BPOV

It didn't take me long to run back to the Officer's tent inside the camp to grab the duffel bag I had brought with me. As angry and hurt as I was with the Major, I would still follow his instructions. He was my superior officer, after all.

Superior officer or not though, that didn't negate the very complicated feelings I had towards the man. Everything he had said earlier was right. There was no sense in denying it. I had fucked up. Badly. I had underestimated my opponent and gotten myself into a situation I couldn't get out of by believing that I could out maneuver Maria and the Romanians, but I had forgotten that I was still a child compared to their centuries of life and they had more experience in this than I did. My ego was more than a little bruised at the revelation and I was still trying to swallow my pride, which was a hell of a pill to choke down.

I understood the reason why we moved camps even if Jasper didn't say it out loud. This is an easier place to access the mines from, and even though it would only be a short run from the original camp, not having the shafts fairly close could be detrimental to Jasper's plan. I had made a mistake in not really looking too closely at the area around where we had originally made our base camp, and I was paying for it now.

Granted, my failure was the whole reason I had requested help in the first place. I knew I was getting nowhere and perhaps biting the bullet and asking for help showed maturity to some degree. I wasn't sure if that was the case, but I did know that not making progress before now hurt my pride more than anything Jasper had said, so I suppose pointing out the obvious wasn't that bad if I really thought about it.

But the way he spoke. I could hear all of the things he didn't say. And even if I had to come to terms with my own failings, that did not mean, however, that I had to take a verbal lashing - as minimal as it was - lying down and I was going to bring it up to him one way or another. At the very least to give me a chance to defend myself and my actions.

Grabbing my duffel from the Officer's tent and reinstating my shield around the camp was something I did on auto-pilot as I made my way to the Command tent to retrieve any paperwork or maps that I thought we would need. To my surprise, I noticed that the entire tent was already empty. Fine then. At least the Major was taking responsibility for his own shit.

Running back to the school the Major had chosen, it gave me a few more minutes of peace to get my thoughts together. I knew he would feel the vast amount of emotions rolling off of me and I knew that I needed to get it under control or shield it before I got back. No reason for him to know I was feeling so many conflicting things before I had the chance to figure everything out, get it under control, and talk to him.

The Major had given me rough instructions on where to find what he deemed the Officer's Quarters inside a wing of the school building, so that was exactly where I headed. Upon entering the building from the open doorway closest to the tree line, I could see I had entered a beige and what may have once been white hallway about two hundred yards long. In the center of that hallway was a large open area that led to four other, smaller offshoot hallways about seventy-five yards long each. I would have found the layout intriguing under different circumstances, especially after seeing the dome-like ceiling that had partially caved in from decades of nature trying to retake this place for herself.

I headed down the second hallway on the right and counted doorways until I smelled Jasper's scent. Surprisingly, his scent was the only one that lingered in this hallway. I idly wondered why, since I could smell quite a few of our own force here, but I didn't linger on it.

It looked like he had chosen what may have once been a classroom thirteen doors down, and had already managed to place the maps on the three-legged desk leaning against the right wall. His duffel was haphazardly thrown on a cot that had been erected on the far side of the room and had seemingly set the cot closest to the door up for me.

I would have thought the gesture kind or sweet if I wasn't still so mad at both him and myself. I was tempted to move the cot as far away as I could, maybe to the other end of the room, when I noticed that the wall to the left of the room was covered in some sort of green moss that would have made my human self cringe. Not that the moss would have harmed me, it wouldn't, but there was just something about it - perhaps a lingering human wariness - that made me decide my cot was fine where it was.

As I took in my surroundings, I realized that there wasn't much else in the room. A knocked over chair in a corner, what may have at one point been a desk, and a filing cabinet that was actually in surprisingly good condition. For as sparse as it was, it was strangely…homey. In a post-apocalyptic, end-of-the-world kind of way, and that was a shocking thought.

Vampires really didn't need shelter from the outside world, but having a place to go to relax was still nice, regardless if it was a flimsy tent or a mossy schoolroom. Especially after today had been so trying for me, I didn't really feel like standing in the elements. I heaved a heavy sigh as I stood in the room and enjoyed the silence.

Then I realized what I was doing. There shouldn't be silence with a Guard this big. There should be noise and scents and constant interruption while trying to plan our next move. It made me curious to find out where the rest of our Guard was and why they weren't doing the things I'd come to expect from the seven months we'd been here already. It made me a bit wary, but I was also secretly grateful for the reprieve. Even if it didn't last.

It seemed as though Jasper had kept the majority of our force out of this wing of the school and - after taking a quick run down the hallway back to the dome to check - had separated the divisions into their own wings. A part of me even appreciated that Jasper had set our room and this wing up with that extra little bit of privacy that could be hard to come by in a camp like this.

I wasn't sure if it was more for the benefit of his gift, or the rare quiet of just having this part of the school to ourselves, but I was going to appreciate it regardless. Introvert for life, me.

Privacy certainly seemed necessary now though, as I was dealing with my own emotional turmoil. I definitely didn't need anyone else to see me like this, nor did I want them to. There's something unsettling about seeing the person who is supposed to be in charge, lose their cool at the slightest annoyance. Luckily that hadn't happened yet, but I was sure it would if I didn't get control of myself and now was as good a time as any to venture down that particular rabbit hole. I mean, it was better to try and get myself sorted out while I'm alone.

I looked at the cot that I had deemed mine and threw my duffel at the foot of it. There was no reason to unpack anything, so I just left it there for the moment. Stepping a few feet closer to the desk, I stood there looking at the maps and let my mind wander to my current predicament.

