Page 16 of Taken by the Ripper (Time for Monsters #9)

C

lara knew she’d made a mess of things. She just didn’t know how bad until she hadn’t heard from Claude for days, which turned into a week. And she hadn’t seen an inkling of Jack, either.

“What is wrong with me?” she murmured to herself, running a hand down her cheek after a long day.

She’d never been so focused on men in her life.

They distracted her from her patients and earning the living her family desperately needed, and they distracted her now.

She needed to focus. No more fantastical thoughts or wayward emotions.

And certainly, no more men.

She released a long sigh as she tidied up the newest available cot in the infirmary, placing supplies in the drawer and smoothing down clean sheets with her hand. The cot would be filled by tomorrow, without a doubt. They never stayed empty for long.

Behind her, the curtain drew open and closed with a hiss. Clara spun around, one hand to her heart while she reached for a scalpel with the other. But before her fingers closed around the small item, her arm dropped to her side in shock.

The Ripper stood a few paces away, his arm wrapped around his torso while his chest heaved with each labored breath he took. Thick, black liquid coated his hands and dripped between his fingers, and only then did she realize what it was.

Blood.

“Jack!” she gasped, abandoning her fear to rush toward him. Concern pushed out any previous caution as she pulled his hand away just enough to reveal the deep gash in his torso and the blood spilling out.

She thrust a wadded cloth onto the wound and instructed him to apply pressure while she hastily sifted through her medical supplies located in the drawer beside the empty cot.

The wound appeared deep, and a part of her feared he might either bleed out or faint from blood loss if she moved too slowly.

The heavens only knew she couldn’t lift his massive body enough to move him somewhere safe and discreet before the police found him and killed him on sight.

“Clara!” Norma shouted from the opposite side of the room. She froze. “Where are the extra bandages? I thought we ordered more last week.”

Taking a deep breath, Clara answered as calmly as possible while maintaining eye contact with Jack’s yellow, beastly eyes, “I haven’t had the chance to put them away. They’re still in the crate.”

Several moments passed with Clara holding her breath, hoping her sister would stay away from the curtain.

But then Norma replied, “Ah! Found them. Mrs. Griffon is in need of a change of bandages. If you are busy, I think I can manage it.”

Busy? Jack mouthed with the quirk of his brow and the faintest smirk on his lips despite the evident agony in his expression.

She pointed a finger at him and mouthed back, I will smack you.

And then she cleared her throat to answer, “I appreciate the help, Norma. I have to see to a patient, but then I’ll return shortly.”

Or perhaps not so shortly. It was a bad wound.

Realizing she couldn’t perform the stitches in the infirmary without putting Norma at risk of finding out about the Ripper, she snatched Jack’s hand and slipped out of the curtain when her sister’s back was turned and rushed down the hallway into the darker corridor leading into the private section of the estate.

Jack followed behind without a single complaint, his labored steps the only indication of his discomfort.

In a sudden, disorienting movement, Jack took her by the waist, spun her quick enough for wind to whip through her hair, and pinned her quietly against the wall in the corner of the hallway where the darkest shadows lingered.

Her breath hitched. Heat flushed through her body at his sudden nearness. No, it most certainly wasn’t fear coursing through her veins. It was excitement. Anticipation.

And…

Oh, dear.

She’d made a mess of things. She needed to tell him about what had happened with Claude.

“Jack,” she whispered, afraid to disturb the stillness of the moment as her hand came to rest on the sturdy muscles of his chest. But as she lifted her head to meet his eye, she found him staring intensely at the wall instead. “I need to tell you—”

“Hush.” He placed a finger to her lips, and that’s when she made out the sound of quiet footsteps.

Mazie turned the corner, dressed in day clothes despite the late hour with a shawl and bonnet to match. She held her boots in her hands, walking the estate with only stockinged feet as if not wanting to get caught.

Although she was coming rather than going, she was still returning home two hours past dark. And the night was dangerous.

Clara attempted to push away from Jack to confront Mazie, but he shook his head and held her still as her sister slipped past and tiptoed down the hallway.

After a few moments, the door to Mazie’s bedroom clicked shut.

