by Zoe Chant
"My animal is me, and I am him," Derek growled. "And right now he's telling me to rip this guy's throat out before he can take one step toward my mate and cubs."
Gunnar breathed deeply, keeping hold of his bear as it tried to lunge out of him. Getting into a fight wouldn't do him a damn bit of good. Even if he won, he would still have lost, because they would never trust him again.
"Derek, he's right," Tessa said. "You need to calm down."
"Stay out of this, hon," Keegan told her. "Go in the house."
"Excuse me? What kind of alpha-male nonsense is this?"
Keegan didn't take his eyes off Derek. "You're human, Tessa; you haven't seen how shifters can get when their animals are riled up. I don't want you to get hurt."
"You do remember I faced down a dragon, right?" Tessa said, her voice icy.
"You're right," Keegan said, the corner of his mouth twitching. "In that case, do me a favor and, for their sake, keep Gaby and the kids inside until things calm down out here."
"Now that, I'll do." She edged around Derek carefully and vanished into the house.
"Look what he's done to us already." Derek's voice was a low rumble. "We need to show a united front against Ghost, and now we're falling apart. Bringing him here was a mistake, Ben."
"I'm starting to think you're right," Keegan began, then turned his head at the sound of tires crunching in the driveway. "Are we expecting anyone else?" He reached across to his shoulder holster.
"The girls said your sister might show up."
"Damn it," Keegan muttered. His hand still hovered near his gun. "That's just what we need."
Gunnar's bear didn't want him to take his eyes off Derek, in case of a sneak attack, but he turned along with the rest of them to look down the driveway. From here, all he could see was a shadowy figure at the gate, undoing the security system as Keegan had done.
The gate swung open and the new arrival drove through in a little silver Miata convertible. The top was down, and Gunnar got a good look at her as she maneuvered into a parking place in the row of cars.
He would never forget that first look.
She was bathed in the golden light of late afternoon, turning her pale skin to honey and lending a golden sheen to hair like a crown of liquid night. As she got out of her car, he took in the gray cardigan and the glasses, and his initial thought was that she looked like the world's sexiest librarian. Her buttoned-up sweater did little to conceal the luscious curves underneath. He wanted to unwrap her like a gift. He wanted to feel those ample breasts pressed against him, cup his hands under the bountiful curve of her ass ...
His newly arrived librarian goddess looked up at the scene on the porch. Behind her glasses, she frowned in puzzlement, and then her eyes met Gunnar's and—
It was like lightning striking. There was something charged and heated in her eyes. He was aware of the rustle of wings, the slow ripple of silver scales. And behind all that, a shocking conviction that Gunnar and his bear both knew, deep down to their shared core.
This woman was his mate.
Chapter Four: Melody
This man was her mate.
Melody stared up at the huge blond stranger on the porch, while her dragon writhed in excitement inside her.
Bathed in the glow of the sun setting behind the trees in the pasture, he was golden from head to foot, with short blond hair like a crown of gold, and the planes of his face lit as if by firelight.
Of course he's a fit mate for us, her dragon enthused. He's made of gold!
You don't even hoard gold, you silly creature, Melody scolded fondly. For us, he should be made of paper and bookbinding glue.
But her gaze stroked his face as if by proxy for her fingers, from the high forehead (intelligent, because of course any mate of hers must be), down the broad angles of his cheekbones, across a slightly crooked nose that helped keep his face from being too symmetrical and pretty, to full lips that she could so easily imagine caressing her own—
She gasped at the surge of want coursing through her and dropped her gaze away from his lips, but that was worse, because then her eyes went down to the tuft of golden hair peeking out of the collar of his shirt (no, not there!), down to the large capable hands that she could picture gripping her waist as he bent her over the hood of her car—
She wrenched her face away from him, her cheeks flaming. She couldn't believe the thoughts she was having, with the entire family there! It felt as if they should be able to look inside her head and see the lust that felt as if it would consume her.
Her family ...
