“This is the last time,” Jason said through his teeth. “It’s over.”
She grinned over her shoulder. “It’s over when I decide it is.”
He entered her roughly, still fully dressed, his hand moving from her neck to her mouth as her moans became loud enough to be heard through the walls. This wasn’t lovemaking; it was sex—brutal, punishing sex that made Selene wish she could look away. Jason’s eyes were dead, his hips thrusting like a machine. After several torturous minutes, Ms. Matthews’s body twitched under him, the force of her orgasm evident in the contortion of her limbs.
Jason pulled out and came down the back of her legs.
Professor Matthews rocked on the desk, her hips rolling, but Jason backed away like the very sight of her disgusted him. He zipped his pants and picked up his backpack, staring at the door while she composed herself. She flashed him a wicked smile.
“A-plus,” she said, holding up the paper. “You’re a natural.”
Jason scowled, refusing to look at her. “Can I go?” Selene noticed a number of missed messages flashing across the screen of his phone, now cradled in his hand like a talisman against evil. They were from Silas. His brother had been trying to reach him.
Ms. Matthews gripped Jason’s lower jaw and forced him to look at her. “Such a pretty face. Don’t feel guilty about this, darling. We’re just two people taking solace from an unforgiving world in the safety of each other’s arms.”
“There’s only one person here whose grades are at stake.”
“Hey, you signed up for this. Do I need to remind you—”
“No. I remember.”
“Then, I’ll see you next… assignment.” Jason unlocked the door and let himself out.
The scene faded, and so did Selene. She came out of his memories, exhausted and feeling filthy. It took her a moment to reorient herself. She was perched on the table next to Jason’s kitchen, his awake but unresponsive body between her thighs. Promptly, she removed her hands from his chest to halt the ritual.
And watched him collapse on the floor near her feet.
Jason hit the floor and rolled onto his back. Everything hurt as if Selene had reached down his throat, grabbed his intestines, and wrapped them around the bumper of a moving bus. He curled on his side and heaved. There was nothing inside him to come out. Truly nothing. He felt like an empty husk.
“Just lie still,” Selene said softly. “You’ll be all right. You just need rest.”
He couldn’t have responded if he’d wanted to. His body shivered uncontrollably, his teeth chattering, and every sweat gland in his body seemed to open at once. The front of his shirt quickly soaked through.
She pressed two fingers against his neck and frowned. “Let’s get you into bed.”
Hooking her hands under his armpits, she dragged him into the bedroom and lifted him onto the bed, a feat that wouldn’t have been possible had she not been a werewolf. His muscles were useless, twitching things. He couldn’t help her or fight her.
She unbuttoned his wet shirt and rolled him out of it. There was nothing sexual about the act. If anything, it was humiliating, although he was too tired to register that particular emotion. He blinked, and she was gone.
When he opened his eyes again, Selene was wringing a washcloth in a basin. She lifted one of his arms and scrubbed. She rinsed it out again. Jason closed his eyes.
He opened them again and he was in his pajamas. She was there, sitting by his bed, watching him. She’d changed her clothes. He closed his eyes again.
“Time to eat,” she said. She was holding him up, spooning soup into his mouth. She’d changed her clothes again. This time she looked worried. He glanced at his useless hands and noticed symbols painted on his palms. He was too weak to ask why they were there. He closed his eyes again.
She was rolling him over. He blinked and rubbed his face. He heard her exhale in relief. “Thank the goddess.” He closed his eyes again.
“Jason? Jason.” Selene’s short, natural nails shook his shoulder, just below his Fireborn tattoo.
“Haven’t you had enough, darling?” he asked, laughing to himself.
“Why is that funny? And don’t call me darling. It’s Selene.”
He rolled over and looked at her, his face falling. “What have you done to me?”
She hesitated. “Do you think you can make it to the bathtub? I’ve filled it for you and I’d like you to try to get up. You’ve been ill.”
