Yes, I was too far gone. Jack owned me completely, inside and out. It was the only explanation I had as to why I would risk the possibility of being seen by humans to get rid of that annoying vampire bitch.
“You okay?” Tate squeezed my hand in the passenger seat.
I nodded stiffly, not answering.
Tate knew I was reluctant to come back here, not after everything that had happened. But, if I wanted to nip this group who have their sights on Jack in the bud, then I needed to be at the academy.
That loudmouth, Gavin, who approached me weeks ago was the only hint I had into figuring out who was in this little group of rebels and how to get rid of them before they tried to touch my woman again.
Parking the car, I sat there for a moment letting it idle, staring out the front wind shield.
“You know,” Tate began, shifting in his seat to face me, “you don’t have to do this. I can ask around and find out who’s got their eyes set on our girl. You can just watch from the shadows. No one would be the wiser.”
“I would,” I snipped, my fingers tightening on the steering wheel. “They’ve threatened Jack for the last time, and I will be damned if I let them have the chance to hurt her again.”
Turning the car off, I shoved out the door. The memory of Jack bleeding, barely breathing on my doorstep, infiltrated my mind like a nightmare on repeat. I never wanted to see her like that again. Weak. Dying.
A part of me was thrilled that she had come to me as her refuge. It told me that I still held a place in her heart, even after I’d shunned her. How she could still want me after how I treated her? How she didn’t see my sire’s face every time she looked at me? I didn’t know and probably would never know.
It was an uncertainty I would have to live with for the rest of my immortal life. And I would gladly do it to just be near her again. To breathe in her scent. Even if she never allowed me to touch her, taste her again, just being by her side would be enough for me.
Tate caught up to me, his fingers looping through mine. “So where do you want to start?”
“The vampire woman. Marianne. If she knows Gavin, then she must be a student here. I bet we can find her room here.”
“So we find her room and then what?” Tate asked, directing us toward the vampire dorms.
“Then we—” I stopped, sniffing the air. It was faint but I would recognize that scent anywhere. “She was here.”
“Who? Marianne?” Tate lifted his nose up and sniffed the air as well. “Jack? Why would she be on campus?” Then he cursed and rubbed his face, letting out a hard laugh. “Of course. Of course, this had to be why she ended our date early.”
I surveyed the quad, searching for the answer to why Jack had been here. Seeing nothing out of the ordinary, I turned back to Tate. “I don’t understand.”
“Come on.” Tate tugged me toward the dorms. “I bet she went to see Xinyi.”
Unsure what was on Tate’s mind but feeling the determination coming down our bond, I followed him into the Vampire’s Crypt. I sent my shadows a head of us, searching the corridors for any signs of Jack.
Much to my disappointment, there were no signs of our rule breaking human. Only annoying vampires and their human servants watching us like the nosycabronesthey were.
Tate stopped us at what I knew was Iris’s room. It was just after dusk so they shouldn’t be in class just yet. Though, after knocking on the door for several minutes, Tate frowned and turned from it with a shrug.
“Maybe they went to breakfast?”
“Don’t you have the human, Xinyi’s, number?” I had no desire to run around the campus searching for the two females when I had other matters to attend to. Besides, there was no guarantee they would be able to help us with our cause, let alone if Jack actually came to see them.
Pulling his phone out, he scratched the back of his head and scrolled through his contacts before tapping the screen and putting the phone to his ear.
I listened to the phone ring and then heard the chipper voice of the little dark-haired woman telling Tate to leave a message.
“Well, that was a bust.” Tate ended the call without leaving a message. “Split up? I’ll go check the cafeteria, you go… do what you do best.”
“And what’s that?”
Chuckling, he leaned down and kissed me on the lips. “Lurk.”
I sniffed, not bothering to give him a response to that. My eyes trailed after him as Tate headed toward the cafeteria. I rubbed a finger between my brows, contemplating where to search for answers next.
Marianne hadn’t been very forthcoming with who her friends were besides Gavin, not that I gave her a chance to tell me more than she had, but the thought of seeking out Gavin made me want to pull my fangs out.
