Chapter 34

Chapter 34

“What the hell happened?” Jacob asked as he walked into the living room while Kale stood there, staring down at the silver necklace sending sharp pain through his palm and-

“FUCK!” Kale roared as he threw the necklace that he never should have brought into the fucking house across the room as the memory of Ashley sobbing his name as she begged him not to leave her played through his head. She’d been hurt because of him! Kale thought as he grabbed a chair and threw it, slamming it against the wall where it broke apart, destroying the wall in the process.

Jacob looked from the wall that he’d destroyed to the pizza he’d dropped on the floor last night when he’d heard her scream before settling a curious look back on him as he said, “Ashley’s going to be pissed when she sees this.”

“Shut up,” Kale said hollowly, ramming his throbbing hand through his hair as he looked for something else to throw.

He wanted to fucking kill something.

“She glared at me for a whole day when I accidentally brushed against the wall while the paint was drying. I’d hate to see what she’s going to do to you after she sees what you did,” Jacob said with a sad shake of his head and a long-suffering sigh as he reached down and grabbed the pizza off the floor.

“What the hell are you doing here?” Kale demanded only to drop his hand away with a sigh and cross the room to clean the mess that he’d just made, knowing that Ashley would be upset to see the house that she’d worked so hard to turn into a home destroyed.

“You mean besides watching you have a mental breakdown?” Jacob asked, dropping down on the couch with a heavy sigh as he flipped the lid back and helped himself to a slice of cold pizza.

“Besides that,” Kale said as he stacked the pieces of broken wood near the fireplace as he listened for any signs that Ashley was awake, only to release a shaky breath when he heard her soft even breaths, letting him know that she was still asleep.

“Came to see what was going on,” Jacob said around a mouthful of pizza as he watched Kale pick up the necklace and toss it into the small trashcan in the corner.

“It turns out that you were right. Ashley is an Impure. After she shifted, she got curious and decided to find out what would happen if she touched silver,” Kale said, watching as Jacob paused mid-chew to frown as he scented the air and-

“Oh, fuck,” Jacob said as his gaze darted back to the trashcan. “What happened?”

“It took her fucking hand off,” Kale said hollowly.

“Shit,” Jacob said, tossing the pizza aside as he moved to go check on her only to stop when Kale said, “Let her sleep.”

“How the hell did it take her hand off?” Jacob asked, rubbing his hands roughly down his face as Kale dropped down in the chair that he’d come to think of as his.

“I don’t know,” Kale said absently as he struggled not to think about the terror on Ashley’s face when she’d realized what was happening to her hand.

He’d never felt more helpless than he had in that moment, not even when he’d been forced to watch as Aine was-

“Do you think it has something to do with her Ion blood?” Jacob asked only to add, “Word spreads quickly in the Williams household. It wasn’t difficult to figure out who Christofer’s sister was,” at Kale’s questioning look.

“I think it fucked with her shifter side, keeping it dormant until she was strong enough to handle the transition, and fucking with her DNA in the process so that her reaction to silver was a thousand times worse than it should have been,” Kale explained even as he couldn’t help but wonder what else her father’s blood had altered.

He needed to find out.

“Christofer is pissed,” Jacob said conversationally as he returned his attention to the slice of pizza in his hand. “He went looking for the assholes that put her in the hospital and wasn’t happy to find out that someone else had already handled it.”

“They deserved to die,” Kale pointed out, wishing that he could do it all over again for what they did to her. They threw her down a stairwell, breaking every fucking bone in her body and left her for dead.

“True,” Jacob murmured, sounding thoughtful as he finished off the slice of pizza and grabbed another one. “The Council wasn’t happy to find out that two humans had been killed, but then again, I’m assuming that it was her mate that tore them apart so there’s really not much that they can do about it,” he murmured thoughtfully around a bite of pizza.

“Shifters are allowed to protect their mates,” Kale pointed out, watching the other shifter as he looked for any signs that he’d already fucked him over by going to the Council. It wouldn’t be the first time that he’d been fucked over by someone that he’d trusted.

“I’m not a fucking traitor, asshole,” Jacob said, correctly guessing where Kale’s thoughts had gone as he shrugged it off since being fucked over to the highest bidder was part of the job.

“Do they know that she’s alive?” Kale asked even as his attention shifted back to Ashley to make sure that she was still asleep.

Shaking his head, Jacob finished off another slice of pizza as he said, “They think she’s dead, which makes me wonder what the plans for her are now.”

“The same as before. To keep her safe,” Kale said, barely resisting the urge to go upstairs and pull Ashley into his arms when he heard her whimper in her sleep.

Frowning, Jacob said, “You can’t keep her locked away forever.”

“Watch me,” Kale said firmly because there was no fucking way that he was going to risk something happening to her, not when he knew that he wouldn’t survive losing her.

“You don’t think that she’ll want to go back out into the world once she has control of her abilities?”

“It doesn’t matter what she wants.”

“Is that what her mate wants?” Jacob asked, throwing him a questioning look.

“He just wants her out of the picture,” Kale said, shrugging it off like he didn’t care when this was killing him knowing that she was going to end up hating him one day, but he couldn’t risk something happening to her.

For a moment, Jacob sat there, watching him before shifting his attention back to the slice of pizza in his hand. “You’re making a mistake,” he said quietly, looking lost in thought.

“It’s just another job,” Kale said, forcing the words out of his mouth.

“She’s your mate, Kale,” Jacob said, taking him by surprise.

“How did you know?” Kale asked, wondering if the shifter had any idea what Kale would do to him if he failed to protect her.

“She makes you smile,” Jacob said, shooting him a wink only to chuckle when Kale narrowed his eyes dangerously on the little bastard. “Well, that and I noticed that you started wearing your watch on your right arm, so I checked when you were passed out,” he added with a shrug.

When Kale continued to glare, Jacob chuckled as he grabbed the last slice of pizza as he asked, “Does she know?”

“Not yet,” Kale said since he had absolutely no idea how he was going to make her fall in love with him.