Dancer's Heart (12 page)

There was silence for a brief moment. Adam’s
wolf was ready to bust heads if anyone had a problem with their
mating. Not that he expected there to be issues. Wolves were
generally happy for one of their own to find his or her
truemate.

Acksel spoke. “As Alpha of the Wilde Creek
Pack, I recognize Adam and Dani as truemates, and welcome Dani
Grayson as an honorary pack member, under the authority of the
alphas and the protection of the pack. I welcome Adam and Dani into
the ranks of the stewards. Welcome to the pack.”

Acksel lifted his head and howled, and the
pack joined in. Adam howled loud and long – his wolf celebrating
that Dani was his mate in truth now, his forever to love and
protect. As the pack voiced their approval, Adam pulled Dani into
his arms and kissed her. His wolf rolled under his skin, anxious to
shift and run with her. “I’m yours, Dani. Good, bad, hell or high
water. I’ll drag the moon from the sky if you ask.”

“I just want you.”

The pack dispersed, and Adam grabbed their
coats. “Thanks for everything,” Adam told Brynn and Acksel, who
were standing in a tight embrace on the deck.

“Make sure you take the day off tomorrow,”
Brynn said. “It’s your mating night, and you deserve a little time
to yourselves. The alpha said so.”

“She damn sure did,” Acksel said, grinning.
“Take two days. Turn off the phones and shut the blinds. I’ll send
some of the young males to meet with my dad and take over for
you.”

“Thank you, that’s so nice!” Dani said. She
tugged on Adam’s hand. “Let’s hurry. I can’t wait to play in the
snow with you.”

They said goodbye to the mates who were
staying in the alphas’ home while their wolves hunted with the
pack, and hurried to the truck. He was anxious to shift, too. Even
though he wasn’t going to do any hunting, he knew his wolf would be
content to just be with his mate in their shifts.

“The backyard is calling, sweetheart.”

She smiled brightly. “I think if reindeer had
fangs I’d be flashing them right now, I’m so happy.”

“I’m happy, too.”

“Are you sure you won’t mind not
hunting?”

“Of course not. I want to be where you are.
If I went out to hunt, I’d be worried about you.”

“I’m sure I’d be safe within the fence.”

He shook his head. “This isn’t a hardship for
me, sweetheart. I always went off on my own anyway. That I can be
with you in our shifted forms, even in our yard, is more than
enough to make me happy.”

“Aw.”

He pulled his truck into the driveway and
turned off the engine, getting out swiftly and joining Dani. The
sun had set completely, and the full moon cast a pale glow on the
world. They walked through the house and out onto the back porch,
where they stood in silence for a brief moment, hands clasped and
gazes locked together.

“I’m so fucking crazy about you,” he growled,
hauling her close and lowering his mouth to her throat. The sweet
peppermint scent of her surrounded him, exploding on his tongue as
he licked her throat and touched the mating marks with his tongue.
She shivered with a soft moan, her arms wrapping around him as
their bodies connected.

“I’m crazy about you, too. Head over heels,
send-me-to-the-nuthouse crazy.”

He chuckled. “Let’s shift, sweetheart.”

They separated just enough so they didn’t
bump into each other as they stripped, after she took off her
engagement ring and put it in the front pocket of her jeans.
Because he’d been there when she got dressed earlier, he knew she
wasn’t wearing anything under her sweater and jeans. Her beautiful
body was bared to him, the moon highlighting the curves he knew
intimately.

“I love when you look at me like that,” she
said huskily.

“How?” he asked as he draped his clothes over
a chair next to hers.

“Like you could eat me up.”

He glanced toward the house. “I could.”

“Hold that thought until later.” She chuckled
and touched his face, going up on her toes and kissing him. “Love
you.”

“I love you, too, Dani.”

Hands clasped together, they walked out into
the snowy backyard and shifted. He’d only ever seen wolves shift,
so watching his beautiful mate turn into a reindeer captivated him.
She was beautiful, with a pretty brownish-gray hide dotted with
paler patches of white. Her nose looked like it had been dipped in
white paint.

