I caught him staring where my nipples beaded beneath my shirt. He said, “I can see that.”
I gave the front of his pants a frank assessment. “Pity I can’t tell if you were affected.”
His eyes shot open wide and his lips parted, but he didn’t utter a sound.
“It’s all right.” I patted him on the shoulder and waded past him to hold my hand beneath the waterfall’s spray. “You aren’t the first male to suffer the ill effects of icy water on his…pride.”
His gaze bored into my back. “I assure you, my pride has not been affected.”
“Of course not.” I smothered my grin as I turned to face him. “Now, why are we—?”
Brynmor’s face was inches from mine. His scowl lined his forehead and mouth. He stalked me back until I hit a stone ledge and a torrent of water soaked me from shoulder to toe. “It’s not wise to tempt a male who might see your flirtation as an invitation for more.” He bent down, and his soft lips feathered across my cheek. “Do you want more, Daraja?” He fit his hips to mine, and I gasped at the hard ridge of flesh he pressed against me. “I didn’t think so. Come on.”
He left me panting against the falls, asking myself, What in the gods’ names was I thinking?
Never one to shy away from who or what I wanted, when had I decided I wanted him?
One day my penchant for rebellion would land me in an early grave. How often had Father said so? If I wasn’t careful, the desire to explore the tingles burning my skin where Brynmor had touched me would land me in his bed. Dangerous to crave a male I had just met. No doubt that was the source of his appeal.
Before trailing after him, I ducked my head under the falls and prayed the rushing water would beat some sense into me. Let him think that was why my cheeks were flushed and I was breathless.
While shaking the water from my hair, I heard soft laughter and spotted him watching me.
Fresh heat burned in my cheeks.
“Are you ready now or should I make myself comfortable?” he asked.
“I’m ready.” I straightened my shoulders. “What is it you wanted to show me?”
“There is only one way out of Cathis, unless you go over or under the walls.” He stared into the forest. “The Mimetidae keep their prisoners in a grotto beneath the city. There’s a tunnel used for transportation and…private liaisons…near here.” He grinned at my surprise. “What’s another secret between friends? Besides you don’t strike me as the type to go about liberating prisoners.”
I shook my head. “My clan has plenty without me borrowing more from the Mimetidae.”
“Most clans do,” he agreed, bending to examine a pile of smooth stones.
Leaning over his shoulder, I asked, “Do you find stones so interesting?”
Amusement deepened his voice. “Not so much the stones as what they conceal.”
Ah. Our outing began to make more sense. “You have a cache hidden here.”
“I do.” He shook out his arms. “Give me room.”
“Why?” I backed up a step. “What are you doing?”
“Must you question everything?” He sounded as if he didn’t mind my curiosity.
So I said, “Yes.”
I believe he muttered about the inquisitiveness of the young or some such nonsense. If I had to guess, I bet his age was within five years of mine, so he was hardly an authority to lecture me.
As he worked, I hovered at his shoulder. “If the grotto’s proximity mattered to you, then you must have intended your cache to be part of a contingency plan. Say the city fell, you would take the secret exit through the grotto, stop here and then raid the cache before you went into hiding.”
He shook his head. “Only a coward leaves his city while it’s under siege.”
“Oh?” I savored the view while he worked. “Then why have this made? Why here?”
“The rest of your theory was sound.” He glanced up. “I did this for my family, to provide for them if I was unable to. We were poorer in those days. Their fortunes have improved since then.”
The words fell from my lips before I could catch them. “You have family in Cathis.”
Of course he did. What other tether could tie a male with no clan to Mimetidae land?
“I do.” He nodded. “This cache was meant for my son…and for my wife.”
“You have a wife.”
“I did.” Muscles in Brynmor’s neck twitched.
“I shouldn’t have asked.” It was none of my business, even after… No. It didn’t matter.
