When Mal’s head turned toward her, she held her breath. She couldn’t let anything more happen between her and Jack, but she didn’t want him to die, and if he were one of the enemy, Mal would kill him.
Mal glanced at Jack before returning his attention to the fire. “No, he’s fine.”
“Mal’s a purebred?” Jack asked her.
Mal stopped staring at the fire to focus on Jack. “You know the difference between turned and purebred vampires?”
“Yes,” Jack said.
“Many turned vamps never know the difference; how is it you do?”
“My friends have children that I consider my nieces and nephews; they’re all purebloods.”
“I see,” Mal muttered, and there was far more interest in his eyes when he surveyed Jack again.
“So can he stay?” Charlie asked.
“He’s not one of them. Do you think he can be trusted?”
Charlie considered this before replying. Jack had proven he wasn’t one of the assholes on this island, but that didn’t necessarily mean he was a good guy. However, he could have turned on her at any point, and he hadn’t.
“I do,” she said. “We’ll have to keep an eye on him”—they watched all the new arrivals until they were certain they could be completely trusted—“but I think he’s okay.”
“Thanks,” he muttered, and she smiled at him.
“If the hunt has started, we need more patrols in the tunnels,” Mal said. “I’ll take the ocean-view tunnel. Miguel take the root cellar, and Darlene take the pit. If anyone wants to go with them, feel free.”
Chase strolled over to go with Darlene while Valerie and Lucia went with Miguel.
“Charlie, keep an eye on him,” Mal instructed. “He can stay, but make sure he doesn’t try anything and doesn’t get into any trouble until I can talk with him more.”
“I will,” Charlie said and watched as Mal retreated into the ocean-view tunnel. Each of the three main shafts were named, but the ten side tunnels had no name.
“You really escaped?” Dylan asked Jack.
Jack smiled at Dylan. “Yes.”
Dylan’s shoulders relaxed as some of his distrust of Jack eased. “If you got out of the cages, do you think you can get off the island?”
“That’s my plan.”
“Will you take us with you?”
The hope in the child’s voice and eyes tugged at his heart. He’d promise Dylan the moon if he asked for it while looking at him like that. “I won’t leave without you.”
“That’s enough, Dylan,” Charlie murmured. “Go see if you can find an extra blanket and a new shirt for Jack.
“But—”
“Go.”
Dylan frowned at her; she was never brisk with him, but she wanted him away from Jack. Turning on his heel, Dylan stalked toward the ocean tunnel. They kept their extra supplies in the first dead end side tunnel.
Charlie waited until Dylan was out of earshot before turning to Jack. “Come with me,” she said crisply.
Chapter Ten
Jack followed her into a tunnel while those still in the cavern returned to what they were doing. From what he could see, three tunnels branched off from this main one. “Do these all lead out?” he asked.
“No,” Charlie replied.
He frowned at her icy tone and realized her shoulders were set like a soldier marching off to war. Apparently, he’d done something to become the enemy, but he couldn’t possibly think of what.
“They’re all dead ends?” he asked.
“Some of the side tunnels lead out; more of them just dead end. Mal used it as another way to confuse, trap, or lose any enemy who accidentally found their way in.”
They were a hundred feet into the tunnel when she rounded on Jack. Startled, by her abrupt movement, he nearly collided with her before taking a step back. He blinked when Charlie shoved her finger into his chest.
“Don’t you dare make promises to my son you won’t keep!” she hissed.
Jack winced when she jabbed him hard enough to bruise the bone. He seized her finger, but she yanked it away, and her eyes flashed red. She glowered at him like he was a spider she was going to stomp before dropkicking him into the fires of Hell.
“What are you talking about?” he asked.
She pushed her finger into his chest again. “You told him you wouldn’t leave here without him. How dare you tell him that!”
“Why wouldn’t I tell him that?” Jack asked in confusion.
“If you get the chance to flee this island without us, you will and—”
“Who said I would leave this island without you?” he interrupted.
The infuriating woman rolled her eyes at him.
“I say it. Any sane person would leave here the first chance they got. If I had the chance to escape this island with Dylan, I would take it.”
“Then I must be a better person than you as I have no intention of leaving either of you behind.”
Jack hadn’t been lying to Dylan, but he hadn’t realized how true the words were until he said them. He would not leave here without her or her son.
“Oh, come off it, Jack,” Charlie said in exasperation. “I wouldn’t blame you for leaving us behind if you get the chance to go, but you will not fill my son’s head with empty promises. He’s already dealt with enough disappointments in his short life without you heaping more onto him.”
Did she really think so little of him that she believed he would do such a thing? But then, they’d only known each other for a matter of hours, and with her reaction to his promise, he suspected she hadn’t led a life that fostered much trust in others.
What happened to make her more cynical than him?
He was determined to find out the answer as he reached out to stroke the strands of hair that had fallen free of their knot. He’d hoped to calm her; instead, her eyes narrowed, and she looked about to knee him in the nuts.
“You may not believe me, and that’s fine because I am going to prove you wrong. I will not leave this island without you and Dylan.”
