Blaze’s heart jumped at her words.
Yup, he was never letting this woman go.
Chapter Six
Astra
Astra couldn’t help it. She kept twisting in her seat to look over her shoulder. She also made sure to look in the side mirror every few seconds. It didn’t look like anyone was following them, but her morning had made her paranoid.
She felt like a healthy dose of paranoia was well warranted.
One of the things that made her nervous was that she wasn’t nervous at all. Even if she was sitting in a strange man’s truck.
Yes, said man was also a wolf shifter who was hot as sin.
But she knew better than to trust a pretty face. There was just something about him that screamed trustworthy, and it wasn’t just because he had saved her from being a nana’s torture victim.
There really was just something about him.
Maybe it was because his name was Blaze and she was a fire witch. It felt like destiny had made sure she would meet him and recognize him as part of herself. That didn’t make sense, though. She hadn’t cast any sort of love spell.
Needing a distraction, she looked over her shoulder again. Did her eyes take in the sexy black curls of the man sitting beside her? Yup. Did she inhale deeply, committing his woodsy musk to memory? Hell, yes, she did.
Facing the road once again, she saw this huge sign announcing they were leaving Salem.
“Where are you taking me?” she asked, not feeling panicked in the slightest.
“Marblehead. My place. You’ll be safe there.”
He slid his eyes over to her, the soft brown glowing in the sunny morning. He really was the most attractive man she had ever seen. Astra had to sit on her hands to keep from touching his curls. They looked soft, but sturdy. Sort of like Blaze himself.
“Your place? Are there going to be other wolves there?”
“Well,” he wiggled in his seat, his hands tightening on the steering wheel. “Not in my apartment, no. Don’t worry, Astra. I will keep you safe. Not just from witch hunters, either. But from anything that would try to hurt you.”
How romantic.
No! her rational mind shouted at her. She shouldn’t want to be saved. She was a modern woman. She should be saving herself without the help of a sexy shifter.
“You look deep in thought. Is there something wrong?”
“Wrong?” she squeaked. No, there wasn’t anything wrong. She was just having a healthy fight with her inner self. That was normal. Totally normal. “I’m fine. I’m just worried about my sister.”
And that was true. She wondered if Selene’s rescuer was as sweet and sexy as Blaze. She contemplated astral projecting to her twin’s side to see how she was doing, but thought better of it. Blaze might think she had passed out, and she didn’t want to cause him any sort of distress.
As soon as they got to his place, she’d grab a phone and call Selene. Astra didn’t have her own smart device, having left it in her locker before Mrs. Gellar’s appointment.
“I’ll call Jett as soon as I’ve got you safe and settled,” Blaze said, echoing her sentiment.
Could two strangers really be on the same brain wavelength as they seemed to be? Astra contemplated this quietly as they drove into the next town over. She’d never been to Marblehead, but it was a small town, very similar to her own Salem. It was more coastal, but still had that cozy hometown feel.
They drove through a few residential areas that were soon replaced by business centers, and then by old brick buildings bordering the water.
Blaze pulled the truck in front of an old gray stone building. It was so close to the water that Astra could only imagine that it had once been part of the docks that rolled in from the Atlantic Ocean. The sign up front was merely the face of a gray wolf. There was no telling from the outside what they had actually driven to.
As she unbuckled herself, Blaze dropped a warm hand onto her shoulder.
“Hey, wait. Before we go in there, I need to warn you. That’s a shifter bar. I own and operate it, but it’s the only shifter bar around. We get some interesting characters. You have to be careful when we’re open. I want you to stay in the upstairs apartment at all times.”
“No,” Astra shook her head. “Sorry, that just doesn’t work for me. I am not going to be your prisoner.”
Blaze sighed, and Astra felt a twinge of regret for her word choice. But it’s not like she was going to let herself be the beauty to his beast. She’d already starred in one messed up fairy tale today, and that was enough for her.
“You’re not my prisoner,” he called out to her as she opened her door and jumped out.
She was rushing toward the front door, hoping to reach it before Blaze caught up to her. His shifter speed wasn’t something she had taken in consideration until his long, powerful legs were striding right beside her.
Astra reached out for the handle, but she stumbled when it didn’t budge.
“We’re still closed. I need to unlock it.” Blaze was right behind her. She could feel the heat radiating off him, and it did something really strange to her lady bits.
She turned to face him. He was a towering mass above her. By rights, she should have felt intimidated, but she didn’t. She felt a huge wave of…something. It felt like safety. Astra couldn’t help but feeling like she knew this guy. It wasn’t possible, she’d never met him. But he felt familiar. It was a strong enough sensation that she had to wonder if it was her magic reacting to the shifter inside him.
“Sorry,” she heard herself say. She was blocking the way to the door, but she didn’t move.
Blaze licked his lips and took a tiny step forward. Astra nearly had to crane her neck to be able to keep her eyes on his.
The inside of the bar wasn’t what she had expected. Blaze had called it a shifter bar, and she had imaged a grubby place with sticky floors and furniture that was falling apart because the shifters kept using it in bar fights.
It was the polar opposite.
The decor was nice. The walls were lined with booths where the seats were all deep, rich leather. The tables in the center were all high tops, but there were nice bar stools that matched the booths. The back of the room was a long bar. The wood was old, but it looked like someone kept it polished.
“This is actually really nice.”
Blaze gave her a warm smile. “What were you expecting? A dive bar?”
“Well, yeah. You said shifter bar and I was imagining something entirely different. You didn’t sell it too well. You made it seem like it was a bad, dangerous place.”
“It can be. Shifters are known for their tempers.”
Astra tapped her foot for a second. Then an idea popped into her head. She smiled at him. “Oh! I’ll tend bar.”
Blaze’s eyes nearly popped out of his head, and a vein in his neck jumped. Astra had the sudden urge to kiss it to see if he would react. She didn’t even judge the reaction; he was a hot man. Her body was responding, that was all.
“No,” Blaze crossed his arms, making his biceps bulge, “absolutely not. You’re here under protective custody. I can’t let you front the bar.”
“Sure you can.” Astra walked around him until she was standing behind the counter. “Give me something to do, or I will rob you blind.” She wasn’t dumb enough to threaten leaving. She was not going back into the world when there could be more Mrs. Gellars getting ready to shoot at her.