The Alpha's Mate (8 Sexy, Powerful Shifters and Their Fated Mates) Page 16

  "Stepping on toes is usually my problem," Damien said, holding out his hand. Julia reached out and clasped her palm to his.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Damien

  The shock that jolted up Damien's arm when he touched Julia again almost made him drop her hand. He swallowed hard, his heartbeat doubling in pace as he tried to relax his arm enough to walk casually. She had no idea the kind of effect she was having on him, or else she did a fantastic job of masking it. Her palm was soft and warm and it took all of his self-control not to lift the hand to his lips and kiss it. Lord, to kiss her! It might destroy him.

  The aura he felt emanating from her was stronger today, if that were possible, and the idea that she was human disappeared with the awareness of her mind. Every emotion she felt seemed to sweep through his body, echoing through him and making it hard for him to think. She had to be his mate. It was impossible for her to cause this kind of connection without being his mate. And if that was true, she was a werewolf. Had to be.

  When he sensed her presence walking by him, he had called out her name without thinking. Fortunately, most people seemed to believe that blind people had extrasensory abilities anyway, and she believed his excuse without too much thought.

  He tried to regain his thoughts as they walked out the door into the summer sunlight, but he was absolutely dumbstruck by the idea that he had found his mate, and that he was right now walking down the street with her, holding her hand.

  His cane extended out in front of him only slightly, making sure that the ground was level.

  "How are the books working out for you?" she asked.

  "Great," Damien said, thankful for the question. "I've already read through most of what I need."

  "You find any monsters around here?"

  "Not yet." Damien cocked his head. He wished he could read her expressions to tell if she were really joking. Julia laughed.

  "Well, you just let me know if you find any. I'll be running the other way," she said. Damien cracked a grin.

  "You would leave a poor blind man to fend off the monsters by himself?" he asked.

  "I think you could take care of yourself," Julia said. "You'd just use your superhearing to beat them. Just like that one guy... who's that superhero who's blind?"

  "Daredevil," Damien said.

  "Right, like him."

  Damien sensed Julia's pause at the cafe entrance. He stepped ahead and opened the door to the cafe, holding it for Julia. She walked through, dropping his hand, and instantly he felt the connection between them break off into just a vague awareness of her emotional presence. He stood in line with her so close to him that he could smell her. He breathed in deeply.

  "I love the smell of coffee," Julia said, relaxed and happy. Damien smiled and stepped forward to order. They sat outside, a large umbrella shading them from the hot sun.

  "What are your favorite smells?" Julia asked.

  "Interesting question," Damien said. "I suppose I like the smell of pine trees. Not the pine needles themselves, but the resin that seeps out of the bark. It's a slightly bitter smell, but sweet too." He took a sip of his coffee. "What about you?"

  "Coffee, definitely," Julia said.

  "What about violets?" Damien asked.

  "How did you know that?!" Julia cried out. Damien sensed her apprehension.

  "I have all of the super senses," Damien said. "Your perfume yesterday."

  "Oh!" Julia said. "Oh, right. I forgot I wore that yesterday."

  "It was violets, right?"

  "Yes," she said. "That was my mother's favorite perfume."

  Damien sensed a darkness that rose up quickly from the depths of Julia's heart. The sorrow pierced him, and he felt his useless eyes welling up with tears despite himself. He blinked and reached forward to take Julia's hand, knocking over the coffee instead. He could hear the splatter of the liquid on the sidewalk and Julia scrambling to right the cup.

  "Oh, I'm so sorry!" Damien pulled his hand back, shocked that he had bumped into the cup. Julia's emotions must have clouded his senses. He hadn't knocked over anything in months, years maybe.

  "It's no problem," Julia said. "I'll clean it up."

  "Please, let me," Damien said, pulling a wad of napkins from the dispenser and trying as hard as he could to block out her emotions, which were putting his senses into complete disarray.

  "Did I get any on you?" Damien asked.

