Blood Instinct (15 page)

Her eyes widened.

‘Because I knew Kane Malloy’s reputation like everyone else did,’ he said.

If she had suspected, she certainly hadn’t been prepared for the confirmation. ‘
You
slept with
Arana Malloy
?’

‘“Slept with” is a very generous term. I said fucking for a reason.’

Sophia recoiled slightly. ‘Does Kane know?’

‘I’m still walking, aren’t I?’

Jaw slack, she stared at him for a moment. ‘Was it a one-off?’

‘Oh, yeah. She wasn’t going to come back for more.’

Her eyes flashed with concern again. ‘Why? What did you do to her?’

‘Nothing bad. Nothing against her will. But she was more out of her depth than she’d ever been before and, when it was over, I think she realised just how much out of her depth.’

‘And she didn’t tell Kane?’

‘Arana had a reputation for being trouble. She was flirty, fun, mischievous and downright dangerous because of it. But she was smart like her brother too. She probably realised fairly quickly that a lycan–vampire war within the confines of Blackthorn was a bad move. It’s how I knew, without doubt, despite the rumours, that she wouldn’t have gone to meet two of my pack that night. Not alone. She learned her lesson with me.’

‘And you teamed up with Kane to look into her murder but said nothing of your past with her?’

‘At the time he was nothing to me. Corbin found me that night and threw me in the holding room. When I’d sobered up, I realised I’d put my pack at risk by telling him. I wasn’t scared for me, but I had no right to do that to them. I could have gone rogue but the relationship between the east and north would still have broken down. So I kept it to myself. And after what he’d been through, after what he’d found, I didn’t want that image in his head. So it became about business – his vengeance for Arana and mine for my pack. And we worked together effectively. Until what happened with Caitlin, but that’s over now.’

‘Shit, Jask. But why’s it all coming back to you now?’

‘I haven’t experienced it for decades – not since practising coping with my lycanthropy without the dose. But I remember it can bring back significant moments in your life.’

But he didn’t want her to know why. He didn’t want her knowing the sense of power and control that had flooded his veins when he had been intimate with her.

‘Did you morph? When you were having sex with her?’ she asked, the abruptness of the question taking him aback.

‘No.’

‘But is it possible? Could you morph whilst having sex with me? If you lost it, I mean.’

He studied her gaze as she patiently awaited his response.

‘In theory,’ he said hesitantly, the very prospect chilling him. The very prospect of what it could entail horrifying him. The very thought that he didn’t want in her head.

‘That’s why you want to abstain.’ She frowned. ‘You’re scared that it might happen.’

‘I’m scared of hurting you, Phia. And yes, that feels like a very real risk right now.’

As he held her gaze, the rap on the door had him sighing with impatience.

‘Yeah?’ he called out.

Opening the door, Corbin stepped inside.

‘I’m sorry to interrupt, Jask, but you’re needed at the compound. Urgently.’

S
ophia hadn’t expected
Jask to agree to her accompanying him and Corbin to the compound but he had.

It had taken over half an hour to navigate the underground tunnels in the east before reaching the northern border. Emerging into Blackthorn’s night air in between had been disorientating, like waking to a long-forgotten dream of a world she once knew. A world before the bunker. A world before Jask. The prospect of the latter, the recollection, had never felt emptier – or lonelier.

She’d instinctively reached for Jask’s hand as he’d led her across the street and into the small maze of alleyways, his vigilance not waning for a second as they’d moved swiftly and silently under as much cover as possible.

He’d led her to the next tunnel down narrow stone steps and into an underground basement where he cranked open a steel door and flicked on a torch that weakly ignited the length of the corridor. The chill was instant, the quiet overwhelming.

The tunnels from the east side had been lit by generator-fuelled overhead bulbs, as with the bunker. There had been a few darker pockets at intervals but they had been brief between doorways.

Now, having got too used to the low-level buzzing that had accompanied most of their journey, it was eerie to be met with absolute silence.

Jask locked the steel door behind them and slipped the key into his back pocket as he handed her the torch, his azure eyes catching the artificial light before he led the way, Corbin taking the rear.

She caught hold of Jask’s hand again, but this time he wrapped his arm around her shoulders and pulled her closer to him so he could kiss her on the head before she walked alongside him.

It was reassurance enough that his defences were down – that they were on safer ground. Safer, familiar ground – to Jask at least.

It took another fifteen minutes or so before he stopped at a door. Unlocking and drawing back the latch, he pulled the door inwards. He slid the mattress aside before leading her into a familiar cellar.

She looked across at the door she had once escaped through down a stone tunnel to her freedom, then up at the wooden steps that led through the hatch she knew would take them up into the compound.

As they emerged into the burned-down greenhouse, she could sense the tension in Jask as much as she could sense her own. The compound had such an empty feeling now in the absence of the pack roaming, of voices, of laughter, of anyone tending to the herbs. The whole place felt like a school after the bell had rung and the corridors had fallen empty.

Sophia reached for Jask’s hand and gave it a light squeeze as they headed across the courtyard towards the outbuilding.

