There were questions that needed answers. About myself. About the rebels. Certainly about the strange look Kyren had given me after he’d tasted my blood.
I knew waiting wasn’t going to save me from what Julian had seen. How I was going to explain this away was too big for my brain to process right now.
There was only one thing I could handle right now, and that was four walls and a twin bed.
Chapter eighteen
Julian
Ragepulsatedthroughmyveins. My hands tightened on my gun as I seethed just barely resisting the urge to put a silver bullet in the head of the werewolf touchingmygirl.
Jack’s eyes met mine and widened. I tensed, ready to spring into action at her mark. Then she did the strangest thing — she shook her head.
Did she want this?
I could smell her arousal all the way from where I was standing. It, mixed with the coppery scent of her blood, told me this wasn’t just some make-out session with her new werewolf boyfriend. His little vampire master was biting her. Tasting her. Defiling her.
For a moment, I almost attacked anyway. Put a bullet through the werewolf’s head and a stake through the vampire’s heart. It would serve her right.
But the mission came first. Jack was doing what had to be done for the mission.
Maybe if I kept telling myself that, it would be true one day.
Her small cries of pleasure chased after me as I stalked away, and I hated how my body responded to it, regardless. I threw myself into my car, forcing myself not to touch my hardening cock in my pants. I would not get off on watching her being pleasured by two supernatural freaks.
I slammed my hand on the stirring wheel, my jaw clenched so tightly I feared I’d break a tooth. Once the stinging in my hand subsided, I drew in several deep breaths before releasing them.
I had to stay in control. Any misstep could get her killed. That meant I couldn’t kill her boyfriends in a jealous rage.
Because I was jealous.
I knew I’d told her earlier today I wasn’t. Told her how could I possibly be jealous of them when I’d already had her.
Like one time was enough. It would never be enough, and yet I couldn’t have her.
Jack wasn’t just some female I’d become friends and then lovers with over our time hunting. She was the presidents’ goddaughter. She was the daughter of the most prevalent vampire house in our region. I would never be enough for someone like her, even if I could look past her attachment to her vampire family.
I cranked the car and shoved it into gear, my tires squealing as I shot out of the parking lot and headed toward hunter headquarters.
While Jack was playing student, someone had to check in with our leaders. Unfortunately, that task has fallen to me. I was the one who got to tell them that we’d found shit all, and their precious daughter was too busy playing student to do her damn job.
I sucked in a sharp breath. No, I had to get my emotions under control. Even I could tell my bias was coming through. Jack was… doing her job. She wouldn’t screw this up. I knew her, Idid. This was her chance to prove herself, and she wasn’t going to squander it on a couple of pretty faces.
The metal gates surrounding headquarters creaked open at the sight of my car, the high-tech cameras scanning my face before I even got up the drive. An expansive lawn stretched out before me.
Even after dark, a squadron of hunters went through their paces on the grounds, switching between fighting with knives, hand-to-hand, and even crossbows while their commanding officers watched over them.
Parking my car in the spot marked for me, I climbed out of my vehicle and nodded at a nearby guard. My footsteps were sure and precise, stalking up the walkway and into the headquarters building.
Once upon a time, the building had been smaller. More of a bunk house than anything. Then, under President West and Saito, it flourished. Hunters from all over the country came here to be trained before being assigned to different territories.
Every one of us was born to be one thing and one thing only, a hunter. It was in our DNA. We were quicker, healed faster, and could track a supernatural creature for miles. My parents were hunters, and they raised me to be one as well until a group of vampires got to them.
I was proud to know I came from such a dedicated breed of hunters who gave their lives for the cause.
“Fawley,” President West called out, coming down a set of stairs, the inside of headquarters looking more like a lawyer’s office every time I came. Even pushing fifty, he still had wide shoulders and more muscle than a linebacker. He kept his hair cut short to the scalp and his face clean shaven and, even in a suit over hunter’s gear, he looked every bit the hunter standing there. “I didn’t expect you in today.”
“President Fawley.” I followed him up the stairs, passed rooms that I knew housed classrooms on fighting supernaturals, our history, and every weapon imaginable.