He stretched to warm up his muscles. Dani
watched him intently, steam billowing from her nostrils. He shifted
as soon as he was able to, his muscles burning as they normally
did, but he wasn’t burdened by them anymore. He’d found acceptance
with his mate. He’d stopped looking at his scars as a liability
their first night together, when Dani had kissed them tenderly. He
knew she didn’t see him as an injured male, and he had decided to
stop looking at himself that way, too.

He pawed the ground as he stretched, his
claws digging into the snow and cold earth as his tail snapped back
and forth. He lifted his muzzle and scented the air, loving the way
the night smelled on the full moon. Among the scents of trees,
snow, and frozen ground was the sweet peppermint of his mate, which
was his very favorite scent.

Dani nudged him gently with one horn,
scratching his fur with the blunt tips. If he could have, he
would’ve smiled as she hopped away suddenly, the snow fluffing up
around her. He chased after her as she tore around the yard. She
tried to hide behind a shrub, her head bowed and her haunches in
the air, as if he wouldn’t be able to see her. He chuffed at her
and she peeked around the shrub, her ears twitching and her eyes
glimmering with happiness.

He flicked his tail at her and bounded off in
the opposite direction. She gave chase, her long legs eating up the
distance between them. He’d never been happier.

Suddenly Dani made a soft, pained sound and
Adam spun and rushed to her side. She swayed, shaking her head and
trying to remain upright. He could see a feather-tipped dart
sticking out from her neck and he growled in alarm.

Something whizzed by him, and he felt a
stinging pain as his skin was grazed. He looked to see a second
feather-tipped dart embed in the side of the house. He spun with a
growl toward the sound of feet hitting the ground. His vision swam
and he heard Dani fall to the ground with a thud. Baring his teeth,
he struggled to remain upright, but his paws began to tingle and
paralysis swept quickly through him. He felt himself fall into the
snow, and saw four figures racing through the yard to them.
Inhaling deeply, he found the intruders to be humans and shifters,
smelling of cigarettes and whiskey. Then his brain shut down and
everything turned black.

Chapter 10

Dani woke to tingling in her limbs and a
metallic taste in her mouth. Her vision was blurry, but it
sharpened as she blinked. She was still in her shifted form. A
heavy collar sat around her neck; she could feel spikes digging
into her throat, and knew it was meant to keep her from shifting
back to human.

A man she didn’t recognize squatted down in
front of her. The man had a thick scar along his cheek, and he
reeked of cigarette smoke and booze. “The collar will hurt you if
you try to shift. You seem like a smart girl, so you probably
figured that out already.”

Another male voice said, “I can’t get her
into the harness while she’s lying down.”

“I don’t think her legs are working right,”
the scarred man said.

The other man grunted and then kicked her.
She bellowed, her legs unable to move more than a few pathetic
times because of whatever they had used to drug her.

“See?” the scarred man said.

They left her alone. She moved her head as
much as she could to see her surroundings. She was in what looked
to be a horse stall in a large barn. A wooden gate enclosed her
stall, and through the slats she could see antlers moving around
and heard curious noises. She tried to move, but her legs were
still numb. Dropping her head to the straw-covered floor, she
closed her eyes and thought about Adam. It had happened so fast.
They’d been playing in the snow, and then something had hit her and
she’d passed out. She didn’t know if Adam was okay or if he’d been
hurt. Worry over her mate made her struggle to get to her feet,
despite her wooziness and the painful sensation in her legs. Her
head spun as she struggled to her knees and pushed herself up by
leaning against the rough wooden wall.

Panting for breath, she shook her head and
waited for the spots in her vision to clear. She tried to put all
of her weight on her legs, but her knees buckled, so she leaned
back against the wall and closed her eyes, willing her body to
force whatever drugs she’d been given out. The sooner she was able
to stand, the sooner she could figure out a way to escape. She
might be stuck in her shift, but she sure as hell wasn’t sticking
around.

* * * * *

Adam swam out from under the drugs by sheer
force of will. His wolf had been snarling for what felt like hours,
angry that they were paralyzed while their mate had been taken. As
his vision returned and the paralysis left his body, he began to
howl for help. He couldn’t move yet, but his voice worked, and he
made as much noise as he could, hoping that his pack members would
hear him and come help.

