“Both,” she replied, astounded he’d even asked. “What kind of a question is that? You know very well our kinds don’t… we don’t…”

“Yes, I know it doesn’t happen. But that certainly doesn’t mean that it can’t happen.”

Lyra felt her mouth go dry and her face grow hot. How could he even act like there was a discussion to be had about this?

“It can’t happen with us, Jaden. It would be… I mean… I would be an outcast if anyone found out! My father would disown me, and I—I…” She started to stammer, paused, and took a deep breath. “You’re just supposed to teach me to fight! Why do you have to go and make this more complicated than it already is?”

He didn’t move a muscle, watching her like an animal fixed on its prey. This new sensation for her, coming from him, was a lot more enjoyable than it should have been.

“You brought it up,” he said. “And you didn’t exactly push me away last night. I have a right to ask what you find so disgusting about it when it’s obvious you don’t object to me once I have my hands on you.” His eyes began to glow, and it was a moment before Lyra realized that he was actually angry.

“It’s that wolf, right? Simon. I saw you with your arms around each other.” He shook his head, the anger gone as quickly as it had appeared. Jaden slumped into his seat and frowned at the dash, his voice dropping to a sullen mutter. “Forget it. You’re better off with the wolf, I suppose. It won’t happen again, okay? Let’s just go.”

Somehow, watching Jaden struggle openly with what she’d been wrestling with privately soothed her ragged nerves. This wasn’t some joke for him. And Lyra knew she wasn’t appealing just because of her position, which could do him no good. He just… wanted her. And was stupidly jealous to boot.

Lyra could only stare, wonderingly, as he sat brooding and looking like he wanted to kill someone.

“You’re serious about this?” she finally asked.

He turned his head to give her a beleaguered look.

“I don’t humiliate myself for fun, usually.”

She opened her mouth, hoping a rational response would emerge. When one didn’t, she decided she needed a minute to think about it. Jaden, for the moment, was a captive audience. Lyra jammed her key into the ignition, turned the car on, and pulled out of the parking space without saying a word. She’d left the radio on, and The Black Keys ground out a gritty, sexy, bluesy ode to attraction that did nothing to take Lyra’s mind elsewhere.

She reached out to turn the volume down but didn’t turn it off, which kept the current situation from feeling completely surreal.

“Okay, let’s get a few things straight. For one thing, I’m not interested in Simon,” she said. “He’s been my best friend since we were kids. Not that it’s any of your business, but thinking that is just… gross. Don’t.”

Jaden’s response was little more than a growl. “Does it matter what I think about it?”

“Maybe,” she allowed, and felt his attention return to her full force. She had to concentrate hard on what she wanted to say so she could stay on the road. He was being honest. And considering what they would have done last night if Simon hadn’t shown up, she supposed she owed him the same courtesy.

“For another thing, what if I did want you in my bed, Jaden? It’s not like it would do either of us any good. I don’t want a mate, and you couldn’t be one to me anyway. Apart from the fact that my pack would hunt and kill you for touching me, the bond doesn’t happen if one person isn’t a wolf.”

“Bond?”

Oh gods, she didn’t want to explain this. Lyra felt another rush of heat to her cheeks, but she pushed through it. She might as well get it all out.

“Yeah, the mate bond. Happens when two wolves, ah… you know. It’s unbreakable. Wolves mate for life. Unfortunately, it’s not a perfect system. You don’t have to actually like the person you bond with.”

She looked quickly at him and saw that he’d figured out the whole truth of it. His mouth thinned with distaste.

“Yes, I know,” she said. “Welcome to my world.”

“That’s why you’ve been running. You don’t have to agree to be mated to any of the wolves who want your hand. All it takes is being in the wrong place at the wrong time.” He wrinkled his nose and shook his head. “Where’s the appeal in marrying a woman who’s been forced to accept you? I don’t understand wolves at all.”

“You don’t have to. It’s just biology,” Lyra said. “I don’t like it either. It’s one of the things that have kept female werewolves in permanent second-class status for so long, and a big part of why packs are so insulated. One big raid by another pack, and boom, all of your breeding females belong to your rivals.”

“That’s disgusting.”

