he’d known, when they arrived at the restaurant, to be told their table wouldn’t be ready for another twenty minutes. In no hurry, they decided to hang out at the bar. They’d just grabbed their drinks and Desiree was cuddled up to Felix, telling him about her trainee soldier days, when some asshole patted her butt and said, “Hey, babe.”
Chapter 8
Rolling her eyes, she turned to the big, muscle-bound idiot. “Touch me again and I’ll rip off your hand.”
All tanned skin and white teeth, he leaned against the bar. She was dead certain he was a nonpredatory changeling, but, from his behavior, it seemed likely he was one of the bulls from the local deer herd. They could be as cocky as predators.
“Want to dance?”
She couldn’t believe the nerve of the moron. Deciding to ignore him, she turned back to Felix, to see that his jaw was clenched, his eyes wolf. “Hey.” She put a hand on his chest. “Don’t let some random dickhead ruin our night.”
Felix’s muscles remained bunched, but he looked back down at her. She smiled . . . and felt the asshole touch her again. Growling low in her throat as her claws sliced out, she spun around and clawed bloody lines across the back of his hand.
He hissed as blood welled, but didn’t back off.
“Get out of her face.” It was Felix’s voice from behind her, his body pressed up against her back.
The other male smirked. “Or what?”
“Or I’ll kick your fucking ass.” Desiree slammed her drink down on the bar, aware of the entire place going dead quiet as the others around them picked up on the violence simmering in the air.
The asshole glanced at his friends, then back not at Desiree but at Felix. “What about you, pretty boy? You gonna stand there and let your girlfriend do all the work?”
Desiree’s leopard went stock-still inside her skin. This, this was what had been holding her back. Not that Felix was less dominant, but whether he could accept—truly accept—a woman who was more dominant. And not only that, a woman who was a trained soldier, designed and built to fight.
So when he said, “What? Watch my seriously hot woman put you on your fat ass and look sexy while she’s doing it? Oh, yeah, I’m definitely game for that,” every single cell in her body exploded in violent pleasure.
She went to shoot him a grin, but the goddamn fuckwit who’d interrupted their date tried to touch her again. Snarling, she slammed out, and suddenly the bull wasn’t so happy messing with her on his own. As his friends yelled and came at them, she was aware of Felix falling in beside her. They shared a grin before wading in to the melee together—and it was a melee. It seemed like everyone was ready for a good fight tonight in this very nice, very respectable establishment.
He fought side by side with her throughout and it was at that moment that she understood the true depth of his courage. He didn’t have the aggressive instincts of a dominant, but like all SnowDancer submissives, he’d been trained in combat, so that he wouldn’t be helpless if he was ever the only line of defense for their most vulnerable.
Tonight, she saw what it meant when a submissive fought for someone he cared about.
He was all teeth and claws and fury and an unflinching refusal to surrender, even against bigger, more violent opponents. And he never, never got in her way. Instead, he was there to back her up, give her anything she needed; he made sure her flank was protected, that she never had to worry about sneak attacks.
His kicks found their mark time and again, and he smashed more than one jaw.
She saw him take a brutal punch to the gut as the instigator of the fight got in under his guard, but Felix ignored the injury to ensure she remained covered. Desiree, on the other hand, was enraged. This time, she got the offending asshole bull deliberately in the face.
“If you want to play for real,” she snarled as he stumbled back, bleeding, “then let me show you my fucking claws.”
• • •
Felix had seen dominants fight before. You couldn’t be part of SnowDancer and not have witnessed that, even if it was only in a combat simulation. As it was, with the recent violence, he’d seen it in truth. But he’d never seen anyone fight like Desiree. Her moves were silken, sinuous, and could turn