Charlie backed up when Jack stepped closer to her. She cursed herself when her heel connected with the wall; she’d left herself nowhere else to go. When Jack rested his hand on the wall beside her and leaned closer, her breath caught.
She’d vowed not to let him kiss her again, but with his lips so close, she couldn’t quite recall why. Then his mouth was on hers. As she strove to remember why this was such a terrible idea, her brain shut down and her body took over.
She rested her hands on his chest to shove him away, but instead of pushing him away, her fingers curled into his shirt as his tongue teased her lips. Why was her mouth opening, and why was she meeting each thrust of his tongue? Were those her fingers sliding beneath his shirt to trace the lean muscles of his stomach?
Dear God, must he have such amazing abs? The last of her resistance melted away as she melded her body against his. Her fingers hooked into the waistband of his jeans, and she dragged him closer.
Jack rested his other hand against the wall next to Charlie’s head and leaned into her. Her tongue entangled with his as he tasted her. When she drew him to her, he lowered his hands to her waist as she ground against his growing erection.
He gritted his teeth against coming when she rubbed herself more demandingly against him. Lifting her, Jack held her as she wrapped her legs around his waist. He pressed her against the wall as he lowered his hand to clasp her breast through her shirt. Smaller than his hand, it fit perfectly against his palm as he ran her nipple between his fingers.
This was entirely out of control, but Charlie found herself yearning for that loss of control. In Jack’s arms, she wasn’t under the control of her parents, or a terrified, pregnant teenage girl, or trapped on this island and facing death daily. In his arms, she was alive in ways she’d never been before.
Her fingers threaded through his hair as his hand continued to knead her breast before he turned his attention to the other one.
Tingles of pleasure raced up and down her spine. Unable to stop herself, she continued to rub against him until she was practically screwing him. And if there had been no clothes between them, she would have taken him inside her and rode him until they were both too tired to move.
Her fingers slid down his shirt. These clothes had to come off…
“Mom? Mom, are you down here?” Dylan called.
Charlie reacted as if she were hit by lightning. She broke the kiss, pushed Jack away from her, and leapt off him in one swift move. Straightening her clothes and hair, she got her hormones and body under control before replying to Dylan. She didn’t trust herself to speak yet, but Dylan’s footsteps crunched on the dirt as he came toward them.
“Yes, I’m here,” she called out in a voice that sounded high pitched and strange to her ears.
“I found a blanket and shirt for Jack,” Dylan said as he emerged from the shadows.
With his human eyes, he couldn’t see them, but Charlie saw the lines marring her son’s forehead as he searched for them. “Great,” she said with false cheeriness as she hurried forward to meet him. Arriving at his side, she rested her hand on his shoulder and took the blanket and black shirt from him. “Thank you.”
“Is everything okay?” Dylan asked.
“Yes,” she said. “Let me give this stuff to Jack, and then we’ll do some history quizzes.”
“Aww, Mom,” Dylan groaned and dug his toe into the dirt. “School doesn’t matter here.”
“It will once we’re off this island.” She saw the doubt in Dylan’s eyes, but he didn’t complain again. “I’ll be right back.”
She ruffled his hair before turning away and heading back to where she left Jack. “Here,” she said, handing the blanket and shirt to him.
The shirt had belonged to the security personnel, but then most of their clothes had once belonged to security. Occasionally, they salvaged clothes from the victims of the hunt. Jack’s expression was unreadable as he took the items from her.
“We all take turns with the watch and sleep in the main cavern,” she said. “I’ll send someone back here so you can feed; if you hurt them, we will kill you.”
She already knew it would be a man; the idea of sending a woman back here made her want to punch something—which only made her angrier. What was this strange effect this man had over her?
Whatever it was, it was over. The single life was the one for her, even if it meant she would be single forever instead of the fifty or so years she’d planned on.
“I would never hurt them,” he murmured.
Charlie had never been one for embarrassment or shyness, but she couldn’t hold his penetrating stare anymore. She turned away, but he gripped her wrist, drawing her attention back to him. There was something predatory in his gaze, but also something almost caring. She preferred the predatory to the caring. The caring was more lethal to her heart.
“I will get you off this island,” he promised.
Charlie tugged her wrist free. “If you really mean that, then make sure you get Dylan away from here first. He’s what matters.”
She turned on her heel and stalked away from him.
Chapter Eleven
Jack fell asleep in the main cavern with the blanket around him; he woke to find Dylan standing over him. The boy had his head tilted to the side, but when he saw Jack’s eyes open, he ducked his head, blushed, and scampered away to sit by the fire. Sheila glanced at Dylan before returning to skinning a rabbit. The man on the other side of the fire, Gio he recalled, was the one he fed on earlier.
He felt over his nose to discover it healed, but the slight crook and bump in it remained from when he’d broken it as a human. With his rib repaired too, he found it far easier to breathe.
Jack shoved himself up and looked around the cavern, but he didn’t see anyone else. “Where is everyone?” he asked. He wanted to ask where Charlie was, but he held it back.
“Guard duty,” Dylan said.
“How long do they stand guard?”
“Twelve hours.”
“How long have I been asleep?”
Dylan shrugged. “Longer than twelve hours.”
