Selene felt like a rebel as she waited to duck out of the shop on a mission for her morning treat. She, too, could be the rebellious twin.
Chapter Two
Jett
Jett Arrowood had made many mistakes in his life. Many. More than most people. In fact, Jett knew his life was nothing more than one long string of bad decisions. That wasn’t just his opinion. The entire wolf pack had the same impression of him.
And he had gone and proved them right. Again.
He didn’t want to move, nor did he want the woman in his bed to move. If everything just stopped for one second, he could go on pretending that last night hadn’t happened. Sure, he could be a major jackass, but he could stay right as he was and not feel like the biggest asshole in the world for a few more seconds.
“You awake?” his bedmate snuggled into his side and Jett had to fight his instincts to not shove her away.
He knew Leah was bad news for him, just like he knew he shouldn’t have brought her home last night. At the very least, nothing had happened. He had pretended to be too drunk, but Leah had insisted on sleeping over. She’d purred into his ear that he could make up for it in the morning.
Now that it was bright out and the sun was streaming into his bedroom, he wanted to send her packing and pretend this had never happened. Jett had decided he would stop fucking around. That he would clean up his act. But apparently, old habits died hard.
At first, his lady-killer, bad-boy attitude had been a facade he took on because that was what the wolf pack expected of an Arrowood. Somewhere along the way, it had stopped being an act, and Jett thought the only happiness he deserved, the only kind of joy he could ever be worth, was the five-second relief of emptying his balls into his flavor of the week. That wasn’t a pretty thought. And he sure as shit wasn’t proud of it.
But Jett hadn’t had the greatest role model and he hadn’t exactly been given a fair shot. That’s what happened when your mom bailed and dad went into lockup for a double homicide.
“I’m awake,” he told Leah, hoping she would go on her merry way. He didn’t want to tell her she had to go, but it would have been nice if she had gotten to that conclusion all on her own.
There was already a lot of self-hatred going on in his brain, and he didn’t need any more than he was dealing with.
“Don’t you want to pick up where we left off last night?” she purred as she ran a long red claw down in his chest.
“No,” he sat up and swung his legs off the bed.
If there had been an easy way to get rid of Leah, Jett would have used it. As it was, he was caught between telling her to fuck off and trying to be nice. Why the hell had he brought her home? He could have chosen any other woman, but nope. Jett Arrowood, in all of his idiot greatness, had to pick the woman who always wanted to be with him.
His phone began to vibrate angrily on the bedside table. He looked down at the screen and saw it was his alpha. Considering they had been together only four hours ago at the bar were they worked, Jett knew he wasn’t exactly being saved by the bell. There was trouble brewing. He could feel it in his bones.
“What’s up, Alpha?” His voice was heavy with sleep and he coughed to clear it.
“You need to get your ass out of bed. I’ll be by in ten minutes to discuss a few things with you.”
“Can’t we do this over the phone?” Jett really didn’t want Blaze to see Leah had spent the night. He didn’t need the added guilt trip.
“Ten minutes,” Blaze warned.
Jett hung up the phone and retreated to the bathroom. He took a quick shower, and once he was done, he only had a few minutes to convince Leah to stay in the house until he was gone. She took serious offense to the fact that Jett didn’t want the alpha to know she was there.
“You’re the worst,” she told him, rolling over in the bed. Her clothes were all rumpled from sleep. “I can’t believe you try so hard to seem like a decent guy. The whole pack knows you’re a piece of shit, Jett Arrowood.”
His jaw tensed at Leah’s words. Jett knew she wasn’t wrong, but it didn’t make it any easier to hear. He slammed the bedroom door, making sure to have his phone and wallet in his pockets.
Blaze, the alpha to his enforcer, was already waiting for him in his driveway. Jett muttered a curse, hoping Blaze wouldn’t smell Leah on him. He didn’t need his alpha to be disappointed in his behavior again.
The reality was that he and Blaze had been friends since they were kids. He had never been judged by him, nor did Blaze ever give any credence to the bullshit the others spewed about Jett. Not even when Jett managed to get them into trouble.
That was probably why Blaze had chosen him as his first enforcer. Not just out of loyalty, but also because Jett knew trouble. He understood and knew how to wade through it. It also made him the best bouncer Gray Wolf had ever had. The shifter bar Blaze ran was where Jett had picked up Leah the night before at the very end of his work shift.
“Why in the fuck do we need to be up so early?” Jett grumbled.
Because in an ideal world, Jett would have woken up, sent Leah packing and slept all day until it was time to go to work. He enjoyed his job at Gray Wolf, but he also liked his sleep.
“Got a call from Axel,” Blaze explained. “There’s trouble brewing up there in Salem.”
Jett rubbed at his eyes, hoping to make blinking less painful.
“How is that our problem?” Jett didn’t mean to snap at his alpha, but waking up next to Leah hadn’t put him in a good mood.
“This group of witch hunters calling themselves the Order of Salem are after some women. Axel called to warn us. He thinks it might splash onto our lands.”
“Witch hunters?”
“Right. Witch hunters. Apparently, these idiots want to kill the descendants of all the Salem witches executed during the Salem trials. In the same order and everything.”
“Didn’t a bunch of witch families leave Salem to settle here after the trials?” Jett was interested despite himself and his shitty morning.
“Yup. And it just so happens that two of the first intended victims basically live on the border between Salem and Marblehead.”
“So what are we going to do? Stop an assassination attempt on two witches?”
“That’s right. Axel and Zane are taking care of two witches of their own. The two women we have to help are a set of twins, Astra and Selene Bishop. They own a holistic center in Salem. I’ll head over there while you go to their place. We need to keep them in separate locations. That way the witch hunters are spread thin. It’ll give our pack, the Salem pack, and the Salem sheriff’s office the chance to catch all of them before anyone is hurt.”
“Lucky for us the Salem sheriff is a wolf enforcer of his own pack.”
Blaze opened his mouth, but snapped it shut, his features darkening. Jett didn’t have to turn around to know exactly what had pissed off his alpha.
Jett had purposefully told Leah to stay in the house until he was gone. Of course, she hadn’t listened. She was barefoot and clearly wearing the same clothes she had on at the bar the previous night. She stumbled on her feet when she saw them. Like she didn’t know they were there.