Five Weeks (Seven Series #3) by Dannika Dark
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.