by Dannika Dark
FIVE WEEKS
A Seven Series Novel
Book 3
DANNIKA DARK
All Rights Reserved
Copyright © 2014 Dannika Dark
No part of this book may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the author. You must not circulate this book in any format. Thank you for respecting the rights of the author.
This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance of characters to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Edited by Victory Editing and Red Adept. Cover design by Dannika Dark. All stock purchased.
www.dannikadark.net
Fan page located on Facebook
Summary
Izzy has always loved the freedom and adventure of life on the road, but she’s recently decided to settle down—as much as a rogue wolf can. When her boyfriend gets her a job working at a hot Shifter bar, she runs into the last person on earth she expected to see again.
Jericho isn’t the famous rock star he once was, though he still plays in a local band and loves to party. Beautiful women come and go, but music is his only passion—until a sassy redhead named Isabelle Monroe shows up unexpectedly.
Fate reunites two former friends living with one foot in the present and the other in the past. But will they have a future when one of them is forced to choose between life and death? Old habits die hard, and sometimes the toughest addictions to shake are the ones that control our hearts.
Book 3 of 7
Also By Dannika Dark:
THE MAGERI SERIES
Sterling
Twist
Impulse
Gravity
Shine
NOVELLAS
Closer
THE SEVEN SERIES
Seven Years
Six Months
Five Weeks
Table Of Contents
Acknowledgments:
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Acknowledgments:
I want to give a huge thanks to my team of betas: Amber, Teresa, Erin, Kelly, and Mikaela. Some of you were thrown into the mix mid-series and somehow managed to hang on for the ride.
Everyone in life has a story to tell, and sometimes there are things in our past we spend our lives running from. This book is dedicated to those who have retired their running shoes and found a piece of happiness they can call home.
I spent a lifetime running away from my problems…
Until I had a five-week collision course with fate.
Prologue
Jericho stretched out his long legs and noticed his arms were pinned to the mattress. He dipped his chin against his chest and saw a luscious blonde on his left with a dragon tattoo inked across her shoulder, and a brunette on the right. The blonde had her nude body flush against his chest and hip. The brunette, on the other hand, was drooling on his right bicep and twitching in her sleep.
He glanced around and didn’t recognize his surroundings. After jamming all night onstage with his band and having a few shots with the groupies, things had gotten crazy. Nothing he wasn’t used to, being a Shifter. The Cole brothers all had a touch of inherent wild in their blood.
The Shifter community was comprised of a wide variety of animals; Jericho was a wolf. The last thing he remembered was briefly shifting in hopes of getting the girls to follow suit so he could find out what their animals were. Like most Shifters, they were evasive at first. One of the girls had brought Sensor pops—a candy spiked with emotions by a Sensor— and everything became fuzzy after that. More drinks, a lot of kissing, and no recollection of whether or not they had sex. He was certain he didn’t with the brunette, because he remembered her animal was a deer. Jericho preferred women with bite.
Shifters were prohibited from changing into their animal in a Breed bar, but he’d been known to do it at the end of his act. It had gotten him kicked out of a few clubs, but nothing beat the reaction from the women when he revealed his animal onstage. Not to mention he had a pretty wolf—a warm shade of brown mixed with cream and orange.
Then he’d shift back and show them what else he had to offer when his clothes wound up in a heaping pile at his feet.
After living in Austin for a year, Jericho didn’t perform that act anymore because the groupies had come to expect it. The women were too easy to get, and he liked the thrill of the chase.
Groupies were one of two kinds: either the office girls who wore slingback pumps and cherry-red lipstick, trying to find a piece of wild before returning to their mundane lives, or they were batshit crazy. Unfortunately, groupies were the only women who would give him the time of day. He’d never met a good woman who could handle a man like him; they were put off by his tattoo, long hair, and rocker lifestyle. Then again, why should he care? It’s not as if he was looking for a mate. Jericho didn’t want someone who would tie him down and make him turn in his Les Paul for a BlackBerry. He’d been living this lifestyle for decades, and it was the only life he knew.
Two of his brothers, one of whom was his Packmaster, had settled down with mates. Their large house was becoming a solid pack, but it was beginning to make him feel like the odd man out. Even his younger brother, Denver, had settled down just a little bit after taking over the role as Maizy’s watchdog. Maizy was the human child who lived with them, and woe to the man who made that little girl cry. Denver fiercely protected her and would pound anyone’s ass into the ground who hurt that child. Just ask the smart-ass at the gas station who, after looking at her tiara and wand, made the mistake of asking her if she rode the short bus to school. Reno had taken Maizy’s hand and walked her out to the car while Denver shined the floor with that man’s ass, and deservedly so.
Nobody messes with the Weston pack.
