As the story of my life seemed to be going recently, I was once again avoiding Jared, but I found it extremely difficult. I could constantly feel his gaze on me and I always wanted to look back at him.
I had kept quiet about this whole thing around my dad. What was I supposed to say to him? Oh by the way, Jared actually is a werewolf. You just didn't find it because he was turned and he's the only one in his family. Also, surprise! I'm his soulmate.
No, there was no way I could say that. I didn't fully believe this, and I didn't understand it in the least. If I didn't understand it, he would be even less understanding. He had taught me everything I knew about the paranormal, and his parents had taught him an so on. The Jaeger family had been following The Organization's code, keeping their knowledge of the secret world and passing it down the line. He knew what everyone else knew.
Was it possible that the entire organization actually knew nothing about these creatures? Was it possible that not all of them were the evil creatures we believed them to be? That was the question I was having a hard time with.
Jared had kept his distance as well, but I wasn't sure if it was to respect my space, or if he was as disturbed with me as I was with him. I killed people like him after all, and I wasn't sure how much of what had happened in the alley he had seen. I knew how I could look sometimes, I'd seen it in other hunters before and it could be scary. The way we lost ourselves in the hunt, especially when we had to do something like decapitate or remove a heart, could be disturbing to those who didn't follow the same lifestyle we did.
What I had done in the alley had been justified though. I had stepped in to save that woman who had been attacked. I had caught the vampire in the act of killing. As I'd admitted though, if I'd just heard that there was a vampire in the area, I would have gone and killed it. They didn't have to be in the process of attacking someone. They didn't have show any signs of aggression, because we just knew they were aggressive. They were vampires, they were werewolves, and they killed and turned humans into their kind.
Jared himself had been one of those people.
People who had been turned into vampires were lost a lost cause. They had died and come back, their souls long gone, they were no longer the same people. But werewolves, they were still living and breathing. Were they the same as vampires? My training told me they were, but I was less sure now.
Jared and I had been holding each other's gazes the entire lunch period. I could see that staying away was working just as well for him as it was for me, meaning not well at all. Jen and Stacey had been trying to unleash the twenty questions on me because they had heard, albeit late, that Jared had been to my house. How were they even hearing this stuff?
I felt my phone buzz in my pocket and I broke eye contact with Jared to look at it.
It was a text from him.
We need to talk.
I looked back up with enough time to see him dumping his tray. I went to follow him and Dennis stood up, blocking my path.
"So what? You just forget about all of us who have been here for you, the people who actually care about you, so you can run off with the new guy? For what reason? Because he's something you haven't seen before? Don't think that we haven't seen the way you've been looking at him, we all know."
"That's not fair, and that's not what's going on. Now I suggest you step out of my way if you want to keep this civil," I said keeping my voice as steady as possible.
I looked past Dennis, as Jared was getting ready to leave. I didn't bother saying anything more and I dumped my tray, following after him.
He kept walking, maneuvering his way through the halls. I said nothing, only following after, a ways behind him. I could guess where we were going, about the only area it was guarenteed to be quiet for at least the next fifteen minutes, the same place we'd talked before.
Sure enough, he made the turn down the hallway near the gym and when I turned to follow, he was right there.
"Alright, what do you want to talk about?" It was a stupid question, I knew what this was about, I just didn't know what part of it he wanted to talk about right now.
"We need to talk about us."
"What about us?"
"That's exactly what we need to discuss."
Jared was keeping his distance from me and he was having a hard time even looking at me. Quite the change from earlier when he couldn't tear his gaze away. I knew the feeling though, I was feeling it myself.
The closer I was to him, the harder it was to keep away, and I mean to keep away physically. I wanted to touch him in some way, take his hand, touch his cheeck, his arm, something. I knew if I did that though, that I wouldn't want to stop and it would all be over. If he was feeling at all what I was feeling then yes, I understood completely.
"Talk."
His eyes flicked up to me.
"I can't keep doing this Electra."
"I don't expect you to."
He just looked at me. I shut my mouth, letting him say what he wanted to say without interruption.
"Electra, mates are something essential to werewolves, they're sacred. I don't know what sort of sick joke they were playing when they decided to make a huntress a werewolf's mate, but here we are. You are important to me, it would kill me to see you get hurt or worse."
I nodded as if I knew all of this already. The truth was, I knew none of it. I hadn't heard a single word of this before and that was what confused me most.
"I don't know all of the details exactly. I wasn't there long enough to be told, but from what I do know, from what I can already feel, it can be amazing, or it can be devastatingly painful.
"There's nothing like the pain of your mate's rejection, and there's nothing like their love. You can walk away from me, you can leave right now, but if you do you'll never feel anything like you could with me. But you probably wouldn't go looking anyway. You feel more comfortable sticking with what you know, being alone and staying away from any foreign emotions."
He paced in the small area. I could tell he was having a difficult time with this. It wasn't something that he found easy right now. How could it be easy talking to the person you felt something for, yet also wanted to stay away from?
