Her head lifted up for a second, even when she was obviously losing energy by the second.
“Where?”
“Home,” he whispered.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
It took her mother a week to finally say a single word to her—and they were words Gabby didn’t expect at all.
“You should have told me everything from the start. I would have helped.”
It made her blink. Then it made her feel shocked enough to sit on the couch where her mother sat, instead of avoiding the woman like she had done so in the past few days. It wasn’t embarrassment that had caused her to do so, but more so just to make it more convenient for her mother. After all, Henrietta was an important woman in the shifter society, and her daughter was…well, a disgrace.
“You would have helped?” Gabby repeated, trying to make sure she heard it right.
It was morning when her mother said it, with the sun shining brightly outside and tea being served on the coffee table. Henrietta often took tea out the back patio, so it was something to see her when Gabby passed by to get to the kitchen, where Gabby was trying to get some breakfast and stop feeling sorry for herself.
Henrietta nodded her head to Gabby’s question, sipping daintily. “I’m your mother. I’m not some stranger who would out you to the dogs, especially when it involves the family name. You know how much I hate scandals and such.”
The way she said it made more sense because this was exactly how her mother would have thought. She relaxed and accepted the second cup, sipping and tasting milk along with the strong tea. Henrietta never could take it raw.
“I didn’t want to involve you in it,” Gabby admitted after a few seconds of silence. “I wanted to deal with it on my own.”
“There will always be repercussions when dealing with it on your own,” Henrietta responded without missing a beat. “Now, we deal with it together.” She finished her cup and stood up, making her way towards the back. But she paused, her head turning back to look at Gabby one more time.
“Again, I’m your mother. I may not be the warm kind, but you’re still family. I’ll protect you in the best way I can.”
She left right after, and Gabby could only stare at her back. That was the first time her mother had reached out to her ever since her father had died when she was twelve.
Hopefully, that wouldn’t be the last.
*****
The doorbell rang at seven in the evening, right after Gabby took her dinner to her room and picked at it endlessly before finally eating. Her mother was gone for tonight to attend some charity, and the maid knocked on her door to say she had a visitor. Not really in the mood to entertain, Gabby didn’t bother asking who it was, but got dressed anyway in the hopes of charming the person to leave her alone.
She froze in the living room, where she found Jake sitting on the couch and waiting for her.
He was wearing a plain white shirt that emphasized his broad shoulders and muscles, and dark blue jeans that molded on his thick thighs and had her gulping. The sight of his orange hair and those hazel eyes were so bright and should have been ridiculous, but Gabby could only feel her heart stuttering and her mind going blank as she let her eyes roam and devour him. The injuries he sustained when she tried to attack him were gone, a testament to how fast his recovery period was. He looked healthy and…sexy.
Realizing how improper she was being, she withdrew her gaze and tried to act as casual as possible.
“Jake. I didn’t expect you…”
Her words trailed off when he walked over to her without a word until he was standing just a few steps away—enough to reach out to her. Her mouth went dry as she watched his gaze roam her this time, right before he nodded and met her eyes.
Sparks flew.
“You look healthy,” he murmured. “How have you been?”
She swallowed. “I’ve been great. Just resting as advised.” A pause, then, “Thank you for taking me home that day.”
He nodded his head. “It was my pleasure.”
His tongue rolled around the word pleasure, and something hot simmered in her belly. But his expression was relaxed, almost watchful, and she did her best to mirror it.
“What have you been up to?” she asked.
Jake tilted his head. “I’ve been resting, too. Got a side mission done, and rested some more.” There was a long pause. “I visited Lucy.”
Her heart dropped, and Gabby bit her lip. She tried to smile. “How is she?”
“She’s fine. She’s happy. She’s getting married, and we resolved whatever we needed to resolve—mostly my idiotic ways.”
“Oh.”
She waited for more, but that was all he said, and she realized she didn’t detect anything in his voice. No bitterness. Gabby tried to process it in her mind, but before she could, he was stepping closer again until this time, he was inches away from her.
“Gabby…”
She looked up and found his hazel eyes softening. Her breath hitched in her throat, and she tried to take a step back. But his hand snapped forward and wrapped around her wrist before she could move, and his thumb rubbed soothingly on her skin there.
“Gabby, I’m here to help you.”
The words seeped in, and it took her a while to absorb their meaning. Gabby stared at him. “What?”
“I’ve talked to Dylan and talked to your mother. I’m here to help you control your beast.”
“My monster?” she echoed.
“Your beast,” he corrected. “It’s a beast, not a monster.” His thumb rubbed again. A deep sigh came from his throat, one that sounded tired and regretful. “I feel like I’ve failed you. I feel like…I should have protected you better.”
“You did what you could,” she said firmly. “That was all me, and I’ll handle it.”
Again, she tried taking a step away—then gasped when he pulled her back in.
“Damn it, Gabby,” he said. “We were in there together. I should have helped. I want to help now. Give me that, at least.”
