Page 22 of Taken by the Ripper (Time for Monsters #9)

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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.

However, it seemed as if she was the only one in their little trio who hadn’t known. She’d been played the fool. Pining after the handsome detective and longing for the creature of the night.

How much was the truth?

How much was a lie?

And if Jack the Ripper and Detective La Cour were the same person… Was he simply putting up appearances and telling lies to keep the police off his tail? Quite literally? Or was something more sinister going on?

“Ugh,” he groaned as he tried to sit with great effort, clutching his face with one hand as if it pained him. One human hand. He was no longer a ghoul. For now. “My head hurts.”

“Shh,” she cautioned as she placed a hand on his chest and gently pushed him back into a supine position. Every pore in her body wanted to scream at him, to demand answers. But he was injured. Yelling and arguing might only make things worse. “Try not to move until I assess that head injury.”

“Clara?” His eyes fluttered open, but his stare remained unfocused as he tried but failed to maintain eye contact. “What are you doing here? Where are we…”

He trailed off, blinking heavily as he scanned their surroundings. After a moment, he swore and tried to sit up again, but he quickly collapsed into her shoulder when he couldn’t keep himself upright. Still, he stuck out an arm as if to shield her from…from what, exactly?

“Stay still, I said,” she growled as she turned his head to the side to inspect his wound.

The side of his head bled profusely. He’d hit it hard.

Or perhaps someone had bashed it in. “And while you’re at it,” she said in an accusatory tone when she just couldn’t help herself, “bring back Jack. We’ll need him. ”

“Jack?” he slurred, reaching out to her but missing several times until his hand brushed against her knee. “Clara, this looks like a vampire den. We have to escape.”

Clara sat up straighter and stared at him with wide eyes. Shock coursed through her the moment she made the realization, the very instant she connected the missing pieces of the intricate puzzle together.

Claude La Cour didn’t know he was Jack the Ripper.

No, no, no. She must be mistaken! Either she’d hit her head, and it had been Claude the entire time in the prison with her, or somehow, Jack and Claude had traded places. They couldn’t possibly be the same person. It made no sense for him to have no memory of a beastly transformation.

Or Claude could be lying…

The thought struck her and clung on tight, refusing to abate.

She desperately wanted to believe she hadn’t been played the fool, that she hadn’t been so desperate for love that she’d allowed herself to get sucked into a lie.

The evidence lay in front of her. The mystery had unraveled.

And now she would make him answer for it.

She pointed a menacing finger in his face, her nostrils flaring. “Do you take me for a fool, detective? What game are you playing?”

Claude leaned up on his elbow but groaned and quickly squeezed his eyes shut.

“What game am I playing?” he finally gasped, his brows furrowed with pain.

“I should ask you the same question. I got your warning and then saw you outside The Ten Bells. You were…panicked. And then I realized why. I called after you. I followed you, tried to keep you from following danger.”

“And then what happened?” she hissed, her gaze raking up and down his long form.

His opposite hand pinched the bridge of his nose as if trying to ward off an ache gathered there.

“And then I woke up here.” He dropped his hand and leveled her with a weary, bloodshot stare.

“I don’t remember getting clubbed on the back of the head, but that’s the only explanation for this. ” He gestured to their surroundings.

She was unconvinced that was all that happened.

“You’re not telling me everything, and you know it. Tell me now, or we’re through.”

He lifted an eyebrow. “So there’s a we ? Last I was informed, you chose the monster over me.”

“You infuriate me! I am infuriated!”

“Hush!” He scanned the room with a careful sweep of his gaze. “We don’t want to attract attention.”

“It’s too late for that.” She crossed her arms and leveled him with a waiting stare. “I need to know the truth. What really happened after you followed me?”

Claude sighed and shifted, wincing again after the action seemed to pain him.

“I suppose I have not been completely forthright.” He dragged a finger along the scar that struck through one side of his mouth and out the other.

His demon’s kiss. “My line of work is not without its risks. I have never told anyone how I got this, but I suppose you deserve the truth.”

Her gaze darted to the scar across his mouth, and her cheeks filled with heat when she remembered what that mouth had felt like against hers, what it had tasted like.

He continued, “I was aiding one of my colleagues with hunting a banshee in Ireland several years back. The assignment was supposed to be easy what with how much information we already had on the creature. But…” His gaze appeared far away as if he were someplace other than the prison cage.

“Things went sideways. My colleague was killed, and I was left fighting for my life. This scar…” He ran a finger over his mouth again.

“It’s from a ghoul, a sort of pet the banshee liked to keep. ”

“What happened?” she whispered, enraptured with his tale.

“I only remember bits and pieces of that fateful night. The vampire. The banshee. My bleeding face. The leg they shattered when I attempted to escape. I hardly remember a thing. Therefore, when I showed up at the office in Paris, everyone was astounded to see me. I wasn’t sure how I got there, only that I did. ”

Clara thought back on what she’d only recently discovered about the Ripper. The story matched. Perhaps he was not lying after all.

But instead of giving him the benefit of her testimony, she waited.

