Cinder's Wolf: A Shifter Retelling of Cinderella (A BBW Shifter Fairy Tale Retelling Book 2) (20 page)

R
ex West really was a werewolf
.

There was no other explanation for what had just happened. One minute, he was a man, and the next, there was this creature at her feet. Wolf definitely wasn’t the right word. It was the size of a small pony. Although it didn’t smell like animal. It smelled like Rex. And it—his eyes. They were yellow sure, but soft around the edges, watching her with the same yearning Rex always did.

“Holy shit,” she swore, low under her breath. “You are real.”
But the surprise didn’t last long. She had always known, deep down, of course. Maybe even since the first moment she had met him. She rocked back on the thick heels of her hiking boots. “I’m not crazy!”

Rex, the wolf, hopped backwards, muzzle bowed.

But Cynthia was grinning. His fur was luscious and the same sandy color as his hair. The impulse to run her fingers through it was also the same as the very first time she had met him. She took a step forward. “All this time you
were
a werebeast.”

He cocked his head, one ear flopping down. It was almost cute, except that when he tried to smile—maybe that was what it was—he exposed a small army of very sharp teeth.

She knew he’d never bite her with them. Teeth didn’t scare Cynthia. They never really had. She wasn’t like Bel; she didn’t dream of extinct monsters. She had real live demons of her own. Like her father who was always so disappointed in his own failings that he took it out on his family. Like her mother who’d rather run away and become a drug addict than face her responsibilities. Like Lucille, a stepmother who tried so hard to protect Cynthia that she’d let her hate her for years, but then when Cynthia needed her most of all, gave up.

Like herself.

The girl who refused to see what was right in front of her. That her company was slowly going bankrupt because she’d rather work herself into the ground than make hard choices. The woman who thought that if she just kept the outside together, the inside wouldn’t fall apart. The girl who had run away from the boy in the woods, because the chaos she saw gleaming behind his eyes drew her to him as much as it scared her shitless.

Because no matter how much she tried to clean her body and order her world, that chaos was inside of her, too. And now that chaos had a name. Had a face. Well, a muzzle really.

Once you looked a werebeast in the eye, they really weren’t so scary after all.

How could she be scared of something that wasn’t even supposed to exist? She bent down—although she didn’t have to go far—to see eye to eye with Rex. And then, because she didn’t know what else to do, she held out the back of her hand. Her aunt had always told her that would help an animal get accustomed to her scent.

Rex lowered his head, butting his wet nose against her fingers. His ears were straight up and he gave a small bark that she could only interpret as disdain. He may as well have said ‘I’m not a dog, darling.’

Cynthia laughed hysterically now, not believing the pure relief tingling through her body. Werebeast or not, that was definitely Rex in there.

“Message received,” she said.

She reached out and touched his pelt. It was just as soft as it looked, which was amazing considering how thick the hairs were. It seemed only a few of them fit between her fingertips. It was weird. All the stories they heard in school were about wars, hate, and violence, but maybe the territory wars wiped out all the bad werebeasts—and plenty of the bad humans too. Rex wasn’t bad. Not like that. Right? Not with her?

That anxious thought made her fingers curl into a fist unconsciously, taking some of Rex’s hair with it. She wasn’t pulling hard, but she was pulling. She let go, but it was too late.

Rex growled, a full wolf’s growl this time, not the human approximation she had grown used to. This sound didn’t make her panties damp, but instead sent her skittering backward, trying to outrun the shudder climbing up her spine.

The growl morphed to a whimper for a moment. Rex’s muzzle brushed the ground, his tongue lolling out of his mouth.

“I’m sorry.” She tried to reach out again.

He flinched away, straightening to his full height, so that now bent over as she was, she was actually looking at him. She had never known that an animal could look so… imperious. And so sad.

“Rex,” she said.

It was too late; he was already changing back. This transformation was quicker than the last, but much more brutal. Now that she knew what was happening, she could hear the bones snap, reforming like tinker-toys brought into a different shape. Fur retracted into his skin. He thinned and shrank. It was a little bit like watching a video of a room being cleaned and organized in elapsed time. Except for the first time, she kind of wished for the mess back.

When it was done, Rex was standing completely naked with his back to her. His shoulders were slightly hunched, and his muscles rippled as he straightened. In the sharp light of day, there were other little details she hadn’t noticed before, like the freckle under his left ear, or the scar on his hamstring. Or the mark on his ankle. A splotch of brown fur. Just like the one on hers.

The world felt wobbly under Cynthia's feet. “R-rex. What is that?”