Silence filled the room, and it should have been uncomfortable. Instead, it only made her feel warm and safe, further cementing what she felt for him. Her beating heart didn’t help matters, clouding her judgment until she found herself saying words she shouldn’t have been saying.
“Okay.”
Jake’s face filled with surprise. Then a grin came out, one so bright and mischievous that she felt like she was being physically attacked by too many emotions all at once. She looked down, the shame of what she’d done to him and how she’d lied so deeply still ringing in her senses until now.
Fingers touched her chin and lifted her head back up to meet his gaze.
“Don’t feel bad,” he murmured. “I just want to help you get better now.”
“Why?”
“Because somewhere along the way, we became friends. And I want to stand by you through this starting today.”
His words were sincere, and she could read his heart in them. Her heart melted and accepted, knowing it was the best she could get.
Friends. Friends were good.
She needed to be a better one, though.
“I promise I’ll never lie to you again,” she vowed.
A smile played on his lips, and his hazel eyes twinkled. “Now, that would be extremely hard, considering people tell white lies all the time. But I don’t mind if you refuse to tell me that you’ve got no underwear on, or if you pretend you’re all fine if I kick your butt during practice.”
She blinked. Then she burst out laughing. “Practice?”
“Yes. Practice. Control means practice, so we will be practicing every single day until you’re in control.”
She raised a brow. “I’m a tough nut to crack. I thought I should let you know. The guy who taught me how to defend myself? He lasted two weeks.”
“Only two weeks?”
Gabby shrugged. “I speak my mind. I tell you when I don’t like something. I expect people to fall in line.”
“Now wouldn’t that be problematic?” she goaded.
“Indeed,” he shot back. He held out his hand. “So, practice?”
Gabby looked at his hand for a few seconds, noting the calluses and wondering the story involved in each of them. Practicing with him would really help her control her beast better—or at least take a shot at it and see if it was possible. But daily?
My God. It would be a personal torture to her self-restraint.
Her mind told her the most practical thing was to gently refuse his proposal, so they could both move on and never see each other again. But her heart and her body—her tingling body—were already doing somersaults, whispering that this was a very bad idea and she should go ahead with it, anyway.
Say no.
Her arm went up. Then she took his raised hand and shook it, the sparks simmering and doing a happy little dance. She ignored it and rationalized that she was doing this because she really wanted to get better—that was all. That was definitely all.
One day in, and she was such a liar already.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
The training-slash-practice started on the next day, and Jake did his best to be as professional as possible in his approach. He started it off with some basic exercises, ones to strengthen her muscles and improve her stamina. Human and shifter didn’t exactly need it, but with the third, violent part residing inside her, it was an ace card to help her stop losing her strength too quickly after she finished transforming.
Gabby was very eager, willingly doing what he instructed for the first few days. Then she began to grow bored and wanted to advance—something he refused because he didn’t want to tire her out too quickly. A normal person would have complied with their teacher, but Gabby was far from normal with her very stubborn streak, turning every session into an argument in which both of them refused to back down and let the other person win.
Sometimes it was fun. Other times it gave him a headache, even while he found himself enjoying the fact that she didn’t really fall in line like all the others. It wasn’t because of her being rich and spoiled, really, but more a stubbornness that was innate as she didn’t want to be stepped on no matter what. Her stubbornness was the smart kind, and her reasoning challenged him and had him excited to teach her better and more.
By the time the first week rolled, whatever awkwardness between them had disappeared as they began to become actual friends. He knew they’d been on their way there after the rescue and their time together, even when they didn’t know each other that well yet. Now they knew each other, and he discovered little things about her that fascinated him.
Like how she loved milk and tea and couldn’t stand taking one without the other.
Like how she always grew sleepy at two in the afternoon but refused to take a nap because there was still so much training to do, and so little time.
Like how she treated all her mother’s staff with respect.
Like how she loved to tease and annoy him just for the fun of it.
Like how she laughed in delight at the smallest things, like when a shifter fox child rubbed his fox body on Jake’s legs before scampering off happily.
In turn, he discovered a lot of things about himself, too. He realized he loved making her laugh. He realized that milk and tea together weren’t so bad. He realized that he liked to annoy and tease her back because it gave off a spark in her eyes that he just loved watching.
Gabby was driving him crazy, and she wasn’t even aware of it.
On the second week, they began to use her control practice for the real thing—controlling her urges when she was in her beast form. They used her home’s vast backyard lawn, securing a special locked metal perimeter so she wouldn’t escape and putting her and Jake in the center of it. It started off really, really disastrous, with Gabby taking him by surprise with an attack and almost taking out his intestines when she tried to claw at him. When she shifted back to human form, she crawled over to him and nearly sobbed her eyes out as she told him she would do better next time and wouldn’t let him down. While she was all panicky and practically hysterical, all Jake could think about through the haze of pain was how warm she was beside him and how good she looked naked even in his blurry gaze.