"The thing is, you feel the same connection to me that I feel to you. What you don't feel is everything else that comes with it. You find it hard to stay away from me, I find it painful. You may have a hard time deciding to walk away or not, but if that happens-if you do-I'll feel like a part of me will be missing for the rest of my life, if I even live through it. It's not a guarentee, but there are some who don't live through the rejection. The majority of the time those who don't are turned wolves because their strength isn't as great as those born this way."
What was he saying? Was he saying that if I walked away there was a chance he could die? No, that couldn't be right. How was that even possible? But I couldn't find the words, I couldn't ask the questions that were racing through my mind.
"The thing is, I don't know what will happen either way, but if you're going to reject me Electra, I would rather you just get it over with. I can't stand living through this pain of not knowing and keeping my distance. Every time I look at you it hurts, and I want to go up to you, I want to close the distance between us, but then I think of all the people you've killed and what you must think of me and it tortures me."
I felt unshed tears burning my eyes. I wanted to run but I knew I couldn't. Jared deserved better than that. Everything was crashing down on me, like the flood gate of emotions had been cracked and everything was barreling down on me now. I felt like my chest was going to cave in from the pressure of it all.
I could feel another panic attack coming on and I backed up slightly, leaning against the wall for support. I took deep breaths focusing on the beating of my heart that pumped the blood through my body. I focused on my breathing and worked to steady it.
Jared kept his distance until he could tell everything was returning back to normal and then he stepped forward again.
I could see it in his eyes, please. He wanted me to say something, to break my silence and do what he'd asked. I was a huntress, I hunted paranormal creatures for a living, and here I was, feeling as devestated as if I were debating about puting a family pet to sleep. Essentially that's what this was. If I turned him down he said there was a chance he could die. I'll feel like a part of me will be missing for the rest of my life, if I even live through it.
He was standing so close I could feel the heat radiating from his body, his abnormally warm skin warming mine from the inch or so that separated us.
I needed to say something, anything, but my voice was completely lost. I could see the pain in his eyes, I could feel it rolling off him, and I knew he could feel everything I was feeling. Probably even more so than I could.
In our closeness, my pain, sadness, and confusion slowly started to replace itself with passion and want. I knew he felt the shift in me. I knew he was feeling it too. As if reading my mind, he closed that last breath of space between us, his mouth crushing mine as his hands cupped my face.
I was firmly between him and the wall and in that moment I was perfectly comfortable with not moving from that very spot. I felt the heat burning between us and I felt like I was melting. Jared's tongue flicked out, asking permission and I granted it, his tongue moving with mine.
I found my fingers traveling up, running through his dark hair, taking in the softness of it. A low growl rumbled through his chest, and while my mind knew I should be on alert, while it told me I needed to get away from the threat or kill it, my body shivered against him.
He groaned and gently bit my lip. The warning was going off in my head again but I couldn't listen to that little voice. The hunter had been momentarily silenced, and it was the most at peace I had felt in quite some time.
I felt his mouth on the soft skin of my neck, his lips kissing, his mouth sucking and I sighed. He hit a spot that made my stomach flip and he pulled back slightly to my disappointment.
"And here's where I would mark you," he said his voice gruff.
That was when everything kicked back on and I tensed up. Just like that, the switch had been thrown and the hunter had taken up residency again. My fingers had closed into a fist, his hair locked in there tight and he knew what was happening as soon as the shift had started, but he didn't seem worried. My hand pulled back, taking his face away from me. My heart was pounding a hundred miles a minute
Of course he wasn't worried though, he knew I wasn't armed at school. As much as I should have been as soon as I found out about him, it was still impossible to sneak weapons onto school property without my dad's help. And if he was going to help me with something like that, well then I would have had to tell him why.
I could feel his heart beating against me as I held him close and I slowly started to relax, letting him go.
"I- I'm sorry," I said trying to side-step him.
He held perfectly still, making sure not to make any sudden movements that would throw me off again. I hated how jumpy I was right now but there was very little I could do about it.
"Mark." It was the only word I said, but the word came out sounding dirty.
"It's what we do. It's the first step in the process," Jared said slowly. "It's a bite-"
"No."
"It doesn't turn you."
"Like hell. It's a bite."
"It's hard to explain, I don't even understand it. There's something about the process, the chemicals released. It's not a bite that turns people. Electra, do you honestly think I would do to you or anyone else what has been done to me? Do you honestly think I would take away someone's life and introduce them to this world? A world where you're never safe. You're either at war with your own kind or you're hunted by humans who pretend to know about you."
I felt my heart pounding in my chest.
"I- I need to go," I stammared.
"Just do it then, Electra."
I knew what he was saying, and he wasn't talking about me leaving and going to my next class. I stayed frozen in place.
"I can't. I can't do that," I whispered to him before leaving. It was the truth, I just couldn't do it, I didn't have it in me. Did that mean that I accepted him? No it didn't, that would mean accepting what he was and how could you accept something that you just started to realize you don't even understand?
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So she can't reject Jared, but she can't accept him either. I feel like that doesn't really make Jared feel any different, he's still in the same place.
Well, let me know what you thought of the chapter with your COMMENTS below and if you liked it then please drop a VOTE. Thanks so much!!
~Red