my life in danger just to be next to you.”
Jack stared down at me, her lip wobbling.
Without warning, I dragged her down to sit in my lap, wrapping my arms around her. For a second, she didn’t move, her body stiff against mine. Then she wrapped her arms around my waist and pressed her face into my chest, breathing out as the sobs began.
I just sat there with her, rubbing my hand up and down her back, letting her fall apart where no one else could see. To the rest of the world, she was a miracle or a weapon, but to me, she would always be this.
Just a woman who needed someone to let her be weak without ridiculing her for it, and I’d be whatever it was she needed me to be in return.