His thick voice carried over the frothing water. “We lived separately for years before…”
“You don’t have to tell me.” I didn’t want to hear how his heart belonged to another. Or that his earlier burst of passion was the response of a male deprived from activities in his marital bed.
“It’s not what you think,” was all he said.
“With married males, it never is.”
He didn’t disagree with me, but straightened with a grunt. “Here you are.”
A shimmering gold pendant set with a glossy black stone hung from his fingers on a slender chain. My fingers curled with desire to snatch the bauble and examine it. When he coiled it in my palm and folded my hand closed over it, my covetous heart fluttered despite the blow he had dealt it.
My first treasure—the first spoils earned during my journey—warmed my hand.
“This is yours.” He tapped my clenched fist. “Or it can be if you earn it.”
“A net is all you want?” I wanted to be very sure. “I can weave a large one in two days.”
Appearing to consider my question, he finally said, “A net is all I require.”
Aware of the thin line I tread, unsure why I did so, I nudged him. “Is that all you want?”
“Would you give me more?” His voice took on a rugged quality that gave me chills.
“It depends.” I laughed to loosen the knot in my chest. “What else is in that cache of yours?”
The grin spreading across his face made him dangerously handsome. “Perhaps I’ll show you sometime.” He stepped back and exposed an intricate metal trap set in the stone wall with silvery metal teeth and serrated jaws. I watched him slide five pins into the hinged joints before looking away. His tone was apologetic. “In case you’re tempted to double back and treasure hunt alone.”
“Put your mind at ease.” I wiggled my fingers. “I value my hands too much to risk them.”
He captured my wrist and brought my hand to his mouth, where he kissed my pointer finger.
The gesture was so tender, so unexpected, it shattered me. “Tell me about your wife.”
“We should leave.” He swept past me without a backward glance. “It’s getting late.”
Knowing I should let it go, doubting he would answer me, I caught his arm. “One question.”
His head fell back, and his eyes drank in the sky over our heads. “One.”
“Did you love her?” It was the most important thing I could think to ask.
“Yes.” He shrugged free of me, and I was left alone with the fruits of my curiosity.
She is the one wolf who can tame his feral spirit.
Running Free
© 2013 Jorrie Spencer
A Northern Shifters Story
A year and a half ago, if someone had told Zach that he’d be guardian to the creature he distrusts most—a wolf shifter—he’d have laughed. A half-broken horse shifter as father figure? No way.
Now, he’d kill to protect the pup he found lost in the woods—and he has. Which, unfortunately, has attracted the attention of Wolf Town’s alpha.
Sally prefers to keep a low profile among her fellow shifters in Wolf Town. Yet when she’s asked to investigate a pup living outside the safety of the pack, she can’t bring herself to refuse.
From the moment Zach meets the new piano teacher, his world tilts. Her scent gets under his skin. Her touch retrieves missing pieces of his memory. But even as their blazing attraction
flares out of control, trust is the hardest to give, and the one thing they both need if they’re to save the boy from another attack.
Warning: This book contains violence and sex, though not at the same time. Be advised, the protective shifters may cause you to want to move to Wolf Town.
Enjoy the following excerpt for Running Free:
If nothing else, Sally had plenty of time to play the piano over the next two days. It was fun to focus on it and hone her skills. Even if the real reason she was here, Storm, was always at the back of her mind.
And now, it was quite squarely in the forefront because within ten minutes, if Zach was an on-time kind of guy, she was going to meet them for Storm’s first piano lesson.
She paced, but slowly, unwilling to greet them with an elevated heart rate and flushed skin. Shifters noticed things like that, even children. She wanted to reassure Storm—and Zach, whether he was a shifter or not. The idea of a horse shifter still struck her as outlandish. But she tried to keep an open mind. After all, Angus was hardly prone to flights of fancy.
The doorbell rang. She pulled in a breath, calmed herself and calmed her wolf who was again prancing around inside, excited to be meeting other shifters. Sally didn’t know if she was the only wolf in the world so out of sync—she had yet to ask others—but she had a wolf who was more social than her human.
