Sleeping Beauty and the Lion: A Shifter Fairy Tale Retelling of Sleeping Beauty (A BBW Shifter Fairy Tale Retelling Book 3) (5 page)

“Then w-why are you here?” I wasn’t exactly afraid of the fire in his eyes, but the sheer masculine power radiating off him made my lips feel too swollen to make coherent words.
He took a step toward me.

I could’ve reached out and felt the grit of Dr. Ward’s stubble or the softness of his lips. I could’ve hugged him. Smelled his savannah rainstorm cologne.

I could, but I couldn’t. Dr. Ward was not my date. Instead he had interrupted my date. He gave me these smoldering looks as if he might actually want me, without actually doing anything about it! Moments like this gave me hope for things that could never be. Moments like this only led to me being disappointed. I was so done being disappointed.

Mamma always said that her anger was like a forest fire—flashy, wild and ultimately good for the environment, but mine, she said, was like a May frost. Cold, delicate, and deadly. That frost had come.

“I don’t know what you want with me,” I said curtly. “But I was in the middle of a date. Now, if you’d please.” I motioned him aside with a flick of my wrist.

I felt as elegant as Mamma lording over a board meeting, or Cynthia Cinders sashaying out of the elevator. I felt like the kind of woman who boldly walks right into the office of the hottest billionaires in the world without so much as a trembling hand.

Dr. Ward didn’t move. “You’re going back to that man and continuing your date?” he growled incredulously.

“Y-yes,” I said, but I was proud I didn’t back down when he stepped closer still. Now I couldn’t see the exit back to the restaurant behind his broad shoulders.

“You can’t. I won’t let you. He’s not a good man, Rose. He’s not in your league. He works for the same company that makes your pills.”

“And?” My crossed arms tightened like a vice around my body. “I know what I look like and to be completely honest I don’t appreciate you insulting my dinner companion. You have no idea how hard it is for me to find someone who’s interested. I won’t hold where he gets his paycheck against him.”

I was beyond Cynthia Cinders’ class now, and had broached Jane Austen territory. All that was missing was a high-waisted Regency gown and a dig about how I might be a round girl, but at least I was a round girl with manners. So what if Dr. Ward’s accusation about Lonan was a little alarming. I was on a roll.

“You’re underselling yourself,” he said, low.

I rolled my eyes and put my hand on my hip. So much for elegance. “Sweet Jesus, I’m all for positive thinking, and I appreciate you being nice, but I know what I look like.”

“I don’t think you do. Even if you weren’t beautiful, a league isn’t just based on looks. That man, from the little I saw of him, lacked character.”

“Come on, you can’t tell me you date for character. I’m sure guys like you go for supermodels like anyone else.”

“Guys like me?” Dr. Ward’s baritone dipped into a bass. “Don’t tell me you didn’t notice how I couldn’t keep my hands off you when I was supposed to be your doctor.”

I couldn’t pinpoint the exact moment that I’d ended up with my back stuck to the plastic-y window behind me, pushing out the walls of the cloth entry way, Dr. Ward looming over me, but it was definitely happening.

“I figured that’s how you treat all your patients.” I gestured at him, as if it was obvious.“And I should be going.”

“Rose.” His breath washed over my cheeks, making the back of my neck tingle and my muscles loosen with wanting. I couldn’t move now at all, my knees were too weak. He smelled wild and hot and exotic. “I’m not your doctor anymore. Not now. Not here. Don’t be nervous.”

It was amazing how different the words sounded from him than they did from Lonan.

“It’s okay,” he went on. “This miscommunication was my fault. But let me be clear now. I don’t like women who only care about their looks.” He gave that crooked-canine smile. “None of them would’ve made the connection you did about your pills being laced with silver, for one. Or stuttered so adorably afterward either.”

My back slipped down against the cloth-wall, my center of gravity tilting toward him. “P-please, you can’t say things like that to me.” I sounded pathetic. I didn’t care. I had to do something to keep from burying my face in his hard, temptingly close chest.

“I can.” He wrapped an arm around my back, scooting me toward his body. “I am. I don’t like supermodels.” With his other hand, he stroked my arm, this time lingering as he trailed down my bicep all the way to the back of my hand. “I like you.”
I shivered and gave in.

He tilted my chin upwards eagerly his mouth falling down upon mine. It all happened so fast, one moment all I ever wanted was to taste him, the next his soft lips were running over mine. He didn’t use tongue and moved slowly, carefully, as if he were learning all of this for the first time, too.

I knew you were supposed to close your eyes when you kissed, but I didn’t want to. Who knew when I would ever kiss someone this lovely again?

But then Dr. Ward’s hand moved from mine, up to the column of my throat, sending a fresh wave of gooseflesh shimmering down my neck. I couldn’t help but moan into his mouth and close my eyes.

My lips parted, needing for him to plunder all of me. His thumb moved in a small circle over my throat as he obliged, tentatively flicking out his tongue between my teeth to taste me. His mouth had an underlying sweetness to it that surprised me, nothing like his cloves scent.

