A father at twenty-nine. I’m too young. And not even mated.
He rolled his eyes at himself, but his mind went immediately to the red-haired beauty. She could be his mate. Something deep inside him kept insisting that she was his mate, but he didn’t see how he was going to make that happen. The best he could do was stay close and bide his time. There had to be some way for her to discover the truth without actually breaking the Law. But so far, he hadn’t thought of anything.
He crossed the street, heading for the Plattsburgh campus. He wasn’t on duty tonight, so he could indulge in his main pleasure in life. He checked the time and leaned against the big tree outside the science building. He was in plenty of time before her last class ended. He could follow along at a distance and just enjoy her scent. Bathe in its sweet caress. There was no Law against that.
His hand sought the familiar comfort of the object in his pocket. His fingers traced over the rounded edges of the metal, letting the slippery links of the chain slide through them. He blew out a sudden breath. Damn. He’d forgotten to give the human back his necklace.
Chapter 2
Bridget drove slowly, trying to avoid the potholes that littered the asphalt like mini moon craters. It was the end of January, and the roads were in terrible shape. Her headlights shown through a haze of misty sleet, and it was hard to spot them in time. Grimly, she tightened her hands on the wheel. She never should have let Sandy talk her into going to the party.
She’d known it would be worse than a waste of time. It was patently obvious Mark wasn’t interested, so why torture herself? And the possibility that she would meet anyone else she was actually interested in was slim to none. When you towered over almost ninety percent of the population, dating prospects weren’t thick on the ground.
What she hadn’t expected were Rod’s drunken advances. She’d had to literally push him off her. The feel of his sloppy wet kisses still disgusted her. Yuck. And his hands— it was like wrestling an octopus, all arms and slime. But a few good shoves and one well-placed knee and he’d ended up on the floor where he belonged. Still, she wasn’t looking forward to seeing him next week in the faculty lounge. What the hell had he been thinking? The guy was like half her size.
She blew out a long, annoyed breath. The night had been a complete disaster, and with the way the roads were icing over, it looked to be getting worse.
Movement caught her eye. Something was running through the trees alongside the road, keeping pace with her car. What in the world? It was big. She snuck glances at it, trying to see what it was while keeping most of her attention on the road. That was not a deer. It was roughly deer-sized though. A bear? Too small.
She hit a patch of ice and snapped her eyes back to the road. This was no time for nature watching. Never mind that that was basically what she did for a living. Well, no. Now she was an adjunct professor—because nature watching didn’t tend to pay very well. Adjunct professoring didn’t either, but—
Her head whipped around as a dark shape lumbered out of the trees and shot up the road, going way faster than she was currently willing to drive. She caught a brief glimpse of it before it passed from the circle of the light of her low beams. That was a… wolf?
She shook her head. Wolves didn’t occur here in the Adirondacks. Coyote, maybe? If so, it was one big coyote. It was big for a wolf. Actually, it was too big for a wolf.
She hit a pothole with a clunk. She touched the brakes by reflex and felt the tail end skid around. Keep your mind on the road. Her heart thumped as the car slid sideways. After one very tense moment, she managed to steer into the skid and regain control.
Okay. That’s it. Watching the road. Nothing else.
She drove cautiously onward. The roads were really getting slick. Maybe she should pull over. But then what, wait in her car? That was a good way to freeze to death. Headlights loomed out of the dark, coming towards her, and she squinted against the light. Something big was rumbling down the road, too big for this small country road.
Wait— no. That was a snowplow. It had the blade down, pushing snow into the woods on the other side of the road. It got closer and she had to squint hard against the glare. Just as it was about to pass, the truck seemed to lurch suddenly— coming straight at her!
Shit!
She swerved out of the way, neatly avoiding a head-on collision. Just as her heart started coming down from her throat, she hit a patch of ice, sliding dangerously close to the ditch that ran along the edge of the road. Her hands clamped hard around the wheel as she turned it carefully, fighting the urge to jerk it back.
She let out her breath as the car found the center of the road again, then squeaked as it suddenly lost traction. She must have hit the brake, because the next thing she knew the car was spinning, slowly at first, then picking up speed as the road dipped downhill. She caught a glimpse of the plow lumbering on ahead, oblivious to her plight. As the car spun to face downhill, something shot across the road about twenty yards ahead. It stopped suddenly and turned back, pausing there in the middle of the road. Her mouth dropped open as the flare of her headlights briefly captured its image. It was like something straight out of a B-grade horror film.
“What in the—”
She lost sight of it as the car spun around again, picking up speed as the hill got steeper, and suddenly she was skidding backwards off the road—
CRASH!
The front passenger side slammed into a midsize tree, and her head banged into the side window as the car came to a jarring stop. And then the airbag exploded in her face.
“Wonderfuk.”
She sat there for a moment, dazed, trying to think just what she should do now. The car leaned drunkenly to the side, firmly wedged into the ditch.
This is great. Just great. She’d always wanted to be stranded at close to one in the morning in the middle of a snowstorm with a freak-show man-beast on the loose. She rolled her eyes. Not that there really had been a man-beast. Those things didn’t exist. But it had looked—
She blinked as a dark shape seemed to coalesce out of the snow, lurching toward the car on two legs as if that wasn’t its natural gait.