Most Shifters lived with their own kind. But Austin, the Packmaster, had fallen in love with Lexi. She’d grown up thinking she was human until she had recently gone through the change—a Shifter’s transition to adulthood when they shift into their animal for the first time. Lexi had been stolen from her Shifter family by a human when she was just a baby. That explained her resilience in all she’d been through, because that was the Shifter way. After coming to grips with the truth, she’d moved in with the Weston pack, mated with Austin, and that was that. The brothers accepted her mom and little sister as family, even though they were human.
They weren’t the only humans in the house. Reno had recently hooked up with one of Lexi’s coworkers, and they were as good as mated, except that mating wasn’t legal between humans and Breed. April had moved in several months ago, and they had a chemistry that couldn’t be matched. But it was less “in your face” sexual than the Austin and Lexi phenomenon. Those two were like watching the mating rituals of wild animals. April was a great girl, but more of a bookworm. At first the pack had tried to steer Reno away from her. The brothers insisted it wasn’t a wise decision for Reno to pursue a human. But aft
er saving Reno’s wolf, April had earned their respect. When Reno asked her to be his life mate, the pack let go of their grudges and accepted her into the family. That’s what brothers do.
Jericho didn’t have a mate, despite the two bombshells curled up next to him. He loved the ladies and loved them good… in bed. But outside the sheets, no woman had ever made his wolf pace restlessly. No woman had ever made him feel an inexplicable desire to behave irrationally, all for the sake of making her smile. No woman had ever made him want to be a better man, one who would spill blood to protect what he loved. No woman had ever incited the hunter in him. No woman had ever denied him.
Except one.
Chapter 1
The only thing in this world I loved more than a frozen chocolate shake on a hot spring day was combustible sex on a kitchen table.
“Hell’s bells,” I groaned, rubbing my forehead when a brain freeze struck me.
“You drank it too fast, Izzy. How many times have I told you to suck on it slower?”
I smirked and glanced up at Hawk, who seemed oblivious to his own innuendo.
I was born Isabelle Marie Monroe, which didn’t fit my spirited personality in the least, so everyone called me Izzy. I came from an interbred family of Shifters—something frowned upon by most Breeds. My dad was a wolf and my mother a cougar. Talk about cats and dogs. All my siblings were cougars, so growing up the lone wolf in the family was no cakewalk. Shifters don’t go through the change until their late teens or early twenties, but kids often show telltale characteristics of their animal early on. When they began to sense I wasn’t one of them, my sisters and older brother turned on me. After I went through the change, it confirmed their suspicions.
So I learned how to fight.
It took me three long years to build up enough courage to go out on my own, and when I did, I couldn’t escape that house fast enough. A charismatic young Shifter named Jericho took me under his wing. We met about twenty years ago when he worked as a roadie for a popular band touring around the country. We were two Shifters from different worlds who found each other in a rainstorm. It was a lifetime ago, but Shifters live for centuries. I still looked a graceful twenty-five.
I lived and traveled with Jericho for five years. We had a magnetic chemistry, as if we’d known each other in another lifetime. But Jericho would often ditch me in a bar and run off with some floozy who caught his eye. It couldn’t be helped; the man was gorgeous and women threw themselves at him. Except for me, because all we ever were was best friends. Then things got twisted between us, and I bailed.
Recently I’d found out my parents had divorced. A loner by nature, my mother had finally given up fighting my father’s desire to join a pack. As for him, he ended up joining a group up in Colorado. By that time, my siblings had scattered across the country, and we didn’t keep in touch.
Avoiding pack life wasn’t advisable for single women because rogue wolves were a constant threat, though a pack led by a good Packmaster offered protection. But I’d never known that life, and it frightened me. After all, my own family hadn’t looked out for me. How could I expect strangers to? Because of that distrust, I never revealed my animal to anyone except close friends or lovers. I’d never experienced what it meant to be in a pack, but the instinct called to me in quiet moments.
I bounced around the lower states for years and then moved to Texas with a friend who wanted to join a pack. She’d heard Austin was thick with Shifters, and you can bet your red panties she found a Packmaster within the second week, which left me without a job or a home.
And that’s when I bumped into Hawk. We met at a Laundromat of all places, and I sensed his Breed energy when I sat next to him. After letting his jockeys tumble with my G-strings, we decided to take it to the next level and have been living together for the past month. I didn’t know what he did for a living and didn’t care, so long as he treated me right. He’d just gotten me a job at a Shifter bar called Howlers, which is where we were headed.
When I noticed only a few slurps of milkshake remained, I hurled the cup out the window.
“What the fuck!” Hawk rolled up my window from his panel and sighed. “Why don’t you act like a lady?”
“Why don’t you treat me like one?” I quirked a brow and smiled.
He touched his mustache, and I could feel him glaring at me from behind his black sunglasses. I wasn’t really into the whole ’stache look, but it suited him in a yuppie-biker kind of way. Hawk didn’t own a motorcycle, just a red sports car. Two doors, meaning whenever one of his buddies came along, I had to squeeze into the back seat, which felt like a suitcase.
