Dancer's Heart (2 page)

She straightened, settling back on her heels
and shaking the snow from her hands. The wolf growled, but she knew
it wasn’t meant as a warning. He drew close, lowering his head and
whining softly as he laid on his belly and crawled forward.

She smiled. “I know who you are, and I’m not
afraid.”

He stopped moving and lifted his head,
canting it slightly. Blinking bright amber eyes at her, the wolf
nodded and then began to shift. She watched with anticipation as he
changed from wolf to man, slipping to his knees as he transformed
entirely.

She drew in a sharp breath. “You’re
beautiful.” He had muscles on top of muscles and short, dark hair.
There appeared to be something wrong with the skin on the left side
of his body – it was mottled and rough-looking. Immediately her
heart went out to him for whatever he’d suffered in the past.

He snorted. “Look in the mirror, sweetheart.
You’re
beautiful.” He glanced around them, tilting his head
as if he were listening. “I think we’re alone, but I don’t want you
to be cold. I’m Adam.”

“I’m Dancer, but you can call me Dani.”

He grasped her hands and stood, and she moved
with him. As she rose, she ran her fingertips up his arms to his
shoulders, feeling the marks on his skin, which were oddly smooth.
“Adam?” she whispered.

“They’re burn scars,” he said roughly.

She stared up at him. They were so close that
their bodies were almost touching chest to hip, but a few inches
separated them. She felt anchored to him as his hands tightened on
her hips.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

He shook his head slightly. “Why?”

“Because you were hurt and I wish I’d been
there to help you.” She closed her eyes and inhaled. His spicy
scent wrapped around her, making her weak in the knees.

His fingers dug into her flesh, and he
snarled. “Where have you been all my life?”

“Too far.” She grasped his shoulders,
standing on her tiptoes to close the distance between them. He
pulled her close with a wolfy growl, and their lips met as their
bodies touched. Everything inside her turned to liquid heat as he
drew her even closer, pulling her against him, his erection trapped
between them. She wanted to touch him everywhere at once, but she
couldn’t stop holding on, afraid he would vanish, and she’d wake up
and find it was all a dream.

He tasted as good as he smelled, and every
time he chased her tongue with his own she found herself falling
further into the spicy scent of him. Adam growled in warning as he
lifted from her lips.

Row’s voice echoed behind her. “Let my sister
go.”

Dani, still breathless from Adam’s amazing
kiss, rolled her eyes and said, “Go away, Row.”

“Dani,” Row snarled, “come to me. We have a
journey ahead of us.”

Adam growled darkly, his grip tightening on
Dani possessively. “Mine.”

Dani looked at Adam and saw he was furious,
ready to kill. She didn’t want Row to be hurt, or for Row to try to
hurt Adam. “It’s okay, Adam,” she whispered. “That’s my
brother.”

She pressed herself to Adam’s side, wrapping
her arms around his waist and holding him tightly. She saw that Row
was holding a female behind his back, and she heard the woman say
softly, “Please don’t hurt my friend.”

Row’s growl cut off abruptly, and he
straightened from his defensive stance. He glared at Dani and Adam.
“You’re my responsibility. I promised our mother that I would take
you to your people.”

“What if we get out of the woods and talk?”
Dani suggested, trying to be helpful. “Adam isn’t going to let me
go, Row. No more than you’re going to let that female behind you
go. My name is Dancer, by the way, but everyone calls me Dani,” she
added to the other woman.

The female giggled softly and leaned around
Row to smile at Dani. “I’m Kammie. I’m not sure where we are
exactly, but maybe Adam’s house is close? My apartment is on the
other side of town, and I really don’t want to traipse naked
through the streets.”

Dani laughed. “Me either. Adam?”

“My house is about a half mile that way,”
Adam said, jerking his head to the right.

“You might have mentioned your house was
nearby, instead of letting me molest you in the woods,” Dani said,
chuckling as she tweaked Adam’s side.

“I had no blood left in my brain,” Adam
said.

Row made a disgusted sound. “She’s my sister,
man.”

“Sorry,” Adam said, not sounding one bit
sorry. He swung Dani into his arms and began to walk, not seeming
to care if the others followed them. Dani looked over Adam’s
shoulder and saw Row pick up Kammie and fall into step behind
Adam.

