Then she walked onto the stage and embraced Antoine.
“You may now return to your classes,” Antoine announced.
The room sagged in relief, his hold over our voices receding. The students filtered out of the room, but I couldn’t move. Myfeet were stuck to the floor as I watched the woman I loved touching and hugging my mortal enemies. Then she was walking toward me, and I was once again entranced by her.
The bounce of her curls. The gentle sway of her hips. The confidence in which she held herself. Every piece of her that made me fall in love with her was on display as she stopped before me.
“You’re a Durand?” The words came out slowly as if I couldn’t quite believe them even as I said them. My shadows swirled around my feet, my mind unable to connect the woman I’d quickly become obsessed with and the one who was the cause of my sire’s death.
Jack lifted her chin, staring her nose down at me. “I am.”
Tate’s emotions poured into me, relief at her appearance, confusion about the news, all mixed with concern for me. I understood how he was feeling because it was the same way I was feeling now, except mine was coated with betrayal and a swelling rage.
My eyes darted up to where the rest of the Durands loitered on the stage, unable to keep from lording over the other supernaturals. Occasionally, their attention would turn to where Jack stood before quickly looking away.
Letting my gaze linger on the female on stage and then back to Jack, I traced the curves of her face, the same face that I had obsessed over not even a few hours before. I realized how stupid I’d been.
Jack was the spitting image of her mother. A face I’d seen only a handful of times, but had been burned into my memory. How could I have never seen it? It was right in front of my face.
Jack’s hesitancy to spend time with us. The random times she would disappear. Every time I’d see her arguing with that hunter professor. That brief moment during the werewolf attack that Ithought I’d heard them call her Durand, but had brushed it off as my hearing things.
Then, finally, that night we found her bloodied in the bathroom shower.
Had she been hunting vampires? She was a Durand. That’s what they did.
“Kyren,” Tate murmured, reaching for me. I jerked away from him and then regretted it, feeling the hurt that shot down the bond.
“It’s okay, Tate.” Jack shifted her weight, her eyes dipping down. “He hates Durands. Right?”
Tate made a sound that was almost a whimper, his eyes darting between Jack and me. I didn’t know how to make Tate feel better when I couldn’t even get a grasp on my own emotions right now. Over a hundred years, and I could still get my heart broken.
Because that’s what this was… I knew it was… it was my heart shattering into a million pieces, replacing it with something hard and cold, something that didn’t see the face of my lover but that of the enemy.
My enemy. A Durand.
“Was this all a game to you?” I growled, baring my fangs at her. “You killed my sire and now you want to take me out too?”
Jack’s brows rose, her lips pinching together. “I could say the same thing to you. Your sire traumatized me as a little kid, were you going for the gold? Fuck me, then make me fall for you, all to twist it around so it would really hurt when you finally stuck it to the Durands?”
I took a single step forward, and suddenly Professor Fawley, the hunter, was there by her side. He placed a protective, almost possessive hand on her shoulder, and his eyes bored into me like he was two seconds away from plunging a stake through my heart.
“Are you alright, Jack?” His fingers rubbed back and forth over the side of her neck, peering down at her like he had every right to be touching her.
“Yeah, Julian.” Her gaze didn’t move from me, but I saw the way she leaned into his touch, as if he would protect her from me. “Kyren was just telling me how much he hated me.”
My eyes narrowed. “You don’t know me.”
“Apparently not,” she shot back, arms crossed over her chest. “Or I’d have known how much you hated my family.”
Her eyes lifted, finding her family on the stage before coming back to me. For a millisecond, I saw the pain in her eyes, that she was feeling the same thing I was right now. I was torn between my love for her and the hatred I had for her family, and she was torn between her love for me and her protectiveness for her family.
Then a wall came up over her face, and I remembered exactly why I couldn’t be with her. I wasn’t looking at the woman I loved anymore. I was looking at the hunter, the enemy, the Durand.
The shadows I’d thought I had control over spilled over my arms. “Get away from me.”
“Not a problem.” Jack bobbed her head, her eyes briefly pausing on Tate before she turned to the professor. “Come on, Julian. My dad wanted to talk to you before he left.”
The possessiveness I felt upon seeing the smug look of victory on the professor’s face as he led her away almost overshadowed the boiling betrayal and need for vengeance. None of which was soothed by the roaring calm Tate shoved my way.