I wondered what I tasted like to him, then almost drew back, but his other hand held me steady as his tongue lazily explored every millimeter of my mouth, until I could do nothing but melt into him, panting, “Please.”

I didn’t know what I was begging for, but I did know that even if I never got it, I’d suffer all the heartbreak in the world for this kiss.

I
survived
in the cage by dreaming of claiming my mate. Every time they cut me on my bicep to test my healing capacity, I’d imagine I was holding her instead, curling up around her, knowing that by enduring this pain somehow I was protecting her. I’d done that so many times, eventually any time I thought of holding my mate, I’d feel a sympathetic pain in my arm at the same time. But now Rose was really in my arms and there was no pain at all.

She molded perfectly against my hard muscle. Something soft and sweet I could protect. Mine. I would never leave her again.

Ours.
My inner lion reminded.

She shifted against me and I gripped her tighter. I couldn’t let her leave. Not now. Not ever. The world outside of my arms was too dangerous. Not with Lonan Brown sniffing around.

“Dr. War—“
“Daniel,” I corrected, hating the title. Ward wasn’t my real last name. I didn’t want any more lies between us. It wouldn’t be long before I’d tell her the whole truth, with Lonan nipping around my mate’s heels, I couldn’t take any more chances. In trying to protect her by staying away, I’d ended up putting her in even greater danger. Who know what Lonan Brown and his company really wanted?

“Daniel, I —“

I didn’t let her finish the sentence. The moment my name came from her lips, I swooped down and claimed her mouth. This time I used my tongue. Firm, deep strokes that powered across her gums and teeth and tongue.
Her back arched, the red and yellow jersey rubbing against my t-shirt. Through the soft fabric, her hard nipples poked. My acute lion’s ears caught the faint thrumming of a moan buried deep in her throat.

When we parted, this time she didn’t try to move away, but let herself fall against me. “W-what was that for?”

“I liked the way you said my name.”

“Oh.” Her body trembled from nerves. “But why do you like it?”

My matemark itched on the back of my neck. I felt infested with secrets. I had to tell her everything, but what if she blamed me for what had happened to her? The years of taking the pills and the coma?

I evaded her question. "You mean did I follow you to this bar because I'm interested in dating you?"

“No. I mean, I know you want me, I guess.” Her nipples were still hard, and her cheeks glowed with heat. She squirmed "I... wait you followed — "

"Yes," I admitted in a rush. I was glad to confess to one sin and not all the others.. The family I’d lost. The beast that lurked inside me. The inner animal that would’ve driven me to hurt Lonan to protect her, if she hadn’t come with me. Hiding be damned.

“Sweet Jesus.” She pushed her palms against my chest and looked up at me with wide-eyes, but her body had stopped shaking. “Isn’t that stalking?”

“I don’t know.” Another March wind lanced through the thin fabric of the covered entryway. Carefully, I placed my hands over hers on my chest to keep them from getting cold. “What do you think?”

“I think it is a little bit.” Her swallow was audible as she stared at our hands, together for a moment. “But I think I like you anyway.”

Releasing her hands, I stroked the side of her face, enjoying the shiver that coursed through her at my claiming touch. “Good.”

Her gaze slid over my shoulder, to the plastic-windowed door behind me leading back to the restaurant. “And I think my date was kind of a creep, to be honest. So thank you for rescuing me .”

The thought of Lonan, that morally bankrupt asshole so much as breathing the same air as my mate made my whole face hot. And him as a creep was a best-case scenario. There was the possibility he was only interested in Rose because of his job.

“Creep is an understatement.” I gritted my teeth battling down the rage, and pressed a hand to the back of my neck over my matemark to soothe me. I would tell her everything after I calmed down.

“Are you all right?” she asked.

“Fine,” I said. “There are just some important things I have to tell you.”

“Oh yeah?” She said and shivered from the cold.

I wanted to rub my hands up and down her arms, then remembered that I could now. Soon we’d have no secrets at all between us.
I reached out, but she ducked away, biting her lip, smiling at me shyly. “How about we go somewhere warmer first. Do you want to get dinner at my apartment?”

I
tapped
my fingers against the steering wheel and stared at the bumper of the taxi in front of me. Pedestrians jostled past us on the grate-covered sidewalk which vibrated from the subway rumbling through the labyrinth of tunnels below. Both modes of transportation were faster than my car, but I didn’t buy a Mercedes for speed.

My Mercedes was my cocoon of black leather and muted chrome. It shielded me from the worst of the smells, voices, and glances of the city. Also its stability controls, according to the advertisements, were enough to ward off a moose attack. My inner lion, with its habitual hatred for all gazelle-like animals, appreciated that. But the biggest plus of all was a minor detail not at all unique to my vehicle. Seat belts.

A black strap crossed over my mate’s chest and buckled her in tight. Her hands were absentmindedly running over the soft leather of the dashboard.

“I forgot how comfortable these seats are,” she whispered. “It’s like sitting on a waterbed full of butter.”