“We should talk,” Dani said, resting her
cheek on Adam’s shoulder.

“We will, sweetheart,” he replied. He limped
slightly as he walked, and she could guess that the burn scars
she’d felt under her fingertips had somehow messed up his leg as
well. She wasn’t about to ask him to put her down to let her walk
on her own, though. She’d only just met him, but she had a feeling
that her mate was a proud male who wouldn’t want her to question
his ability to take care of her. And she had no doubt he could, and
would, take good care of her for the rest of their lives. He’d held
her close and growled fiercely when they’d been interrupted. He was
ready to defend her against anything – that much she was sure
of.

“It’s sexy when you growl,” she whispered,
kissing his cheek.

He chuckled. “I’m glad you like it. I kind of
can’t control it around you. My wolf is doing backflips right now
because we’re so happy to have found you.”

“You don’t mind having prey for a mate?” As a
reindeer, which were traditionally thought of as prey animals, she
wondered if he would be embarrassed by her. Some shifters,
especially the serious hunters like wolves, tended to think of prey
shifters as inferior.

“Hell no,” he said vehemently. “I couldn’t
care less what you shift into. You’re mine, Dani. I’m never letting
you go.”

Everything changed for her in that moment.
She didn’t want to keep going on her journey to meet her people;
she wanted to stay with Adam.
He
was her people now.

“I don’t want you to let me go.”

He glanced down at her as he stepped up onto
his porch. “Good.”

He pushed the front door open and carried her
straight through a dark living room and into a bedroom. He set her
gently on the bed and reached over to click on a small lamp,
bathing the room in low light.

He straightened and stared down at her, his
body tense and flexed as if he was stressed. She let her gaze roam
his body. The left side of his body was mottled and shiny with burn
scars. They formed thin stripes from his neck down to his knee and
seemed worse on his torso.

Tears pricked her eyes, and she blinked
rapidly as she met his gaze. “Do they hurt?”

He relaxed slightly and cupped her face with
one hand. “My leg hurts because the muscles were damaged by the
fire. I was too young to shift and heal myself.”

She gripped his wrist and held his palm to
her face. “I don’t care about your scars, Adam. I’m deliriously
happy to have found you.”

His gaze searched hers, and she saw the awe
in the blue depths as he realized she was being entirely honest.
She truly didn’t care about his scars, apart from being sad that
he’d been injured and that he still had pain.

“Where are you going with your brother?” Adam
asked as he walked to a dresser and pulled out a pair of jeans and
a t-shirt. He rejoined her and gave her the shirt, and then tugged
the jeans on.

“My herd was killed when I was very little.
Row’s mom adopted me, and she’s been searching for reindeer
shifters ever since. Apparently my people like to keep hidden. She
had a private detective searching for them, and he finally found a
herd.”

She’d been nervous about meeting her own
kind. She’d spent almost her entire life surrounded by shifters who
were very different from her. Alice and Row had always made her
feel welcome, but she’d never quite felt at home. When she and Row
had left on their journey, she thought she’d finally find a place
where she would feel welcome, assuming they embraced her as easily
as the bear sleuth had. But now, as she sat in the presence of her
truemate, she knew she’d never felt more at home in her life. It
didn’t matter that Adam was a wolf; it only mattered that he was
hers.

Adam fastened his jeans as she pulled the
shirt over her head. His eyes darkened as he moved between her legs
and gazed down at her. She rested her hands on his hips, splaying
her fingers across his flesh as he stared at her intently. “I’m
glad you came to Wilde Creek.”

“I’m glad you didn’t try to eat me,” she
said.

“The night’s still young,” he whispered, his
voice a low growl.

She exhaled slowly, her pulse racing as the
air hummed with arousal. She wanted to strip him from his jeans and
explore his body with her fingers and tongue. She wanted to know
what he sounded like when he came.

“Dani,” he said hoarsely, “stop looking at me
like that.”

She grinned. “I’m totally picturing a Little
Red Riding Hood thing here…my big, bad wolf.”

He growled and hauled her into his arms,
turning to the wall and pressing her back to it. She wrapped her
legs around his waist and linked her ankles. “Yes,” she hissed as
he latched onto her throat, sucking her flesh into his mouth until
she could feel the press of his teeth.

