Wings and Shadowthief by May Sage

In the Dark

Turned out, expecting disappointment did little to lessen the bite.

Jack's jaw grew tight as he watched the pretty blonde approach Adairford at her preternatural speed. This wasn’t his typical reaction to the girl’s presence. From their very first encounter, he’d liked the sassy, curious little thing. These days, however, her presence rarely failed to annoy him. Because Chloe Eirikrson was alone.

Again.

One year ago, almost to the day, he’d felt Chloe's inner strength at first glance and been curious about her—wanting to see her limits. Another newbie, Gwen Kanye, had invited herself to one of the huntsmen races after Jack asked Chloe to join in.

He could tell the witch wielded a serious amount of magic. Jack bristled the moment she approached, recognizing her as a threat. A predator at the core, Jack wasn’t threatened by most mortal sups, but Gwen had been different. Stronger. For all that, he'd felt oddly protective of her. He hadn't wanted her to race alongside his men. His friends and subordinates were tough fuckers, not beyond tripping each other to get to the finish line first. Despite his reticence, he’d let her do as she pleased. Who was he to dictate what a woman could or should do? For almost a year, Gwen’s gorgeous ass had run with them. She hadn’t done half bad, either. She never won, but it was rare for her not to end up in the first five at the finishing line—and his men were fast.

Jack had grown to admire her quiet yet self-assured strength. She wasn’t one to commandeer attention, or babble away during large gatherings, but when it came down to action, she could kick ass, and she had her friends’ backs. Not only had Jack become used to her presence in the background, he’d also begun looking forward to it.

Since November, she’d done her very best to avoid him. She didn’t race with them, she rarely made it to the Snuggy Snot—although she could chug back beer as well as any huntsman—and whenever he entered a room, she quickly found an excuse to leave.

Something had happened between them, changing their dynamic, and damn if it didn't piss him off. Especially since he knew he was responsible for it. If he had no clue about the what, Jack knew when their friendly rapport took a nosedive.

He’d lost control of his body during the fight against the invaders who'd wanted to take Oldcrest on Halloween. It wasn't the first or the last time that happened to him. Whenever he faced a considerable danger, the darker part of his mind took over, and he never remembered a thing when he finally came to.

His blackouts were a serious concern. What if he hurt someone, and couldn't even stop himself? Or remember it, for that matter. What if he turned on his friends, his family?

The only reason why he wasn't locked up in a cell for everyone's protection was because his alter ego had only acted in self-defense. So far. The witnesses made that clear each time he had a chance to ask.

His mother, the High Guard of their entire order, was monitoring the situation closely. He knew she wouldn't hesitate to put a bullet between his eyes if he crossed a line. Family or not, they were huntsmen first, and their job was to protect the weak against rogue paranormal creatures.

Against what he might become.

"Yo, Cheetah. No witchy sidekick?" He tried to sound casual, but he could feel his entire body tense.

What the hell had happened with Gwen? Jack doubted he’d actually harmed her. He couldn't imagine himself laying a hand on her. Besides, she would have kicked his ass. Then cursed it for good measure. But had he said something? Made unwanted advances? That, he could conceive. Pursuing women who weren’t into him wasn’t his style, but well, Gwen was a knockout. So beautiful he had a hard time looking away. Who knew what the darker part of him was capable of?

He needed to talk to her. And he might have already, if she weren't so obviously—and successfully—avoiding him.

“Which witch?” Chloe asked.

On the surface, it seemed like an innocuous question; she certainly had a number of witch friends. In actual fact, only one of them was crazy enough to run with the huntsmen, so Chloe was pushing him. Perhaps even punishing him. He suspected the vampire saw far more than she was letting on. She knew he was on Gwen’s shit list, and she wasn’t making things easy for him.

Jack refused to let her see how frustrated he was with the situation. He simply shot her his best smirk. “The pretty one.”

Chloe rolled her eyes. All her friends were hot in their own ways. In fact, most sups were likely to be more attractive than regular humans—witches especially. If a witch was born with a crooked nose, there were a dozen spells to fix it.

The vamp decided to take pity on him. “Gwen didn't want to come. I think she was tired. She was yawning in AIS."

Jack's eyes widened. "And she's still breathing?"

He could imagine Fin Varra's reaction to a student daring to yawn during one of his classes. It wasn’t pretty.

Chloe chuckled. "Oh, yeah. Varra made sure she was listening to him. She was, of course. Gwen's geekier than I am. He asked a question, she gave him a great answer and got rewarded by a sexy, throaty ‘good girl.’ You should have seen her swoon."

Jack forced a laugh, although it sounded fake as fuck to his ears. Laughing was the appropriate reaction. Chloe was joking. Right? Then why did he want to pay Varra a visit and have a chat with the ancient immortal?

