True Colors

Chapter Five

The Dance

Gideon shocked her when he leaned forward and planted a swift kiss on her forehead. “You’re miraculous,” he said. He smiled, nose-to-nose with her, and she smiled back. “Do you know how many fancy PhDs and profilers have studied the Jacksonville case and never got that? I’ve got to call Bayne.”

He strode out of the room. Full of warmth from his praise, Alice looked down at the full card spread for the first time. Her smile slipped away and she went numb.

All seven of the Death cards were laid out. It was a pure spread.

She had never seen a pure spread before, just as she had never seen a royal flush in poker. Today seemed to be a day of rare firsts. Normally she would have contemplated the spread and let her mind roam free to let the whisper of Power in the cards tell her what they would. While she had told Gideon the truth and she didn’t have much Power, the cards sometimes had a mind of their own.

But she couldn’t handle the implications of this kind of reading tonight. Her mind felt bruised and dull, incapable of hearing the still, small voice in the cards. If they had anything to say to her, it was going to have to wait. She scooped up the deck, tucked it away in the silk-lined box, and pushed to her feet with the slow, awkward movements of the emotionally and physically exhausted.

Gideon had moved to the kitchen. She could hear him pacing and talking. He had frightened her so much just hours earlier. How had his huge, energetic presence become such a comfort so quickly? She knew if he wasn’t already planning to spend the night, she would ask him to stay.

She went to the living room and lay down on the couch. She curled on her side to watch the gas flames and listen to the sound of his deep, gravelly voice.

Death and death and death. Death in the past, Peter and David. Death in the present, Haley. Death as the overriding force in her life, and death in her future. She had a killer on her side, and the Hunter as her challenge. She closed her eyes. She wanted so very much to turn her mind off.

She had the sense of something massive looming over her. She opened her eyes. Gideon bent over her. His hard face was softened into an expression of such kindness that her eyes watered. He stroked a curl at her temple. “What can I do for you?”

“Nothing, thanks. I’m just tired,” she told him. She pushed to a sitting position.

“And sad. I would like to see you happy, someday soon.” He cupped her cheek with long calloused fingers. “It’s almost one o’clock, and we’re done. Do you think you could sleep?”

She nodded. “I’ll get you some things, some bedding—”

“Don’t worry about me,” he said. The tough line of his sexy mouth pulled into a smile. “I have a toiletry kit in the Jeep that I’m going to get and then, if you don’t mind, I thought I might let my wolf out. He has a hankering to snooze by your fire if you’ll let him.”

She had no idea where her barriers had gone. They had simply vanished like morning mist. She put a hand over his and let her feelings show in her gaze. “I’d love to meet your wolf. I’m so sorry that we met the way we did, but I’m very glad we did.”

“That’s good to hear, sweetheart,” he said. He bent forward that little bit further and put his mouth over hers. It was a warm, tender, chaste kiss, and so utterly perfect for who and where she was at that moment.

She gave herself another gift: she leaned forward and kissed him back, touching his lean cheek with light, tentative fingers, and let herself trust in him.

He pulled back and growled softly, “Okay, Alice, fair warning. That’s as good as I’m ever going to get. You should know, most of the time I’m actually a bit of a shit.”

She shocked herself by bursting out laughing.

He gave her a lopsided grin. “Go get ready for bed,” he told her. “I’m going to get my kit. I’ll be right back.”

She watched him walk to the door. When he unlocked it and made as if to walk out just in his t-shirt, she asked, “Aren’t you going to put on your coat?” The temperature outside had to be subzero by now.

The glance he shot at her was icy pale but burning hot. “I could use a blast of cold air right now.”

Her breath shuddered in her throat.

Me, she thought. He means because of me.

He pulled open the door. As he went out a sword-like thrust of wind screamed into the apartment. She shot off the couch and retreated to the relative warmth and privacy of her bathroom.

After inspecting her hollow-eyed face in the bathroom mirror, she brushed her teeth and took a quick five-minute shower to wash away the grime of the city. Her lemon-yellow, thigh-length nightgown and dark blue robe hung from a hook on the bathroom door. She slipped them on and walked out of the bathroom.

Fifteen feet away in the living room, a white-blond wolf lay facing the bathroom door with his head on his paws.

She lost her breath.

