"I'll be back as soon as we find him," Jack vowed.
Hannah swallowed as she fought back her tears. Her hands encircled his forearms as she clung to him. She'd just found him and he was leaving already. He'd come back, she reminded herself. He hadn't said he loved her, but they were linked and they had created a bond between them that was irrevocable.
"Jack," she croaked out as a tear slid down her cheek.
"Don't cry Hannah," he whispered as his thumb brushed the tear away. "I promise I'll be back for you as soon as I'm able to return."
He tilted her chin up and kissed her so tenderly that she forgot all about her trepidation over his leaving. A flood of emotions burst open within her like a morning glory opening to the rising sun. Her lips were trembling when he pulled away from her.
"I'll always come back for you. I love you Hannah."
Her eyes flew up to his, joy suffused her as she swayed instinctively closer to his large frame. She hadn't realized how badly she had longed to hear those words, or how much they would mean to her, until he said them. "I love you too Jack," she breathed.
She had only a second to bask in the warmth of his smile before he was kissing her again with far more intensity than he'd exhibited before. Her tongue had just touched upon his when he pulled back abruptly.
"I could get lost in you for hours, days even, and when I get back that's exactly what I mean to do," he promised her.
Despite the ghastly events of the night, the tone of his husky voice, and the promise behind his words, caused her to tremble. "I'm going to hold you to that," she whispered.
He kissed her nose tenderly before stepping away and pulling her from the room. Lucas must have summoned Marvin to the tavern as the fangless vampire was standing with Braith by the back door. "Is this everyone you're taking with you?" Hannah demanded.
"I have more troops in the surrounding towns. We will gather some of them to join us as we move; I prefer to leave the men already in this town here with you and we will be sending more back," Braith answered with a look at Aria.
"I see," Hannah muttered.
Jack smiled down at her and squeezed her hand before kissing her briefly one more time and stepping out the door with his brother. Hannah stood with Aria, watching as the group disappeared in a rapid blur into the forest behind the tavern. Though she knew Jack would do everything he could to come back to her, she couldn't stop the misgivings that were already twisting her belly into knots.
CHAPTER 22
The rays of the sun bursting over the horizon didn't ease the tension Jack felt growing in his belly. He rubbed absently at his chest as they rounded the top of a mountain and paused to take in the peaks and valleys that spread out before them. The sun shone over the tops of the trees and glimmered off of a distant lake as streaks of pink, orange, and purple lit the sky. It was beautiful, but he barely paid it any attention. His thoughts remained on Hannah, and the growing feeling of being bitten by fire ants that being separated from her was causing his body.
"It will get easier to deal with," Braith said from beside him.
"What will?" he asked absently.
Braith turned his attention back to the valley below them. "The discomfort that comes from being separated from her, it never truly eases but you become better able to deal with it."
"Sounds almost like grief in that way."
Braith tilted his head to study him. "I suppose it does, but that's not something I have to tell you about though."
Jack held Braith's unrelenting gaze for a minute. "No you don't. How did you know about Hannah?"
Braith's eyebrows shot into his hairline as he released a harsh bark of laughter. "You think I would miss the signs. You're irritable, overbearing, protective, and though it's mostly faded I can see the bite mark on your neck."
Jack's hand flew to his neck as he scowled at his older brother. "I could say the same to you!"
Braith shrugged. "You could, except I no longer feel the vulnerability that comes from others knowing what Aria and I share. It will take some time but you adjust to it. You've had over nine hundred years to live one way and now some woman has walked in and turned your entire life upside down in the space of a second."
"But it was a good second."
Braith released a low chuckle as he nodded. "That it was."
"I'm sorry I took Aria from you. I wouldn't have done anything differently, I couldn't have, but I am sorry for what I put the two of you through. I've never told you that before. I understand what you had to endure now, why you became so volatile and did what you did after she was gone. I wish I'd never driven you to such extreme measures."
He'd almost forgotten how piercing Braith's gaze could be. "You saved Aria's life, that's all that matters. Plus, you're getting a little bit of payback now."
"I suppose I am. Hannah is going to drive me crazy."
"Yes, she will," Braith confirmed with a chuckle. "But it will be worth it."
"It already is." Jack turned his attention back to the mountains. "Do you think we're gaining on them?"
Braith closed his eyes as he knelt and rested his fingers on the ground. A hundred years of being blind had honed Braith's other senses far more than Jack's, and the senses of the other vampires that they had gathered around them. Jack waited impatiently for Braith's response as his brother rose to his full height and opened his eyes.
"This way," he directed and nodded to the left.
Although they had moved through the night at a ruthless pace that had put them over two hundred miles away from the tavern, no one protested as Braith led them into the woods again. "How is your vision?" Jack asked as he leapt over a boulder and landed noiselessly upon the forest floor.