He knew why. The fae had a history of fucking the students he fancied—male, female, or anything in between—and the gods knew Gwen was sheer temptation wrapped in a brown package. Long limbs, muscular legs, an ass that should be worshipped day and night. Then, there were those eyes. The ones Jack had lost himself in more times than he cared to remember. They were usually a deep ink black, with long, curved lashes, but when she called to her magic, they shone like an entire galaxy filled with stars.

Not only was she hot, she also was unattainable. She held herself like a queen, head high, barely looking at the common mortals—or immortals. Still, some guys had dared ask her out in the last year. She'd shot them down so fast their heads must still be spinning.

He’d heard Gwen profess she wanted to focus on her studies, and Jack got it. Hell, he also preferred not to date—or fuck—in Oldcrest. They lived here; adding romantic relationships to the mix wasn't smart. Jack wouldn't mess with any girl here.

Unless he was certain he wanted to keep her. And Jack wasn’t in any state to think about pursing something serious. How could he, when his mind didn’t even belong to him?

“Fair enough.” He opted to move on. Chatting about Gwen wasn’t going to improve his mood. “All right, the guys have been running for about twenty minutes.” Certain that Gwen wasn’t going to turn up, he’d let them start before Chloe got here. Some of them had classes after lunch. “Their path goes through the lake, then the valley between Night Hill and Cosnoc. They're supposed to circle the school and come back to meet me here at the entrance. That's a half marathon.” Jack opened a bag of chalk he'd ground to powder, holding it up to her. “I think they should be at the base of Cosnoc by now. I'd like you to ambush the first in line. Don't take it easy on them.”

Chloe dabbed her hands in the powder, nodding. “Got it.”

Then she was on her way, running fast as wind.

He'd offered five hundred bucks to whomever finished the race first, but a thousand if they could get to him without chalk marks. That type of training was the closest thing the huntsmen could get to real-life experience within these walls. Typically, his cousin Tris offered to play the part of the hunter, but she was visiting their family back in New York City at the moment.

His phone buzzed against his chest from in his gun holster.

Thinking of the devil…

“Cousin.”

“I’m going to need you to hide a body.”

Jack chuckled, knowing for a fact that Tris could damn well hide a body on her own if the occasion called for it. “You can’t kill her. She’s your sister.”

Pamelia and Patricia had always had a tense relationship. There only were two years separating them, and they were both competitive, so they could get on each other’s nerves. It didn’t help that Pam was a girly-girl and could manipulate their parents with her pouts and fake tears. Tris was too straightforward for that bullshit.

The Drakes were celebrating the wedding anniversary of the heads of the family, Michael and Cece, which meant that the entire clan was gathered in the city. Tris had called almost every day. It didn’t take a genius to guess that her stress level was sky high. There was a reason his cousin had decided to follow him to London. The pressure of being a member of the Drakes, the royal family who ruled over all vampires in America, could get to her. Being a Drake came with expectations. Being a Drake and a huntsman? He couldn’t even begin to imagine.

Actually, he might not have to. As the High Guard’s son, he knew what kind of pressure the huntsmen could put you under. At least the other half of his family didn’t give a shit about what he did.

“She told Dad I was dating a girl. He spent the whole night giving me the whole ‘you can talk to me’ speech.”

Jack chuckled. Pam was as straight as they came, while Tris had never met a living, breathing thing she didn’t want to fuck. She’d literally said she was curious about how rough demon tentacles could be.

“Adrian doesn’t care what you fuck.”

“But I don’t want to talk about my sex life with my father, dammit.”

That, he could understand. Jack remembered the last time he’d introduced girls to his parents, in London, last year.

His father had stayed out of it, but Becca Hunter had zeroed in on the three new girls—Blair, Gwen, and Chloe. She’d told them she wanted grandbabies. He still had nightmares about it.

Jack was twenty-eight, dammit. He shouldn’t be hearing the word baby before he hit thirty. Preferably never. Jack couldn’t even deal with his own mind and body. He didn’t relish the thought of passing his genes down to helpless creatures.

“Why don’t you turn the tables?” he suggested. “Pam throws you under the bus because you don’t play her game. Ask about the Stormhale guy. You know she had a thing for him.”

In truth, Pam had a thing for power, and Seth Stormhale had that in spades. Jack had never quite understood how much power, until he met the man.

Like Jack, Seth’s father was an Enlightened; that made them demi-gods, in layman’s terms. Unlike him, Seth knew how to control his abilities. And as well as wielding the power of thunder at his fingertips, Seth was also a born vampire from one of the royal lines.

From what Jack had gathered, after fishing for information on the man, Seth was entirely uninterested in Pamela. Hardly surprising. Jack suspected the only person Seth could be in love with was Seth. He doted on his sisters, but the rest of the universe didn’t matter to him.

Tris snorted on the other end of the phone. “Ah! Can’t wait to see her face. This is why I adore you!”

“Love you, too.” She’d hung up before he was done talking, no doubt too excited to go harass her sister.

Grinning as he pocketed his phone, Jack lifted his gaze to see if he spotted any of his men approaching.

Instead, his eyes fell on her.