He tested his arms and legs, then nodded.
Sitting him up, she swung his legs off the bed and helped him plant his feet. After a few false starts, she looped his arm around her shoulders and helped him to his feet. Step by step they made their way to the bathroom where she undressed him like a child. She helped him step into the tub and lowered him into the water.
“You had a fever,” she said. “A high fever. But it’s over now.”
“…Kill me,” he mumbled.
“No. I’m not going to kill you. It’s going to be okay.”
He shook his head. “You tried to kill me,” he said more clearly.
She sighed. “No. I did what I needed to do to start your recovery. I didn’t want to hurt you. We were supposed to do that gently, from a relaxed, seated position. In an ideal world, you would have let me in. But you forced my hand when you threatened me.”
Jason laid his head back on the side of the tub. “You could have just asked me to stop.”
“I did.”
He tried to think back, but all he remembered was the wolf, the overwhelming feeling of wanting her. Everything else was a blur, flashes and random images he could barely associate with the woman in front of him. He raised his wet hands to his face.
“I forgive you,” Selene said. “Don’t waste a second of your recovery thinking about it. I knew what I was getting myself into.”
He snorted, rolling his head to the side to give her a pointed glare. “Funny, it seems I didn’t.”
“As long as you continue to deny you have a problem, everything we do together is going to feel like a fight, and you’re the one who will wear the bruises,” she said firmly.
With his eyes tightly closed, Jason asked, “Did you find what you needed? Or did you almost kill me for nothing?”
Selene sat cross-legged on the bathroom floor. “I want to talk about Professor Matthews.”
The water splashed as Jason opened his eyes and unsuccessfully tried to sit up. “That’s what you decided to dig out of my head? Jill Matthews?”
“She was your trigger. You keep her in the darkest corner of your mind.”
He sighed. “If there was one thing Jill had in spades, it was darkness.”
“I watched her take advantage of you. It was obvious you didn’t want to be there but she mentioned you… signed up for something.”
He leaned his head back again. He remembered but it wasn’t something he liked to talk about. And it had absolutely nothing to do with his vice.
“She said the same thing to you as you said to me. ‘We’re just two people—’”
“‘Taking solace from an unforgiving world in the safety of each other’s arms.’ I forgot that was something Jill used to say.”
“I think it’s significant.”
“It was a long time ago, long before my vice was a problem.”
Selene said nothing, the silence growing weighted between them.
“I’d done it before.”
“Done what?”
“Slept with a teacher. The first one was named Bethany Vale. I met her at a bar before I knew who she was. We were close in age and things just happened. It had nothing to do with grades. But Professor Matthews found out. She said she’d tell the dean, have Bethany fired. I cared for her. It wasn’t just sex. Then Jill said there was another way.”
“You agreed to give her what she wanted in exchange for her silence,” Selene whispered.
Jason nodded slowly.
“She used you.”
“Until s
omeone younger and more interesting came along.”
“So, that’s what started it.”
“No.” Jason shook his head. “My vice was there after the first time I shifted, and it was relatively mild until…”
“Until that day. I saw you in her office. Silas was trying to call you.”
The scene that played out in Jason’s head made his stomach turn again and a wave of exhaustion overcame him. He closed his eyes. “I don’t want to talk about this.”
“Why was Silas calling you that day?” She lowered herself to her knees next to the tub and folded her arms on the edge, nothing but compassion in her voice.
“Can we take a break? Plenty of time to probe my subconscious and torture me with the results later, right?” He looked at his hands in the water. The symbols she’d drawn there had washed away and turned the bath slightly red.
She didn’t waver from her goal. “Why was Silas calling you?”
“I… I’m naked. Can you hand me a towel?”
Selene raised her eyebrows and smiled roguishly. “You weren’t wearing one when I put you in there.”
“Hide your virgin eyes, woman!” he tried to tease. “Aren’t you supposed to maintain your innocence? One look at my member and you’ll be ruined for celibacy.”