His back tensed. And he was so still that when he finally moved, it was like watching a statue coming to life. “Cynthia,” he said roughly. “That is my—our—matemark.”

B
efore Cynthia had
a chance to ask any more questions, Rex decided to get dressed. He picked up his pants from the rock where he had laid them and slipped into them, deliberately taking more time than necessary. He waited for the accusations to come about how he had tricked her, of how he was a sick monster. But when more questions finally came, they were framed in the way he least expected.

“A matemark? Like Naomi had in
Mates of Darkness
?”

“
Mates of Darkness
?”

Of all the directions Cynthia’s sharp mind would wander upon finding out the truth, his soon to be sister-in-law’s young adult trilogy was not on his list. He wasn’t sure what it meant or whether he should be worried or not. Although if Cynthia was a fan of Bel’s work, perhaps they would be able to get along when they met. If they met.

“Do you want to leave then?” Rex said, reaching for his shirt.

“Do I want to leave you?” she repeated back dumbly. Before he could slip on the shirt, she touched his shoulder.
He knew then how she must’ve felt when he cornered her in the ballroom, hunted. Unsure. Needy. But he let it flow through him. They were beyond all of that now. They loved each other. If only for a month. Whatever happened next, he would always have that.

He removed her hand from his shoulder, squeezing it tightly. Letting it go, he put on his cotton T-shirt. He had thought that comfortable clothing would make this faster, painless, but now even with it on, he still felt naked. “You do need to know. There are some things
Mates of Darkness
got wrong. If you do want to leave, it will be painful for the both of us, not just me. But it’s your choice. I won’t stop you.”

He hated how cold his own voice sounded. This wasn’t what he wanted. But it was what he deserved, wasn’t it?

“Rex…” she sighed. “Look at me.”

He braced himself and turned around.

She didn’t seem angry with him; although in her hiking clothes, she looked just as ill at ease as he did. The world spun around them dizzyingly fast, even as he could measure the seconds by the pounding of her heartbeat. Or maybe it was his. It was hard to tell the difference.

“I love you, Rex West,” she said, taking his tense hand in her own. “And I’m not going anywhere.”

There were so many times she had taken his hand in the past week. So many times he had tried to take hers, but for the first time, he allowed himself to stop worrying about what would happen when they parted and just relished the feel of her skin against his. Her callouses that spoke of her past, the lines and whorls of her palm that spoke of her future. Maybe their future.

His wolf was awake. Not just in his chest. But in his toes. His eyes. It wasn’t just within him. It was him. Just as much as his man was. She had done this. She had given this gift to him. How could he ever give her anything half as good? He opened his mouth, but he couldn’t speak, not because he didn’t have words, but because he had too many.

“Rex?” He hated the tentativeness in her voice. “I think this is the part where you tell me you love me, too.”

He kissed her instead, wrapping his arms around her and swinging her around as he melted their mouths together. He groaned in gratitude at the taste of her, the way her tongue didn’t yield to his, but was ready to dance the familiar steps of their power plays. When they parted, he made sure to stare deep into her eyes. They were bright blue as the sky above and just as endless. He fell into them. It was terrifying. Falling always was.

“I love you, Cynthia Cinders.”

“C-could you set me down then?” she squeaked.

Carefully, checking the ground for any stray twig that might hurt his mate, he set her down. She brushed out the wrinkles in her jeans. Well, tried too. Jeans didn’t exactly have wrinkles, but he wasn’t going to tell her that.

He surveyed her with narrowed eyes. “You are taking this very calmly.”

“You really thought I didn’t have some kind of inkling something was weird about you?” She put her hands on her hips and raised an eyebrow. Well, tried. While Cynthia Cinders had many skills, eyebrow rising wasn’t one of them. “I’m just glad I’m not crazy. I was starting to think I should be medicated.”

“You didn’t say anything.”

Her smirk soured to a sad smile. “There’s a lot I don’t tell you.” Then, as she always did, she swallowed, clenched her teeth, and finally at looked him, and her worries, head-on. “Boxes & Broom is going bankrupt. I’ll be announcing it to the company on Monday when I get back.”

“I’m so sorry, darling.” He reached out to fold her into another embrace, even as a shiver of worry danced up his back. He needed her to be strong. He needed her to match his wolf. Or else she might be consumed by it. Like his mother.

She flinched away, bringing her shoulder between them. “You don’t sound surprised either.”

“I worried,” he said honestly. “I worry now.”

