Page 44 of Taken By the Ripper
After the vampires spoke in low tones to one another, they left the room as if they had pressing matters to attend to now that they had the blood they needed.
“Youwere in danger!” he replied in a slurred tone. “I don’t care about the rest of the city when you are the one I cannot live without.”
“I thought you were supposed to be a hero,” she jested, tears of both hurt and relief falling down her cheeks as she lightly stroked his face.
“Beasts are never heroes. They are the ones everybody wants to call a villain.”
“You aremyhero then,” she whispered.
“I couldn’t save you.”
“You came after me when no one else would. For years, I have been healing and saving lives, and not one of those people would care to do the same for me. But you did.”
He grunted and tried to sit, though she wasn’t sure if it was because he was in pain or if he had nothing to say on the matter.
Clara noticed the blood coating Jack’s abdomen, where he must have ripped open his stitches, and the discoloration of his skin. But what drew her gaze was the sheen of black dripping from his head and trailing down his neck. She gasped, her fingers fluttering over the wound. “Jack, you’re injured.”
When she reached for his head, he winced. “My name is not Jack. I should have told you long ago. But it was dangerous.”
His words became slurred, and his body unbalanced. As he tipped heavily to one side, she caught him and helped lay him on the ground, away from the bars of the cage that might injure him. The head wound looked bad, but without getting a closer look, she wasn’t sure justhowbad.
She reached for his head again, but he lightly batted her hand away.
“Jack,” she murmured quietly, glancing around her to make sure they were still alone. “You need medical attention. I can help.”
He shook his head and hissed through his sharp teeth. “You need the truth.” He winced again. “But first, we need to get you out of here. You need to stand directly beneath sunlight. That way, the vampires can’t touch you.”
“And you?” she asked, her voice breaking. “You think I will leave you at the vampires’ mercy? And Mazie? I don’t care what happens to me as long as she is safe.”
“Icare about what happens to you!” he thundered, but the outburst caused him to tip again as if losing consciousness. If he lost any more blood, he would certainly keel over soon. The next words from his mouth were so slurred that she hardly made sense of them. “You are my mate.Icare about what happens to you. And I could not stand idle while you were in danger. I love you.”
Her eyes widened, and her hand flew to her heart. For several long beats, she stared back at him in disbelief, wondering if she’d misheard his confession when he was only half-conscious.
But no. He looked at her with enough clarity in his yellow eyes for her to know the truth. He’d meant those words. He loved her.
“Jack,” she whispered.
Weakly, his hand grasped hers and squeezed with very little strength. “That is not my name. Forgive me, Clara. I never wanted to deceive you like this.”
She opened her mouth to ask after his meaning, but then the faintest sliver of sunlight entered through the barred windows near the ceiling, officially ending the terrors of the night and pulling her into a brand-new day.
The stream of sunlight touched her shoulder like the faintest hope in a vat of darkness. A torturous hope. Because even as she reached out to touch its thin warmth, she could not grasp it within her hands. It wasn’t enough sunlight to defeat one vampire, let alone an entire den.
She turned back to Jack. Her heart leaped to her throat when his large mass was missing as if he’d dissolved into the sunlight himself.
But then she noticed the smaller heap in his place. That person groaned and shifted, and her nursing instincts reared its head as she scrambled toward the man on her hands and knees. She grabbed his partially bare shoulder and turned him from his stomach to his back.
A hiss of shock escaped her as if the mere contact with him burned her hand. She recognized the man’s tall, intimidating frame. His angular face. The demon’s kiss striking a scar through his mouth. And as he blearily opened his eyes, she knew the intense blue staring back at her, as she’d seen it many times.
Despite the dirt coating the blond of his hair and the usual elegant swoop in a mess of dirty strands, she knew him. Without a doubt.
He was the detective apparently trying to solve his own case.
Claude La Cour.
C
lara knelt back on her heels and stared at Claude with disbelief burning in her eyes. Disbelief. Shame. Anger. Shock. All this time, both Jack and Claude had been pursuing her. And all this time, they had been the same person.
