The shirt had belonged to the security personnel, but then most of their clothes had once belonged to security. Occasionally, they salvaged clothes from the victims of the hunt. Jack’s expression was unreadable as he took the items from her.
“We all take turns with the watch and sleep in the main cavern,” she said. “I’ll send someone back here so you can feed; if you hurt them, wewillkill you.”
She already knew it would be a man; the idea of sending a woman back here made her want to punch something—which only made her angrier. What was this strange effect this man had over her?
Whatever it was, it was over. The single life was the one for her, even if it meant she would be single forever instead of the fifty or so years she’d planned on.
“I would never hurt them,” he murmured.
Charlie had never been one for embarrassment or shyness, but she couldn’t hold his penetrating stare anymore. She turned away, but he gripped her wrist, drawing her attention back to him. There was something predatory in his gaze, but also something almost caring. She preferred the predatory to the caring. The caring was more lethal to her heart.
“Iwillget you off this island,” he promised.
Charlie tugged her wrist free. “If you really mean that, then make sure you get Dylan away from here first.He’swhat matters.”
She turned on her heel and stalked away from him.
Chapter Eleven
Jack fellasleep in the main cavern with the blanket around him; he woke to find Dylan standing over him. The boy had his head tilted to the side, but when he saw Jack’s eyes open, he ducked his head, blushed, and scampered away to sit by the fire. Sheila glanced at Dylan before returning to skinning a rabbit. The man on the other side of the fire, Gio he recalled, was the one he fed on earlier.
He felt over his nose to discover it healed, but the slight crook and bump in it remained from when he’d broken it as a human. With his rib repaired too, he found it far easier to breathe.
Jack shoved himself up and looked around the cavern, but he didn’t see anyone else. “Where is everyone?” he asked. He wanted to ask where Charlie was, but he held it back.
“Guard duty,” Dylan said.
“How long do they stand guard?”
“Twelve hours.”
“How long have I been asleep?”
Dylan shrugged. “Longer than twelve hours.”
Jack tossed aside the blanket, which was just an assortment of clothes stitched together by what looked like some kind of plant, and rose. No one glanced at him as he walked toward one of the tunnels, but Mal slipped from the shadows and headed him off before Jack could follow Charlie’s lavender scent into the shaft.
“I would like to speak with you,” Mal murmured.
Jack almost protested, but it would only result in a fight, and he couldn’t fight with the vamp who created this place and took him in. But he wanted—no, heneededto see Charlie. Knowing she was out there made his chest feel tight, and it wouldn’t ease until he saw her and reassured himself that she was safe.
Jack followed Mal into another tunnel. “Walk where I do,” Mal said to him.
Dirt crunched beneath Jack’s feet as he carefully followed Mal’s steps. The beam of Mal’s flashlight revealed the tree roots dangling above and sticking out of the wall. The earthen scent of dirt was thick in his nostrils.
“Are there more tunnels branching off these main ones?” Jack asked as they walked.
“There are many things down here.”
Jack didn’t miss the evasiveness of Mal’s answer. Was it because he was the newcomer or was Mal always this way? If that was the case, then the guy was a complete douche, and Jack wouldn’t mind getting into a fight with him.
Jack started when he realized he was contemplating fighting someone who had done nothing to him and had offered him a safe place to stay. It took him a minute to realize his animosity toward Mal was because he was the one who changed Charlie.
What is wrong with me?
Many, many things, but this jealousy was a new one. Running a hand through his disheveled hair, Jack tugged on the ends of it as he tried to calm his inclination to grab Mal by the back of the head and hammer his face into the wall. He should be grateful the man kept Charlie alive, not contemplating beating him into a bloody pulp.
Why should I be grateful?