She gave a shaky laugh, wrapping her arms around herself. Rex wanted nothing more than to replace her arms with his own. To buy up her company. To kiss away her worries. But he knew that wasn’t what she wanted. Maybe if it were, he wouldn’t love her as much as he did.

“I do want to be your mate.” Her thumbs rubbed over her arms, stroking herself the way he liked to touch her, in slow, even motions. “But I don’t want to just be that. I don’t want to lose myself.”

Her worlds calmed centered him, and when he spoke next, he did so with the conviction of someone telling the truth, “You won’t.”

“How can you know that?” She really was something, staring at him calmly as could be, more concerned with how their mate bond might conflict with her professional plans than the fact that he was technically a beast from legend. If he was a real werebeast, an alpha intent on scaring his mate as much as seducing her, he would’ve been offended.

As it was, he had never wanted her more.

“We’ll take it moment by moment.” His cock was now fully hard, even though his palms were slightly sweaty from the stress.

“Rex—”

He couldn’t hear her say no. He couldn’t watch her walk away. So he did the only thing he knew how to do with her. He loved her. First with his mouth. He pulled her into a deep kiss, sucking all the oxygen from her lungs. As his hand fell over hers, he could feel her fingers curl.

When they parted, they were both too breathless to talk. And after, his hands found her waistband, fingers slipping between her panties. It wasn’t just a lack of oxygen that made them lost for words.

Falling to his knees, he slid off her jeans and kissed her lightly above her sweet center. He wondered with a bittersweet desperation if maybe he could make forever like this. Just stealing second after second until they were old and she hadn’t even realized that she had spent her whole life being loved by him. Being his.

T
he inside
of the farmhouse was much less grand than Cynthia had thought it would be when she was young. In the light of day, its un-mysteriousness was even more apparent. There were no suspicious-looking walls that might be trap doors, large grandfather clocks or double stairwells. What there was, however, was clutter. She hadn’t noticed it late last night coming in because she’d been so sleepy, and this morning, she had been too preoccupied with worry. But as she turned the tarnished bronze knob of the front door and re-entered, there was no denying it.

Wooden carvings and knickknacks were everywhere, and the floor was coated in dust. It was almost as messy as Bel’s apartment had been in New York. Huh! She had totally forgotten about Bel. Bel
lived
in Crystal Creek. She could finally hang out with her best friend. But she'd call her later.

A twist of pain settled in her lungs as she realized that this was the exact kind of house that needed Boxes & Broom. No normal cleaning lady would be able to get anything done. She’d be too busy trying to sort through the mess to deal with the dust bunnies, and an organizer would be put off by the grime.

So, instead of heading to her room to take a nap while Rex went to town to fetch lunch, Cynthia started investigating for cleaning supplies to get started. Just because her company was dead didn’t mean that clutter had to win.

She wandered through a few rooms, including an honest-to-god library, before she found the door she guessed led to the kitchen. She opened it, expecting mountains of dirty dishes and perhaps a wood-burning stove filled with old newspapers.

What she got instead was Bel.

Bel
.

Her best friend since childhood. The reason she’d ever found the farmhouse in the first place. The person who really should’ve been the one with a werebeast boyfriend. She was sitting on the kitchen table, glasses sliding down her nose as she slashed liberally at a sheaf of papers with a red pen.

“Bel?” Cynthia shrieked.

Bel looked up so quickly her glasses slid the rest of the way off her nose and onto the floor. Her round face broke into a grin. “Cynthia!”

Cynthia rushed over to Bel, picking up her glasses and slotting them back on her nose, before lifting her up into the strongest bear hug she could manage. She had a thousand questions, but for that moment, it just felt good to hug her best friend.

“Cynthia,’ Bel huffed. “I’m having a hard time breathing.”

“Oh. Right.” Cynthia let her go, sliding to the seat next to her. “Okay, so first of all, what the hell are you doing here?”

Bel gave one of her dreamy laughs, shuffled the sheaf of papers, and pushed them to the side, grabbing Cynthia’s hands across the table. “It’s a long story.”

Cynthia tilted her head to glance at one of the askew pages. It read
Mates of Light
. “How are you here?”

“This is Samson’s house,” Bel said. She looked down, smiling. And blushing. She capped the red pen. “Rex’s brother and well, my…”

“The lumberjack,” Cynthia said slowly, the realization dawning over her. “Samson, Rex’s brother, is your boyfriend!”

Bel bit her lip. “We met in December. Or met again.” She twirled the red pen. “He tried to blackmail me into being his maid after my dad stole one of his million-dollar roses.”