With a sigh, he ran a hand over his face and managed to push himself into a straighter sitting position.

“Since then, I cannot remember anything past sundown. I am only lucid at sunrise. This explains why I can’t remember how I got here.

I assume the vampires must have caught me in my unconscious state.

Like I said, my line of work is dangerous, and it makes me plenty of enemies. ”

Oh.

Everything made sense now. Claude. Jack. Why she’d never seen the Ripper at any time other than nighttime. He’d once said that he succumbed to a deep sleep during the day. Perhaps it was because he was no longer himself. Or rather, he was in another form entirely. One unaware of his existence.

Her gaze roamed over Claude to try to find any similarities between the two, and she found them in the shape of his eyes, in the sweep of his hair, in the long stretch of his hands.

Did Jack have a demon’s kiss just like Claude?

She couldn’t recall when she’d mainly seen him in the darkness or with shadows flickering across his dark form.

“The Ripper—Jack—asked me to steal the files and destroy them,” she admitted. “He told me you would understand later after your initial anger.” She released a shaky breath. “Now I understand. He was protecting you. ”

Claude’s eyebrows furrowed. “I don’t understand. The only explanation is that he was trying to cover up his trail, to make it harder for me to find him.”

She released a humorless laugh as she placed her hand on his chest and shook her head.

“No, no, no, no, no. Claude, listen to me. You were protecting yourself . Jack was protecting Claude.” Another shaky breath.

“During those times when you blackout, you transition into the very thing you hunt. You become a ghoul.”

For a long few moments, he stared at her with disbelief, and then the corners of his eyes crinkled with amusement.

“Plenty of insane things have happened in my line of work, but I think I’d remember if I transitioned into a ghoul every night.

Even werewolves retain the ability to remember their shifts, even if they don’t always remember what happened after the fact. ”

“I saw you, Claude,” she murmured. “You did not enter this cell as a human.”

Now he stared at her, the amusement completely erased from his expression. “I would have remembered.”

This time, it sounded as if he were trying to convince himself.

Softly, she traced the outline of his ragged shirt where it lay open to reveal half his chest. The world caved in on them.

All sounds seemed to disappear. It was only the two of them.

“Don’t you remember us?” she asked in hardly a whisper, tracing the skin peeking out beneath his collarbones.

“How you visited me time and again at night? How you kissed me?” She swallowed and dared to lift her gaze. “How you made love to me?”

“I…” He cradled her hand in both of his and spoke in a raspy voice. “I don’t remember.”

“Perhaps not, but…” Taking a deep breath, she soldiered on.

“But I think you know. You told me that the moment you saw me, the moment you caught my scent in that alleyway when you saved me from those vampires, you knew I was your mate. And in your human form, you told me you felt a strong urge to protect me, but you weren’t entirely sure why. ”

Again, he squeezed his eyes shut as if the confusion and disorientation was too much to handle.

“I just don’t remember, Clara. It can’t possibly be true.

” He shook his head in disbelief before he opened his eyes and stared at their hands.

“All the people I might have hurt. The people I might have killed… I can’t believe it. I don’t want to believe it.”

She pulled her hand out of his grip, her shoulders slumping with heartache. Sure, she knew Jack loved her. But did it count if only half of him cared?

“You killed those women to prevent the ghoul infection from spreading,” she murmured. “ Jack killed them. He—you—had no choice.”

“Infection? What infection?” When she traced the scar over his mouth, his eyes widened with realization. “I was infected all those years ago. Created. By that ghoul. That’s how… That’s why…”

Quirking her mouth to the side, she replied, “I don’t know how it works. I only know what you’ve told me.”

He stood suddenly, enough for the blood to likely rush from his head and make him dizzy. He reached out to catch himself on the bars, but she quickly snatched his hand away from the metal and used her own weight to support him.

“Don’t touch them,” she warned. “A vampire said it would poison a ghoul.”

She stood on her tiptoes to survey the damage done to his head, but to her shock, the wound was smaller than it had been only minutes ago. Whatever ghoul tendencies raced through his blood, he healed quickly.

Just to be sure, she took her discarded cloth that lay on the floor and dabbed at his wound. He winced but remained silent through her administration. She should have done this the moment he’d stepped foot in the cell, but she’d been too shocked. Curses! She was a nurse for Pete’s sake.

However, very little blood came back on the cloth, especially compared to how much red coated one side of his hair, dried as a drip down his skin, and soaked into the collar of his shirt.

Despite being covered in blood and a few bruises, she’d never been more attracted to him.

Because now she knew he was her ghoul. Her dear, beloved ghoul.

They would get through this. They had to.

“What do we do Claude?” she asked, her shoulders slumping with despairing defeat. “What are we supposed to do?”

He reached for her, and her heart warmed with sudden relief as he threaded his fingers through hers.

“This is not my first shot of whiskey,” he replied, the intense blue of his eyes boring into her in the most pleasant manner.

Yes, his eyes were the same as Jack’s, only a different color.

How had she not noticed before? “I have an idea.”