  "No, no, I'm fine," Julia said, but the scrape of napkins against fabric told him that she was lying to him.

  "I'm sorry," Damien said again. He was unused to apologizing for being clumsy, and his hands seemed awkward no matter what he did with them. "Can I get you another one?"

  "It's okay, I have to get back soon anyway," Julia said. Damien didn't know if the disappointment radiating from her was because of his clumsy or because she had to leave. He hoped that it was the latter. "Just let me have a sip of yours?"

  "Sure," Damien said. "I'll let you pick up the cup on your own. It's less dangerous that way."

  Julia chuckled and sipped his coffee. "So tell me about yourself."

  "Me? There's not much interesting to tell."

  "What are you doing here? I haven't seen you around town before."

  "Well, I'm actually thinking about moving here."

  "Oh? What do you do for a living? Teach?"

  "I'm a writer," Damien said automatically. It was his go-to response whenever anyone asked him what his job was. Writing was an easy career to fake, and a difficult one to prove wrong. He had actually penned a couple of books a few years ago, when he was paranoid about being found out. But now Julia lit up, and Damien realized that he might have chosen the wrong occupation to lie about.

  "That's so exciting! What do you write?" Julia said. "Half the reason I applied to work at the library was because I love reading books. That was before I knew that they actually frown upon reading during work." She giggled.

  "You mean you don't just lie down in the back and read all day? There should definitely be a position for that job," Damien said. "I mean, somebody has to read all those books!"

  "I know, right?" Julia laughed. "So what kind of books do you write?" she asked, turning the subject back to him.

  "I can't tell you. You'll laugh," Damien said.

  "Let me guess, then," Julia said. "You write erotic romance novels. Bodice rippers with pictures of skinny girls with flowing hair clinging onto half-naked men on the covers. And they're all pirate themed."

  "Close," Damien said. "But no, no romance novels."

  "Fantasy?" Julia guessed. "Dragons and wizards and that kind of stuff?"

  "Nope."

  "Tell me," she said. Damien could hear her heart beating a bit faster.

  "Well, if you must know," he said. "I write about folklore."

  "Is that why you wanted the book about legends around here?" Julia asked.

  "Yes," Damien said, feeling just a bit bad about lying to her. He was desperate to find out if she was secretly a werewolf, but at the same time he hesitated to ask in any manner that seemed too blatant.

  "That's interesting," Julia said. "You must know some weird stories."

  "Some of them are pretty fantastical, I have to say. Do you have any weird stories to share?" Damien asked, listening intently.

  "Nope," Julia said, taking another sip of his coffee. He reached out to take it from her and touched her fingers with his as he did. The connection between them flashed into sharp relief for that brief second, and Damien threw himself intensely into the awareness. He couldn't sense any kind of deception from her, though; she had nothing to conceal.

  "I'll have to tell you some of mine, then," Damien said, hoping to draw her a bit further out.

  "It'll have to be some other time," Julia said. "I need to get back to work. I'm going to be late as it is."

  "That's a shame," Damien said, standing up. "Thanks for letting me spill coffee all over you."

  "Thank you for spilling coffee all over me," Julia said, laug
hing. "I had a great time."

  "Maybe we can do it some other time?" Damien asked. "We can try something new. Maybe you can spill tea on me."

  "That sounds wonderful," Julia said. "I have tomorrow off, the library is closed. Just in case, you know, you don't have anything going on." She gave him her phone number, and he entered it into his phone by touch.

  "This is it, right?" he said, showing her the screen to make sure he'd typed it in right.

  "You got it! I, um, really... I have to go," she said.

  "Of course," Damien said. She stood up and so did he. He held out his hand and she pressed his palm in a handshake. Without letting himself hesitate, and buoyed by her warm response to his jokes, Damien raised her hand to his lips and pressed a kiss onto her fingers.