Halfway through habitually straightening Bel’s papers, Cynthia stopped. “He
what
?”

“See how I said it was a long story?”

“Who even has million-dollar roses? What were they—the cure for cancer?” Cynthia stole the pen from Bel’s hands. The cap had teeth marks. Bel always did like to chew her writing utensils. Her best friend was a little gross. She stabbed the pen in Bel’s direction. “What was he, an idiot? I love you, honey, but you are not the queen of clean. There are so many other better things he could’ve blackmailed you into doing.”

“That’s what I told him… sort of.” Bel chuckled, but then narrowed her eyes as she stole back the pen. “How about you? Samson finally gave me the details about you and Rex.” She bopped Cynthia on the nose with it. “How did that happen?”

Cynthia drew back, laughing, but also a little annoyed. But at least in person, Bel couldn’t lecture her about grammar.

“Oh…” Cynthia shrugged. “He just threw a masquerade for all the entrepreneurs in the land, stole one of my shoes, and invited me on his private jet. You know, the usual.”

The two of them stared at each other in mock seriousness before they both broke back out into giggles.

“You,” Cynthia pointed at Bel accusatorially, “should have told me about all of this if you knew for a year.”

“There are strict rules about humans knowing about shifters. And Rex didn’t tell us he had suspected that you were his mate. Or trust me, I would’ve.” Bel stood up suddenly, sending one of her papers flying down to the ground. As usual, she was completely oblivious. “Do you need anything to eat?”

Cynthia ducked to pick up the piece of paper. “Banana?”

“Apple?”

“Sure.”

As Bel rustled around in the fridge, Cynthia stared at the page. Beneath all the red markings, she could make out a few paragraphs, which she scanned.

The rain pelted down on the graveyard, the sky as grey as the gravestones. Near one of the largest tombs, a girl dressed in black stood, oblivious to the cold. In her left hand gleamed the wicked curve of her blade. Ironheart.

She tightened her grip around the sword and walked into the tomb. The sound of rain faded. Her fingers trailed over the stone wall, the moss growing on it belying the mildewed scent. She couldn’t sense anyone.

It was odd. The note left at her office had been very specific about the time. Usually her clients, those who needed her help vanquishing the beasties and monsters of the world, knew the importance of the right words said the right way.

Then, suddenly, she smelled it. Dust before the rain, edged out by scent of cedar. Wolf. Him.

No.

She turned, but it was too late.

Cynthia turned the page, or tried too. The story just ended. Before she could grab another paper, Bel snatched the one she had and gave her an apple instead.

“Hey! I was reading that.”

“Not until my editor goes through it you aren’t.”

Cynthia flicked off the stem of the apple—one of her many slightly OCD habits—before she bit primly into half of it, careful to minimize the crunching sound. Only after she had swallowed did she speak. “How do the publishers feel about you going out on your own?”

“The rights for the series reverted back to me, so I can do that.” Bel took a bite of her own apple, sending a chunk of it flying across the room.

“Can you please not eat like a horse, Bel?” Cynthia said.

“You sound like your stepmother.”

Cynthia flinched. “Don’t say that.”

Bel set down the apple, instantly perceiving Cynthia’s distress. She had gotten better at that over the years. It used to be she’d just wander off in the woods and you’d worry if you’d ever find her again.

“What’s wrong? Did you get in a fight with her again?” Bel asked

“She kicked me out.”

“What?”

“Yeah. And my company’s going bankrupt.”

“Oh no,” Bel said, ignoring the apple and grabbing Cynthia’s hand again. “Not Boxes & Broom. I was meaning to give you guys a call. As you can see, we could really use you here. I’m sure Samson would even pay to fly you out, if that would help at all…”

“Thanks. But the problem is in the way our current model works. Pouring a ton of capital into the company wouldn’t help. Our prices are too high for our customers and our margins to low. It just takes too much time to organize and clean. One person can’t do it all.”

God, for all of Bel’s chaos and over-excited chewing, she had her life more together than Cynthia did. Now Cynthia knew all those years how Bel felt when she looked at her with what she thought was comfort. It hadn’t been, not completely. There had been pity there too. She didn’t know how Bel had tolerated it.

“We’re going to fix this,” Bel said. “Together.”

“There’s no fixing it. Trust me. I’ve tried.” Cynthia sighed. Saying the words aloud was kind of liberating. But only in the same way saying her father was dead had been months after the funeral. She felt light as a lost balloon. Drifting up to nowhere.