It didn’t matter right now. She strode to the front door and pulled it open.
“Hello.” She looked down at the little blond boy first. He stared at her with big eyes, a bit wary but also interested, excited about something new. A good sign, and she found herself smiling naturally. “You must be Storm.”
She made it a point not to obviously pull in a breath, as the boy himself did. Very wolflike, and she didn’t want to reveal herself to Storm or his guardian.
Storm bit his lip, perhaps in reaction to her scent, and nodded.
Sally inwardly braced herself as she raised her gaze to greet Zach the possible horse shifter.
“Come in, Mr…?” She took in an expressionless face, brown eyes, auburn hair.
“Call me Zach.”
She stepped backwards and gestured them inside. “Please call me Sally.”
Zach nodded while Storm concentrated on getting out of his winter gear. She breathed in, once the door had shut, caught Storm’s distinctive wolf scent and something from Zach. He was different, though if she hadn’t been told he might be a shifter, she wouldn’t have realized he had a not-quite-human scent.
Attractive, a kind of wild-man smell that pleased her wolf whose ears pricked, whose tail lifted.
Not here, not now, not anywhere. Sally rolled her eyes at herself, and at her wolf who wanted to make friends and who remained undiminished by past violence.
She glanced at Zach, wondering if he’d noticed her strange reaction, hoping it all remained inward and invisible. Fortunately, he focused on helping Storm divest himself of boots, mitts and jacket, which would have all gone flying if Zach wasn’t gathering them up and setting them right.
He straightened to inform her, “I’ll be staying.”
“Yes, of course. You’ll be part of the lesson.”
He stiffened. “Pardon me?”
“You’ll be part of the lesson so you can help Storm with his practice at home.” She smiled.
Zach blinked. Just once. “I know nothing about music.”
“All the better,” Sally declared, absurdly pleased to have put him in a quandary about this.
“Jason’s mom sat with him,” Storm piped up.
“She did,” Sally agreed.
“Please, Zach?” Storm tugged Zach’s hand, and the man’s expression, one of appearing out of his depth, hardened into something like determination. It was quite sweet. He looked at her again, a more assessing gaze now, and she wondered if he’d identified her as wolf. But he kept to the topic at hand.
“I guess,” he said as a wry note entered his voice, and it was very appealing, “I’m about to learn something about music.”
“She was nice!” Storm announced on their walk home. Excruciating piano lesson completed, thank God, they were off to pick up milk from the corner store. Yes, most of their groceries were delivered, arranged by Connie, but they always ran out of milk.
“I’m glad you think so,” replied Zach.
“Do you think she was nice?”
“Yes,” he said. Any other reply would lead to endless questions. Storm expected Zach to like everyone. A glance down revealed a small, furrowed brow. Storm, being a wolf, was perceptive about truths and lies.
It hadn’t been a lie, but he offered Storm a reason for the ambivalence he must have sensed around Zach’s answer.
“I don’t know piano, so it’s new to me.” To be precise, he’d never had anything to do with music that he could remember and had no feel for it. Sitting there listening had left him feeling uncomfortable and ignorant. “Sally is certainly musical.”
“Jason likes her too,” Storm said with a bounce, deciding Zach liked Sally after all. “I want to be musical.”
“You will be.” There was no reason Storm couldn’t excel at things Zach hadn’t the first clue about. He just wished he didn’t have to be involved, listening to Bach and staring at the black-and-white keyboard. He suspected Connie had purposefully neglected to mention to him this important aspect of the Suzuki method—parental involvement.
Music wasn’t the only thing which made Zach uneasy. The woman did. Sally had been attentive when it came to Storm, observing him, watching any interaction between Storm and himself. Maybe it was normal. People were often surprised by a male guardian, and at least her demeanor hadn’t suggested she was being judgmental.
