Dance of the Dryad

A crippled ballerina and a Special Forces cat shifter dance a dangerous and magical pas de deux, dodging assassins and discovering the undeniable attraction that sizzles between them.

Could she really be his fated mate?

Captain Dennis Palmer is auditioning for a spot in the infamous shifter mercenary company known as the Wraiths. His first assignment is to track down the Alpha female’s long-lost sister and make contact. The leads are slim, but he travels to Sacramento and the one link they have with the woman – a record of employment by a small dance studio.

The ethereal woman Dennis spies through the window, teaching a class of adorable toddlers in pink tutus, captures his attention and stirs his cold heart. He’s not sure if she’s the woman he came to find, but he doesn’t care. He has to talk to her. He has to breathe in her scent and see if she could possibly be the one woman he never dared hope to find.

Then, a sniper’s bullet breaks the studio’s giant plate glass window and he leaps into action.

What is it about this mystery man that compels her so?

Sunny doesn’t move like she used to. Her days as a prima ballerina are over due to a crippling car wreck the previous year. She’s only just able to get out and about on her own, taking on a teaching role for her friend who owns the dance studio. When a strange man appears after the window shatters, she doesn’t know what to think, but her instincts clamor at her to trust him.

Why does she feel so safe with him? And why does she agree to see him again? She doesn’t understand her own instincts when it comes to this man, but there’s a tingle of magic about him that draws her like a moth to a flame. She has to find out more.

Magic, danger, and mystery await, if she’s not much mistaken. Along with the adventure of a lifetime and a man that just might be the one to make her life complete… If she dares to try again.

Sunny’s mind had wandered while the little girls leapt about the room in their pretty pink outfits. She schooled herself to pay more attention and went over to one little girl who had fallen on her little butt. Sunny bent down to help the child named Betsy back to her feet when the plate glass window at the front of the studio suddenly shattered and the mirror behind where she’d been standing cracked into a star pattern.
Everybody froze for a split second, and then, Sunny heard another crack from outside, and she fell to the ground, taking Betsy back down with her.
“Everybody lie on the floor. Right now!” she shouted at the stunned little girls. Luckily, there were only six of them in this class, and they mostly listened to what she told them to do. They were confused, but they all lowered themselves to the floor and began crawling toward her. That wouldn’t do. “Crawl to the changing room,” she told them as little pinging noises told her this—whatever it was—wasn’t over yet.
Somebody was shooting at them! She’d learned what gunfire sounded like when she’d been dancing with a company in Israel. She’d also learned basic self-defense from her friends in that troupe and how to use a number of different weapons. Not that her peacenik parents knew anything about that particular skill she’d acquired.
The little girls were entering the changing room one at a time. Sunny watched as five little tutu-clad butts wiggled into the back room. Only Betsy was still in the open. Sunny prodded her forward, but she was trembling in fear, and Sunny had to take the risk of shimmying up to her and taking her into the back room at her side.
Sunny suspected the shots were aimed at her, not at any of the little girls, so getting close to Betsy put the girl in more danger, but the frightened toddler wouldn’t move on her own, so it couldn’t be helped.
When they were all in the changing room, Sunny kept them on the floor but looked over each one to make sure nobody was hurt. They were all okay, thank goodness, but Sunny wasn’t sure what was going on or whether they were still in danger. The pinging noises had stopped, but it could be that the shooter was just waiting for someone to come out from the changing room to start firing again.
She had to, though. There was no phone back here and no way to get out of the building. Sunny was going to have to go back out there to get a phone and call for help.
“I want you all to stay here,” she told the little girls. “In fact, I want you all to hide under the bench.” There was a sturdy wooden bench bolted into the floor at the center of the room and the walls were covered in metal lockers. Surely, the metal would slow down any bullets, but if one got through, the heavy wood of the bench would be added protection. The little girls wiggled under the bench. There was plenty of room for all six of them under there, Sunny was relieved to see. “Now, stay there while I go make a phone call. Don’t move. It’s a game,” she told them, and a few worried faces smiled tremulously at her. “I’ll be back in a minute. Don’t move,” she reminded them and crawled back toward the doorway.
She really didn’t want to do this, but she had to. Someone had to call for help, and she was the only adult on the premises. She peered around the doorjamb to see what was visible, and the first thing she saw made her gasp. There was a man out there!
A big man with an angry expression. He stilled when he heard her gasp, though how he heard that from yards away, she wasn’t sure. His expression changed from angry to neutral as if he’d consciously flipped a switch.
“It’s all right. I just came in to make sure everybody was okay,” he said in a calm voice.
“I don’t know you,” Sunny said after a moment of deliberation. He had to know they were back here. The fact that he hadn’t moved any closer counted in his favor, but he might just be waiting for her to step out into the open so he could shoot her point blank.
“No, ma’am,” he agreed readily. “I’m Captain Dennis Palmer, US Army, recently retired. I was on the street when the glass shattered, and I saw you get the children to safety. The…uh…action has stopped, and the person who…um…broke the window ran away.”
His hesitancy told her that he knew it had been gunfire, but he was probably keeping that information quiet so as not to scare the kids. Smart man.
“How do I know you’re not the guy who broke the window?” she asked in a quiet voice. She was inclined to trust this stranger, but why she should do that, she had no idea. There was no reason to trust him, except that he had a kind voice and some instinct told her he was okay. Silly instincts.
“I’m not, but I applaud your caution, ma’am.”