“Shut up.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You were thinking it.”
“Thinking what?” he laughed.
“Shut up.”
“Well does this journey include a motel break, because in the interest of all romance, don’t. Last night I slept in a motel room where the carpet literally moved beneath my feet, there were so many fleas in it.”
“Beautiful.”
“Yeah well, I might just have to make a pit stop on the way back so Jae can enjoy the delights of the place.”
“You’ll go easy on her.”
Ryder groaned, as he glided into the next lane. “Yeah, yeah.”
“I gotta go.”
“Yeah. I’ll let you know when I retrieve our wayward pup.”
“Do that. Take care, man.”
“You too.”
Ryder sighed heavily as he thought about Jaeden. He was making pretty good time so he should hit the city by nightfall. He wondered whether she would be an adult about this and come in peace, or if he was going to have to physically haul her ass into the truck. He groaned and rubbed the tension out of his forehead.
“It’s pretty cool that you’ve started going hunting with us again.” Styx smiled sweetly as she stood up from kneeling, her machete bloodied by the dead vampyre’s neck juice. Jaeden felt a twinge of guilt at the mixture of hurt and hope in the young vamp’s eyes. Out of all of her new found comrades, Styx was the most sensitive and had clung to Jaeden from the get go. She was a baby for a vampyre, only sixteen, and Jae had felt sort of protective towards her. Styx was built like a child, fragile and small at a tiny five foot nothing. Her size was deceptive and the reason the big vampyre on the ground was dead. None of the bad teeth (as Reuben’s gang of misfits liked to refer to the rogue vamps) were expecting the sly strength of Styx.
Jaeden looked away from the dead guy and shrugged. “Yeah well, it gets Reuben off my back.” She winced as Styx’s face fell in disappointment. “And of course I missed hanging out with you guys,” she added quickly. The young girl smiled, but Jae could tell it was too late.
“Aren’t you happy with us, Jaeden?”
Oh boy, how to answer that question?
She shrugged again, and gestured for her to walk with her out of the alleyway. They were supposed to be back at the basement loft half an hour ago. Lily, Adam and Josh would already be there hitting the Wii. She doubted Reuben would be there. He had gone on one of his disappearing acts yesterday and probably wouldn’t be back for a few days. “I guess I’m just ready to move on from here.” She indicated their surroundings. “I mean it’s quiet now that the bad teeth know we’re here hunting them. That vamp you killed back there is the first one in days.”
Her answer seemed to cheer Styx up, who was grinning from cheek to cheek, her little fangs visible. “Well, that’s OK. We’ll just move. Reuben will be totally cool with that. Ooh yay.” She bounced from one foot to the other, clapping her hands like a perky cheerleader. “Maybe we can convince Reuben to buy an actual loft apartment... you know… one with windows!”
Jae laughed and shook her head. “I don’t know. I sometimes think Reuben forgets you guys can actually stand the sunlight. Too many episodes of The Vampire Diaries, I think.”
“He does think that Elena girl is hot.”
Jae smirked. “So does Lily.”
Styx sighed longingly. “Ian Somerhalder all the way.”
“Uh-uh.” Jae scrunched up her face. “Too pretty. I prefer my men a little rough around the edges.”
“Like Reuben?” The vamp giggled.
Jaeden laughed and punched her arm playfully. Despite Styx’s matchmaking attempts, she enjoyed the young vamp’s prattle as they wandered back to the apartment. Her chatter about anything and nothing was soothing to her, allowing her thoughts to settle nowhere and be at peace for the moment.
“Ah, home sweet home.” Styx chuckled as she pulled the building’s main door open. “But not for long.” Her blue-yellow eyes twinkled happily at the exciting thought of moving up and on.
Jaeden snorted. “One can only hope.”
“You know I’m thinking we should go abroad. Like Rome, or Egypt or something. I’m betting there a lot of bad teeth over there,” she continued as they headed down the hallway to the loft, her small hand clasping the door handle, “I mean, all that culture and beauty. The bad teeth would want to rip that sh-”
Styx suddenly stopped as the door slid open, her doll eyes wide, rose-bud mouth parted in shock. Jaeden felt her heart thump loudly in her ears as she dared to step by the vamp and look inside the basement. The blood rushing to her ears as her heart escalated drowned out any sound.
How had he found her?
Ryder felt like smirking at the shocked look on Jaeden’s face. All along he hadn’t wanted to believe the information on the little bit of paper Marion had handed to Lucien and then Lucien to him. He knew the girl had been through a lot, a Hades lot. But she knew the rules inside out.
You did not hunt other supernatural races.
If he hadn’t witnessed the horrific situation Jae had been in with Caia’s Uncle Ethan, he would have been yelling at her by now. But he had seen only a fragment of the damage committed to a girl who had once been the most spunky, vivacious kid in the pack. He wasn’t going to condemn her for this stupidity. He was going to put her in the truck and leave this mess in the past where it belonged. That was if she ever made a move into the apartment towards him. He frowned as her blue eyes flicked past him to the vamp kids who sat on a dilapidated old sofa looking terrified.