  It was a mistake. The connection between them before that moment had been tenuous, if intense. He could feel the separation between her emotion and his, and could untangle them if he needed to. Now, though, with his lips against her skin, he sensed the passage between them open up, widen, and take over his mind. He could no longer tell the difference between a feeling coming from his own mind or hers, and her thoughts reverberated through him. Not just emotions, this time, as he had sensed before. The emotions were there, to be sure: desire, curiosity, and a hint of fear. But his lips fell apart slightly and he breathed in a sharp breath as he now heard clearly the words that she was thinking:

  ...the one. He's the one. It's him...

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Julia

  Damien's lips were hot against Julia's skin even in the summer air, and for a moment she thought she would swoon. He pulled back quickly, though, dropping her hand from the kiss after just a brief moment of contact. His glasses fell down on his nose and she caught a glimpse of his eyes. They were hazed over, but that wasn't the strange part. The strange part was that his eyes shone golden, like there was a light coming through from behind the irises. He pushed the glasses back up on his nose and the light was hidden.

  "Thanks again," Julia said. "See you later." She turned and walked away quickly so that she would not be tempted to turn back. She wanted to stay and talk to him for hours. A writer! And he seemed interested in her! She felt like a heroine from a Jane Austen novel.

  At the library, Julia hummed through the rest of her work. The hours passed quickly as she daydreamed about Damien. He had held her hand so possessively, as though she belonged to him already, and he belonged to her. And then he had kissed her hand—how romantic! Her thoughts spiraled into intricate fantasies about what other places he might kiss on her body. When her boss yelled at her for not finishing processing all of the discard books, she just blushed and went right to it. Although she had hoped that he might come back to the library to see her again, by the time she closed up and left she was still in a good mood from their brief coffee date.

  Back home, Granny Dee was clipping the roses in the front of the house in the dusky light of sunset.

  "Granny Dee!" Julia beamed as she came through the gate. "How was your day?"

  "Not as good as yours, it seems," Dee said, smiling secretively. "Things looking better after this morning?"

  "This morning?" Julia thought for a second before remembering the men who had come to see the house. "Oh, yes, much better! We'll figure something out about the house, I'm sure of it." While the situation with the mortgage was as bleak as ever, the burst of energy that Damien's attention had given Julia made her certain that good things were going to happen soon.

  "So who's this lucky boy who makes my granddaughter come up the steps in a hop, skip, and a jump?" Dee said. "Come, sit on the bench here and tell me all about him."

  Julia sat down, sorting through the rose clippings for buds to make a small table centerpiece, and described Damien to her grandmother. Granny Dee listened and smiled and asked all of the right questions.

  "He sounds like a very nice person," she said. "You say he's blind? Was he born that way?"

  "I'm not sure," Julia said. "I didn't ask him."

  "It's a shame he won't be able to see your pretty face," Dee said, chucking Julia under the chin with her gloved finger. "But I suppose he'll be able to figure out what you look like by touch." She winked, and Julia blushed hard.

  She hadn't thought about it, but Damien would have to touch her soon. So far he had only touched her hand, her arm. He had no idea what she looked like. A nagging worry crept up the back of Julia's mind. What if he didn't like her after he touched her and found out what she looked like? Was she misleading him by not telling him? She shook the thoughts away. They would just have to deal with that when they came to it.

  "I'm going to go for a walk out back," Julia said. "Here." She handed her grandmother the small bouquet of buds she'd picked out.

  "Thank you," Dee said. "These will look lovely on the table for breakfast tomorrow."

  "I'll see you in a bit," Julia said, kissing Granny Dee on the cheek before walking around the house and toward the woods in the back.

  Julia loved the broad meadow in the backyard, especially on hot summer nights like this one. The fireflies danced over the long grass, winking their warm yellow lights on and off. She walked out into the darkness until she was among them in the field. The lights coming from the house windows were only slightly bigger and brighter than the fireflies, and when she looked out toward the woods she felt as though she was in the middle of a tornado of lights, the blinking bugs swirling around her. One blinked, went out, then blinked again, closer. She squinted to try and see the firefly against the darkening sky, and then it blinked again, right in front of her. She quickly brought her hands up and caught the firefly between her cupped palms. She could feel its small legs tickling the inside of her palm, the place where Damien had first touched her.