I hated to admit it to myself but I had started developing feelings towards Jasper back in Volterra and now those feelings were in jeopardy because my pride was hurt. I knew that being in the middle of a warzone wasn't exactly the time to be discussing personal and potentially romantic feelings for a superior officer on the field, so any feelings I'd had since coming back here I'd quickly buried under the duty I had to my Guard, my mission, and my friends that were currently in Romanian hands.

However, I had noticed those moments between us. That spark of - something I couldn't place. How the walls that he kept around himself around others seemed to fall when he was near me. How he let himself be vulnerable with me. Was it all because he was comfortable around me? Could it be because he'd known me so long ago? Because mine happened to be a friendly face in a sea of monsters? I didn't know.

The more I thought about Jasper, the more I realized that what he said earlier in the city center wasn't meant as a personal attack towards me. At least now that I was a bit calmer, I didn't think it was. From what I knew about him, he didn't seem the type to rip others down. However, he also seemed the type to be incredibly direct when the occasion called for it and what happened earlier could very well have been such an occasion. My anger and hurt in response could very well be unnecessary. Considered an over-reaction due to these complicated feelings that I had. That didn't stop it from hurting any less though. Yet, I still thought that I might have a bit of a crush on the guy. Hurt feelings or not.

Yes, he was attractive and sweet when he wasn't in a warzone. He was incredibly intelligent, but anyone who interacted with him would think the same thing. Was now really the time to bring it up, especially after realizing how much of an idiot I was with every facet of this failed campaign? Did I really feel like making an idiot out of myself twice in one day? I didn't think so. Could my silence about everything I was feeling cost me a potential relationship be it romantic, platonic, or professional? Probably, but we were vampires and being who we both were, it would only be a matter of time after this conflict that we would be shoved back into each other's lives again. Maybe at that point we would both be in a position to pursue each other? It's not like he was my Mate or anything. Right?

That thought stopped the raging in my mind cold.

It was a possibility that I had never considered before now. I had never really placed much stock in the whole "Mates" thing because as vampires, we were incredibly sexual creatures and we shared our bodies with whoever we chose. Biologically, it made no sense because we couldn't procreate in the typical fashion, but after living this life as long as I had, I thought I was finally able to figure it out.

We, as a species, craved the intimacy that came with being close with someone. We live for so long, and we go through so much, that we can't help but hope that there is someone out there willing and able to spend our eternity - and therefore our experiences - with. For a good portion of us, physical affection with that person is just a natural progression of that relationship. However, there are those that prefer the intimacy that comes with friendship over that of physical affection, and they are just as fulfilled as those that prefer to express themselves body to body.

Char has been that person for me so far. Both with friendship and eventually turning sexual, but now that she has Peter as a potential interest based on their interactions in Volterra, Char may not be strictly mine anymore. I don't know what those two crazy kids are up to on the other side of this barrier, but the likelihood that they were hitting it off was pretty high. There was still a part of her that would belong to me, and a part of me that would belong to her, but Marcus had said it himself that we weren't Mates. But that meant that I still had one out there somewhere. Maybe. Which brought up the question, was Jasper mine?

How would I even know if he was? Was it a love-at-first-sight thing? Because if it was, we were late for that by about five decades.

Was it a first kiss thing? Maybe. We hadn't actually kissed, so that could be it.

A 'you just…know' thing? Which frankly would be ridiculous, but I'd heard something similar from both Athenodora and Sulpicia when they met Aro and Caius.

A you-have-to-be-intimate-first thing? It seemed kind of stupid to me to get that far only to have that bond either show up, or not.

I just didn't know. In all honesty, I was probably over-thinking the whole thing and missing the cues entirely if they were there. However, there was also the possibility that he wasn't my Mate. Which is probably why I hadn't noticed anything different or unusual. But did I honestly expect whoever that person happened to be to stand in front of me with a green flag shouting "It's me you idiot!" at the top of their lungs? Honestly, I'd probably overlook that sign, too.

I groaned out loud and nearly slammed my forehead down onto my palms as I turned from the desk and sat on my cot. Was I really thinking that Jasper Whitlock could be my Mate? That was absurd. I just had feelings for him. Nothing more. Nothing less. Complicated feelings, yes, but still just feelings. Right? Maybe the feeling that was so prevalent in me was just interest. A 'what if' scenario that I couldn't let go of because we had known each other before? Perhaps that was it. Perhaps it was the fact that we had known each other, but under such vastly different circumstances that the idea to pursue one another never manifested due to our situation. Now that things had changed, maybe that was all this was.

All of this spiraling that I was doing was contingent on whether or not Jasper actually liked me in return. Based on what happened in Volterra and the little snippets that I got from him here, I was hopeful that he had feelings for me, but what those feelings might be, especially after today, I wasn't sure.

He could just see me as a friend, which would be nice, but not what I wanted.

He could just see me as a colleague, and that would hurt considerably more than anything else, but I'm sure I could get over it. With time.

He could see me the same way I saw him, but my feelings were so mixed up about him, that I was sure I didn't want him to feel the same slightly nauseous sensation if he thought about me for too long.

Also, I couldn't forget that was an Empath, so there was the slim possibility that this was all his mature way of handling those emotions. Interest in a relationship or not. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that to me at least, it would seem like whoever possessed such a skill would need to mature very quickly and gain control over themselves so they don't accidentally influence others unknowingly. Not being in control could be detrimental otherwise.

But being interested in the one person that has currently made his life a literal hell? I wasn't one to wish for the impossible.

I flop down face-first on my cot and groan loudly. Why was I like this? The rational part of my brain knew I was being incredibly irrational, but it seemed like the irrational part was the one winning right now. What I needed was a good knock on my head to get my thoughts in order, a stiff drink to get me to relax, and a swift kick in the ass to get me up and moving instead of laying here feeling sorry for myself.

That was how Jasper found me a few moments later; grumbling at myself with my face in my pillow.