The corner of her mouth twitched up. “Sorry to break it to you, but I had more than an eyeful when I was in your memories, not to mention while I was taking care of you over the last four days. I think I can control myself.”
“Four days?” Jason wiped a hand over his face.
She nodded slowly. “By the way, acolytes are celibate—they’re not necessarily virgins.”
Jason lifted an eyebrow. “Pass the popcorn, someone has a story to tell. What in the goddess’s name are you saying?”
“Tell me why Silas was calling and I’ll get you out of this tub and tell you my story.”
He took a deep breath and watched a bead of water roll down the tiled wall. There was no getting around this. She wasn’t going to let it drop. “Silas was calling to tell me… my parents had been shot. He called to tell me they were dead. Alex Bloodright shot my parents while I was fucking Jill Matthews.”
Chapter 13
“Which drawer?” Selene drifted to his dresser.
“Third on the left,” Jason said. He was sitting naked on the bed, and by the way he swayed, having a hard time remaining upright.
“It’s okay if you want to lie down,” she said as she retrieved a pair of sweats and a T-shirt.
When she turned back around, he was scowling at her. “Doesn’t it bother your acolyte-ness to see me naked?”
“Like I said, most of us had lives before we joined the order. I joined at sixteen. I’ve seen a dick before.”
Jason broke out in a fit of coughing, staring at her as if deeply disturbed by her use of the word dick. Well, he could think what he wanted to. She had no intention of deceiving him into believing she was somehow better than anyone else. Selene had a past, and if Jason knew that, it might give him the hope that he too could overcome his.
She pulled his T-shirt over his head and knelt in front of him to help him into his sweats. Her cheeks grew warm when she found herself eye to eye with the male member they’d just been discussing. Nothing about Jason was average or unattractive. She stood up, trying her best to hide her body’s response to him. He finished pulling them on himself.
“Are you okay?” he said, with an impish smile. “You’re flushed.”
Rolling her eyes, she wiped the back of her hand across her sweating forehead. This would be so much easier if Jason were old or plain or smelled differently. Oh goddess, she loved his smell, an earthy concoction of warm cloves and ground chicory that seemed to ooze naturally from his pores. She looked away for a moment.
“I need something to eat and I know you do too. Can you make it to the kitchen, or do you want me to bring you something in here?”
“I can make it… with your help.” He held out a hand to her. She helped him up and they slowly made their way into the great room, where she propped him in a chair at the dining table. As she moved into the kitchen to start lunch, his silence surprised her. He gave her nothing. No teasing. No insults. No anger.
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.”
“What happened to you? How did you survive?”
“The landlord kicked me out of the house soon after. I lived on the street for a while. Did things I’m not proud of to survive. Stole. Hurt people.” She frowned at her plate. “And other things. Whatever I had to do.”
Jason’s face went slack. He stared at her like he’d never seen her before.
“At first, I had this dream that my real father might find me. But eventually, I gave up on that idea. I’d shift alone and always shift back alone. And then one day, a man was there when I shifted back. He insisted I come with him to Rivergate. He introduced me to Artemis, and she took me under her wing. The rest is, as they say, history.”
“Who was the man?”
Selene smiled. “Your brother Silas. He’d been out working a case and shifted outside the grounds. His wolf found me.”
“Silas.” Jason stared absently straight ahead.
“Well, after that happened, Artemis asked me to join Fireborn since I had no claim to any pack. I accepted and decided soon after that I wanted to be just like Artemis. Besides your brother, she is the only person on this earth I ever fully trusted. The only one I do trust with my life and my soul.”
Jason gave her a pitying glance. “You’ve had a rough start.”
“It made me value relationships and the role of the goddess in our lives. Finding a home with Fireborn pack made me believe I was destined to follow in Artemis’s footsteps.”
Virtue: A Knight World Novel (Fireborn Wolves Book 2) Page 9