Her scent had unnerved Zach, and he couldn’t pinpoint why. It was almost familiar, yet entirely new to him. He remembered individual scents well, so they hadn’t met before, he didn’t think. He gave an internal and irritable shrug. He wasn’t around women enough—Connie didn’t count—so it had felt strange to sit in Sally’s living room for half an hour.
She was pretty, he could admit as much. Having to stay there, with nothing to do but listen, it had been difficult not to observe the gray eyes, the brown-blonde hair, the quick smile when she interacted with Storm. She managed to be tall yet fine-boned. Supple.
Zach stifled a sigh at the last observation. This was one reason he tried not to interact with people. He didn’t want to react. He just wanted to be—be there for Storm until Storm was old enough to function on his own.
Maybe he could talk Connie into being an important part of the Suzuki method, given she already had a piano in her house.
Two pianos for Storm. Nothing done by half, as if to make up for absent parents and a werewolf heritage.
Zach glanced down at the child, amazed anew he was part of Storm’s world. He remembered when he’d first spotted a lost wolf pup and had almost ignored him, had almost trotted on. It had been the forlorn way Storm had yipped at the moon, as if he didn’t know what to make of it, the way he’d circled around to lie down to sleep.
The way he’d shifted to a too-young boy all by himself in the woods.
Zach had shifted then too, and in the early-morning light, he had carried the child home to frantic grandparents who didn’t know who to turn to because of a missing wolf child.
It had been the end of one life and the beginning of another. He sometimes couldn’t get over it, or the relief that had assailed him when he realized he could become something more than a feral horse.
If only he could figure out what that more entailed.
The warrior in her was ready for anything. But she never saw him coming…
Riever’s Heart
© 2011 Renee Wildes
Guardians of Light, Book 5
Verdeen is on the brink becoming an elite warrior ranger until the ultimate humiliation—no war mare chooses her for advanced training. King Loren’s consolation prize isn’t much better. Journey to the Isle of Ice as bodyguard to a huma
n riever. Daq Aryk. Barbarian. Prince of thieves.
Aryk dreams the impossible: unite six fractious clans into a peaceful nation. Failure means they are all doomed to kill each other off—and the nightmares of his son’s death by sword will come true. The new elven ambassador rouses his ire, not because she’s female, but because she’s inexperienced. Her possibly needless death weighs on his already overburdened soul. Her beauty is a distraction he can’t afford.
In a fragrant, moonlit garden, Verdeen dares yield to an irresistible compulsion to kiss the mortal riever. The heat shakes her to the core, and frees a desire that should occur but once in her life. With a mate.
As their quest twists down ever more dangerous paths, though, their bond is the asset that could assure peace…or the liability that could send a dream down in flames.
Warning: This tale illustrates what happens when adventurous dreamer meets seen-it-all cynic. Contains hot, no-holds-barred sex, voyeurism, and some self-loving. Also betrayal and some graphic (but never gratuitous) battle violence.
Enjoy the following excerpt for Riever’s Heart:
Verdeen paced through the lush gardens, letting the honey scent of night-blooming moonflowers soothe her. Their waxy ivory petals glowed in the lights. Thank the Lady goddess, everyone seemed to be inside. The splashing of the wishing fountain drew her, and she emerged into a small clearing lit by pink mage light. She wasn’t the first to venture there. She froze at the intimidating figure staring into the shadowy ripples of water. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know anyone was here—”
“Don’t go.” Aryk turned from the fountain and held out a sun-bronzed hand. “Stay.”
She eyed his hand, wary of his touch. “Daq Aryk, what are you doing out here?”
Was he following her?
“Just Aryk. I needed quiet.” He raked his hand through his hair. “I felt on display.”
She could relate to both parts of that statement, and unexpected sympathy welled for the stranger. As if of its own volition, her body moved closer to him. His eyes drew her gaze. Their intensity made her falter. “Why have you come here to Poshnari-Unai, my city?”
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