She’d almost finished frying up a couple of hamburgers when he finally spoke.
“I’ve spent a long time trying to forget that day,” he said.
Selene didn’t say anything, just glanced at him and plated the burgers, adding chips along the edge of the plate.
“You must think I’m trash. Royal trash. Nothing but a waste of oxygen.”
Her face tightened and she moved the food to the table. She stared at Jason for a moment, then placed her hands on either side of his face. “Being used by someone does not make you trash. Jill Matthews is trash.”
“And I’m worse?” Dark circles had appeared under his eyes. He was coming apart.
“No. You’re extraordinary. Because you are going to survive this. You are going to overcome what she did to you. And I’m going to celebrate every baby step while you do.” She searched his eyes.
For a moment, she was staring straight into his soul, at a boy who’d hidden so much pain for so long that he didn’t know what to do with it now that it was exposed. But like a switch, she watched him change. He camouflaged his despair with a thick blanket of cynicism and that roguish grin that tugged somewhere deep inside her. She slid a hamburger in front of him.
“You owe me a story,” he said. “Of how you’re not a virgin.”
She retrieved two teacups and filled them both with the hot tea she’d made while he was sleeping. Waves of steam twisted from the surface, the scent of lemon and orange blossom filling her nostrils. She didn’t want to talk about this with him. She’d promised in the heat of the moment, but now she regretted the offer.
“You should eat something,” she said.
To her relief, Jason began to eat in earnest, although he searched her face as if trying to decipher her expression. “What made you decide to become an acolyte?” he asked between bites.
Selene took a long sip of tea and thought about the question. Should she answer it honestly or give him the sanitized version she used in polite conversation? She looked at him over the lip of her teacup. Sweat was visible on his upper lip and every time he lifted the burger to his mouth his hands shook so hard the sandwich began to come apart. She pushed her plate across the table and moved beside him, rather than across from him.
“Can I help you with that?” She reached for the burger.
He shook his head. “I can feed myself.”
“I’ll tell you what, if you allow me to help you, I’ll tell you the story of how I became an acolyte.”
His eyes narrowed but he seemed to have no fight left in him to argue. With a deep sigh, he gave her one curt nod.
“I wasn’t always a member of Fireborn pack.” She cut the burger into quarters and raised one to his lips, trying not to think of how intimate the gesture felt.
“I was wondering. I don’t remember you as a child or a teen but then my family…”
“Royalty is often separated from the masses.” She lifted the sleeve of her T-shirt to reveal her pack tattoo. “I didn’t become a Fireborn until I was sixteen. I believe you were already at university by then.”
“What pack were you with before?” Jason asked, taking another bite from her fingers.
Selene shook her head. “Running solo.”
Jason arched an eyebrow. “No pack at all?”
“I was born into a human family. Both human. The first time I shifted, my father tried to shoot me. I didn’t remember, of course. I was fifteen and had a fever. The heat was so extreme I became delirious and stumbled outside into the snow in the middle of the night. I woke up the next morning, naked, shivering, with blood on my face. After I snuck back into the house, my father told my mother that he’d shot at a wolf hanging around our front porch. I didn’t know that wolf was me. Not yet.”
“You’re lucky to be alive. Most werewolves born to human parents don’t make it through the first shift.”
“I wasn’t a genetic anomaly. My mother recognized the signs and told me what I was. The man I thought was my father, wasn’t. My mother became pregnant by a werewolf and pawned me off on my human father when the guy hit the road. She didn’t even remember his full name.”
“Oh, Selene.” Jason shook his head.
“The next time I shifted, I did it where both my parents could see. I thought if I brought it out in the open, things would be different. I thought they’d help me. The next day, I left for school. When I came back, they were gone.”
“Gone?”
“They moved.” Her gaze drifted toward the window. “While I was in class, so that they wouldn’t have to face me, the only family I’d ever known abandoned me.”