Lyra shrugged, nodded. “It is. That really used to happen, a long time ago, and it wiped out more than one pack. Not so much anymore. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t still a hazard of being born a girl. Especially if you’re the Alpha’s daughter and your hand comes with so many benefits.”

He seemed to be mulling this over. “And how does this bond affect you? Couldn’t you just ignore it? Walk away, if you tried hard enough?”

“Heh. Your lack of werewolf knowledge is showing,” she replied with a small smile. “We get marks too. Around the upper arm. Only upon mating, and the marks of the pair match. You can’t remove them, and it’s easy to check. But worse, I think, is that the bond makes it difficult to be apart from one another. Or at least, that’s what I hear. There’s some kind of freaky emotional component that’s almost telepathic. I don’t know exactly how that works, and I don’t want to know. They say death breaks it. But my dad has never gotten over my mom, and that was years ago.”

She didn’t want to talk about her mother and wished she hadn’t brought her up. But Jaden asked the question she knew he would, and his tone, quiet and nonjudgmental, had her speaking before she could think better of it.

“What happened?”

“Hunters,” Lyra said. “She was alone in the woods when she shouldn’t have been, too far from home. And a lot of humans don’t much care what they shoot as long as it might look good on their walls. I—I don’t remember much about that. I was just a toddler. And that’s besides the matter,” she said, ending that part of the discussion. He didn’t need to know about all the tears she’d shed for a mother who was never coming home. The hole in her life that had never closed. She doubted he would understand anyway.

“The point,” she said more firmly, “is that I just don’t see what acting on this thing you and I seem to have between us does but muddy what I’m trying to accomplish. Like I said—I’m not interested in having a man. Any man. Even if you weren’t a vampire, that would be true. A mate would just be an excuse for the pack to brush me aside, and I need to do this, win this, on my own.”

“Since I don’t want a mate either, and learned a long time ago not to get too emotionally involved with mortals, I’m not sure what the problem is.”

She glanced at him, amused at his matter-of-fact tone. “So you’re advocating for meaningless sex, then. Oh. Well that makes a huge difference.”

His answering smile was faint, and in the near dark of the car his perfect face was both beautiful and sad, like that of a fallen angel. “Meaningless is the wrong word. Look, I’ve been either enslaved or on the run for longer than anyone in your pack has been alive. Now that I’m free, to be perfectly honest, I don’t know what the hell I want anymore. But I’ve been around long enough to know that sometimes it’s fine just to enjoy something in the moment. That’s not meaningless. That’s just realistic. That’s life.”

The statement was so unexpectedly honest that Lyra found herself touched by it, even if she didn’t know exactly how to respond. She drove in silence while she gathered her muddled thoughts—trying to sort out what she wanted, what she needed. Until Jaden had made his offer, she hadn’t quite realized how appealing such a thing would sound. If there were truly no strings…

Her heartbeat picked up at the mere possibility of saying yes. But there were other considerations—ones she would have to give a lot more thought to. And she had no intention of getting into those with him now when this was all still so fresh.

“This isn’t exactly what I was expecting, Jaden,” she said as she made the turn down her street. “Nothing is this easy, or free. There has to be a catch.”

A soft chuckle. “So suspicious. No, there’s enough to worry about without there being a catch.”

But his words reminded her of one very large potential issue. “Oh? What about the vampire from last night?”

She could actually feel him shut down a little with the shift in the conversation, and it worried her. She knew there were plenty of things she didn’t know about Jaden—would probably never know. But she needed to be sure that his secrets weren’t going to put her pack in danger.

“I’ll take care of it. That’s nothing you, or your pack, need to worry about,” he said in a clipped voice.

“Then you know who it was?” she asked.

“No,” he replied, his voice turning cold. “But I’ll find out. I have the resources to be able to, finally, and I plan to use them. If it turned into a problem, Lyra, I would go. Not without finding someone to replace me. I wouldn’t abandon you like that, especially not after meeting your charming cousin. But I don’t want you to worry about your pack. I was obviously the target. I’ve made a lot of enemies over the years, so I expect I’ll stay the target. Whoever it is knows that no one here will mourn me if I suddenly disappear. Or my head does. ”