Nerves hit her again. In the excitement of arranging the date, she hadn’t thought much about the guy she’d be meeting. Giving a description, she asked for a human male rather than a werewolf or anything weird and wonderful. One of the testimonials she’d come across had mentioned things like angels. That couldn’t be true though…probably some chick making shit up.
What would he be like? Would he be handsome…kind? Honest? Did she care, for one night? She only had to find him attractive… after all, they were going to be— She bit her lip, a flush of heat burning her cheeks at the idea of sex with someone she’d just met. Again, the guy from her dream flitted across her mind’s eye. In her nightmare they hadn’t touched, nor had he kissed her. In fact, the whole thing was as far from romantic as a dream could get. So why did she have such a yearning ache to know what his kisses would be like?
She sensed movement on the other side of the door, the warm scent of skin and cologne warning her he stood behind it. Human for sure, no way to mistake that scent. She smiled and straightened. Okay, things were looking up. If she were lucky, he’d be everything she’d put down in Madame Eve’s form and more.
The door swung open to reveal a broad-shouldered, tall figure. Oh, lordy, he was built like something from a dream. He wore Italian leather shoes, and expensive pants that fit perfectly, loose in all the right places but clinging right where they needed to, like over powerful thigh muscles and lean hips. A blue shirt was tucked in, and the belt highlighted a trim waist and flat stomach. Her gaze found a broad chest and she almost whimpered when his hand on the door frame pulled the shirt tighter across pecs hard enough to make her drool. Slowly, she lifted her eyes to his face and they widened. His features…the blue eyes, dark hair.
The guy from her dream.
Whatever Sax had expected in her date, it hadn’t been that—for her dream guy to be made flesh and blood and presented to her. She also hadn’t expected him to pale like he’d seen a ghost. Without warning, his eyes fluttered closed and he went down like a felled tree. With a squeak, she was a couple of seconds behind, but couldn’t stop him from hitting the deck. Luckily, the thick carpet cushioned his large body as he sprawled on the floor.
“Shit….” She hopped over his prone form and dropped to her knees next to him. “Hey, are you okay?”
She shook him, unable to tear her gaze from his face. Questions buzzed through her mind. How had Madame Eve found him? Why the hell had she been dreaming about him for years? Who was he?
The shoulder under her hand was solid, packed with muscle. His head rocked a little under the shaking motion. He groaned, turning his head to the side before opening his eyes. Clear, piercing blue. Like in her dream.
She smiled. “Hey. Back with me?”
He grimaced, blinking as if to clear his vision. “What happened? What hit me? I could’ve sworn I saw—” He trailed off as he focused on her, paling again.
“Ohh, no you don’t, sweetheart. No more passing out,” she ordered, in her best ‘nanny’ voice. Or what she would have considered her best nanny voice after caring for her cousins’ kids on the occasional evening for the last couple of years, only now it sounded a hell of a lot like a drill sergeant’s bark. Why had she never noticed that before? “What the f**k is going on? Who are you?”
Fuck, he’d fainted. Of all the dumb-ass, stupid f**king things to do. She could have been anyone, done anything to him whilst he was out. Knife to the throat, slid between the ribs…anything.
He ignored the fact that she resembled his dead lover, even smelled like her, and the concerned expression on her lovely face as she leaned over him. Instead he exploded into action, driving up and over to trap her beneath him in a move so swift and powerful, any serving soldier would have been proud.
He covered her and she squeaked, the tumble of blond curls surrounding her head like a halo on the dark carpet. She even had green eyes with that shot of amber on the right that he remembered so vividly.
“Who am I?” he snarled, hauling her hands over her head, then pressing his body against hers. “Who the f**k are you?”
She didn’t struggle, simply lay pliant in his hold, her eyes wide and shocked. “Me? I’m Sax—”
“Don’t.” He spat the word, shaking her wrists. Rage and pain tore through him like the bad guy in a slasher movie, bent on carnage and destruction. “Don’t you dare say her name. I don’t care who you are, or how the hell you’re wearing her face, but so help me God, you’d better tell me what the f**k is going on before…before….”
“Before what? You pin me down and assault me?” she shot back, anger flaring in her eyes at the same time amber leached into them from the center outward.
Shit, she’s a werewolf.
Which meant he had less than a few seconds before she shifted and tore into him. Literally.
Fuck. Talk about coincidences. Sax had come from a werewolf family, but she hadn’t been a full wolf. He hadn’t understood it at the time, hadn’t needed to, but conversations with his new brother-in-law had filled him in on the differences between potentials and full wolves. Male children almost always became wolves as soon as they hit puberty, but women were different.
Some, like Tempest, became wolves, but others, like Saxon, didn’t. Instead they remained human but with the werewolf DNA in their genes. Accounted for random werewolves cropping up in families that hadn’t had a full wolf in generations. All it took was something to flip the switch and a potential either turned, or had a full-wolf kid. Either way, the genes always expressed some way or the other.
