“Would you like to join us?” Blake asked.

“Love to, thanks,” Jaden said, and slid into an empty chair before Lyra could protest. Instead, she shot him a narrow-eyed glare before turning her attention back to Blake.

“So you were telling me about the rumors that brought you here?” she asked, and in a far sweeter voice than she’d ever used on Jaden. “Blake is a paranormal buff. He seems to think we’ve got some kind of phenomena around here. I’m just not sure what that would be, apart from the one time Billy Carmichael got so drunk he stripped and went running down Main Street in the middle of a snowstorm.”

Jaden blinked. “I’m… not sorry I missed that.”

She gave him a small smile. “Don’t blame you. It was emotionally scarring.”

“Um,” Blake interjected, looking between them again with more than a hint of jealousy. “There are a lot more reported instances of supernatural occurrences around here than you two seem to think. Lycanthropy being the most common thread running through them. It’s easy to dismiss and laugh at if you’re not up on the research, but I assure you, this is no laughing matter.”

He sounded so prissy and uptight that Jaden had to bite his tongue to keep from snickering. Then he made the mistake of catching Lyra’s eye and realized she was having the exact same problem. Her lower lip quivered, and she bit it, very gently, before she pointedly looked away.

Jaden let his eyes linger on her profile a moment longer, wishing they were alone so he could run his own tongue and teeth over that entrancingly full lower lip of hers.

“You can’t expect me to believe the two of you are ignorant of the stories about this place,” Blake continued, sounding increasingly peevish at being ignored. “They’ve been covered up pretty well, I’ll say that, but the truth is out there for those of us willing to dig deep enough.”

Oh hell, there it was. Jaden managed to cover the laugh with a cough, but he doubted it was very convincing. Lyra grabbed her glass and took a long drink of water.

Taking a little pity on the man, Jaden turned his attention back to Blake. Yes, Jaden decided, he was pissed. His date had been ruined, and his life’s passion was being laughed at. He might not be so mad if he’d realized he was being laughed at by a vampire and a werewolf, respectively, but still. Jaden decided to make a little effort to be civil, since he now knew there was no way in hell Lyra was going anywhere else with this guy.

“Look, Blake,” he said, “there are a lot of unexplained things in the world. A lot of them, maybe most of them, are better left unexamined by the unwary.”

“I’m plenty wary,” Blake snapped. “And I’m obviously onto something, because I’ve never met anyone who liked playing vampire who chose to live in a normal town.”

Jaden lifted his brows. “You think I… play vampire? That sounds like a pretty personal question, Blake. You’ll have to at least buy me a drink for the answer.”

Blake huffed out an angry little laugh. “Okay,” he said, standing up. “This is going nowhere. I don’t know why I asked you to stay… really… but if you’re not going to help me, then I’ve got other leads to follow.”

“Do you?”

“Damn right.” He was fumbling in his wallet.

“No, Blake, don’t go. Jaden can leave, or you and I can find someplace else to sit and talk. This was supposed to be just the two of us—”

“Blake.”

Turning his gift, his power for controlling humans, on was as intuitive as breathing. Jaden’s voice turned gentle but commanding, smooth and utterly irresistible. Even Lyra turned toward him, her head slightly tilted in response to the change in his voice. But he’d had his fun with the interloper—it was time to help him on his way so he and Lyra could have the table to themselves.

Blake stilled and turned to look at Jaden, as Jaden had known he would. Humans really had no choice about succumbing to a thrall. And once their eyes met, when Jaden saw them go hazy and confused, he knew he had him just where he wanted him.

“Are you listening to me, Blake?” he asked, his voice as calm as if he were about to discuss the weather. Blake nodded, his action slow and dreamlike.

“Yes… master.”

He felt Lyra glaring at him, but he didn’t want to break the connection, so he addressed her without looking.

“All right, I didn’t mean to lay it on that thick. Don’t call me master, Blake. I’m just your friend. Your buddy Jaden.”

“Hey, buddy.”

Jaden smirked despite his best efforts. “Hey, Blake. Listen, as your buddy, I have to tell you. You need to walk out of here, go get your things at the hotel, and leave town. Immediately.”