Now that she'd managed to tear her gaze away from the golden vision of Adonis on the porch steps, she became aware, belatedly, that something was going on. Something ... intense. That was Derek, Gaby's mate, in front of the door, and he was all but bristling. Even without being able to feel his bear's agitation the way she could have recognized an angry dragon, she was aware of his fury; it had weight and force, as if protective menace rolled off him in waves, making her want to step back.
Her brother stood between her golden Adonis and Derek, and he was in what she recognized as Full Cop Mode, one hand even resting on his gun. Not to use it against Derek, surely?
"What's going on here?" she asked. Her voice cracked on the first word but she managed to gain control over the rest of the sentence.
"Long story," Ben said. "Sis, why don't you go in the house and check on how Gaby's doing with dinner?"
Her Adonis threw Ben a sharp look at the word "sis," and Melody's eyes narrowed. Ben seemed to be deliberately making a point of their relationship, which made her wonder why. For her mate's sake, to warn him away?
But of course he didn't know the Adonis on the porch steps was her mate. Her Adonis was now looking at her with clear blue eyes, as blue as summer skies and tropical oceans—eyes that were strangely tormented.
"This was a mistake," he said suddenly. His voice was a deep rumble that seemed to vibrate up from the center of his chest, and Melody's dragon thrilled to it. "This was a mistake, Keegan. Take me back."
Back? Melody thought. Back where?
Ben laid a hand on his arm. "Calm down, Gunnar. You've come this far—" and the rest of his sentence was lost, to Melody's ears anyway, in her dragon's delight at learning their Adonis's name. Gunnar! What a perfect name, so strong and masculine. It rolled off the tongue, with musical overtones that reminded her of his voice, deep bass notes to complement the lighter harmonics of Melody's name—
"That's right, take him back to prison where he belongs." Derek's snapped words cut through Melody's distraction, overriding her dragon's rapture.
Wait. Prison?
"No one's going to prison," Ben said in exasperation. "No one is going anywhere. Derek, between you and me and—our third, we can easily control him if anything goes wrong." He glanced at Melody, delicately declining to mention her dragon; even among their fellow shifters, dragons were reclusive and secretive.
But what was all this about controlling Gunnar, as if he were something dangerous? And ... prison? She tried to catch his gaze, but he stared at his feet and refused to look at her.
She was taking in more details now, though. The cheap, ill-fitting brown suit—she hadn't even noticed it before, too distracted by the shoulders inside the suit. The glimpse of blue tattoo ink on the back of one of his hands—that wasn't a jail tattoo, surely?
It was not possible that she'd found her mate only to have him turn out to be some sort of felon. Not a fellow bookworm who would delight in the same quiet scholarly pursuits that Melody loved, but some sort of common ... criminal?
But there was no other conclusion she could come to, particularly with the way Derek was looking at Gunnar as if he might lose control and attack them all at any moment, the way Ben was standing near Gunnar with "cop mode" on, not just as if he wanted to protect Gunnar from Derek, but as if to protect the rest of them from Gunnar ...
Melody stared in appalled disbelief.
There is a
bsolutely nothing wrong with our mate, her dragon insisted, though its earlier delight had given way to uncertainty. Our mate is perfect for us. Look at that jaw! Those arms! We just need to give him a cha—
Oh, shut up, Melody told her dragon.
Chapter Five: Gunnar
As a younger man, Gunnar had dreamed about the day he'd meet his mate. He didn't know what she would look like, what color her hair or skin would be, what her voice would sound like, what kinds of things would delight her. He knew only that she would be perfect, and in her eyes he would see all the best parts of himself reflected.
Never had he imagined that she would stare at him in appalled horror. And who could blame her? What did he have to offer this lovely, curvy librarian-goddess with her soft voice and soft hands? He'd just spent the last three years with the roughest dregs of society. Hell, even before that, he had a rough past and the criminal record to prove it. Even if she could somehow, by some miracle, look past all of that, his brother—and Gunnar's own moral failing in refusing to condemn Nils while there was still time—was the entire reason why all of them were in danger. Of all the times when he could have met his mate as a younger man, it had to be now, when he was too broken and ugly to have anything to offer her anymore.