After an eternity of anxious waiting, he
heard someone come into his house and race to the back, throwing
open the door.

“Fuck, what happened? Where’s Dani?” Malachi
demanded. He looked around, his eyes darting as he took in the
scene. Wolves surrounded them, scenting the air and growling.

Adam snarled, wishing he could shift into his
human form so he could talk.

Malachi put his hand on Adam’s head and said
to Zander, one of the protectors, “Go find Doc and get him the fuck
here right now.” He turned his attention back to Adam. “I smell
humans and shifters. They took Dani?”

Adam nodded.

“Damn it,” he growled. Pulling his cell from
his pocket, he dialed it and said, “Luke, tell Brynn to go out onto
the porch and yell for Acksel. Dani’s been kidnapped, and Acksel
always stays close to the house. I need him at Adam’s right
away.”

Ending the call, Malachi said, “We’ll get her
back, man.”

Adam struggled against the drugs in his
system. He could barely lift his head from the ground. Worry for
Dani’s safety was driving him insane, his wolf clawing at him to
find her.

Doc, the pack doctor, appeared and knelt in
the snow in front of Adam. Malachi had searched the area and found
the feathered dart, similar to the one that had hit Dani, embedded
in the side of the house. “I think he was hit with this.”

Doc sniffed at the dart and wrinkled his
nose. “Uh, no. He wasn’t hit or he’d be dead. I recognize this
drug. It shuts down the body – first paralyzing the muscles and
then spreading quickly organ by organ until the recipient
dies.”

“Where do you know it from?” Malachi
asked.

“When I was in college, I took a course on
how to recognize toxins, and this stood out as one that has no
remedy because it works so fast.” He searched through Adam’s fur.
When Adam winced as his fingers grazed his shoulder, Doc said,
“Here, there’s a scratch. Whoever shot him must have thought they
hit him straight-on and that he was as good as dead. He was very
fortunate.”

“Since he didn’t get the full dose, can you
counteract it?”

“Maybe,” Doc said, opening his medical bag
and moving objects around within it. Adam heard glass bottles
tinkling and plastic crinkling. Then Doc lifted a small vial and a
syringe. He filled the syringe with a green-tinted liquid, spread
the fur on Adam’s foreleg, and sank the needle into his flesh. The
liquid burned as it was pushed into his body, but almost
immediately he felt the drug within him begin to dissipate.

“Ah, what do you know? It seems to alleviate
the symptoms. Give yourself a few minutes, Adam.”

“The fuck he’s going to do that, Doc. His
mate is missing.”

“Shit.”

Malachi nodded.

By the time Acksel arrived with Ren and Sam,
the beta and theto of the pack, Adam had shifted into his human
form and dressed. He grabbed the engagement ring from Dani’s pocket
and put it on his pinky finger. Having the piece of jewelry on him
made him feel a little closer to her.

He led Acksel and the others to the outside
of the fence and followed the scent of the males and Dani. There
was little breeze now, so their scent was easy to track until they
reached the road. Depressions in the snow and mud at the side of
the road told them that there had been two vehicles waiting.

“How did the protectors miss this?” Acksel
demanded. “There were two vehicles in our territory at the fucking
edge of the woods and no one saw a damn thing?”

Adam wondered the same thing. Letting loose a
growl, he thought over what had happened and if he’d seen anything
that should have been a clue that things were about to go to
shit.

Just as he thought the word ‘shit’ he
realized what must have happened. “My dad.”

“What about your dad?” Acksel asked.

“I think he’s behind it. He came to us a
while ago and asked for money. I turned him down, but he was pretty
desperate.”

“Check your cell. Do you have a ransom
demand?” Ren asked.

Adam looked at his phone, but there was no
activity since Dani had been taken.

“What if it’s not about
who
Dani is,
but what she is?” Sam asked.

“What do you mean?” Adam asked, unease rising
within him.

“She’s a reindeer. You said that she’s unique
because her people are nomads and stay off the radar. What if
someone would pay for her because she’s a reindeer shifter?”