“Leave town. Yeah,” Blake murmured, swaying slightly on his feet where he stood. “But there are… lycans…”

“No, you’ve been watching too much Underworld,” Jaden replied, calm but firm. He never blinked, feeling the power in the hold he had over the man. It made him hungry, unfortunately… a good thrall was wasted if you didn’t get a drink out of it… but wasted this one would be. He doubted the patrons of the Lost Dog would appreciate the sight of him getting a snack.

“There are no werewolves here. No vampires. This is, in fact, the most boring place on earth, and you’ll remember it that way. Get a girlfriend. Get a life. For the love of all that is holy, get rid of the stupid hat. And you will never come back here again. Is that understood?”

“Yes, master Jaden.”

“Stop that,” Jaden replied, frowning.

“Yes, Jaden Finkleman. My buddy.”

Jaden sighed. “Better. Marginally. Go on now, Blake. Drinks were on me.”

The ghost chaser glided off in a daze, bumping into a waitress as well as the door before he found his way out. Jaden turned to watch him go, amused. He hadn’t done that in a while, really laid the suggestion on thick. Hopefully it would work. He was pretty sure it would in the short term at least.

Lyra was staring at him, and he couldn’t read her expression at all. Finally, she said, “If he crashes his car, I will kick your ass.”

“You won’t,” Jaden replied, “though you should be happy, because now that Blake the Flake has wandered away you’ve got plenty of time to try doing just that tonight. You look amazing, by the way.”

He was deliberately casual about it because he knew that if he went heavy on the flattery she would just blow him off. Being told she was beautiful seemed to make Lyra uncomfortable, for some reason. He liked making her a little uncomfortable.

True to form, her cheeks flushed prettily. “Oh,” she said. “Um, thanks.” She hesitated a moment and then said, “You smell pretty good tonight.”

“Must be that cologne you picked covered the cat smell,” he teased. But he liked the compliment… a great deal. It was a small step toward him, but he would take it over the stalemate of the past week. He wanted her. He was going to keep wanting her.

He decided giving a few reminders didn’t hurt, either, however subtle. Especially because she was gorgeous when she was flustered.

“Yeah, I hope you didn’t mind that. You seemed like you might be a cologne guy. And I like to smell things that I like.” She paused and shook her head. “You know what I mean. I’m a sense of smell girl. Wolf thing.”

“Also a cat thing, so I can appreciate that. And I do like it, so thanks.”

She smiled, a true smile this time. And as Jaden sat looking at her, at the candlelight flickering in her eyes, at the soft set of her mouth and the way the streaks in her hair glinted and shimmered, he felt a strange sensation in the center of his chest, a pulling from the seat of whatever he had for a soul. It drew him to Lyra, more powerfully than any blood had ever called him… though the scent of hers, dark and ripe and wild, enveloped him as he sat there, enchanted.

He had always known there was more than one way to hunger for a woman. He had just never expected to find himself hungry in all those ways for a single woman. It filled him with a bottomless longing, the sort he would never be able to assuage with a simple bite or even a night in her bed.

He didn’t know what it would take.

All he knew was… somehow, he had to find out.

The softness remained in her expression as she looked at him, and Jaden felt himself holding his breath, waiting to see what this new shift in his mercurial student would bring. Most of their interaction had been work, with (mostly) good-natured insults that passed as banter. He sensed the same guardedness in her nature as he had in his own, so he understood. But Jaden wanted, more and more, to see what was behind the shield she carried. Only she could decide to let him, though.

“The thrall thing is a handy trick,” Lyra said. “You could rule the world with that.”

Jaden shrugged. “I prefer just using it to get free stuff. And get the occasional power trip from being called master.” He burst out laughing at the same time as she did. “Actually, the master thing is a new one. I think your new boyfriend has some deep-seated issues.”

Lyra smacked him lightly on the arm. “While the hat was just dead sexy, not my type. I think I’d need to get into whips and chains, and I’m just not going there.”

“Pity.”

“You’re a pig,” she said, still grinning. “And… thanks.”

Jaden feigned incredulity. “Seriously? You’re thanking me for helping you?”

She rolled her eyes back into her head. “Bite me. I might have complained if I was enjoying myself, but listening to the walking encyclopedia of weird got old after ten minutes, and he was so dead set on this place it was going to take me a while. So yes, thank you.”

The warmth between them lingered, invisible but palpable.

“You want to take a walk?” she asked suddenly. “I need to move. And it’s finally not raining, so…”

He tipped his chin down to look at her. “Trying to skip out on practice?”