Dust motes sparkled in the torchlight as Jask led the way down the corridor to the door at the end.

He drummed some kind of coded message on it before Phelan opened it, letting the three of them inside.

‘I want you to wait here,’ Jask said to her as they descended the wooden steps into the narrow stone corridor.

Guessing, based on their earlier conversation about Quinn, why he had been summoned there, there was no way she was going to argue.

Q
uinn remained in virtual darkness
, his back still to them, his whimpers burrowing into Jask’s depths.

There was a fit-like intensity to Quinn’s shudders now, the increased deformation of his body some of the worst he had seen.

‘How long has it been this bad?’

‘The past two hours,’ Nokes said, Phelan standing alongside him. Phelan who Jask had let return once he’d been given the all-clear.

Jask’s hand tightened around the bar before he pulled away, stepping back out into the corridor to join Corbin.

Jask lowered his head, his hands low on his hips.

‘It’s showing no sign of appeasing,’ Corbin said. He took a moment before saying it. ‘It’s not going to. He’s dying, Jask.’

But there were no surprises in his beta’s statement. He was only saying what Jask already knew. Just as he knew that even if Quinn did make it through the peak of the moon that night, the damage was irreparable. He wouldn’t be able to transform back. He’d have maybe four or five hours at best.

And he knew exactly what those four or five hours would entail. It was like Nero all over again. And Nero had suffered horrendously – in that last hour in particular.

And so had his mate, who had watched.

He couldn’t let Quinn go through it. He couldn’t let Zeena go through it.

He leaned back against the wall and stared at the cobwebbed light ahead.

‘Bring her out here,’ Jask said, meeting Corbin’s gaze.

Corbin was slow to move but eventually nodded, disappearing back inside the containment room.

Jask looked back up the corridor to where Sophia sat perched on the steps, her hands in her lap, her eyes wide and anxious. He had hesitated over bringing her here, but he owed her the truth. He owed her the truth of what it all entailed.

If she intended to remain his mate, she needed to understand the greatest burden on all their shoulders. Protecting her from it was as much a lie as her holding back what Leila had told her. His reticence would have been based on the same fear: that ultimately the bubble would burst; that she wouldn’t want him for him anymore.

It was time he faced his own fears of losing her. Because if it was going to happen, it was going to happen then.

S
ophia wrung
her hands as she watched Jask in the depths of the corridor. His touch was so gentle with Zeena, so tender, his fingers under her chin as he encouraged her to listen to him, to make sure she understood.

But Zeena would already have known. Sophia had seen it on her ashen face as Corbin had led her out of the room – the downward curl of her mouth, the utter grief, the loss in her entire composure gut-wrenching.

The final decision had clearly been made, but it didn’t make it any easier. Nothing made that decision easier.

Sophia’s heart ached for her as Zeena pulled her jaw from Jask’s touch, Jask reaching for her hand instead.

And she shot to her feet as Zeena retaliated against Jask’s comfort, slamming her fists against his chest as he struggled to pull her closer. But when he finally succeeded in holding her body to his, his hand tight on the back of her head, his arm across her shoulders, her angry fists dissolved, raking down his shirt as she gave in and sobbed against his chest.

At that point, as Jask rested his jaw against the top of Zeena’s head, the rock she needed, Sophia knew she could never love him more.

She could never love anyone more.

She sank back onto the steps she could barely feel beneath her, her body cold enough with grief to be trembling. She rubbed away her tears, knowing the corridor was dense enough with despair without her adding to it.

She glanced up at Corbin as he disappeared into the cell to her left, then looked back towards Zeena and Jask to see he had let her go.

His head tilted down towards her, this time Zeena nodded as Jask spoke, despite not being able to meet his gaze.

He motioned for Nokes to watch the door as she made her way back inside with Phelan, her brother – no doubt to say her final farewells.

From the cell to her left, Corbin emerged with some kind of small crossbow in his hand. But Jask blocked his way before he’d made it more than a few steps down the corridor.

‘Not like that,’ Jask said, grabbing his wrist, keeping it from sight.

‘I’ve made it as potent as I can, Jask. He won’t feel a thing. I promise.’

‘I’m not shooting him in the back. No fucking way. Is that how you want Zeena to remember him going?’

‘Then what?’

Jask held his gaze. ‘I’ve got this.’

Corbin shook his head. ‘No. No, you can’t. Don’t be stupid, Jask.’

‘I’ve
got
this,’ Jask repeated more softly, his grip tightening on the crossbow that Corbin refused to relinquish.

Sophia stood, backing up a little at this first glimpse of the pack’s alpha and his beta locking horns.

More worryingly, there wasn’t resentment in Corbin’s eyes – there was fear.

‘Got what?’ Sophia asked, her heart pounding.

Jask and Corbin’s interlocked gazes didn’t flinch.

‘Jask?’ she asked. ‘Jask, what’s going on?’

But clearly Corbin knew when he was receiving a direct order from his alpha. ‘I’m going to be on standby. And I’m keeping this with me in case.’

