Midnight Reckoning

Lyra doubted it would ever be possible to be really comfortable around Jaden. And not only because he was a vampire.



The attraction was deeply annoying to her.



“All right,” she said. “Why are you still here?”



“You know,” Jaden said, “now that I’ve met your father I can see where you get your charm from. That’s disgusting, by the way,” he said, gesturing at the bag of Cheetos.



Lyra lifted her eyebrows. “You really want to discuss who has the more disgusting eating habits? Deal with it,” she said. “And you still haven’t explained this ultra-helpful job you seem to have conned my father into giving you. Apart from being bait, there’s nothing we need a vampire for.” She paused. “Though having some extra bait around could come in handy for me.”



“Actually,” Jaden said, looking smug, “your father seems to think I’m just what you need.”



His wording, or maybe the way he said it, had her stomach suddenly feeling like it was full of caged butterflies, flustering her. Almost immediately, he seemed to realize the other way his words could be taken and surprised her by flushing slightly. She hadn’t even known vampires could blush. For the first time, Jaden looked away, finding something on the far wall worthy of glaring at.



Lyra tried to brush off his reaction. She didn’t need this. Not now, not ever.



“My father,” Lyra snapped out, fighting to regain her footing in the conversation, “has a lot of ideas I don’t necessarily agree with. And if he thinks I need anything you can give me, I’d say he’s lost it.”



Jaden seemed more than ready to rise to the bait. It was a relief. Anger was far easier to deal with than… whatever else was festering beneath the surface here. Maybe for both of them.



“If wanting you to live through this fight you’ve got coming is insane, then yes, he might be. And if you’d rather find a kickboxing class to take instead of having me as a teacher, then go for it. You might entertain everyone for a few minutes before your cousin takes you apart.”



Lyra inhaled sharply, sucked in a bit of junk food with the air, and began coughing furiously. She managed to get out only a single word, but it was enough to convey the source of her shock.



“Teacher?”



She had to have misheard him. Had to have. Because there was no way in hell her father would ever have come up with such a crazy scheme. Lyra fought to regain control over her windpipe and registered that Jaden still looked very defensive. His next words confirmed that he was.



“You know, I get that it’s unconventional, but choking to death over it still seems like an overreaction.”



She finally got the coughing mostly under control. To fix what lingered, she popped the top of her soda. Lyra took a long swig, savoring the coolness running down her irritated throat, and then returned her attention to Jaden. Her voice sounded strained when she spoke, and it wasn’t all from the coughing fit.



“You honestly expect me to believe that my father—a man who I have never heard say a good or even a neutral word about your kind—has decided you need to stick around to be some kind of vampire version of Mr. Miyagi?”



“He laid it out for me,” Jaden said evenly, though his eyes burned blue. “He can’t teach you.”



“Won’t teach me, is more like it,” Lyra shot back. “Not him, not any of them. I mean, did he explain why he can’t teach me?”



“He said it wouldn’t do you any good,” Jaden replied. “He thinks if you go in trying to do the same thing as the rest, you’ll be knocked out pretty quickly.”



Lyra rolled her eyes. “Yeah, well, he wouldn’t know, since he’s never even given me a chance to prove myself.” She took another swig of the soda, knowing she shouldn’t even be getting into this with Jaden. It was wolf business, her business, and he had no part in it. But except for Simon, she didn’t really have anyone to unload on… and Simon, for all his kindness, wasn’t exactly a neutral party. He wouldn’t help her either.



As a reasonably neutral party, Jaden would do.



“Did you know there have only ever been three female Alphas in the entire history of werewolves? Three. That’s pathetic. And those were some really unusual, really specific circumstances. We’re years past women’s suffrage and women’s lib, but here, it’s still whoever has the biggest muscles wins the day.” She knew she was bitching, knew her voice was heating up, but Lyra couldn’t help it. All this had been building for the longest time. And oddly enough, it seemed like Jaden was actually listening to her.



“At least if I’d been born into one of the other pack families I would have been able to make my own life. Leave if I wanted, mate with who I wanted, get a job, a house, a life of my own! But no. I’m Dorien Black’s daughter, so here I am, living with Daddy at twenty-three, no job because no one here will hire me until I find a mate and quit drawing all sorts of strays into town, and locked out of what should be my birthright because I don’t have the right plumbing. Gods forbid they train a lowly female as a warrior. I could fight just as well as they can. It’s asinine!”