The more she learned of him, the more she'd loathe him. What could he even say in his own defense? The best thing he could do for her was stay as far away from her as possible.
His misery was so deep that he barely cared that the standoff had broken and Derek now seemed willing to let him into the house, though with visible (and understandable) reluctance. Right now he wished he could be anywhere other than here.
Three years in prison had, at least, given him skill at hiding his real feelings. He was able to muster a veneer of friendliness as he was introduced to Derek's mate Gaby (small and pretty, with a round face framed in dark waves of hair), Gaby's mother Luisa, and Gaby and Derek's children Sandy and Jimena. Gaby was a consummate hostess, greeting him with such friendliness that no one would have guessed she'd just witnessed her husband threatening to throw him out by bodily force. Gaby's mother even came up, stretched on tiptoe to pinch his cheek, and declared that he was too pale and needed to eat more.
At the family table, he found himself sandwiched between Derek and Keegan—not by accident, he knew, and he had no illusions that it was a place of honor. His mate, whose name by now he'd managed to figure out was Melody, was down at the other end of the table next to Tessa, physically as far away from him as she could get. That was probably no coincidence either, he thought, and tried to force himself not to consider it a hopeful sign that she kept darting glances at him down the table from behind the lenses of her glasses. Instead he made an effort to muster up some appetite for the delicious-looking bowl of chili and fresh-cut homemade bread that had been passed down the table to him.
The family were talking about regular family things with almost aggressive levels of normalcy, chatting with 7-year-old Sandy about the swimming class he was taking over the summer, asking Tessa about an online class she was apparently taking. Gaby and her mother took turns feeding little Jimena in her high chair.
He heard someone say "... bookstore?" to Melody, and his bear perked its ears up.
"Oh, it's doing as well as can be expected," Melody said. She had a soft voice, and throughout the family conversation she'd been doing little more than mumbling into her chili; he had to strain to hear her. "It's early days yet, of course. I'm having to pick up a clientele. I want to do more book sales online, because there's a big market for that. Autumn Pages didn't even have a Facebook page, let alone a website, and I think if I'm able to do something like that, it'll help my business a lot."
Her voice picked up as she warmed to the topic, becoming more engaged and excited. Her excitement was infectious, lifting both Gunnar and his bear out of their misery. And, he thought, of course she owned a bookstore. Because she was perfect for the man he yearned to be, and wasn't.
"You have a bookstore?" he asked before he could stop himself. "Is it that one downtown? I saw it when we drove in."
His words were followed by an awkward silence. Melody made a faint sound as if she'd started to say something, then looked down at her bowl of chili.
"Dessert," Gaby said briskly. She got up from the table. "Who wants dessert? I had to clear out the baked goods from the shop, so there's an entire smorgasbord to choose from. How about I just bring a big tray to the table?"
"I'll help," Melody said, jumping up.
After they'd left, Keegan turned to Gunnar and said quietly, "Hey, just for the sake of family harmony, I think it'd be better if you kept your distance from my sister and our mates. You don't need to know where Melody works, because you aren't going to be showing up where she works. Understand?"
Gunnar nodded wordlessly.
He'd finally found his mate and he couldn't even talk to her. And they were right. He was nothing but a danger to her.
Anyway, it was clear that she didn't want to talk to him, either.
After a round of amazing pastries (Gunnar managed to find his appetite here; tempting baked goods weren't exactly in large supply in prison) the family swung into helping with cleanup, with everyone pitching in. "I'll wash dishes," Gunnar told Gaby, finally seeing a chance to be helpful and pouncing on it.
"That would be wonderful, thank you. You can wash and I'll dry."
"I'll dry," Derek declared, looming abruptly. "You've been on your feet cooking all afternoon. Go put your feet up and enjoy the company in the living room."