But incredibly, instead of shifting, she began to talk.
“Listen, Mister… I don’t know who you are, or who ‘she’ is.”
He eased his grip, the needle about assaulting her cutting through his anger somewhat, and he released her wrists with a muttered apology. He didn’t lift off her, instead he braced himself over her, his interest in what she said overruling his instinctive reaction to the soft curves under him.
“I’m not wearing anyone’s face but my own. I’m Saxon Reeves.” She shook her head, amazement in her dual-colored eyes. “And how the hell did you get out of my dreams?”
“Shit….” He couldn’t think of anything else to say, his brain struggling to catch up and process everything. Him, who’d cut his eyeteeth on rapid tactical decisions in battle. “You can’t be Saxon. Saxon…my Sax…is dead.”
“Your Saxon?” She lay pliant under him, the amber ring of her wolf receding from her eyes. “What happened to her?”
Barrett rolled away and stood, holding out a hand to help her up in an instinctive gesture. No need to forget his manners, even if he had been knocked for six at her appearance and her resemblance to Saxon. It could have been Sax in front of him, right down to the amber flare in her eye and that damned, crooked smile. In fact his body insisted it was Saxon, live and in the flesh, right there…close enough to touch. Close enough to kiss.
“Err…she was killed.” Distracted, he ran a hand through his hair. Screw being neat. “There was an ambush, and I couldn’t get to her in time. She was shot.”
“W-What? You were a soldier?” All the color leached out of her skin, her jaw going slack for a second. “Your Saxon was a soldier?”
The expression in her eyes and the way she held her body made him pause. “Yeah. Damn good one as well. Why?”
“Holy shit.”
Unsteady on her feet, she wavered. In a heartbeat, he scooped her up before she hit the deck. She wouldn’t have gotten more than a bruise on her cute little butt, but that wasn’t the point. He reacted on instinct to protect her.
“You okay?” He carried her over to one of the large couches set in front of the doors to the balcony.
Unwilling to let her go, he sat with her in his lap. Holding her. Cradling her. She was small, delicate. Everything his Sax had been, but softer. Slender. Where his Sax had been a workout freak, toned and lean rather than curvy, the woman in his arms had a voluptuous figure and the male part of his brain broke down and drooled.
“Yeah. Thanks. Sorry.” She shivered and nestled closer, feeding his male pride. “I…um...I have nightmares. One, I should say. One nightmare.”
Holding her tight, he listened, in no rush to lay her on the couch next to him and put space between them, and she seemed content to let him. He closed his eyes to listen. It could be his Sax. Same voice and everything.
“I was involved in a car accident.” In a halting voice, she spoke, and he imagined the frown on her face. Sax had done the same, speaking while she thought things through, putting them in the proper order. He’d loved her for it. It had been so cute.
“Lost my memory. My family thinks the nightmares are because of that. They’re not.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “In them, I always die. In the dream I’m a soldier.”
She pulled back. “And so are you.”
Chapter Three
He froze, the beautiful blue gaze she’d seen in her dreams so many times holding hers. She shivered at the intense focus on his face. What would it be like to be the focus of his attention in other ways? The lush, sinful curve of his lower lip, decadent even, didn’t detract one iota from his masculine appeal.
“It’s nearly sunset,” he said, his voice strangled and rough. Tortured. “We’re in a town, broken-down buildings on either side of us. There’s dust and sand everywhere. Not the clean kind of sand either, the stuff that gets into everything, sticking to your skin and sweat like grease.”
He described her dream, bringing all the details to vivid life and Saxon caught her breath.
“You’re on point, I’m behind the rest of the squad. I’m worried about you, you twisted your ankle earlier in the week and you’ve been limping for the last hour of our patrol.” He cleared his throat, winced and carried on. “Tried to get you to slow down, but you wouldn’t have any of it. Told me to f**k off. But we’re almost done, so I’m not too bothered. Plan to make you get a shower and sleep for the next few days while we’ve got down time. Then it happens…insurgents have laid an ambush….”
She kept her voice soft and picked up where he left off. “The wall to the left of me explodes. I duck and turn…the guy behind me is dead. Blood…red and bright…all over the sand. There are sharp sounds, bullets I think, and the next man jerks in this weird little dance. He’s been shot, falls into a crumpled heap. More sharp sounds and another wall explodes. I look down and there’s red. So much red.” She shuddered. “I turn and you’re screaming at me. Running….”
“You were shot. I couldn’t get to you in time.” He closed his eyes, pain drawing lines in his face. “We lost two out there, but I got you back to base. You didn’t regain consciousness, died in theater. Two years ago, almost to the day.”
His eyes snapped open. “So again, it begs the question—who the hell are you? Because you’re definitely not dead.”