Page 7 of A Clutch for Hutch
“I’m afraid I don’t pick up on scents as much as you shifters do, and with so many people here masking their natural scent with deodorants, perfumes, powders, lotions… Sometimes it gets pretty overwhelming in here when we’re busy.”
She looked so distressed, I hurried to reassure her. “I imagine it does. But this one stands out for me because he’s my mate. I’m not sure if anyone else can pick up on it anyway. It might just be for me.”
“I see.” She patted my hand and stood up from where she sat at my table. “I’ll send over an appetizer plate for you. If you can’t have your mate, maybe a nice frito misto will help.”
“That sounds amazing.” Even though I’d had barbecued burgers at my brother’s home a few hours before, I was not going to turn down anything made in the kitchen here. Between the chefs at Animals and my brother and his mate, I was going to gain ten pounds on vacation and have to run it off in training when I got home.
I was halfway through the plate of delicious food and wondering whether I was just kidding myself that my mate would ever be back when a scent overwhelmed all the other perfumes and colognes and natural fragrances of the crowded nightclub. I dropped the piece of delectable fried shrimp I held and stood, nose in the air.
It was him, and he was here. Somewhere. This was the busiest night I’d been here, with people almost wall to wall. Evenon the dance floor, they were inches apart, swaying like a unified wave. I left the table and pushed between a tiger shifter and his mole mate. What an odd combination. My mate’s scent was the same as before, although now I could identify the elements of it: wood, maybe cedar, singed, with a spicy edge. And it was pure magic.
I ducked between the legs of a giraffe, who for some reason chose this indoor venue for a shift. Most likely because few ceilings were high enough for this experience. Around a trio of witches who might not have been flying on their brooms, but the chant that followed me held mischief at best and mayhem at worst. They’d better watch their step. Karma was a lovely person, but Hoover said she was fiercely protective of everyone and everything at Animals, beginning with her mate and ending…maybe never.
But I didn’t have time to worry about those wand wielders because right in front of me stood my mate. And I leaped forward and tackle hugged him, bringing him to the floor and into my arms.
Chapter Seven
Hutch
Mate.
I scented him seconds before he tackle hugged me and we both fell to the floor. Not for a split second did I not recognize him. Once his arms wrapped around me, I was home for the very first time. I held on to him tight, not wanting to get up, not wanting to move, and then remembered where we were—Animals, a bar filled with tons of people. If we stayed there any longer, my poor mate was going to get stepped on.
“You.” I rubbed my cheek against his, needing my scent on him.
“You. Mate. Mine,” he whispered back. “I’ve been waiting for you every day.”
I didn’t understand what he meant, but as he stood up and held his hand out for me to do the same, it didn’t matter—he was here. I always assumed my mate would be another dragon and that we would take to the air together and have clutches of babies. Standing here with my rabbit-shifter mate in front of me, I realized none of that mattered. I could fly with him, hold him, maybe build a little contraption for him to fly inside, or I could walk on the ground beside him. We didn’t need to have a clutch. We could have a litter, or whatever bunnies had. As long as it was him, everything else would fall into place.
“I’m Hutch.” I squeezed his hand tighter.
He laughed. “You’re Hutch. You really were made for me. I’m Dirk.”
“Dirk.” I tasted the name on my lips. What a perfect name for a perfect mate. “Want to get out of here?” I asked and then realized he might not be here alone. “I mean, unless you have people you need to get back to—”
“No, no. Let’s go. I want to be able to hear you and scent you without all these other scents and sounds surrounding me.”
To my surprise, he didn’t lead me out the way I came in. Instead, we wove through the club, hand in hand, and then down a hallway that felt private. I soon discovered why. We were in the living quarters of the club, and then suddenly we were outside again.
“This is where we shift,” he said.
“We?” I asked.
“Well, any shifters who work here really.”
Relief flooded me. He lived here and wasn’t here for work or vacation. Thank gods. “You work here.”
He shook his head once. “No. My brother lives in the area. I’m just visiting.”
“Oh.” That was the very last thing I wanted to hear.
He stepped up closer and held my shirt. “Let’s not worry about that now. Let’s shift. I want to meet your animal.”
“I want to meet yours, too.”
He led me to a bench where we got rid of our clothes, and I shifted first, taking my scales, not wanting him to be scared of my beast. I wasn’t foolish enough to think that I wasn’t terrifying to people who didn’t know me. My beast was large, my eyes red just like my father’s, and I scented a little like smoke in this form. Intimidating, I was, and I didn’t want my mate to feel that way. I immediately nestled down so that I was as low to the ground as I could be and lowered my head.
I thought he would shift first, but instead, he approached me. “You’re so beautiful.” He rubbed his cheek on my head just like I had rubbed mine on his earlier. “So beautiful. I won’t be as fast as you, but I’ll try and keep up.”