"I would do that in an instant if I thought you weren't trying to separate me from our guest." Gaby stood on tiptoe to kiss him. "Why don't you go put your feet up, and I'll dry dishes and make our guest feel at home."
Derek made a low sound in his throat, one step removed from a growl. He gave Gunnar a long, threatening look before skulking off into the living room.
And suddenly, surprisingly, they were alone in the kitchen. It was the first time Gunnar hadn't had a crowd of people around him since he'd gotten to the farm. Voices and laughter came in from the living room, and he could occasionally glimpse Derek or Ben finding a reason to wander past the kitchen door and look in with an ominous expression, but after three years of prison it was almost like having privacy.
Gaby turned on the tap, held a finger under it, nodded at the temperature and moved on to put the dishes into the sink as it filled with suds. Gunnar hovered, not quite sure whether he ought to say something, or move in and help. She stepped aside after the sink was full, picking up a dish towel, and nodded to him.
He took her place at the sink with relief. Give him something to do with his hands, any day. He tried to force himself not to think about his mate and imagine what she was doing in the living room. No matter how hard he told himself he had to stay away from her, he was still drawn to her, the way true north tugged at a magnet.
"Ben said you never did anything violent," Gaby said quietly. "He said you ran with a bad crowd when you were young, but you never hurt anyone, and you only went to prison because you wanted to help your brother. Is that true?"
"I haven't exactly lived a good life. I won't lie about that." He hesitated. "But ... I guess it's true."
"Good." Her pretty face relaxed into a smile, and he found himself smiling back. Her friendliness was infectious. She took a bowl from him and began to dry it. "You do look ... very like your brother, you know. It's hard for Derek, especially."
"I know." He glanced sideways at her. "What did my brother do to you and Derek?"
"Are you sure you want to hear this?"
"I'd rather know." He was glad Melody wasn't here, listening in, though in all likelihood she already knew the story; the whole family probably did.
"It was two years ago." Gaby gave a small sigh as she neatly and efficiently stacked the clean, dry bowls. "I was working at a coffee shop in the city, before I had the café. I witnessed an armed robbery involving your brother and he came after me. I
... er ... I saw him shift. That's how I found out about shifters."
Gunnar swallowed and focused on washing every tine of a fork. He could picture it easily. Nils was absolutely terrifying as a bear. He was huge, the biggest bear shifter Gunnar had ever seen. If that had been her first introduction to shifters, it was amazing she was willing to be around them at all.
"Did he hurt you at all?" Asking the question felt like pressing on a bruise. He didn't want to hear the answers, but he was driven to know.
"No. Derek protected me."
There was warmth in her voice, and when Gunnar sneaked a peek at her, he was amazed to see her looking at him with warmth in her eyes, too. She laid a small, gentle hand on his arm.
"You're not your brother, Gunnar. Derek looks at you and only sees Nils. Sometimes I do, too. But even though Nils almost killed us, I can't hate him, not really. Not like Derek does. It was because of him that I met Derek, and I wouldn't change that for the world. Sometimes the darkest clouds have the brightest, most silver linings."
Silver linings. He thought of Melody, imagining it was her hand on his arm instead of Gaby's. If just being in the same room with her made him feel the way it did, what might touching her feel like?
He heard a sudden cascade of laughter from the living room, and knew instantly that it was hers. He'd never heard her laugh before, but he knew its quiet music like he knew the sound of his own breath.
"Come on," Gaby said briskly, taking the fork from his hand and not seeming to notice his distraction. "Let's finish this up and I'll make up a bedroom for you and give you a quick tour."
***
The house had seemed large to Gunnar even from the outside, but compared to the parade of low-rent apartments he'd spent his life in (let alone a jail cell), it was an absolute palace. There were four bedrooms: a master bedroom and the baby's room upstairs, Sandy's room downstairs, and another, very small bedroom behind the kitchen that was normally used for storage, that Gaby told Derek she was going to make up for him.