“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.”

“You aspire to be the pack priestess.”

“All acolytes do.”

“Some more than others.” He tilted his head.

“There are some who quit early on, but I’ve been doing this for almost three years now and it’s the first time I’ve felt fully connected to anything. Artemis thinks I may be the one to take over her role when she retires.”

Jason selected another piece of burger and successfully brought it to his mouth.

“You’re doing better. I told you that you were hungry.”

“Can I ask you something?”

“Something else? I feel like I’m giving you my life history.”

“You said I wasn’t the first man you’d seen naked.”

“You’re not.”

“When you say you did things to survive…”

Selene sighed. He was going to make her say it. “I had sex in exchange for things, to survive. Sometimes by choice. Sometimes by force. Never a good experience. I don’t like to talk about it.”

Jason growled.

“It was a long time ago.” She lowered her chin and stared at him.

His brows knit, and he shook his head. “I’m sorry, Selene. I almost forced myself on you the other night. I was out of control. It must have been terrifying, especially considering your past.” He leaned toward her, his gaze locking with hers. “I’d never hurt you. Not intentionally.”

For a long time, she simply stared at him, sizing him up. “I know.” Her voice was barely audible. She picked at her food. “Now, I’ve answered your questions. You need to answer mine.”

“I thought I did. What other questions could you have?”

“What was it about Ms. Matthews—”

“That allowed her to fuel the darkest part of me?”

Selene nodded. “I feel like I don’t have the full story.”

Jason glanced toward the balcony. “Come outside with me?”

“Jason…”

“I’ll tell you. Just help me outside. If I eat another bite I’m going to pop. I haven’t seen the sun in four days.”

She stood and helped him to the balcony. A warm breeze circled her shoulders as she lowered Jason onto one of the sling-back chairs.

“Do you want me to get you a blanket?” she asked.

“No. I’m okay.”

Selene sat down beside him, trying to be patient.

“Considering she was a human, Professor Matthews had quite the appetite. Once or twice a week she’d call me into her office and I’d do what I thought I had to do. Until during one session, my phone rang. I didn’t answer it, not until later when I was back at my dorm room.”

“Who was it?” Selene’s voice felt thin and weak.

“It was my mom. She wanted to talk to me about a charity performance she was going to with my father. My parents had invited my siblings and me to go as well, but I couldn’t because of Professor Matthews. My sister couldn’t go either because she was finishing an intense veterinary medicine program at the time. And Silas couldn’t go because he was a new detective and he was working that night.” Jason’s voice petered out at the end until she could barely hear him. She threaded her fingers into his and squeezed.

“It’s understandable, Jason.”

He turned his head to look at her, his green eyes as cutting and bright as emeralds. “My parents were gunned down in the Harlequin Theater at that performance. That call and that message were the last time I heard my mother’s voice. Not only did I miss Silas’s call weeks later to tell me they were dead, but I missed my last chance to talk to them while they were still alive. I never called my mother back. I was ashamed. I didn’t want to talk to her in case something in my voice gave away what I was doing with Jill. All because I couldn’t say no. I couldn’t face the consequences of my actions.”

Selene’s lips parted and she took a tiny sip of air, trying her best not to react to the revelation, not to feel the aching pain that rolled off Jason like a fog and settled right over her heart. The look on his face said it all. He loathed himself. Loathed what he’d done.

Standing from her chair, Selene knelt in front of him on the concrete, placing her hands on top of his.

“You couldn’t have known what would happen. It isn’t your fault.”

“No? Maybe if I’d had a spine. If I’d stood up to her… maybe I would have gone with my parents to that stupid play, and maybe I could have stopped Alex.”

“Maybe. Or you might have been another of his victims. Your mother knew you loved her. If she were here, she’d tell you she forgives you for that day and many others. She’d want you to forgive yourself.”

“How do you know?” Jason’s green eyes were wet with unshed tears.

“I’m an acolyte, Jason.” Selene squeezed his hands. “Goddess willing, it’s my job to know.”