“They’re fine. No harm done.” He smiled cheekily, holding his hands up in a surrender gesture. And he wasn’t lying. After they had come home to find him there, they had attacked, but quickly saw reason after he blocked and outmaneuvered all three of them. And that tall chick had game, he winced inwardly recalling her near blow to his groin.
He waited patiently. Jaeden didn’t respond.
Finally, she took a tentative step inside the apartment, her slender hands gripping the tiny female vampyre behind her, pulling her inside before she calmly slid the door closed. Ryder waited as she turned back towards him, her face expressionless.
She was different, he suddenly realized.
It wasn’t just that her manner had changed. She used to be a bundle of energy, always in motion, her sentences forever flowing into one another. Now she was cool and aloof, a reserve in her gorgeous blue eyes that had never been there before. Ryder shrugged off an uncomfortable, unwelcoming feeling as his eyes drank her in. Jaeden had grown up... and the effect was well...
She was hot.
Crap.
“What are you doing here?” she finally asked, softly, warily.
Ryder decided now wasn’t the time to mess around. “I’ve been sent to return you to the pack.”
Her eyes narrowed instantly, her body shifted into defense mode. “I don’t want to go back.”
For the hundredth time, Ryder wondered why Jaeden couldn’t stand to be around her pack. When anything got to him that badly, all he wanted to do was be with the pack. The bubble of irritation under his skin threatened to vocalize itself, but he checked it at the last minute. “I’m afraid you don’t have a choice,” he replied evenly. “It’s either the pack or imprisonment.”
Her mouth fell open.
Finally. A response.
“What?” she growled, her lykan distorting her voice.
Ryder chuckled, crossing his arms over his chest. “What, you didn’t think you could break a major Coven law and not have to deal with it?”
The look of panic shot through her eyes but only briefly. Ryder watched in amazement as the look was literally shrugged out of existence as she walked towards him, her shoulders drawn back defiantly. The girl really had become something, he mused, enjoying the panther-like way she moved.
“Why am I not arrested then?”
“Because of Caia.”
“Ah.” Jae nodded, smirking at the irony. “They need her, and they know that throwing away the key on me would piss her off.”
Ryder gave a brief nod.
“Humph.”
What the Hades did that mean? he wondered in annoyance.
“I guess I have no choice.”
“None whatsoever.”
It was weird seeing Ryder again.
His entire presence filled the cab of the truck as he drove them out of the city and towards the pack. The fact that he was singing Sweet Home Alabama didn’t help the matter.
Jaeden groaned and burrowed deeper into the passenger seat. She couldn’t believe it. How had she gone from being a Rogue Hunter one minute to being... what... Ryder’s babysitting job?
“Sweet Home Alabama! Yeah! Where the skiiiieees are sooo blue! Sweet Home...”
Oh goddess help me, she whimpered. He was so out of tune.
“Alabama! Woo! Swe-”
“RYDER!” she exploded. It had to be made perfectly clear that his singing was not acceptable. “If I’m to survive a road trip back to the pack... I’m going to need you not to do that.”
“Lynyrd Skynyrd?”
“Nope.”
“Sweet Home Alabama?”
“Nope.”
He looked at her in confusion, his warm hazel eyes round, his usually sexy grin missing and replaced by a near-childish pout. “Then what?”
“Singing. Ryder. The singing.”
“Excuse me?”
Jaeden nearly choked on a scoff, “Please tell me you are not delusional enough to think that you can actually sing?”
He looked genuinely affronted. “I will have you know that my voice has been praised by many lovely ladies.”
“Wow, you really must be good in bed, cos’ they been a-feeding you a crock of crap.”
“What?!” Ryder huffed, glancing from her back to the road. “Well... what?!... you know, I have been drop-kicked by a lykan on steroids, had an actual samurai sword sliced through my left shoulder, and been shot in the chest with buckshot... but that shit there really hurt.”
A silence descended upon the cab.
And then Jaeden erupted. She was laughing so hard she could barely breathe, and the longer she laughed the wider Ryder’s grin grew. When at last her giggles dissipated, she felt exhausted and mildly uncomfortable for having really laughed for the first time since Ethan.
“That was nice to hear,” Ryder said quietly. “Even though I was being completely serious.”
The smile he threw her was soft and coaxing, and for the first time since she had seen him tonight, she remembered why he had been her big school-girl crush. The wolf was gorgeous, no question. She looked away, trying to make out the passing landscape in the dark. Reuben was going to be seriously pissed off when he returned and found her gone. As it was the goodbye had been harder than she had ever wanted it to be. All this time she had thought she had truly cut herself off from people, but no. The sight of Styx crying had still done her in, leaving her with painful regret at having not been able to put a comforting arm around the girl and tell her she was sorry, and that it would all be OK. She had left Lily to do that, who had glared at her the entire time she packed, stonily refusing to speak to her. Josh and Adam had said their goodbyes, their eyes nervously returning to Ryder as they had done so. She wondered what the lykan had done to them before she got there.