He was enormous, easily twice the size of a mundane wolf, heavily muscled across the chest and rib cage with long, strong, powerful-looking legs. His eyes were the same icy pale blue as they were when he was in his human form. As she stared at the wolf, his tail waved gently. Despite his ferocious appearance and intimidating size, somehow he managed to seem diffident.

Gideon said in her head, I thought it might be a good idea for you to meet the wolf this way before you went to bed. I don’t want to scare you if you get up in the middle of the night. I don’t have to stay this way if it’s not all right.

All right? He was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen, and the most dangerous. She fell to her knees and held out a hand. “You’re gorgeous,” she told the wolf. “You couldn’t be more perfect.”

The wolf’s eyes brightened. He stood—good night, he kept going up and up—and padded over slowly. She realized he was giving her time to change her mind.

She didn’t change her mind. As soon as he came close enough to touch, she ran a light hand over his thick pelt. It felt soft and luxuriant, even springy under her palm. He side-stepped closer, nosed at her hand and licked her fingers with such open affection, she laughed again in surprised delight.

She gave herself another gift, threw caution out the window and hugged him. She felt the careful shift in his body as he leaned against her just a little, not too much, and he put his head on her shoulder. She rubbed her face in his fur. He threw off heat like a radiator. His big, warm presence filled places inside of her she hadn’t known were empty.

“Thank you for staying,” she whispered.

I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else, he said quietly. He nuzzled her. Go to bed now. You’re safe.

Something coiled tight inside of her unwound. She sagged against his powerful, sturdy body and nodded. Then she climbed to her feet, passed her hand over the wolf’s head in one last caress, and went into her shadowed room to climb into bed.

Exhaustion swirled around her as her head hit the pillow. She heard quiet sounds as Gideon moved through the apartment, and she knew he was checking the windows and doors.

She thought the wolf might have padded into her room to touch the index finger of her out-flung hand with his cold nose, but she might have been dreaming at that point. In her dream, the wolf rested his head on the edge of the bed and gazed at her with a devotion she would have believed impossible before that day. Then someone turned out all the lights in her head, and she slept.

Waking wasn’t a good experience. It came hard and fast. She surfaced out of a nightmare with the chill of clammy skin and the wicked whiplash of wind snapping just outside her bedroom window.

She had kicked off all her covers and curled into a tight ball. She forced her muscles to unclench. She rolled to look over the edge of the bed at the floor. No wolf. Of course he wasn’t there. He would be in front of the fire, where he said he would be.

The blurry letters on her bedside clock read 3:23 am. The room felt empty and cold, the shelter from the storm all too insubstantial. Her nightmare had been full of dark, wet knives, and she missed him. She just missed him.

She didn’t give herself time to fight the impulse. She slipped her glasses on her nose, grabbed the top blanket as she climbed out of bed and walked into the living room.

There she found everything in the world. Warmth and light from the fire flickered over the massive body of the wolf that lay on the floor stretched out on his side. His clothes were folded in a neat pile nearby, his holstered gun resting on top. His half-closed eyes shifted but he held still as she lay down on the floor behind him. She set her glasses on the nearby coffee table, dragged the blanket around her and curled shivering against the wolf’s broad, warm back.

Gideon’s mental voice rumbled quietly in her head. Bad dream?

“Yeah,” she whispered. She rubbed her face in his fur.

The powerful muscles in his back tensed. Is it all right if I change?

She nodded. “I can’t remember the last nightmare I had,” she said. “I’m not usually a needy person—”

Hush, sweetheart.

The wolf rolled on to his stomach. He shimmered into the change. Whatever else she had meant to say flew out of her head as Gideon’s massive, nude human body lay stretched out before her. Gold light played over the broad muscles of his long back and spilled into the graceful hollow of his lower spine, his buttocks and strong, heavy thighs. He was lean everywhere, the taut covering of his tanned skin rippling over the flex of thick muscle and fluid shift of bone as he came up on his elbows to look at her.

The expression on his hard, lean face was serious, concerned. Her throat closed on a lump as he rolled over and gathered her against his chest. “I’m glad you’re not a needy person,” he murmured. His voice rumbled against her cheek. “But I want you to need me. Don’t apologize or prevaricate. Just need me.”

“It’s so scary,” she breathed. “When I ate lunch yesterday, I didn’t know you existed.”

He cradled her head in one hand and leaned over her. His pale gaze glittered like aquamarines. “Yesterday is gone. Who we are to each other today and who we will be tomorrow—those are the things that matter.”

