Selene balked, her jaw dropping. “The goddess didn’t curse us!” Her eyes widened. “It was a blessing. She allowed us to retain an echo of our animal selves while inheriting a higher consciousness. Unlike our animal ancestors, werewolves have free will—we can choose. Our Primary ancestors were as close to wolves as humans have ever been and powerful enough to birth our entire race.”
Jason snorted. Why were all the beautiful ones crazy? “Or aHomo sapiensgot it on with a wolf and we evolved. Seems more likely.”
“Why would that be more likely?”
Because I don’t feel like a person with higher consciousness or free will, he thought.I feel like an exhausted werewolf orphan who has to live a lie just to survive.“I just don’t believe the scrolls are anything more than stories. They’re fiction.”
Long, tapered fingers landed on Jason’s forearm. The simple touch heated his blood, and he swallowed hard against the feeling. “The scrolls are so much more! People come to us all the time with their problems. Our sacred magic heals them when they can’t figure things out on their own.”
Jason tried to disguise his scowl. It was well known that thePreotkaand her acolytes lived a lifestyle designed to enhance their spiritual connection with the next world. Even now, Selene’s expression held not a flicker of cynicism or doubt. She looked at him like he was the only person on this earth and the purpose of her entire existence was to genuinely fix him if he needed it.Fuck. How could he ever accept her help, knowing that if he shared his vice, shared about the things he’d done with Nickelova and others, things he still wanted to do, he’d be ruining her innocence, tainting the very soul who so generously wanted to save him.
He grazed his bottom lip along his upper teeth and was surprised when a bit of the truth snuck out. “I don’t think what’s broken inside me can be fixed.”
“PreotkaArtemis says that brokenness is the first step toward transformation. A caterpillar completely takes itself apart in order to become a butterfly.”
“Gotta break a few eggs to make an omelet, eh?”
“She doesn’t mean—”
He held up a hand. “Save your breath. My egg was fried on the sidewalk a long time ago. The only transformation happening here”—he placed a hand on his gut and winked—“is happening to the burger I had for lunch.”
She pressed two fingers to her lips, covering a hint of a smile. They’d arrived at the clearing where Laina, Kyle, and Silas were waiting for him.
“Well, just think about it,” Selene said. “It would be my pleasure to work with you. My door is always open.”
As he watched Selene drift away, Jason wished he could take advantage of her open door, and not in the religious way. The thought confirmed he was a filthy predator. He sighed. Every moment with Selene would be like looking at his dark soul under a magnifying glass. She was pure, unadulterated virtue. A person like that could make anyone feel unworthy.
ChapterFive
Selene had never fully appreciated the rumors until now. Jason was strikingly handsome with a smile that stole the breath from her lungs. It wasn’t every day a person got this close to a member of the royal family. Oh, she’d been in Jason’s presence before at pack events and during the shift but always from across the room. They’d never been formally introduced. Royals didn’t normally interact much with acolytes. Now she understood why people talked about him. Even in a business suit there was something potent about him. Her inner wolf had done an odd little twist when he’d looked at her, and she’d pictured, just for a second, what it would be like to have that mass of tightly coiled muscle stalk toward her in a dark room. But what had really surprised her was his charm and wit. Jason was someone she imagined she could talk to for hours. Although, as she watched him walk away, her spiritual side detected a darkness in his soul she wasn’t expecting, a darkness she found more disturbing by the minute.
“What were you talking to Prince Jason about?” Artemis asked, her soft and straightforward smile giving her a younger appearance than her wrinkled skin and gray curls would suggest. She clasped her hands beneath the bell sleeves of her heavy purple robe.
“I sense something is troubling him,Preotka. He has a deep unease about him. I suggested it was common for a brother to feel anxious over a sibling’s marriage, but his words seemed to indicate the problem goes deeper.”
“And his aura?” Artemis was testing her. Aura reading wasPreotkamagic, something Selene was learning but hadn’t fully mastered, like everything else in her chosen vocation.
“Muddy, with a green center. Much darker than it should be.” She tangled her fingers together, nervous about the accuracy of her reading.
“I fear you are correct, sister.”
“He’s unhappy. But why?” Selene asked.
Artemis tipped her head. “Why do you think?”
Selene toyed with the end of her sash, twisting it around her finger. “I can’t imagine. He has more wealth than most of the pack, a position of power, and if the rumors are to be believed, plenty of… social activity.” Heat flushed her face and neck thinking about that. “Plus he has a loving family.”
Artemis sighed. “He is wealthy but has no mate to share it with. He is a royal but not alpha. The women who keep his company are many, but none of them are here with him today. And the family you mentioned, they’re all distracted with his sister’s wedding. Too distracted to sense he’s suffering.”
Selene brushed a strand of hair back behind her ear. “So you think it’s not just unhappiness but a sort of longing for more?”
Artemis shrugged. “We can’t know for sure without asking the man himself. But I do know this. Years ago, Jason experienced a traumatic event that robbed him of his parents and his potential mate. That’s when I first noticed the change in his aura and also when he began suffering from his vice for sex. I believe the two are connected.”
Heaviness settled in Selene’s chest, remembering the day Alex Bloodright murdered the Flynns along with other pack leaders and their families in a crowded theater. She hadn’t known one of those people was a potential mate. Anyone would be traumatized after something like that. Was it any surprise that Jason had gone a little wild to ease the pain?
“Do you think we can help him?”
Artemis shrugged. “If and when he wants to be helped, we can help him. He’s used sex to cope with the pain he’s been feeling for a long time, and it’s possible that works well enough for him. I suspect though that Silas will demand he find a mate soon. When that happens, he may want to change his habits.”