Sophia’s attention flitted between the two. ‘For what?’ She grabbed Jask’s arm. ‘Jask, for
what
?’

He met her gaze. ‘I’m going in with Quinn.’

It was like a punch to the stomach. Her grip on his arm tightened. ‘
What
?’

Corbin backed away, granting them some privacy.

‘I’m not shooting Quinn in the back,’ he said to her. ‘And I’m not leaving him to die alone. He’s part of my pack.’ She saw Jask’s eyes shine with suppressed tears. ‘His brother was one of the ones who died trying to defend Rone.’

Sophia felt the wet trickle of a tear creep down her cheek.

‘A lycan never forgets,’ he said. ‘A lycan
never
forgets those he owes – for bad or for good.’

He kissed her gently on the forehead as her tears erupted.

Focused, resolute, Jask stepped away. He made his way back down the corridor and disappeared into the containment room.

Sophia flinched as she heard Zeena’s scream of despair then slammed both hands over her mouth as she saw the female lycan being ushered out by Phelan, tears already streaming down her face as the inevitable became reality.

Phelan whispered words into his sister’s ear, trying to calm her, gently cupping his hand over her mouth to muffle her despair, no doubt for Quinn’s benefit.

And that alone betrayed an even worse horror: that the dying lycan was conscious enough to hear – and he probably had some comprehension of what was about to happen.

A
s Corbin clunked
the key in the lock, Quinn twitched. The fact he still had that level of consciousness only worsened the acknowledgment of the pain of his suffering.

Jask stepped inside and homed in on Quinn’s escalated breathing, his rapid heartbeat. He met Corbin’s gaze fleetingly again as his beta locked the door behind him and took a step back.

Jask knew he had to be quick. Quinn was still alert enough for him to have to be quick. He would sense Jask’s presence and, alpha presence or not, he would retaliate. Even in his weakened state, he would still be powerful. The lycan’s will for survival was too strong for him not to be.

In that moment, his alpha, his protector, would be his enemy. In his dying moments, his alpha, his protector, was his executioner.

Jask moved into position behind him on the mattress. He carefully slid his arm up under his neck as if trying not to wake a sleeping dragon. He placed his other down over Quinn’s outstretched deformed forearm – what had now become a partial front leg.

A split second later, Quinn jolted. Despite his pain, his fight came with all the strength of a morphing lycan.

Jask slammed his leg down over Quinn’s and tightened his grip around his neck. He gritted his teeth and held fast as he kept Quinn’s arm pinned against the mattress.

He wasn’t going to let Quinn linger in the agony. He wasn’t going to let him suffer a moment longer, let the hours seep past like he had with Nero, his torment peaking towards the inevitable end.

And it took every ounce of his strength, every inch of muscle to keep the flailing lycan contained, to give him as painless an end as he could.

‘Zeena will be okay,’ he said in Quinn’s ear. ‘I’ll make sure of it.’

For a second, Quinn stilled, and Jask’s heart wrenched as he pulled tighter and harder, crushing Quinn’s windpipe before swiftly snapping his neck.

Jask slumped onto the mattress. His throat was tight, dry, his eyes scorched as he lay there, his dead pack member limp in his arms.

His dead pack member whose eyes he gently closed as if tucking a small child into the safety of their bed.

S
ophia watched
Zeena sink to the floor, Phelan finally letting her go, distress breaking through his composure as he failed to offer his sister comfort.

Her sobs were now silent as she slid face first down the stone wall.

Sophia rubbed her palm across her knuckles, desperate to join her, desperate to try and offer her some comfort as they waited for Jask and Corbin to re-emerge. As they waited for confirmation that it was all over.

And never had she had a stronger sense of their plight. The horrors of the invasion at power-hungry human hands had been bad enough, but this was an internal war each of the lycans fought. A war they couldn’t escape. This was the terrifying reality of who they were beneath.

This was the terrifying reality of what Jask battled to keep in check.

And when she thought of all the things she had said to him outside of that very building – the mockery, the cruel remarks – she felt a deeper sense of shame than she had ever experienced.

Nearly drowning in that pool had never felt more deserved.

She had been a weak by-product of the unforgiveable ignorance of a corrupt system, a clouded vision, a sanctimonious outrage fuelled from her own fear and anger.

And Jask – the last person who had any obligation to see through it – had been the one person who had. Jask, who deserved better – who deserved better than her.

But now she was his mate, and this was her pack too; her responsibility too.

She wrung her little finger until it was numb. Her breaths were ragged as she built up the courage to approach the grief-stricken Zeena.

With weighted legs, she headed down the corridor, snagging Phelan’s curiosity. But he didn’t block her way.

She sat back against the wall, rubbed the back of her hand down Zeena’s, catching her attention.

Zeena recoiled, retracting her hand – the first sign of her rejection of Jask’s new human mate. A human she no doubt thought had no idea about the lycan plight; of the pain Quinn had suffered.

But Sophia was ready to face her rejection. She was prepared to be the punchbag for Zeena’s grief.