She could hear Row and Kammie talking quietly
in the front room. He seemed to realize it at the same time,
freezing against her and releasing her with a sigh. “I don’t want
to leave this room, but we should probably go talk to your brother
and Kammie before we go too far.”

She brushed the back of her hand across his
cheek. “If you insist.”

“Let’s get them on their way and then we can
see where the night takes us.”

“Back to bed,” she whispered.

“Fuck, Dani,” he groaned, pressing his
forehead to hers.

It would have been so easy for her to reach
between them and undo his jeans to free his cock and impale herself
on him. She wanted to do that – to take him and be taken, to bond
them together. But over that insistent need was the knowledge that
her brother was in the next room and had very good hearing. She
didn’t want her first time with her mate to be a hurried affair.
She wanted him all night, with no interruptions.

After a long moment, he eased away from the
wall, and she slid down his body reluctantly until her feet were on
the floor. He went to the dresser, pulling more clothing from it
and then offering her his hand, which she eagerly took. Her mind
was spinning with all the things she wanted to do with him that
didn’t involve clothing. Her mate was sexy as hell, and the last
thing she wanted to do was have a conversation with her brother and
Kammie. She hoped they’d hop out of the house fast, so she and Adam
could get back to business.

They left the bedroom and walked into the
front room, finding her brother and the she-wolf in the dark by the
front door. Dani took the clothing from Adam and gave it to Row and
Kammie, then returned to Adam’s side. He wrapped both arms around
her, pulling her into his protective embrace.

Row made a face after Kammie had tugged
Adam’s shirt over her head.

“What?” Kammie asked.

“You smell like another male in that shirt,”
Row said.

Kammie rolled her eyes, and Dani giggled. Her
brother was an idiot.

Row snarled in Dani’s direction, and Adam
pulled her behind his back quickly. His voice was threatening when
he growled, “Do not snarl at my mate in my house. I don’t give a
damn who you are to her.”

Kammie, looking genuinely surprised, said,
“You’re really mates, Adam?”

He nodded. “Yeah. What’s up with you and
growling bear here? Do you need help?”

Row snarled so loudly that the pictures on
the walls rattled. Dani had heard Row growl and snarl since she was
little, so she was used to him and his bear having a bad attitude
from time to time. It didn’t worry her, but Adam was tense. She
could feel the fur of his shift prickling under her fingers as she
rubbed his back in a calming motion.

Kammie said, “It’s fine, Adam.”

Adam cleared his throat before saying, “Dani
said you were taking her to see her people, but that’s clearly not
your concern any longer.”

Row’s face tightened in anger. “She’s my
sister.”

“I’m her mate,” Adam said, growling the
words. “I’ll take her to her people.”

“Or we could skip it,” Dani said, sliding her
hands around Adam’s chest and resting her cheek on his shoulder as
she peered at them. “I don’t need to find my people to have found
my home.”

Adam turned his head to look at Dani for a
long, quiet moment. Without breaking eye contact with her, he said,
“You can borrow my truck to drive to Kammie’s.”

Kammie said, “You don’t want to drive
us?”

Adam glanced at Kammie for only a second and
said, “I don’t really want to leave the house. You can bring the
truck back tomorrow.”

“Late tomorrow,” Dani added.

Row made a disgusted sound, and Dani grinned
at Adam.

Adam pointed to a hook on the wall next to
the front door, where a set of keys dangled, and Row grabbed them.
She and Adam said goodnight to Row and Kammie, and when they were
gone, Adam walked to the door and twisted the lock.

He turned with a soft growl, and a shiver
raced down her spine. She’d never had such a hungry look directed
at her. What she’d wanted from the moment she’d scented him in the
woods was within her grasp and she had no plans to ever let him
go.

Chapter 3

Adam closed the distance to his mate swiftly
and lifted her into his arms. She wrapped her legs around his waist
and grasped his shoulders, lowering her mouth to his. He moved to
the bedroom as they kissed, his wolf growling with excitement. Part
of him wanted to sit and have a long conversation with his mate, to
find out everything about her until he knew her more intimately
than anyone else. But the larger, less chivalrous part of him
didn’t want to do any talking at all.