She hadn’t even seen them. But then again, it was difficult to see Jack in the darkness.

“She’s been going out on her own!” Clara hissed, gesturing down the hallway. “At night. What if…what if…” A shuddering breath escaped her as she envisioned what could happen. Would Jack have to deal with her, too, should the vampires infect her?

Frantically turning her attention back to him, she said, “You can’t hurt her. If she gets infected, you can’t kill her. Promise me. Promise me!”

“Nothing will happen,” he murmured, shifting a strand of hair out of her face with his claw. “I will deal with these vampires, and the streets will be a little bit safer.”

The reminder of the vampires brought her attention back to his wound. Not wanting him to suffer and bleed out any longer, she grabbed his hand, led him down the opposite end of the hallway, and ushered him through her bedroom door.

She struck a tinderbox and lit a lantern, illuminating the room enough to view his wound. It was deep. But perhaps not so deep that he would suffer from internal damage.

Immediately, she got to work as she snatched the chair in front of her vanity and ushered him to sit. His vast size in her little chair amused her, especially when he looked entirely out of place.

Next, she set out clean cloths, a sterilized needle, catgut thread, and carbolic acid as a disinfectant.

She threw on an apron and hastily tied it at the back before slipping on rubber gloves.

Growing up, her father had never used gloves, as it had not become a practice for physicians until later.

But if she could keep her hands clean and her patients safe, she would take whatever precautions necessary.

Besides, if Jack’s blood was capable of infecting women through consumption, she couldn’t dare risk even the slightest bit touching her lips or even the smallest open wound.

“You certainly know what you’re doing.” Jack grunted, the skin around his eyes crinkling as he winced.

“I may have done this once or twice,” she jested as she sat in front of him and began cleaning the wound with water and a cloth. The water was cold, straight from her basin. But she couldn’t risk boiling a pot downstairs lest Norma catch her in the act. It was better to avoid questions altogether.

But as she cleaned the blood away, she frowned at what she found. The wound was straight enough to suggest it had happened from some sort of blade, but slightly jagged to indicate it may not have been a clean, sharp, and well-kept weapon.

“You need to stay.” After checking to make sure the skin was the only thing damaged, she began the first suture. His only indication of pain was a slight wince. “At least until you recover. I can help you here.”

He shook his head. “I can’t stay.”

“Of course.” She sighed and shook her head. “Demons to fight and vampires to slay. Am I wrong?” And then she nodded toward his wound. “Is that how you got this?”

She glanced up briefly to find him pressing his lips together in admittance. One of his sharp canines peeked through those lips. “I was ambushed. Perhaps I was not careful enough because they knew I was coming.”

“This is a knife wound, Jack.”

“And now they have more of my blood.” His shoulders slumped with defeat. “There will be more victims. I’m afraid I won’t be able to stop Whitechapel from being overrun with ghouls after all.”

Silence fell between them as she performed her duties as a physician.

Prick, tug. Prick, tug. Until slowly, the wound came together nicely, and the bleeding stopped.

She finished tying off the last stitch and cut the catgut with scissors before applying the antiseptic paste, layering it on thick.

He needed it after what he’d gone through.

After concluding her medical administration, she pinched his burly arm hard enough for him to gasp.

“Clara! Why did you—”

“I can’t tell if you’re brave or an idiot! They got more of your blood because you’re still here. If you left the city, this wouldn’t be an issue.”

“Left this city?” he scoffed. He pushed himself to his feet and began pacing back and forth across the room while she packed her supplies away. “I can’t leave. You don’t understand.”

“Why is the concept so difficult? Why, Jack?”

“Because!” He threw his hands up in the air and spun to face her. “Because you’re here. And I refuse to leave you.”

He moved so suddenly that she could hardly follow his movements with her eyes. One moment, he was across the room. And the next, he wrapped an arm around her waist, pinned her against the wall…

And kissed her.

This time, the burning inferno couldn’t be contained between them. She lost all sense of time and place as the rightness of their bond seemed to click into place once again, and this time she wanted it to stay.

His deft claws pulled on the tie to her apron to loosen it before shrugging it over her head. And before she found a single moment to catch her breath, her hair fell around her shoulders after he took the pins out.