Then Bel’s arms were around her again. Warm and solid, with her familiar perfume of books and something like a bakery. Finally, the tears did come. Little sobs at first. When she was done, the words that came from Cynthia’s mouth surprised her.

“I wish my mother was here.”

“I know,” Bel said, stroking her hair. “I know.”

“She’s a bitch, and I hate her. God knows she had to hate me, after what she did. But I wish she was here.”

“I love you, Cynthia. Rex does too,” Bel said, her voice full of her own pain. Bel knew what it was like to lose a parent, and maybe it had been even harder for her. Her mother had actually cared about her.

Cynthia sniffed, not caring that she had stained the front of Bel’s yellow dress with her tears. “Would you help me clean your house? It would make me feel better I think?”

“It would make you feel better to clean my house?” Bel stopped stroking her hair and shook her head in wonder. “What did I do to deserve a friend like you?”

I
t never ceased
to amaze Cynthia how much clutter Bel could accumulate. Half of her problem was not having places for things. Mail she received had no sorter, so just ended up fanned out on the floor. Her writing, which Bel did mostly on a word processor by printing out various drafts of her manuscripts, also ended up crumpled up in strange corners. How did it get in the cabinet?

The process of Boxes & Broom organization involved Cynthia finding all of those things, trash and otherwise, and sorting them into categories by function, not location. All the clothes in one pile, the mail in another, and after only a half an hour at work in the kitchen, they had a beautiful array of cast iron and copper pots and pans laid out across the floor.

It soothed Cynthia’s soul to realize that whatever happened next, she wouldn’t stop being able to keep things tidy just because she didn’t run a multi-million dollar company. And who was going to stop her from starting her own organizing and consulting business? No one, that was who.
Well, the bankruptcy lawyers might have a thing or two to say, but let’s ignore them for now!

When they had finally begun designating drawers for things, Rex entered the kitchen holding two bags full of sandwiches from the local deli, calling, “Darling, I have—” He stopped mid-stride, staring at the ocean of stuff sprawled before him. “What is going on?”

Perched on the counter, reaching upward in search of a piece of paper that had somehow gotten stuck on a windowsill, Bel enthusiastically waved a spatula in greeting. Why she had that, Cynthia didn't know. “Hi, Rex!”

“We’re cleaning,” Cynthia explained.

Rex looked between the two of them skeptically. “Well you make friends fast.”

Cynthia returned Rex's odd look, but decided on saving the explanation of her and Bel’s friendship for another time. She imagined it might piss him off to discover that the key to finding her had been right under his nose all along. No shoe hunting necessary. “Something like that,” she said.

Bel was oblivious, as always.

Cynthia felt Rex’s gaze staying on her, his warm smile glowing so brightly it almost blotted out the concern darkening his eyes. “This seems like a big project for only two people.”

“Are you doubting my organizing skills, Rex West?”

Rex held up a hand, the sandwich bags swinging. “Never. I’m just not sure where we’ll eat.”

“On the table,” Cynthia said firmly. “Here, watch. Bel?”

“Yes, Cleaning sergeant, ma’am?” Bel saluted Cynthia with the spatula. Over the last hour, they had gotten sillier and sillier working together. If cleaning alone was like meditation, then cleaning and organizing together was a kind of group therapy.

“Do you remember where we settled on putting the pans?”

Bel nodded cheerfully, a feat in itself, considering Bel hated cleaning with an almost religious fervor. And yet, they had worked together the whole past hour in total harmony. The back of Cynthia’s throat felt suddenly dry… itchy.

There was something here. It was on the tip of her tongue. If only she could articulate it!

Rex watched in muted amusement as Bel moved from putting the pans away to clearing the spatulas. Then he ambled over to Cynthia, wrapping an arm around her waist. She leaned into him, relishing his natural smell of leather and wild forest.

His velvet lips brushed her ear. “I can see that brain of yours thinking, my love.”

Cynthia shivered, both at the way his hot breath made her hips want to sway into his and at something else. An idea was growing stronger and stronger in her mind, but she still couldn’t give it a name. She was afraid of saying it out loud because what if it was wrong? What if it was just another dead-end last-ditch effort?

Humming, Bel began putting away the silverware. “You know. It was actually kind of fun to see all the mess laid out. Although the putting away part I could do without.”

“Rex,” Cynthia whispered, grabbing his hand and squeezing it. He squeezed back, and she was grateful for the tether of his touch. Her brain buzzed with the coming revelation, all the different pieces pulsing together.

The relief she had felt when she finally admitted Rex was a werewolf.