Jesus, he wanted to take her right then and there, and the thought, while injured, had him bursting out laughing and opening his wounds all the more.
Gabby kept her promise and didn’t attack his intestines during the next transformation, though she did still attack him. They kept at it at her every transformation, and at first, there was no improvement. But as the second week passed and turned into the third week, he saw little bits of changes, such as her only grazing his skin instead of clawing, and her rolling around in circles to visibly prevent herself from leaping at him.
He always had a weapon with him in case she caught him by surprise and would end up killing him, but by the fourth week, he decided to drop it. The shocked Gabby could only stare at him at first. Then she shook her head vehemently.
“No. Absolutely not. I am not transforming without you protected.”
“You can do it, Gabby,” he encouraged.
Her hand went to her stomach, and he knew the transformation was coming soon. She described it as a darkness inside her that was mostly dormant but screamed from time to time to be let out.
“How do you know I won’t kill you?” she asked, her worried eyes staring into his.
He could get lost in them.
“Because I have faith in you,” he said, keeping his voice light. “Because I know you won’t hurt me.”
Because your love for me is stronger.
He left the last one unsaid, but her eyes widened all the same. There was one thing he learned about Gabby in their time together—and that was her inability to hide what she truly felt, especially for him.
She transformed. He waited, standing in place as she stalked him in circles, red eyes watchful. Her claws raked the ground over and over, misplacing the soil and taking some lawn grass along. Her shoulders bunched and shook, and he braced himself for the leap.
But she didn’t jump on him. She kept circling him, then going around in circles on a certain spot. She snarled, but it wasn’t directed at him, either.
Jake had been taking the risk for these few weeks now, cheating death time and time again. What was one more time?
He took a deep, inward breath. Then Jake sat on the ground and watched as she turned her head in his direction, red eyes boring into his. He didn’t flinch, simply watched her as she took several steps towards him. She sniffed.
“I’m in love with you,” Jake admitted.
She growled at his admission, though he was pretty sure she didn’t understand. So he kept talking, knowing he might as well tell her everything he’d been feeling but had been keeping to himself since that day at vampire headquarters.
“I thought I only wanted to have sex with you, but I was wrong.” He tilted his head, gave her a thoughtful look as she started digging a hole. “I mean, I want to. The want is driving me crazy, in fact. But that’s not all that I want, Gabby.”
He stood up. She stopped and stared at him.
“I want everything with you, Gabby. Damn it. I want it all.”
He thought he might have seen a glimmer of understanding in her red eyes, but it was gone as soon as it came. Tentatively, he reached a hand out. Time felt suspended, and he watched as she took definitive steps in his direction, baring her sharp teeth.
Then her head passed his palm—once, twice, wary. He didn’t make another move, just waited her out until her body stopped vibrating and she stilled at his unmoving touch. Relief poured out of him in waves, and he reveled in the joy of this huge leap of improvement from her.
Just as he was about to touch her fur more firmly to soothe, Gabby’
s beast’s head snapped up. Her gaze strayed away from him, and her hackles rose. She snarled.
“This is so lovely,” a female voice said.
Jake’s blood turned cold.
He looked to the side where Gabby’s eyes were trained. Olivia was standing at the edge of their protective perimeter, looking at them casually with her hands behind her back. She met Jake’s incredulous stare, then smiled so happily like she did nothing wrong at all.
“I’m still alive, yes,” she confirmed even when he didn’t ask. “I’m not really human, but you guys were very quick to believe it. Even Raz was fooled. Everyone thought I was really killed and even gave me a funeral—by dumping my wrecked body in the damn river. Stupid vampires and their loyalty rituals.”
He didn’t get to see how Olivia died, but Finn had mentioned that it was brutal, with her skull crushed and none of her major organs surviving. He wasn’t an idiot, so it didn’t take him long to put two and two together.
“So you’re a demon? A witch?”
Olivia nodded. “Second guess is right.”
“And you’re here to kill us.”
“Not you,” she corrected. “You’ve been nothing but nice to me, so I’ll give you the courtesy of being nice in return.”
“Gabby, then?”
Beside him, Gabby’s beast snarled again. He ignored the chilling sound and focused his attention on the other, who was shaking her head.
“She doesn’t have to die, either.” Olivia took a step forward. “No one has to, as long as you give me what I want.”
“And what do you want, Olivia?”
Olivia smiled.
“Gabby’s blood. Gabby’s body.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
Jake’s words penetrated the mind that was Gabby’s alone, reverberating over and over there. She didn’t understand it at first, because the beast was strong—so strong that all it wanted was to reject everything and find a kill, to feed the bloodlust that was raging inside her repeatedly.
But she fought it. She fought it every step of the way, already familiar with Jake’s scent and wanting to absorb it into her skin. She fought it because she wanted to understand his words, wanted to hear it and let the beast understand that he didn’t mean any harm. He never meant any harm, and he never would.
Jake (The Clan Legacy) Page 9