To punctuate the end of her rant, she slammed her fist on the table and pulverized an unsuspecting Cheeto. Lyra heard the crunch, lifted her fist, and saw the mess. She sighed heavily.



“Damn it.” She lifted her eyes back to Jaden’s, feeling a little sheepish. Her nerves might be ragged at this point, her tolerance stretched to its limits, but she realized that ranting to a stranger was probably not the solution.



“Sorry. I get… um… wound up. It’s been a little rough lately.” He was watching her with the strangest expression, Lyra thought. Well, she’d wanted to get rid of him. Looking like an escaped mental patient was as good a method as any. Except that didn’t seem to be the reason he was looking at her so closely. Lyra thought she saw… could she really see… sympathy?



“Don’t be sorry. I agree.”



“You—”



“No, I listened to you. Now it’s your turn,” Jaden said. Lyra had to marvel at his ability to change gears. Just minutes ago he’d been an uncomfortable vampire. Now he was all business.



“You heard me right. I agree with you. That is, I would agree under normal circumstances. But these aren’t. According to your father, who is definitely desperate by the way, you’ve got less than a month to figure out how to overcome not only the bigger males in your pack, but also some hulking murderous cousin in a fight that is unlikely to be fair. Whether or not you’ll be able to use what I can teach you, I think you should have been trained from the beginning just for practicality, but I’m not even going to touch the weird gender issues your kind has. The point is that as of now, you don’t have time to learn to beat these wolves the way one of your males would, even if you could.”



Lyra huffed out a surprised breath that was almost a laugh. “The conventional wisdom around here is that I couldn’t. I’m too small and female.” She knew she growled out the last word, but she couldn’t help it. Her sex wouldn’t have been an impediment to her if her interests had been different. That is, anything other than leading her pack. But in her case, her gender had been tossed at her as a backhanded insult for years.



It would have cowed a lot of women, Lyra knew, or at least sent them looking for something else to do. In her case, it had just made her mad. And even more determined.



Jaden’s calm and slightly disdainful reaction to all this was what she would have expected from a vampire, but she found it strangely reassuring. She wasn’t the only one who found the werewolves’ system unfair, outdated, and flat-out stupid. It surprised her to find him, just like that night in Massachusetts, an ally.



Hell if she knew quite what to do with that knowledge though.



Jaden waved away her comment. “Size isn’t everything. Talent is more important. But considering the constraints you’ve got on you now, it’s going to take more than anything a wolf could teach you.”



“And that’s where you come in.” Lyra shook her head disbelievingly and popped another Cheeto in her mouth. “This is insane. Seriously, seriously insane.” She tilted her head at Jaden. “What, was my father that impressed with the way you kicked Simon’s ass?”



Jaden nodded. “Guess so. It wasn’t the reaction I was expecting either, but there you go.”



Lyra sighed, tucking an errant curl behind her ear. She’d been impressed too. He moved with so much grace, so much power. Simon fought well for a wolf, but it was all claws and teeth and muscle with her kind. It worked… but watching Jaden fight was like watching the master of some deadly dance. It was kind of beautiful. And unnervingly sexy, Lyra realized, as the mere memory of Jaden leaping and slashing got her motor running all over again.



“He loves to watch a good fighter do his thing,” she said, trying to get her mind back on more practical things. “Simon’s going to want to kill you, though. That was ugly.”



“For him, maybe.” Jaden smiled, a sultry little lift of the lips that made his eyes glitter with humor. “He can try. He won’t like what happens.”



“You can’t kill him. Or hurt him again.”



The smile vanished as quickly as it had come. “Oh. I didn’t realize you had a… boyfriend? Lover? That might make things more difficult. Especially if he’s been lobbying to stand for you.”



Lyra gave an impatient little growl. “Yes, he has, but not because he’s any of those things. Simon is one of my closest friends, ever since we were kids. And if you don’t like me jumping to conclusions about you, I suggest you give me the same courtesy.”



Jaden shifted in his chair, looking disgruntled. “Oh,” he said again.



Lyra rolled her eyes back into her head. “Yes, oh. And back on the topic before we got sidetracked by your weird ideas about my love life, what I was going to say is that while my father might have gotten some wild idea that you can teach me to fight dirty to win, you are both missing one very simple point.”