He hadn’t been merely trying to scare Jordana when he told her that he was the last man she’d want in her bed. It had been a warning. One he hoped to hell she took to heart, because God help her if she trusted him to be the hero.
On a curse, Nathan stalked into the vacant armory of the Order’s weapons room. He stripped off his black T-shirt and powered himself through a punishing hour of solo exercise with a pair of long daggers. The exertion woke up his muscles and bones, reminded his body of what it was trained to do.
More important, it woke up his Hunter’s mind, put his thoughts in ruthless focus on executing the patrol ahead of him in the city tonight.
Elsewhere, in the main arena of the weapons facility, he could hear Rafe, Eli, and Jax still running one another through the paces of mock combat. A fourth voice—Aric must have joined them at some point—whooped as blades clanked and sawed together, steel meeting steel.
Nathan finished his solo maneuvers and hit the shower. He hoped to be in and gone before the other warriors wrapped up their work in the adjacent room, but no sooner had he stepped under the hot spray than footsteps falling heavy on tile and lighthearted insults sounded in the locker area outside.
Elijah’s low drawl echoed over the rest of the men. “Damn, someone tell me why I thought that fifth round of hand-to-hand and blade work was a good idea.” A moment later, the brown-haired vampire swaggered naked into the showers, slanting Nathan a casual nod of greeting.
Eli took his place across from Nathan and turned on the spray, groaning as the hot water coursed over him. Blood ran in thin, diluted rivulets down Eli’s dermaglyph-covered arms and legs from wounds he’d sustained in the practice, but already the lacerations were beginning to heal.
Minor injuries were of no consequence to their kind. Cuts and contusions vanished in minutes, sometimes less time than that.
“Don’t be such a sore loser,” Aric Chase taunted. Grinning, he strode in and took a spot two down from Elijah. Rafe and Jax followed him inside, briefly acknowledging Nathan before going to separate corners of the showers. “What’s the matter, Eli,” Aric pressed, “don’t want to admit you got trounced by a trainee?”
“Trainee,” he said, smirking as he glanced at the younger warrior and sluiced water off his face. “Daywalking, smartass punk, more like it. You’re good with a weapon, I’ll give you that. But don’t think I didn’t notice you waited to take me on until after I’d already gone four rounds with two warriors who actually know how to fight.”
Aric chuckled as he soaped up and shot a look at Rafe across the room. “You know, for a Texan, he’s sure got a fragile ego. Must be that weaker, late-generation Breed blood in him.”
“The hell you say.” Eli snorted, his drawl thicker now. “Ain’t nothin’ fragile about me. Next time you ask me to spar, I’m gonna drop you on your daywalker ass before I kick it from here to the Alamo.”
Aric laughed and rinsed off the suds. “Tell you what. If it’ll make you feel better, I’ll give you a handicap next time.”
“I’ll give you a handicap right now, sunshine.” Elijah flashed his fangs at the other vampire and made a fast swat at Aric, cuffing his flaccid dick. It was a jest and a challenge—one Aric tried to return, but wasn’t quick enough.
Both laughing now, Eli grabbed him in a headlock under the water and let him sputter for a few seconds before letting him go. Before long, Jax and Rafe joined in the skirmish, the four big males wrestling around like a close-knit wolf pack.
Like the tight band of brothers they were.
Nathan watched for a moment, detached from the camaraderie. For all his expertise in stealth and combat, game play was a concept that eluded him. It went against his nature. Against the rigid discipline that had made him a consummate killer by the time he was seven years old.
He chased.
He conquered.
He destroyed.
His training as a boy in the Hunters’ cells permitted nothing less. And although his rescue at age thirteen had saved Nathan, a part of him had never come out of Dragos’s lab and likely never would.
He was the fighting dog, rescued from the squalor and violence of the betting pits and brought into a kind, loving home to live a better life.
He had been spared, given a new chance. He had parents and friends he cared for. He had fellow warriors who would die for him, as he would for them.
Yet, like the dog removed from the ring, when a hand reached out to him—in play or in comfort—it was all he could do to keep from biting it.
The distance between who he was now and what he’d been raised to be was a thin razor’s edge that he toed with meticulous discipline each and every day. No one knew the effort it took for him to seem normal. To appear that he fit in with decent people, that he belonged.
They saw what he wanted them to see, and nothing more.
No one knew him beyond what he’d allowed them to perceive.
No one took anything from him that he wasn’t prepared to give up.
No one ever had, until Jordana Gates.
His blood ran hot at the thought of her, their conversation—and the all-too-tempting memory of her body in such close proximity to his—making his veins light up with hunger.