Page 4 of Touched By Moonlight
But life taught me never to hope for the best possible outcome. I’ve been on my own too long, a lone Fae who doesn’t dare get close toanyone.
Or I’ll hurtthem.
Or kill them like I didLily.
Someone opened the outside door, releasing a blast of chilly air inside the club. Although it was late spring, it felt like wintertonight.
The door slammed shut behind the newcomer. Everyone fell silent. You could have heard a whisker drop. Or the collective heartbeats of the shifters in theroom.
My palms went damp and it felt like a hand closed around my throat. At the same time, my lady parts shouted hurrah. I could feel the heat of magick rising from my hands, and now other areas of mybody.
Three werewolves entered the bar, their stance bristling, aggression rolling off them in waves of scent and pure power. The one at the center, flanked by his betas, posed the biggest threat to the othershere.
Grayson Smith. Alpha werewolf of the Timber Wolf pack in northern Colorado. Frequent visitor here for the past sixweeks.
If Dante was lickable chocolate, Grayson was the finest imported whisky, burning as it slid down your throat. Curly black hair was cut short. He stood well over six feet and at first glance, looked like a nice enough guy. His chiseled face hinted of aristocratic breeding, but it, as was the case with many adult shifters, it was difficult to determine his age. He could have been thirty, or twohundred.
A little muscled beneath the tan suede jacket he wore over a flannel green shirt. Nice ass covered by brown cords that hugged thighs hinting ofpower.
One glance at those lean hips and firm ass and a woman envisioned him thrusting into you deep, gripping that fine derriere as he rode you hard andfast.
With the smooth contours and planes of his face, he was good-looking enough to be a model on a magazine. Those lips were kissable, until you realized they seldom cracked into asmile.
But the aquamarine blue eyes told the whole story. The shifter crackled with quiet power, glowed with it. Sexual power that had the few ladies in the bar humming with desire… alpha power that had the males giving him a healthydistance.
There was something about Grayson and the shadows dancing behind those eyes warning everyone to stay away. Ever since meeting him here in the club, I wondered if he was the wolf shifter who dreamwalked with me. Those memories were faint and cloudy now, and the possibility Grayson being that same werewolf was as likely as finding a four-leaf clover in ameadow.
My hands tingled. I knew if I removed the gloves, they would glow red with the passion of arousal, not the faint pink Dante hadcaused.
At his side were his two ever-present betas, who scanned the room in silence as if assessing threats. Stephan Aragon was cute, slimmer and shorter, with a wiry toughness, ordinary straight brown hair cut short and sensitive blue-green eyes. He wore hiking boots, jeans, a denim jacket and a black T-shirt with a Punisher logo on it. The logo made me smile. Stephan loved that movie. He told me last week that he admired the Frank Castle’s toughness and beneath it, his fierce love forfamily.
“That’s pack life, Sienna,” Stephan had said. “Wolves are the same. We fight to protect ourown.”
Stephan was much younger, seemed more human and friendlier than most shifters I’d met here. He was into movies and video games, and bragged about his motorcycle. Yet beneath the cheerful attitude lurked the heart of a wolf. People used to treat him like a friendly puppy, or even bait him into fights, which he good-naturedly refused. Everyone took him for granted until the day he beat up a man who’d threatened one of the strippers. The man laughed when Stephan told him to knock itoff.
Stephan did not laugh. The methodical, brutal pounding he delivered left the offender in a bloodypulp.
No one tangled with him afterthat.
Nicolas Prentice was the only one of the trio who didn’t seem to like me. Quieter but wilder, as if the wolf inside him clawed constantly to get out. He was muscled and resembled a biker on a mean streak, with a black leather jacket, white distressed T-shirt, faded jeans and biker boots that could kick someone’s ass across the room. Nicolas had patrician features and large dark chocolate eyes, but a wicked scar marching down his left cheek indicated he’d tangled with someone fiercer. The tat on his neck of a wolf howling at the moon was a clear indication where his loyaltyresided.
Nicolas was close-mouthed, drank little and had an edginess about him. He was polite, respectful, but seldom talked with me. He always seemed protective of Stephan, almost like an olderbrother.
All three were dangerous, and other shifters in the room gave them a wide berth. Even that braggart Nathan picked up his beer and headed for a table faraway.
The two betas headed for a table in the room’s center. It was their usual position, one with an eye on the door and one with an eye on the back. Their body language seemed relaxed, but sharp eyes could tell they werevigilant.
Boot heels clicked as Grayson crossed the wood floor. Everyone in the bar watched him as one would watch a gunslinger I saw once in an old western movie. The leather stool squeaked as he slid onto the seat vacated by the Fae. His blue gaze heldmine.
“Hello Sienna.” That voice, deep and sensual, could stroke a woman into orgasm simply by reciting directions for hooking up cabletelevision.
He sniffed the air and frowned. “I smellFae.”
My blood ran cold. “Fee, Fi, Fo, Fae. I smell something and wish it’d goaway.”
Grayson did not grin back. He slid off the stool. “A woodland Fae washere.”
I nodded. “Cass threw him out for practicingmagick.”
