Free DANCE WITH THE DEVIL by Sherrilyn Keynon Page B

nose. Even his goggles had frozen.
    No one sane would be out tonight.
    So it was a good thing he was insane.
    Grinding his teeth, he headed north. Damn, but it was going to be one long, miserable walk home. He only hoped he could make it to some kind of shelter before dawn.
    If not, Artemis and Dionysus were going to be two happy gods in a few hours and old Acheron would have one less headache in his life.
    "Zarek?"
    He cursed as he heard Astrid's voice over the howling winds.
    Don't answer.
    Don't look.
    But it was compulsory. He glanced back before he could stop himself and there he saw her leaving the cabin with no coat on.
    "Zarek!" She stumbled in the snow and fell.
    Leave her. She should have stayed inside where she was safe.
    He couldn't.
    She was helpless alone and he wouldn't leave her outside to die.
    Mumbling a fetid curse that would have made a sailor cringe, he went to her side. He picked her up roughly and pushed her toward her house. "Get inside before you freeze to death."
    "What about you?"
    "What about me?"
    "You can't stay out here, either."
    "Believe me, princess, I've slept in worse conditions than this."
    "You'll die out here."
    "I don't care."
    "Well, I do."
    Zarek would have been far less stunned had she slapped him. At least
that
he would have expected.
    For a full minute he couldn't move as those words rang in his ears. The idea that anyone cared whether or not he lived or died was so alien to him that he wasn't even sure how to respond.
    "Get inside," he snarled, shoving her gently back through her door.
    The wolf growled at him.
    "Shut up, Sasha," she snapped before he had a chance to. "One more sound out of you and I'll make
you
go outside."
    The wolf sniffed the air indignantly as if it understood her, then darted to the back of the house.
    Zarek shut the door while Astrid trembled from the cold. The falling snow melted, making her instantly wet. He was wet too, not that he cared. He was used to physical discomfort.
    She wasn't.
    "What were you thinking?" he yelled at her, sitting her down on the couch.
    "Don't you dare take that tone of voice with me."
    So he growled at her instead and stalked to the bathroom where he could grab a towel from the rack. Then he headed to her bedroom and grabbed a blanket.
    He returned to her. "You're soaked."
    "I noticed."
    Astrid was surprised by the sudden, unexpected warmth of a blanket covering her, especially given his angry, gravelly words that had all but called her an idiot for going after him.
    Zarek wrapped her up tightly, then knelt before her. He pulled her fur-lined slippers from her feet and rubbed her frozen toes until she could again feel something other than the painful burn of cold.
    She'd never experienced cold like this before and she wondered how many times Zarek must have suffered from it with no one there to warm him.
    "That was a stupid thing for you to do," he said harshly.
    "Then why did
you
do it?"
    He didn't answer. Instead, he dropped her foot and moved around her.
    She didn't know what he was going to do until she felt a towel covering her head. Tensing, she expected him to be rough.
    He wasn't. In fact, his touch was amazingly gentle as he toweled her hair dry.
    How strange was this? Who would have thought he would take such tender care of her?
    It was completely unexpected.
    Perhaps there was more to him than there appeared…
    Zarek gnashed his teeth at how soft her damp hair was as it fell against his hands. He tried to keep the towel between it and his skin, but it didn't work. Strands of her hair continually brushed his flesh, making him burn.
    What would it be like to kiss a woman?
    What would it be like to kiss
her
!
    He'd never before had the inclination. Every time a woman had tried, he'd moved his lips away from hers. It was an intimacy he had no wish to experience with anyone.
    And yet he felt the yearning for it now. Felt a hunger to sample the moist, rosy lips of Astrid.
    What are you? Mental?
    Yes, he was.
    He had no