He pulled her flush against his body and kissed her neck. She gasped, bracing herself against his solid chest.

“I kissed Claude!” she said breathlessly, not wanting to keep it a secret from him. “To distract him to take the files. I kissed him. I’m sorry.”

Instead of responding with anger, he chuckled against her throat, his lips moving from her jawline to her collarbone. “I don’t care. But you’re mine now.”

The flicker of disappointment over the thought of never kissing Claude again after this vanished with the heat of Jack’s warm lips on hers. His hands touched her gently but with a barely restrained passion, as if he wanted to be rougher but didn’t want to hurt her.

Another gasp escaped her as he pinned her hands above her head against the wall, his chest heaving as he gazed down at her with a desire to match her own. Slowly, his tail snaked around her waist, the tip barely brushing against her cheek. It was sweet. Intimate. Impossible.

And she wanted more.

“I want to make you my mate in every sense of the word.” His low, rumbling voice caressed her ears like a pleasant whisper. “Deny me now, and I will walk away. But if we go any farther, I don’t think I can stop.”

With her hands pinned, she couldn’t touch him the way she wanted, so she settled on winding her leg around his and pulling him closer at the knee.

In an equal whisper, she replied, “Then make me yours.”

Before the last word even left her mouth, he swooped her up in a quick movement until she rested inside his arms. It took all her willpower not to squeal in surprise.

Instead, she clamped her mouth shut to prevent one of her sisters from hearing her.

Honestly, she needn’t have bothered when Jack’s lips returned to hers, muffling each contented sigh and whispered word of affection.

She found herself hardly aware of her surroundings as the ghoul shuffled around the room in agile movements.

The soft mattress of the bed met her back, momentarily snapping her out of her euphoria long enough to remember he was injured.

They shouldn’t be doing this. No matter how much either of them might want to.

“I just stitched you up.” Her fingers lightly caressed his abdomen above the sutures. “Your doctor will not be happy should you tear them.”

“I’ll be careful.”

“But your wound!”

“Is inconsequential to me compared to this.” Sharp yet gentle claws caressed her face from temple to chin. “You are more important to me.”

“You are insane,” she breathed, enjoying the pleasant warmth his body offered from where it hovered over her.

A grin quirked at the corner of his mouth. “Then what does that make you?”

Her quiet laughter transitioned into a shuddering breath as his lips trailed across her collarbones, and as her dress loosened around her shoulders, between her breasts.

Never in her life had she experienced such heat and warmth and desire.

Being insane was the least of her worries, but she couldn’t find a single care to back it.

A trail of simmering heat followed in the wake of his touch as his hands traveled over her arms, her waist, her legs, made hotter wherever his lips touched her skin.

Along with the desire to be touched, she wanted to explore him as well.

Her fingers grazed the hard muscles of his arms, his shoulders, and then she more daringly buried her fingers into his black hair.

His accompanying sigh gave her more courage to pull back on the dark strands to expose the cords of muscle on his neck.

And when she brushed her lips along his throat, something between a whimper and a growl escaped his mouth.

“You will be the death of me, mon amour ,” he murmured with a wild look in his yellow eyes. “And I will walk into that death willingly if it means you will remain here in my arms.”

“Stop talking about death,” she laughed, smacking his arm. “It’s morbid.”

“I thought you enjoyed morbid things. Morbid or romantic, there’s no telling with you.”

The faintest memory sparked in her mind, but she couldn’t latch on fast enough before Jack distracted her with another kiss. And then another. Until she fully lost herself in his touch, in the scent of him.

“Will this infect me?” she asked huskily, arms braced against his shoulders.

“If you drink my blood, then perhaps.” A smirk grew across his face. “But even I am not that tarty.”

She laughed, but the sound was promptly cut off by his kiss.

A contented sigh escaped her as she wrapped her arms around his neck and arched her back to bring herself closer to him.

This blossoming feeling inside of her… She dared not call it love, especially when she hardly understood it herself. But…

A smile broke free on her lips against his mouth. The thought most certainly occurred to her that this could bloom into something raw and beautiful and utterly romantic.

Yes, he may be a monster. But he was her monster. And nothing else mattered.