And really, the less anyone back in Tipton knew about what he’d gotten up to out here, the better.

So thinking, Jaden tried to focus on the present, on the bloody Proving and where he should even begin with teaching Lyra.

But in the end, he still soaked his head.

He’d been tortured.

She’d tried like hell to get the image of Jaden’s back out of her head all evening, but so far, no luck. It had stunned her. And then it had taken every ounce of her willpower not to ask him about it. Jaden seemed like a fairly private person. She doubted he’d open right up if she decided to push “Hey, who whipped you so badly you couldn’t heal?” as the question of the evening.

Thinking of a vampire as oppressed was just strange, completely flipped from what she’d been raised with. But then, she wasn’t shocked either. Lyra had spent a little time around vamps when she felt like she needed to blow Silver Falls for a while, much to her father’s dismay. Not that any vampires had exactly wanted her around, but slinking into a “forbidden” city for shopping, fun, and cute guys who weren’t any weirder at the full moon than they were any other time was an excellent way to take a break from the pressure and blow off a little steam. In her travels, she’d definitely noted that there was a large underclass of bloodsuckers. And the ones they called “highbloods,” though less numerous, were mostly not very sweet. No one wanted a wolf around… but it was usually only the highbloods you had to actively watch out for.

Mean suckers.

Lyra glanced over at Jaden when she pulled into a parking place and killed the engine of her little red pickup. He seemed relaxed enough. For him. Of course, he’d found plenty to occupy his attention out the window, so it wasn’t that easy to tell.

“Okay, here we are.” She glanced around the parking lot, which sat some distance from where the grass began and rolled off into the ever-encroaching trees. It was empty—but that didn’t mean anything. They’d need to watch it.

“Good,” he replied. “Let’s have a look.” And before she could warn him—again—about the fact that there might be other wolves hanging around here, he was out of the car and striding toward the green area as though he owned the place. Lyra pursed her lips, annoyed, but she did allow herself a moment, just one, to admire the way he moved. Wolves were built for power.

Jaden was built for grace and speed. And… other things.

She groaned and got out of the car, too, anxious to get as far away from these recurring thoughts as possible. If things went well, she’d be sparring with him before long. She needed to get in the mind-set of not wanting his hands on her body.

Lyra took the time Jaden hadn’t, scenting the air, listening for the faintest sound of voices, or even paws treading softly. When she caught up to him, he was standing quietly, seeming to drink everything in. She figured it was worth a few quiet minutes to see if he came up with some miraculous insight she hadn’t about this place, so she backed off. She walked a few paces away, tipped her head back, and enjoyed the stars dotting the night sky.

“So werewolves make their most important leadership decisions at… a playground.”

He spoke as softly as he always did, but his voice carried in the still air. Lyra looked sharply at him, arms crossed over her chest to ward off the rapidly cooling temperature. She loved it up here, but man, she really wished summer would consider coming early once in a while instead of leaving winter and spring to play tug-of-war right up until June.

“It’s not a playground. Grant Park is a large open space, genius,” Lyra replied. “Live with it.”

His mouth curved just a little with the humor Lyra was beginning to understand always lived just beneath the surface, even if he was good at hiding it.

“So where does everyone sit? On the jungle gym? Or maybe the swings. Or the bouncy pony.”

Lyra gritted her teeth, and it took considerable effort to unclench them enough to respond. Jaden’s cute almost-smile had turned into a cocky vamp smirk. She knew that look, the patented “Wolves are dumb, yuk yuk yuk” look she’d seen on plenty of his kind. It made her want to bite him—and not in a way he’d enjoy. Since she couldn’t do that, she went with sarcasm.

“There’s also a gazebo. And trees. And probably a Port-o-San somewhere, too, which I’m sure you’ll find hysterical since you haven’t mentally progressed since age five. Regardless, this is the place. Can we move on?”

That sexy little smile, Lyra decided, was awfully feline.

“Sure.”

“Jackass,” she muttered under her breath, but loud enough for him to catch it. It was at that moment, watching Jaden as he craned his neck and took another look around, that Lyra realized something strange: she was actually enjoying herself.

Lyra pretended to scuff at something interesting on the ground while looking at Jaden through half-lowered lashes. He didn’t need to know how closely she was watching him. It was just that his reactions to everything out here were so interesting, she thought. He acted like all this was a novelty: parks, trees, even the night sky, which she was pretty sure Silver Falls didn’t have a monopoly on. He’d even made some random comment about her father’s flower beds on the way over. Nothing snarky, just interested… though Lyra imagined Jaden’s reaction to the news that her father actually owned a garden center would be a little more cringe-worthy.

