SHADOWS OF A WOLF MOON Book 5: RISE OF THE ARKANSAS WEREWOLVES by Jodi Vaughn

long-sleeved tee.
    His secret had almost been discovered by Jaxon.
    Jaxon had stumbled in one time after working a forty-eight-hour shift and discovered him lifting weights.
    Lucien had soaked his shirt when Jaxon had slapped him on the back. The asshole had apparently been too damn exhausted to notice the unevenness of his flesh. After cracking a few jokes, Jaxon had headed back to his room.
    It was something Lucien kept to himself. He couldn’t trust his secret with the other Guardians. He’d be an outcast. He’d experienced it with his own family.
    He wasn’t about to experience it with his Pack.
    He’d learned the only person he could trust was himself.
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     

 
    Chapter Eight
     
    “Coffee and beignets, please.” Catty gave her order to the waitress at Café du Monde. The restaurant was already buzzing with the voices of customers ordering the sugary doughnuts and chicory coffee. People didn’t visit New Orleans without at least one trip to Café du Monde.
    She didn’t usually treat herself to the city’s renowned delicacies, but with her meeting with the stranger in only a few hours, it might be her last day alive. So she was going to enjoy her last meal.
    There was something lethal about the Were’s eyes, the way he carried himself. Fear had paraded down her spine when he’d grabbed her, but when he’d started talking about her family, that’s when shit had gotten real.
    Her family knew where she was. They knew what she was doing. She couldn’t imagine her father allowing her to come home, not with the amount of shit she’d landed in. She was covered in it.
    She studied the plate of beignets and the cup of black coffee in front of her. She stirred an ample amount of creamer and sugar into her coffee to mask the bite of chicory until the coffee was the color of caramel.
    She took a sip of the hot brew. “Ah, that’s good.”
    She bit into the confectionary sweet and sat back in her chair, watching the city come alive around her.
    The majority of the shop owners had not opened for business, and traffic was sparse. The morning had a soft gray glow that covered the sidewalks in a dreamlike state. If she were a tourist visiting the city, she would be enjoying herself. But she wasn’t. She was a captive.
    Her stomach clenched and she dropped the half-eaten beignet on the plate, her appetite gone. In a little while she’d be meeting the werewolf in Jackson Square. She wasn’t sure what he had to tell her, but she knew it had to be bad. Like a phone-call-in-the-middle-of-the-night bad.
    Maybe her dad was sick? Or her mom? Maybe something had happened to Zane?
    She wiped the sugar off her fingers with a napkin and thought about her big brother.
    She’d been a pain in his ass when she was a kid. She knew because he’d told her plenty of times. She’d always gotten the feeling Zane was more tenderhearted than he let on, that he put on a tough facade because her dad expected it.
    Her lips tugged into a smile as she thought about the times she’d sneak into his bedroom when it would storm outside.
    She’d always hated thunderstorms. She wasn’t scared of the thunder. No, she was afraid of the lightning. It would flash at the right time on the right shadow and she would start imagining her dolls coming to life and trying to climb into her bed to hurt her. She would pad quietly over to Zane’s room and crack open the door. She’d done it so many times he wouldn’t say anything, just wave her in with his hand and pull back the cover. They’d sleep back to back until the early morning, and then she’d head back to her bed before her parents would wake up.
    She’d had a picture-perfect life growing up. She’d lived in an affluent neighborhood and made friends easily enough. But she didn’t really find her best friend until the day she met Skylar.
    Skylar was beautiful with bright red hair and big, curious eyes. She’d seen her out on in her front yard in front of her trailer.