With an almost cocky grin, Daniel stepped up and bent over the table. I moved out of his way.
“Are you the only one the elders sent to find me?” I asked.
He looked over his shoulder. “Yes. Why?”
I shrugged. “They had a lot of faith in you.”
“You weren’t that hard to find once I caught your scent.” He smacked a ball, and it landed in the corner pocket.
“How did you know what I smelled like?”
He hesitated, hit a ball, and missed the side pocket. “I checked out your bed.”
Okay, now I was blushing. I supposed I should have expected that answer. It would have been the place where my fragrance was the heaviest, where I’d tossed and turned and rolled all over the sheets. I wondered if Daniel had done the same—in wolf form—coating himself with my essence. Suddenly I was so warm that it was as if someone had built a fire right next to me. Shaking off the bed image, I moved into position—
“You ever beat Lisa?” he asked.
“Not so far. Why?”
“You’re not holding the stick exactly right.” Before I could respond, he moved behind me and put his arms around me, cradling me within the curve of his body. There was that intimacy again, him acting like we were already mates. I couldn’t explain how comforting but unsettling I found it. How could I feel both at the same time?
“You’re not my mate yet, you know,” I said, my voice not entirely steady.
“Are you uncomfortable with the nearness?”
“I’m just not used to it. From guys, I mean. From Shifters. The girls at school hugged and stuff….” But it didn’t make my legs feel weak, didn’t make me wonder what his kiss might be like.
“So get used to it. I can’t help you through your transformation if I’m not touching you.”
And when he touched me, the harvester would touch him. It would be bliss and hell at the same time. As scared as I was whenever I thought about facing my first transformation, of maybe also facing the harvester, it scared me more to think of something happening to Daniel simply because he was trying to help me.
As he positioned my hands, his cheek was so close to mine that I could almost feel the bristles along his jaw.
“I heard that when Brittany needed a mate, the elders put the eligible guys’ names in a hat.”
Grinning, he nodded. “Yeah. Very low-tech dating service.”
“Is that what they did with me? And you got unlucky again?”
“I volunteered,” he said very quietly.
My heart stammered. “Why?”
“It was a challenge. I didn’t have anything better to do.”
So he hadn’t been crushing on me from afar. Again I had conflicting emotions. This time they were relief and disappointment.
“You really know how to make a girl feel special,” I said sarcastically. “I’m beginning to understand why Brittany didn’t accept you as her mate.”
“She didn’t accept me because she loved Connor. I figured that out after ten minutes of talking with her. Is there someone else instead of me that you wish was here?”
“I don’t even want you here.”
“That’s not an answer. It was a yes or no question.” He was tossing back at me what I’d said to him earlier. “Is there?” he prodded.
The only person I could think of was my mom. “No,” I reluctantly admitted.
“Then relax.”
I gave him a questioning look.
“It’ll make the shot easier to make,” he said, with his now-familiar grin.
He released his hold on me and stepped back, but his eyes never wavered from mine, and I wondered at his true reason for volunteering. Maybe he needed to get away from Wolford as much as I did. Or maybe he just wanted to do something different. It couldn’t possibly be that he was interested in me. How many times had we set eyes on each other before today? Half a dozen, maybe? None of this made sense.
I whacked the ball. It smacked into another ball, sending it toward a pocket, then ricocheted off and hit another, forcing it down a side pocket. I missed the next shot, and Daniel proceeded to clear the table. I owed him breakfast.
“I pour a mean bowl of cereal,” I conceded as we headed back to the room where the band was playing.
He laughed at that. I wished I could relax around him. But something wasn’t right. I simply couldn’t figure out what it was.
We joined Lisa and Eric, shared their beer until I was mellow. The music was too loud for us to do any talking, but I was aware of Daniel watching me, his gaze never straying, as though he suspected I had the ability to disappear in a puff of smoke.
Finally I said, “I’m ready to go.”
We grabbed our jackets, said good night to Lisa and Eric, and went outside. Light snow had begun to fall. I knew the skiers would welcome it in the morning. I tried not to notice how comforting it was to have Daniel walking beside me. Even if the elders had designated him as the one to go through my full moon with me and we somehow managed to survive, I had no guarantee that the morning after he wouldn’t lope away.
Going through the first shift was an intimate experience between mates. We couldn’t shift with our clothes on, so it would be really uncomfortable and weird to go through it with someone you didn’t love completely. The elders could order the Dark Guardians to do a lot of things—but no one could order a heart to love someone in particular.
And then there was the harvester to complicate things.
“So what was your first shift like?” I asked as we headed toward my condo.
Daniel shoved his hands into his pockets, and I sensed that he was hesitant to confide in me about it. I knew I was being nosey. Shifters didn’t talk about their first time. It was a private moment—for the males especially because they went through it alone.
“Scary,” he finally said.
“Is that why you didn’t object to the idea of being my mate?”
He rolled his shoulders inward, then straightened. “Yeah. I figured if I could help you through it—why not? Besides, I’ve been at Wolford for six months now. I haven’t connected with a girl. I’m an outsider. They trust me as little as you do.”
It embarrassed me that he was able to read my feelings so easily. “Are you sure you’re not empathic?” I asked.
“I’m sure.” He got really quiet, and then he said in a low, emotion-laden voice, “It’s painful, Hayden. The first time. Your body feels like it’s tearing itself apart. I guess in a way it is. But after that, it’s just amazing. There aren’t words to describe it.”