“You’re in one of your moods today, Iz. Sure you aren’t a cat? I think you might be since you’re partial to those damn hissy fits,” he said with a dark chuckle.
I hated it when he pulled out the cougar card. He knew how I felt about growing up the lone wolf, but Hawk didn’t seem to mind digging in his talons with a joke here and there.
I crossed my legs seductively and stroked my hand down to my knee, seizing his attention as the car slowed at a red light. “I do have a kitty,” I said with a provocative purr. “Want to pet her?”
Hawk lifted his glasses over his head and didn’t look as amused as I thought he would. “Don’t pull that shit tonight, got it? You’re sexy as sin, Izzy, but I’m getting real tired of the way you shake your ass at other wolves to make me jealous.”
I folded my arms. “Maybe if you gave me some attention, I wouldn’t have to.”
He slid his glasses back on when the light turned green. “I give you plenty of attention when it counts.”
It only counted five seconds before he had an orgasm, or if I was on my way home and he wanted me to stop off at the taco stand. Hawk took care of me and we got along, but the chemistry was nonexistent, as it was with almost all the guys I’d dated. I’d concluded that mated Shifters were all extraordinary liars. Hawk didn’t make my toes curl or my insides tingle. He didn’t make me slide down in my seat and fantasize about what I wanted him to do to me. Hawk took me to Chili’s every Friday, paid the bills, tuned up my car, and let me sleep with the remote control. I guess that’s love.
“I’m not sure that I like your work attire,” he grumbled, staring down at my long legs.
I tilted the vent away and twisted around to face him. “This isn’t my uniform, so just drop me off and keep all the snide remarks to yourself. I don’t want you coming in and picking on my customers. You know how Shifter bars operate, and I’ve done the waitress gig before. At the end of the day, I’m there for the tips, not the compliments. I may shake my ass and throw them a few winks, but I’m monogamous, and you know that.”
He eased up to the front of the building and pinched my chin. “Better be. If I hear you’re messing around, it won’t be pretty.”
“You’re right, Hawk. Nothing makes me wetter than serving a bunch of jackasses beer and nachos. Give me a kiss.”
A smile curved up his cheek, and he pulled a lock of my red hair. “Your fiery temper is going to land you in trouble one of these days.”
“It already has. I’m with you.”
And wasn’t that the truth? Hawk was a nice guy, but whatever he did was illegal. He’d come home on more than one occasion with bruised knuckles and a look of satisfaction. It seemed out of character because I’d never seen him lose his cool, no matter how much smack he talked. Hawk wasn’t the perfect boyfriend, but then again, what sense of normalcy had I ever had? The only stability I’d ever known was with Jericho, and God knows where he was. The last time I saw him, he was lying in our hotel room in my bed with a girl straddling him and rocking her hips mercilessly.
Wearing my Pink Floyd shirt.
Jericho knew how much I loved that shirt, and he gave it to some whore who probably cut it up and made it into a hideous beach-bikini top. He’d crossed a line, which led me to believe he didn’t value our friendship as much as I did.
I’d never had sex with Jericho because that
wasn’t what our relationship had been about. What had once existed between us was a close bond that I’d never experienced with anyone before or since.
“Look, it’s the only Breed job I could find you on short notice,” Hawk said. “You’re the one who insisted on finding work, but I’m fine with you staying home. Actually, I like this idea less the more I think about it. Nervous?”
“First-day jitters. You know how it is.” I stared out the window. “I need to stay busy and work or else I go nuts.”
“Well, this’ll be a trial period. I make good money, so I don’t know what you’re trying to prove.”
I chuckled softly. “You’d be surprised what a girl can make in a place like this.”
Howlers was a low-key bar that catered to Shifters, and that was my kind of place. I felt more comfortable around my kind; Vampires and Chitahs made me nervous as heck. Some Breeds lacked distinct characteristics and could pass as human, so they weren’t as easy to identify. A Mage looked no different than anyone else, but as a creature of energy, their presence could be felt by a sweep of chills across your body that could easily be mistaken for the shivers. All the Chitahs I’d met were tall, had predatory body language, and eyes the color of amber or firelight.
“Last chance,” he offered.
“It’s gravy.” I opened the door and got out. “I’ll be fine driving myself to work from here on out.”
“Izzy, we talked about this. I don’t want you driving out here alone.”
“I know, but it doesn’t look so bad,” I said, glancing around the parking lot. The bar was sandwiched between a pawnshop and an open field. “It’s not like we’re in the hood.”
“Iz…”
I slammed the door and bent forward, staring through the window as he rolled it down. “Hawk, I know you’re trying to look out for me by driving your girl to work, but if you show up late, then I’m stuck here. If something happens and you can’t make it, I end up taking a cab home, or the bus. Do you want me walking the streets or hanging out with some of these clowns in the bar?”