Jack tossed aside the blanket, which was just an assortment of clothes stitched together by what looked like some kind of plant, and rose. No one glanced at him as he walked toward one of the tunnels, but Mal slipped from the shadows and headed him off before Jack could follow Charlie’s lavender scent into the shaft.
“I would like to speak with you,” Mal murmured.
Jack almost protested, but it would only result in a fight, and he couldn’t fight with the vamp who created this place and took him in. But he wanted—no, he needed to see Charlie. Knowing she was out there made his chest feel tight, and it wouldn’t ease until he saw her and reassured himself that she was safe.
Jack followed Mal into another tunnel. “Walk where I do,” Mal said to him.
Dirt crunched beneath Jack’s feet as he carefully followed Mal’s steps. The beam of Mal’s flashlight revealed the tree roots dangling above and sticking out of the wall. The earthen scent of dirt was thick in his nostrils.
“Are there more tunnels branching off these main ones?” Jack asked as they walked.
“There are many things down here.”
Jack didn’t miss the evasiveness of Mal’s answer. Was it because he was the newcomer or was Mal always this way? If that was the case, then the guy was a complete douche, and Jack wouldn’t mind getting into a fight with him.
Jack started when he realized he was contemplating fighting someone who had done nothing to him and had offered him a safe place to stay. It took him a minute to realize his animosity toward Mal was because he was the one who changed Charlie.
What is wrong with me?
Many, many things, but this jealousy was a new one. Running a hand through his disheveled hair, Jack tugged on the ends of it as he tried to calm his inclination to grab Mal by the back of the head and hammer his face into the wall. He should be grateful the man kept Charlie alive, not contemplating beating him into a bloody pulp.
Why should I be grateful?
The question stunned him more than his desire to batter Mal. Why should he be grateful? Charlie was nothing to him and had been a giant pain in the ass since they met. Sure, the intensity of his lust for her was something new in a life he’d found pretty stagnate for a while, but so what?
Thankfully, he didn’t have to worry about trying to figure it out as Mal took a right-hand turn into another tunnel, and they entered a smaller cavern. This one was a ten-foot circle with a blanket against the far wall, some clothes, and a pile of weapons that included two rifles and a couple of handguns. He realized Mal had brought him to his room.
“Do the guns work?” Jack inquired as Mal turned to face him.
“Yes, and we have wooden bullets for them; not as many as I would like though.”
Jack didn’t know if this was a veiled threat or the facts, but his fangs pricked in response. “What are we doing here?”
“I wanted to learn more about you and how you came to be here.”
“Why?”
“Because there are nine others out there whose lives I’ve protected since taking them in and I’m going to continue doing so.”
Some of Jack’s animosity eased as he gazed at the vamp across from him. Was his jealousy clouding his judgment of this man? Mal seemed genuinely confused by Jack’s attitude toward him, and if he didn’t watch it, he’d find himself thrown back into the hunt or dead.
Taking a deep breath, Jack forced himself to relax and stop being so hostile—which wasn’t exactly easy as he wasn’t the friendliest person under the best of circumstances, never mind bad ones.
At one time, he’d been the one everyone wanted to be around; the class clown, the life of the party, and then that party came to a screeching halt. He’d planned to become a veterinarian, marry, have two kids and the white picket fence of the American Dream.
Instead, he�
�d gotten blood and death and the dread of being uncovered as a vampire and killed. He’d been in that bar with Mike and Doug because they were looking for a place to retreat if they had to flee their current home.
He would never trade the life he had for the one he dreamt of as a kid; his friends were his family, their children his nieces and nephews, and they had a good life. He just wished it wasn’t so violent and that he had more of a reason to wake up other than opening his eyes.
“What would you like to know?” Jack asked, his tone far less antagonistic.
“Where is the bar they took you from?”
Jack leaned against the wall as he told Mal about the bar and answered the rest of Mal’s questions. He gave very little details about his family; Mal was wary of him, and Jack was also uncertain about the pureblood, but he revealed all the details about how they were gassed and taken.
“Do you think your friends on this island are still alive?” Mal asked when Jack finished.
“Yes, and I’m going to find them.”
“We rarely go above while the hunt is on, and only when it’s necessary.”
“I’m not asking you or anyone else to go with me. I wouldn’t expect anyone to risk their lives to help me, but I have to find them. They may need help, and we have to figure out a way off this island.”
“I’ve tried everything to get off this island and failed. The only escape from this place is death.”
“Have you tried burning the whole thing down?” Jack inquired. “And watching them run like rats from the flames?”
Mal gave him a sad smile. “I did, actually. There was once a farmhouse beyond the barn. I set it on fire to create a distraction that might allow me to reach the boats.”
“It didn’t work.”
“No. They put the flames out far faster than I anticipated. They pumped water straight from the ocean and never pulled their guards from the beach where the boats are docked. I was hoping the fire would destroy everything on this island; it failed. Everything I’ve tried has failed.”
Jack refused to let this knowledge daunt him. Mal was not him, Mike, and Doug. The three of them would figure out something. He was not going to die on this block of land, and he would not let his friends or Charlie die here either.
Unforeseen: The Vampire Awakenings, Book 9 Page 7