Her mouth went dry. That was impossible. It had to be some kind of costume, because half-man, half-wolf type things did not exist in nature. She knew. She’d studied the fossils. Although— she peered into the snow. Come to think of it, it does look sort of Neanderthalish.
And then, as she watched, it seemed to morph from a hairy, misshapen monster into a completely naked, beefcake calendar look-alike as it approached the car.
She rubbed her aching head, realizing she must have hit it harder than she thought. Sure enough, she had a lump the size of a golf ball on the left side of her forehead, just above the temple.
She turned and reached for her purse, which had slid onto the floor. What she needed right now was her phone. Not naked mirage men. The seatbelt brought her up short, pressing painfully into sore ribs. She tried to unbuckle it, but her hands were shaking too badly. She was still bent over trying to get at her purse when she heard a rap on the window. She sat up abruptly, pain exploding in her head as she swung around. The mirage man, the very naked mirage man, was peering through her window. Fortunately, she could only see him from about the bellybutton up, but still—
“Need any help, miss?” he called through the glass.
She stared at him. He had a slight French accent and his dark hair stuck up in spikes, making him look deranged.
“Uh… no. No. Everything’s fine. Just waiting for…” she thought frantically— “my on-star driver… to come pick me up.” Were there on-star drivers? Was that even what it was called?
He tried the door handle, but fortunately it was locked.
“Can you open this door? I think you got banged around a little. You could be in shock.”
You think? She managed not to say it out loud, but it was a near thing. “No, no. That’s okay,” she said instead. “I’m fine.”
“Lean back,” he instructed,
which was completely unnecessary since she was already leaning as far away from him as she could get in the seatbelt. A second later, one large fist crashed through her window, shattering it and spraying little pellets of safety glass all over her.
“Hey! What the hell? Just what do you—”
“Easy,” he said, reaching in to flip the lock and open the door. “I just need to make sure you’re okay.”
Leaning across her, he grabbed her purse off the floor. “You will probably want this,” he said, placing it gently in her lap. Then he did something with his hands that literally shredded the seatbelt, which she had still been tangled in, and gently but firmly lifted her from the car.
For some reason, she wasn’t truly alarmed. Well, at least not nearly as alarmed as she should be. Probably that bump on the head. Or maybe the shock.
Her knees felt like rubber though, and she probably would have fallen if he hadn’t steadied her, leaning her back against the car for balance.
“Just let me make sure you’re not hurt.” He ran his hands down her body, in a swift but thorough examination. It happened so fast, she didn’t have time to react. Then he leaned in and seemed to almost sniff her.
She crossed her arms across her chest. “Do you mind?”
He leaned back a little and ran a hand through his hair, which actually smoothed it down a little, making him look a little more normal. He had high, rounded cheekbones, a prominent forehead and dark, expressive eyes.
“Mind?” His voice was polite, as if he had no idea what she meant, his brow faintly puzzled.
His French accent was messing with her head. You just did not expect strange window-breaking maniacs to have elegant French accents.
“You can’t just go around pulling people from their cars.”
“Of course you are right. But in this case, it was necessary. Let’s get you out of this cold before you freeze.”
So says the man who is absolutely, unselfconsciously, as naked as the day he was born. She opened her mouth to blast him, but he bent and put his shoulder to her middle, swinging her up fireman-style over his shoulder. Before she could even get her breath back to speak, he turned and trotted off into the woods along the road.
It hurt. A lot. Her head throbbed with the increased pressure and every stride sent his shoulder jabbing into her sore ribs and stomach until she thought her guts were going to come out mouth. “Stop,” she said, but not very loudly. It was hard to get enough air. She wiggled instead, trying to get down.
He swatted her lightly on the ass. “Careful, Petunia, you don’t want to fall.”
“Stop. I said stop.” That came out a little louder, but he still ignored her.
Okay, enough. If she wanted to be treated like this, she could have stayed at the party. She pulled in as deep a breath as she could manage.
“Put me down, you idiot! I’m about to throw up!”
That did it.
“Sorry,” he muttered, gingerly lowering her to the ground. “Didn’t think of that.”
She put her hands on her knees and hunched over, trying to catch her breath. She blinked and took a couple of shuffling steps sideways, turning away from the naked man who was standing way too close from this viewpoint.
“Damn, that hurts,” she muttered.
“It hurt? I’m so sorry.” He sounded genuine. “Are you okay?”
“No, I’m not okay. I was just in a car accident and some asshole threw me over his shoulder and started running down the road.” Rubbing her middle, she straightened up cautiously. Her head was still throbbing.
“My apologies. I only wanted to get you out of the snow. I know your kind is not very hardy. I never meant to hurt you.”
She felt her eyebrows go up. “My kind is not very hardy?”
“Meaning no disrespect.”
“Of course.” She couldn’t quite keep the sarcasm from her voice, and he winced.
“Sorry,” he said again, shifting his gaze off into the woods.