  What would he do when they finally embraced? She dreamed about Damien touching her, feeling her curves, her wide hips. His hands ran over her and in her mind she saw him grimace, recoil from her body. Her heart sank.

  "No," she whispered. "He wouldn't do that." But the fragment of doubt that had worried its way under her skin continued to irritate her, and she could not envelop herself in the same daydreams that she had spent the morning contemplating. She brought her cupped hands up and peeked through the small opening between her thumbs. The firefly lit up her hands just then, casting a warm glow through her fingers. She spread her fingers wide and let it go, but the firefly continued to walk on her skin, over her thumb and onto her wrist, then back to her palm. A strange feeling ran through her, the same feeling she'd had of being watched in the library.

  "Go on, little bug," she said, lifting her hand up. She blew the firefly off toward the woods as though she was blowing a kiss, and then she froze.

  Amid the glow of a hundred fireflies, there were two small golden lights that did not move. As she watched, they stayed lit, not blinking off after a few seconds the way that fireflies always did.

  "Hello?" she called out, then felt stupid for it. She took a step forward and blinked, rubbing her eyes. No, it wasn't a mistake—the tiny lights continued to shine from inside of the woods.

  A cold chill ran through her body. Was there some kind of animal out there? She'd heard that there were deer around here, but she'd seen deer before and these were not a deer's eyes. She began to step slowly backwards, keeping the yellow lights in her sight at all times.

  "Julia? Did you call out?"

  Julia spun towards Granny Dee's voice. Her grandmother was standing on the porch, a basket of cut roses in her hands. Julia turned back quickly to see the gold lights, but they were gone. Her eyes darted everywhere, thinking that one of the pinpoints of gold floating in the darkness must be them, but none of the lights stayed on for more than a couple of seconds. It was only fireflies.

  "It was nothing," Julia said, walking back towards the house and up onto the porch. "I just thought I saw an animal out there in the forest."

  "Deer?"

  "No, I'm not sure what it was," Julia said. Her grandmoth
er had always told her that the woods were safe—there weren't any large predators around the area—but she couldn't explain what her gut told her about the lights in the darkness. What she had imagined about the eyes.

  Because she had thought, in the first instant she saw them, that they looked like the eyes of a wolf.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Damien

  "It's this way."

  Kyle led the pack running through the woods in wolf form, with Katherine and Damien following and Jordan trailing behind them. They were always cautious, even if there was no other sign of wolf scent. The pine trees smelled fresh in the coolness of the morning air, and the dead leaves underneath crackled satisfyingly under their paws as they ran.

  They communicated in short yelps and growls whenever they had to, but in wolf form most of their discussion was implicit, instinctive. One look could speak more than a hundred words. When they came close to the place Kyle had scouted yesterday, he slowed and turned toward the rest of the group.

  "This one. Only a mile now."

  As the wolves crested the last hill and moved down toward the house in the middle of the clearing, Damien began to feel a strange presence. He stopped short and Katherine stopped next to him.

  "What's wrong?"

  "I'm not sure. Let's be careful."

  Kyle circled back and they trotted together in a more tightly knit group to the edge of the field where the house stood. Damien recognized what the presence was, and in that same instant the wind shifted and he smelled her perfume, a hint of violet.

  Julia.

  Katherine swiveled her head toward him, nudging his shoulder with her snout, but he ignored her.

  "Trouble?" Jordan asked, coming up on his other side.

  "Is the entrance to the state park nearby?" Damien asked.

  "Just over the next hill, off a bit to the east," Kyle said.

  "How far?"

  "I'm not sure," Kyle admitted. "I circled around last night, so it might be closer than I thought."

  "Take Katherine there and figure out the distance," Damien said, sitting back on his haunches.