“Please, call me Tristen. I’ve told you before.”
The barracks where our hunters lived weren’t part of the main building anymore. Instead, they housed separately, so hunters could separate their work from their play. Though many like me didn’t have anything but hunting. It was what we ate and breathed; there was nothing more important than the next hunt.
Something that Jack wanted to be part of, and yet she had a choice. Why she would choose this life over anything different?
“How’s our Jackie doing?” Tristen asked, pushing open his office door and offering me a chair. He lifted a decanter of scotch, and I shook my head, declining.
“She’s fine.” I sat in the opposite chair, one foot propped on my knee.
Tristen’s eyes flicked up to mine as he sat down. “Now, I’ve known you most of your life, Julian. You’ve never answered a question with such lack of detail. Or emotion.” He wiggled his mouse, waking his computer up. “So, what’s up?”
I sighed, unsure of how to explain what was going on without showing too much of my own thoughts and opinions on it.
“Durand… is adjusting. I’m concerned that she’s not able to focus on the mission and play student.”
Tristen bobbed his head. “That’s understandable. Jack’s spent so much time being a hunter that she forgot how to be a real girl. It would make sense that being thrust into an environment like the academy might be a bit jarring for her.”
I straightened, rubbing my palms together. “Then you agree? We should send someone else in.”
“Now, now.” Tristen pulled back. “Don’t be so hasty. Jack might be inexperienced with the world outside of hunting, butshe is, if anything, a professional. I trust her to do what’s right for the mission.”
I paused. The image of Jack being pinned between the two supernaturals earlier vividly came to mind.
“Unless you have something to report that proves she’s unfit for this mission?” Tristen watched my face with the keen eye of a leader.
Pushing the image aside, I shook my head. “No. Nothing to report.”
Tristen shifted in his seat, clicking a few buttons on the computer as he spoke. “So, what news of the rebels? Do we know if any of these rumors are true? Maybe a name or two to offer up to the councils?”
My teeth gritted together at the mention of the council.
We were hunters. We shouldn’t be answering to the council. We were the law, not them. This mission shouldn’t even have been given to us. It had to do with their leadership, not us. We handled creatures who got out of line, who made a mess, went on killing sprees. Why do we care if a few vampires hated the Durands?
Shoving down my prejudices, a habit that was becoming more and more of an effort, I focused on giving my report.
“While Durand has been focusing on the students, I’ve been working on the faculty. Listening for any hint of trouble.” I shifted in my seat, recounting what I heard. “I sent Durand to the bar tonight, but I don’t think she found anything useful.”
“And Jack?” Tristen glanced away from the computer. “Did she find anything out from the students?”
I reached up to push my glasses up my face, then remembered I hadn’t worn them tonight in anticipation of a fight. “A few of her human servant friends mentioned some vamps that were complaining about the council, about the Durands.”
“Did she get names?”
“Not yet. She was working on it.”
Tristen watched me, his brow lifting. “Anything else to report?”
I pressed my lips into a thin line, fighting with myself to keep what happened tonight to myself and letting him know. If I told him, they’d surely pull Jack out of the mission, wouldn’t they? If not, then they think she was doing what was needed for the mission and then they’d question my reasoning for reporting it. Then they might try to keep us apart.
It might be for our own good. Weshouldbe kept apart.
Me being her commanding officer, her team leader, wasn’t doing either of us any good. She wanted to fight; I wanted to keep her safe. Even though I knew, Iknewshe could handle herself better than most of the blood-born hunters.
If not for my protective feelings over her, then because of that night. That one perfect night that had started in a hunt and ended in us hiding out in a warehouse, the rain pouring down around us, and nowhere to go until sunup. That one night had changed everything between us.
It was a mistake. Clearly. And yet, some parts of me couldn’t regret it. Even if I couldn’t have her. Even if I had to watch her fall in love with someone else from a distance.
I had that one night. I knew what it was like to have her. To call her mine.