She glanced at him sideways. He had to be at least four inches taller than her. His lean form was turned slightly away, presenting appealing clean lines from shoulder to hip, and long, well-developed thigh. She could see that while not bulky, his muscles looked strong and defined. And he seemed totally at home, standing there completely nude. She, herself, was wearing her good winter boots and a warm jacket, but his bare feet sank an inch and a half in the snow with no apparent discomfort.
This has to be some kind of weird brain injury. Men do not run through the snow, naked. Some strange trick of her sub-conscious had to be gifting her with this little show. But woowza. She never realized she had such a good imagination. Maybe she was actually unconscious, back in her car, and this was all just a dream. That actually made the most sense.
He turned back to her. “I must beg your pardon,” he said, looking down at her, his dark eyes sincere. His soft French accent lent the words an air of formality. “I had no intention of hurting you. I am not very experienced with your kind.”
“My kind?” Again with the kind? What kind was that— the kind that wears clothes? The kind that doesn’t do bad movie impersonations?
“The female kind.” His sensual lips curved in a mischievous smile, causing a dimple to wink in his cheek. It made him look very young and entirely too sexy. It was a devastating combo. His smile widened. “Perhaps you can teach me.”
He was flirting with her? He’d smashed her car window, dragged her out of her car, thrown her over his shoulder and now he was flirting with her?
“I’m pretty sure you’re beyond help. Anyone who thinks this is the way to meet women is a hopeless cause.”
He nodded, his face losing its playful expression. He shrugged one shoulder in a graceful, unconscious dismissal. “Nevertheless, you must come with me. We have Laws about this.”
“Laws?”
His grin grew truly wicked. “Yes. No one who has seen us can be allowed to live. Unless you wish to accept my protection?”
She rolled her eyes. “Really? That’s your play? Accept my protection or I’ll have to kill you?”
“Yes.” He sounded slightly insulted. This dream was getting weirder by the second.
“Fine.” She couldn’t help another eye roll. “Take me to your leader.”
He narrowed his eyes. “He will not offer you protection.”
“Oh, he’s going to kill me?” For a moment, the night seemed to lose its surreal quality. A tiny niggle of fear worked its way into her belly.
He muttered something that sounded like “he’s probably going to kill me,” but she couldn’t be sure.
“Do you…” He paused and rubbed a hand over his face. “Do you want me to carry you? In my arms,” he added hastily, spreading them wide, probably noticing the look on her face.
“I’ll walk.”
“Are you sure? It’s almost four miles to my truck.”
“I’m sure.”
“As you wish,” he said, taking her arm and leading her forward. She would have pulled away, except she really was a little shaky. She didn’t think she could do it without his support. If he’s even really here and not some trick of my imagination.
It was a singularly odd experience, trudging through the woods with a naked man. The snow fell gently through dark skeletal branches, the bare trees both stark and strangely beautiful against the delicate white flakes. It felt like she had left reality somewhere back by her car and entered a fairy land. After all, B-grade movie werewolves, gorgeous naked men and quiet, almost peaceful walks through the forest in the middle of the night did not all go together.
One of these things is not like the other.
She almost laughed, but the situation was just a little too strange for that.
They had gone for maybe a little over two miles when the man broke the silence. He took a deep breath and seemed to steel himself.
“I’m sorry about the way this… happened, I suppose is the best word.” He shook his head.
“I should
have introduced myself.” He gave her a soft, apologetic smile. “I am Gage. Gage Daniel Ardennes. You are my mate.”
“I— what? What do you mean?”
“You are my mate. I have known from the moment I saw you. But… it was hard to find the right way to… make your acquaintance.”
“And you chose this?” The disbelief rang in her voice. Was the man insane?
He shrugged. “It couldn’t be helped,” was all he said.
Um… yes. Clearly, the man was insane.
“Just what do you mean, I’m your mate? You don’t think maybe I have any say in the matter?” This is just a dream, she reminded herself. Has to be. But still—
He stopped and turned to face her, pulling her to a stop too. Which was a little awkward—
because, the man was naked. She carefully kept her eyes on his face, which had lost all expression.
“What do you know about it?” His words were spoken softly, but they had bite. And his expression had shifted slightly, going harder. “You let that cockapoo touch you.”
“What?” Cockapoo? Could he mean Rod?
“That mongrel dog at the party. I smelled him as soon as you stepped outside. He must have had his hands all over you.”
Her mouth dropped open. “You were… following me?” Her voice rose in incredulity.
“Yes, I was following you. Obviously. And a good thing too…” he muttered. “Can you not see the man has no substance?”
“What are you talking about? You never even met him.”
“I don’t need to. I can tell from his smell.”
“From his smell?” She swallowed. “You can smell that?” What kind of creature could smell that?
“Yes,” he said gruffly, taking her arm and tugging her along again. “Come. It’s getting cold out here.”
“Wait just a minute.” She tried to pull her arm away. “Where do you get off, dragging me through the woods like this? Let go. I’m going back to my car.” Dream or no dream, she’d had about enough. Now he was a stalker? Yeah. No thanks.
“I am your mate,” he gritted out. “You are coming with me.”
My Captive Valentine Page 2