Page 58 of Donovan
Rage and heartbreak warred inside me. My hands curled into fists, nails digging into my palms as I sucked in a sharp breath.
My first instinct was to chase him, to track him down and drag him back, to shake him and demand to know why the hell he thought leaving was the answer.
But then I felt it. A pull in my chest, steady and unbroken. The bond. He was still there.
Not physically, but metaphysically. The mark tethered us, an invisible thread that neither time nor distance could sever.
Declan knew that. He wasn’t truly leaving me. So why?
He trusted me, I realized. Declan believed I could handle Kit without him. I swallowed hard, forcing down the lump in my throat, and turned back to Kit.
He was still standing there, tense and on edge, his hands curled like he was moments away from reaching for a weapon. I didn’t have the patience for this.
“You need to listen to me,” I snapped, the sharpness in my voice enough to make Kit hesitate.
“I have listened,” he shot back. “And all I’ve heard is that you abandoned the Guild for a leech.”
I was in his face, my chest heaving.
“Don’t,” I growled. “Don’t call him that. You don’t know a single thing about him.”
Kit flinched, but his stubborn glare didn’t waver. “I know enough.”
“You don’t,” I bit out. “You don’t know what he’s done for me. You don’t know what he’s been through. And you don’t know what it’s like to have to choose between duty and someone you?—”
I cut myself off, breathing hard.
Kit’s expression shifted. Uncertainty crossed his face. I exhaled and forced my voice to steady.
“If our positions were reversed…if you were in love with someone the Guild called a monster…would you kill them? Would you end their life just to ‘save’ them?” I asked.
Kit’s frown deepened, and for the first time since this conversation started, he hesitated.
His lips pressed into a thin line, his eyes flickering with something that looked dangerously close to doubt.
For a second, I thought I had him. I thought I’d finally broken through, but then he shook his head. His expression hardened, and my stomach dropped.
“I have to report this,” he said, his voice flat. “To the Guild.”
My heart pounded. “Kit.”
“They sent me here for a reason, Donovan,” he cut me off, jaw tight. “I wasn’t just looking for you specifically. The Guild wanted me to investigate what happened to Declan’s team.”
He let the words sink in, then said, “We found them. Declan’s team.”
The world seemed to tilt.
Kit’s gaze was sharp, cutting. “Their bodies were in that barn.”
I inhaled sharply, something cold creeping down my spine.
“It doesn’t take a genius to figure out what happened. Declan was turned,” Kit continued. “Then he went rabid and wiped out his entire team.”
“No,” I said immediately. “No, that’s not what happened.”
Kit’s mouth curled in disbelief. “You weren’t there.”
“But I know,” I insisted. “It wasn’t him, Kit. You don’t know the whole story. There was a vampire. A rabid one. That thing killed the other hunters.”
