Chapter Four: Melody

 

 

This man was her mate.

Melody stared up at the huge blond stranger on the porch, while her dragon writhed in excitement inside her.

Bathed in the glow of the sun setting behind the trees in the pasture, he was golden from head to foot, with short blond hair like a crown of gold, and the planes of his face lit as if by firelight.

Of course he's a fit mate for us, her dragon enthused. He's made of gold!

You don't even hoard gold, you silly creature, Melody scolded fondly. For us, he should be made of paper and bookbinding glue.

But her gaze stroked his face as if by proxy for her fingers, from the high forehead (intelligent, because of course any mate of hers must be), down the broad angles of his cheekbones, across a slightly crooked nose that helped keep his face from being too symmetrical and pretty, to full lips that she could so easily imagine caressing her own—

She gasped at the surge of want coursing through her and dropped her gaze away from his lips, but that was worse, because then her eyes went down to the tuft of golden hair peeking out of the collar of his shirt (no, not there!), down to the large capable hands that she could picture gripping her waist as he bent her over the hood of her car—

She wrenched her face away from him, her cheeks flaming. She couldn't believe the thoughts she was having, with the entire family there! It felt as if they should be able to look inside her head and see the lust that felt as if it would consume her.

Her family ...

Now that she'd managed to tear her gaze away from the golden vision of Adonis on the porch steps, she became aware, belatedly, that something was going on. Something ... intense. That was Derek, Gaby's mate, in front of the door, and he was all but bristling. Even without being able to feel his bear's agitation the way she could have recognized an angry dragon, she was aware of his fury; it had weight and force, as if protective menace rolled off him in waves, making her want to step back.

Her brother stood between her golden Adonis and Derek, and he was in what she recognized as Full Cop Mode, one hand even resting on his gun. Not to use it against Derek, surely?

"What's going on here?" she asked. Her voice cracked on the first word but she managed to gain control over the rest of the sentence.

"Long story," Ben said. "Sis, why don't you go in the house and check on how Gaby's doing with dinner?"

Her Adonis threw Ben a sharp look at the word "sis," and Melody's eyes narrowed. Ben seemed to be deliberately making a point of their relationship, which made her wonder why. For her mate's sake, to warn him away?

But of course he didn't know the Adonis on the porch steps was her mate. Her Adonis was now looking at her with clear blue eyes, as blue as summer skies and tropical oceans—eyes that were strangely tormented.

"This was a mistake," he said suddenly. His voice was a deep rumble that seemed to vibrate up from the center of his chest, and Melody's dragon thrilled to it. "This was a mistake, Keegan. Take me back."

Back? Melody thought. Back where?

Ben laid a hand on his arm. "Calm down, Gunnar. You've come this far—" and the rest of his sentence was lost, to Melody's ears anyway, in her dragon's delight at learning their Adonis's name. Gunnar! What a perfect name, so strong and masculine. It rolled off the tongue, with musical overtones that reminded her of his voice, deep bass notes to complement the lighter harmonics of Melody's name—

"That's right, take him back to prison where he belongs." Derek's snapped words cut through Melody's distraction, overriding her dragon's rapture.

Wait. Prison?

"No one's going to prison," Ben said in exasperation. "No one is going anywhere. Derek, between you and me and—our third, we can easily control him if anything goes wrong." He glanced at Melody, delicately declining to mention her dragon; even among their fellow shifters, dragons were reclusive and secretive.

But what was all this about controlling Gunnar, as if he were something dangerous? And ... prison? She tried to catch his gaze, but he stared at his feet and refused to look at her.

She was taking in more details now, though. The cheap, ill-fitting brown suit—she hadn't even noticed it before, too distracted by the shoulders inside the suit. The glimpse of blue tattoo ink on the back of one of his hands—that wasn't a jail tattoo, surely?

It was not possible that she'd found her mate only to have him turn out to be some sort of felon. Not a fellow bookworm who would delight in the same quiet scholarly pursuits that Melody loved, but some sort of common ... criminal?

But there was no other conclusion she could come to, particularly with the way Derek was looking at Gunnar as if he might lose control and attack them all at any moment, the way Ben was standing near Gunnar with "cop mode" on, not just as if he wanted to protect Gunnar from Derek, but as if to protect the rest of them from Gunnar ...

Melody stared in appalled disbelief.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with our mate, her dragon insisted, though its earlier delight had given way to uncertainty. Our mate is perfect for us. Look at that jaw! Those arms! We just need to give him a cha—

Oh, shut up, Melody told her dragon.