She read the lines and marks on his harsh face with the tips of her fingers, and stroked down the long, strong column of his throat. A heavy, hard length grew against her thigh, and it felt strange and new, but at the same time so familiar and necessary.

She looked at him in naked bewilderment. “I don’t understand how any of this happened,” she said, through trembling lips. “We haven’t even kissed yet. I mean, we have, but not really.”

A fine tremor ran through the big hand that cradled her head and his face flushed with raw, sensual hunger. He closed his eyes and growled, “Your last few days have been so hellish. I’m trying to be so goddamn careful and give you what you need—”

She touched his mouth in wonder. She thought, I dreamed that a wolf came to my bed and watched over me while I slept. There was an epic story in those silent eyes, of mountains that had been crossed and a world that had been fought, and countless years that had been spent in service and in solitude. And there was a promise in that wolf’s eyes, a promise from an old warrior soul that knew what it meant to dig down deep and hold true to what he claimed no matter what.

She heard herself ask, “Did you come into my bedroom earlier?”

I dreamed a dream of passion, devotion and loyalty, and a promise that meant everything—

The shaking in his hands increased. He whispered against her fingers, “Just to make sure you were okay. Whatever you want, whatever you need. Tell me and I’ll give it to you.”

Everything.

And for one shining moment, her world became simple and clean and good again.

“I need you,” she said.

She felt the breath leave his body. His eyes opened, and the expression in them blazed. How she could have ever thought those pale blue eyes were icy, she would never know. They burned with a pure, steady flame.

Her hands slipped away from his face as he brought his mouth down on hers, and the warm impact of his lips caused her eyes to flutter shut. She was cradled from behind and caressed from above, and all the while she knew that the heavy, hard weight of him hovered over her, balanced for the moment but ready to fall. Her hands landed on the heavy, wide arc of his collarbones and slipped down the expanse of his pectorals, while her mouth formed a soft ‘o’ of surprise for how good it was, how incredibly good—

—and he took that as his invitation to slip inside. He curled his tongue between her lips with a sensual gentleness that spoke of infinite care and deep emotion.

She learned something from his kiss and took it to heart. This man felt things he never spoke of verbally. Instead he said them with his body and his eyes, his mouth and his hands, and in that moment as she kissed him back, she made a silent promise to him to learn the language he spoke so that she heard everything he had to say to her.

Then his language changed and became harder, more demanding. He spoke of need too, as he drove his hardened tongue into her mouth and shoved a heavy thigh between her legs. His massive body became a silent shout of urgency. He rocked his hips against hers, massaging the hot length of his cock against the arc of her pelvis, and the shudder of his breath blasted against her cheek as he cupped one of her breasts and fingered her erect, aching nipple through the thin nightgown.

She caught fire. It ran shining like liquid mercury through her veins. She arched into his touch and groaned as she gripped the back of his head. Her hands slipped against the short corn silk of his pale hair.

“Tell me to stop, sweetheart,” he muttered against her cheek. “Just say the word if we’re going too fast.”

His body said something else though, as he ground harder against her.

It said, please, please.

She stroked the wide arc of his back as she whispered in his ear, “You are my mate. I could never say no to you.”

His head reared back. He stared at her in astonishment.

For one terrible moment, dread darkened her vision and her heart gave a sickened lurch. She thought, I cannot be so wrong. I cannot live with it if I am so deluded.

The joy that came over his face was so incandescent, it blinded her. “That’s what it means,” he said. “True north.”

She broke into a bout of reactive shivering. “What?”

He leaned on one elbow to caress her face. “When I looked at you for the first time, the world changed. It all but knocked me off my feet. I’ve been thinking it was like true north had shifted, the magnetic pull from the one direction you use in navigation, but it’s more like the primary force from your card spread. I’ve been trying to figure out what it meant. All I knew was that it was you—you had become my true north, my primary force. Just like that, from one moment to the next.”

She closed her eyes and swallowed hard as the world came back into focus. “Yes, that’s what happened to me too.”

He bent down to nuzzle her neck. “It reminds me of a quote from a French philosopher. ‘The heart has reasons that reason cannot know.’ Do you know it?”

She wound her arms around his neck, and she let her frightened heart find ease and grow full of him. “I do now.”

I dreamed a dream of incomparable rarity and loveliness.

Then I woke to find it true.