Forget About Midnight (Alexa O'Brien, Huntress #9)

Pondering this, he shook his head. “No, but to be fair, I wasn’t quite in a focused state of mind that night.” Pulling my hair aside, he eyed Jenner’s bite. “Should I ask?”


The bite had healed considerably though enough remained to tell the tale of what I’d been up to. As speedy as vampire healing was, it still had it limits.

“I’d rather you not.” What else could I say? Kale knew as well as I did how this worked. “Jenner was here. We had a little chat.”

He nodded and stepped back, as if he couldn’t stand to touch me just then. Perhaps I was reading too deeply into the action.

“Go ahead, talk to Justin. I’ll stay here and take Jez’s abuse until she feels better.” There was something missing from the smile he bestowed on me. It was hard to look at. There was something missing inside me too.

I touched his face, started to say something, then stopped. There were no words.

Touching base with Justin didn’t help. He hadn’t seen her. Which meant she was late. Or missing.

I slipped outside into the parking lot to escape the noise inside. Telling myself that Juliet had a demanding job didn’t convince me that nothing had happened. Intuition told me otherwise.

I pulled my phone out to call her but didn’t get a chance to before a loud, black Dodge Challenger tore into the parking lot. The car screeched to a stop, and two werewolves got out. They both looked pissed.

Dayne was as rough around the edges as usual. His short, silver-brown hair matched the rugged stubble on his jaw. Piercing blue eyes pinned me with an angry wolf stare. He stalked up to me with a cigar clenched between his teeth.

His enforcer wolf, Owen, followed at his side. He hung back a little, letting his Alpha take the lead here. I had a sinking feeling that this wasn’t a friendly visit.

“Care to tell me why the fuck your vampires are hunting my wolves?” Dayne came to a stop much closer than I’d have preferred. The wolf was in his fifties or so, but he carried himself like he was half that age.

“Wait, what?” I held up a hand, trying to wrap my mind around what he’d just said.

“You fucking heard me,” Dayne growled, blowing a puff of cigar smoke in my face. “One of my wolves is dead. Killed by a vampire. Last I checked, we had an alliance.”

“We do,” I said quickly. “But I don’t know what you’re talking about. Whatever happened, I had nothing to do with it.”

Dayne nodded, and Owen came forward with his phone held out. A photo of a dead werewolf filled the screen. The punctures in his neck had clearly been made by a vampire. This was bad. This was really bad.

“I agreed to take in your wolf. It’s not official yet, but it’s in the works. I’d hate for this shit to ruin that for him. Someone’s gotta pay for this, Alexa.” Dayne towered over me, his fierce wolf eyes burning into my soul.

“I completely agree. Dayne, I’m sorry. Really. There’s no way I’d turn a blind eye to this. If I’d known—”

He cut me off with a guttural snarl. He clenched and unclenched a fist. “You know now. Do something about it. Because if this keeps up, we’re gonna have a full blown war on our hands. And there are no alliances in war. Not between enemies.”

The tall, dark-haired, handsome Owen showed no emotion, but he buzzed with a calm aggression. A leather jacket hid his tattooed arms. Like the last time I’d seen him, a black bandana was tied around his dark head of hair. The crescent moon tattoo on the side of his neck matched Dayne’s. This pack was tight. Something like melancholy envy swam through my soul.

Emotions threatened me. Damn them for being so heightened and out of control right now. I should’ve known the vampires would fuck this up for me.

“Dayne, I know you may look at me and see a vampire, but I am a wolf. I have been one since I was sixteen, and the wolf is who I am. The vampire is what I am. Please don’t miss how different those two things are. I’m wolf. Please, trust that the wolves mean more to me than the vampires do.” It was a plea, an obvious one. Even though he’d never allow me into his pack, it meant a lot to me that Dayne accept me as a fellow wolf.

Owen shuffled his feet, kicking a stone across the parking lot. “Are you willing to prove that?”

Dayne’s face lit up, and he nodded. I couldn’t help but feel a little offended, but seeing as they had a dead wolf on their hands, I didn’t have much room to defend myself.

“Owen, come on,” I said. “You were there when those vampires jumped me. It’s not as if they’re all following some kind of group structure and rules the way wolves do.”

“Then maybe they ought to be.” Dayne spat on the ground between us and rolled angry wolf eyes toward the club. “The only good vampire is a dead vampire. But I get a good feeling from you. I want to give you a chance to prove you’re not just like the rest of them.”

My gaze strayed from one wolf to the other. They waited, wanting something from me. Something I had to give them.