That information could remain under wraps for a while.

Lyra waited for him to say something, but when all he did was slowly wander around with wide eyes, she gave up.

“Jaden, seriously. They’re trees. Thrillsville. Unless they have some bearing on my training as a vampire ninja, you might want to refocus.”

Lyra found she actually looked forward to whatever biting response he would come up with. She didn’t know many people who would engage her in verbal warfare except for Simon, and even he got tired of her sometimes. But when Jaden turned his head to look at her, she didn’t get what she was hoping for. Instead, his expression was so full of honest wonderment that Lyra felt a suspicious fluttering in the pit of her stomach.

Butterflies, she thought, frustrated that she couldn’t just banish them. Between this and the weirdness in the kitchen, she was starting to worry this was going to be a trend.

“Sorry, got a little sidetracked,” he said, then grinned. It lit up his entire face, and what was already darkly compelling became completely enchanting.

“I hadn’t realized how long I’d been away from places like this,” he added.

Lyra’s lips twitched. “Playgrounds? You want me to push you on the swing set?”

Jaden chuckled, a soft, warm sound that was completely at odds with everything Lyra associated with vampires. But then so far, so was Jaden.

“No,” he said. “I’d just forgotten how nice it is not to be closed in. Cities can get claustrophobic. I mean, I’m used to it now, but it was hard at first. Before, I was just a—”

He stopped short, shook his head with a rueful smile. Lyra, her curiosity piqued, hoped he would finish. Why had it been hard at first? Where was he from? Who had he been? Not that it mattered, she told herself. But it was easy to forget that a couple hundred years ago, Jaden had been fully human, no doubt with a very different life planned than the one he had now.

“You were a country boy?” she asked. He hesitated, looking uncertain, but then nodded.

“Somerset. I’d never even been to London. Now, though… I’ve been everywhere.” He shoved his hands in his jacket pockets and hunched slightly, what Lyra was already coming to recognize as his defensive position. He didn’t seem to want to go into it. Maybe she wouldn’t, either, Lyra thought, if she’d lost everything and had to start from scratch.

Soothing people was not a natural ability of hers. But Lyra found herself trying to put Jaden back at ease even before she really realized what she was doing.

“Well, this isn’t the English countryside, but it’s got its points. I wouldn’t want to be anywhere but here,” she said.

A ghost of a smile touched his lips then, so different from the irreverent grin he’d worn only minutes ago. He was a moody creature, Lyra decided. One minute teasing, the next wistful. He kept surprising her.

Yet another thing she liked when she shouldn’t.

“I know the feeling,” Jaden said simply, and then shifted gears completely. The subject of his origins seemed to be closed.

“All right. Why don’t you start by explaining this mystical process to me so I can understand what, exactly, the Proving is about.”

Lyra nodded, trying to be grateful that things had veered away from the personal and back to the professional… if that’s what this operation was.

“Okay. Walk with me.” She closed the distance between them with a few steps, and the two of them made their way across the rolling landscape of the park. The young green of the trees and grass was vibrant even in the scattered light of the wrought-iron lampposts dotting the scenery. The air smelled of damp, rich earth and spring.

She pointed off to her right, where the ground sloped down into a long, flat area. White soccer goals rose, ghostly, from the ground. “There’s the soccer field. We don’t use it for the Full Moon Feast every month, since it would make things… a little obvious. But it’s always been used for Provings.”

Jaden snorted. “Which isn’t obvious at all. What do you plan to do with all the humans in town when all this is going on? Lock them in their closets?”

It was Lyra’s turn to chuckle. “There aren’t any humans in town, Jaden. When wolves set up shop, we do it right. Plus they can sense us. Subconsciously, I guess. But humanity’s survival instinct seems to kick in pretty well when it comes to not moving into a town full of their natural predators. Hunting them may be outlawed now, but it wasn’t always that way… and something in them remembers.”

The smile faded from her face as she thought of her cousin and his sycophants in the pack, wolves who wanted to turn the clock backward a few hundred years. He’d never said he wanted to hunt humans, of course… that would be the kiss of death for his aspirations no matter how strong he was… but his attitude about them was just short of disgusting.