However, hearing those two words out of Jack’s mouth as if we were simply a student and professor running into each other in the hallway was like a bolt through the heart.
These last few weeks had been torturous.
Earlier had been the first time I’d laid eyes on her in weeks, and even then, I wasn’t able to look at her as long as I wanted to. Not with all the other hunters’ eyes on me, watching my every move. All I wanted to do was wrap her in my arms and beg her not to put herself in any more danger.
I knew it was cowardly of me, but I couldn’t even bring myself to call her, let alone see her. All I could see in my mind when I thought of her was her bruised and bloodied body lying dead onthe ground, and it’d be all my fault for not being there to help her.
Now, seeing her here in the middle of the academy, it was taking all I had in me not to pull her against my chest and kiss her until neither of us could breathe.
I took a step toward her, pushing my glasses up my nose.
“What are you doing here?”
“Why?” Her shoulders tensed, her arms crossed over her chest. “You going to tell on me?”
“Jack…” I breathed, shaking my head. “I’m not going to tell on you.”
“Good, then I have to go.” She turned her back on me, and I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t let her walk away from me again.
Closing the distance between us, I cupped her elbow urging her to stop. “Please, Jack, wait.”
Jack paused and glanced down at my hand on her. I dropped my hand but didn’t back away.
“I’m surprised you even want to talk to me,” Jack said softly, not meeting my gaze. “You haven’t since…”
“I know,” I began and then caught the eye of a student passing by. I pressed a hand to her shoulder. “Can we talk somewhere else?”
Jack licked her lips and then nodded, noticing what I was seeing. “Fine. Your office?”
I shook my head. “No, not there. Weaver is—”
“Weaver?” she scoffed. “Tristen put fucking Weaver in my place? That butt-kissing nerd hasn’t ever even been on a hunt, let alone outside the guild. What makes you think he can domyjob?”
“Jack, shhh.” My eyes darted around for anyone who might be listening in. “My apartment?”
Sighing, she threw her hands up. “Fine. But only for a minute. I have to get home before my guards notice I’m gone.”
I didn’t comment on the sarcasm in her voice as I led her toward my apartment. I knew Jack wasn’t happy about the way things had gone down. She likely felt betrayed by her parents, the guild, and, worst of all, by me.
I couldn’t imagine someone telling me I couldn’t be a hunter, the one thing I spent my entire life training to be and had only ever wanted to be.
Occasionally, I’d imagine what my life would have been like if my parents hadn’t been hunters. What kind of person would I have been? Would I have gone into a different kind of profession?
From my time here at the academy, I knew for sure it would not have been teaching. At least, not book teaching. I had no problem teaching the cadets back at headquarters, showing them how to do escapes and reversals or how to get the best of their opponent. Maybe I’d have been a sports coach of some kind.
Plenty of people thought my personality and zeroed-in focus on hunting came from my parents dying at the hands of vampires. But I liked to think it’d always been there. The hunt for the truth and need for justice, to protect the weak. Maybe I’d been a cop of some kind in another life?
“Did you hear me?”
Jack’s voice pulled me from my thoughts. I peered down at her, frowning.
“My apologies. My mind drifted.”
Jack’s brows furrowed, her lips thinning. “If you’re not even going to listen while I talk, what is the point of us going to your apartment?” She paused in the hallway of the teacher’s quarters, giving me an annoyed scowl. “I don’t have time to listen to another one of your lectures.”
I dragged my fingers through my hair, pulling it out of its low bun. “Please, Jack. I promise, no lectures.”
Her expression softened minutely and then breathed out, “Fine.”