My inner lion tossed its mane in satisfaction at the thought of making our mate comfortable. Safe.

I smiled to myself and flicked on my turn signal. “I’m glad you like it.”

“Oh, you heard that.” Rose looked down at the floor mats and scratched her wrist. “Yeah, my mother drives a Mercedes too.”

I massaged the steering wheel with my palms. Now would’ve been a great time to tell her, but I couldn’t risk her doing something drastic while I was driving.

I cleared my throat and gave a little too much to gas as the light turned green. Then I merged onto a side street. I often took roundabout routes. That way if someone was following me, I’d know, but now I wasn’t looking behind me.

My gaze slid over Rose’s body. Her scent of lilacs and morning dew hit me afresh in the confines of the car, and the red and yellow shades of her dress enhanced the undertones of her fawn-colored skin and drew my eyes to her chest. I remembered her nipples brushing against my pecs, and just like that my cock was hard.

I opened my mouth, needing some topic of conversation, and grunted, “Your necklace is gone.”

“What?” Rose touched her chest to check and looked down. “Oh, yeah.” She fluffed out her hair, bringing her braids over her shoulders to hide her face from me, but I could read her moods through her smell. Embarrassment.

“I thought it was a little silly to wear on a date,” she confessed.

I darted forward between lanes and through a yellow light. “Why?”

Rose gripped the armrest, like this was a roller-coaster. “I, uh. It’s based on this book series I like.”

“Which is?”

“Matesofdarkness,” she mumbled all in one word.

I raised an eyebrow, smiling.

She tried to disappear into the leather seat.

I kept smiling and she relaxed just a little.

“It’s a YA series about werebeasts,” she explained, her eyes brighter and bigger than I’d ever seen them before. “There’s this character named Naomi and she’s this kind of sword-wielding badass.” Her hands danced in a cross between a sword fight and shaking maracas.

“And this necklace of yours is like her sword?”

Rose nodded vigorously. “Hers is made of meteorite and sets itself on fire every time she’s near the evil alpha werebeast dude. So some genius decided to make one out of magnesium so that if you go camping or something you can use the little sheath that comes with it to start a fire.”

“And you wear this around your neck?” I tried to keep my voice from sounding too concerned, but I kept picturing Rose walking around with a stick of something that I knew could issue sparks up to 3000 degrees Celsius. First a car accident, what next, an explosion? “It sounds dangerous.”

“Well,” Rose drawled. She smirked, but all too quickly her shyness gobbled back up her smile.

“What?” I coaxed.

“Maybe if I had worn it on my date, I could’ve set Lonan on fire when he tried to kiss me.”

I froze. An unfamiliar feeling bubbled up in my lungs. My hands loosened around the steering wheel. Rose regarded at me warily. Then I burst out laughing. The image of my danger-prone mate trying to set her date on fire was the most horrifyingly hilarious thing I had ever pictured. My chest shook.

“What?” she crossed her arms.

I wiped away a tear from the corner of my eye, surprised at myself. “Just…you, sitting at that table. Trying to ignite Lonan with your nail-clipper sized magnesium sword.” We hit a stoplight, and I mimed her trying to start a fire with her little sword furiously. I broke again, guffawing for the first time I could remember.

She hit me with the palm of her hand. “Watch it, maybe I’ll use you as kindling.”

I snorted incredulously. We both knew that all I’d have to do was kiss her hard and she’d melt. At the thought of kissing her, my pants got tighter still, and I was glad the steering wheel hid my crotch.

Her gaze intensified to mock-stern. “Hey,” she waggled her finger in a gesture that reminded me oddly of her mother. “You don’t know me.”
My desire went cold.

I didn’t know her. I had no idea how she would react when she found out the truth. If she admired some kind of fictional character who went around slaying werewolves with a burning sword, who knew what she might do to me. My stomach felt like a fist closed around an ice-cube.

“You’re right,” I said,” I don’t.”

Her face fell.

We drove in silence for a few more minutes.

Eventually the cobblestones and cramped array of Tribeca’s trendy shops, bars and restaurants gave way to the austere limestone faces of Wall Street. Not too far from here was the former headquarters of the FBSI, the organization that had once hunted and killed my kind, although was long since defunct. I often wondered if they were somehow affiliated with the scientists who had held me in captivity. But hunters didn’t study werebeasts, they murdered them.

Now their headquarters had long since been turned over to office spaces, but I made a sharp left toward the baseball stadium to avoid it anyway.

Rose coughed, and her hand closed around the seat belt. I tensed at the idea of her taking it off.

“S-so,” she started, “big Werehawks fan?”

I glanced at the stadium now on our right, then remembered my T-shirt. “Not particularly. How about you?”

“No.” She shook her head and her braids undulated with the motion.

Another beat of silence.

“I just figured with your shirt, and taking this round-about route just to look at Stromwell stadium…” she trailed off.

I flinched at the name. The Stromwells had once been the biggest werebeast hunters in the world, and had earned a pretty penny for their supposed extermination of the wolves and bears. That money had funded the stadium to my right, built around the turn of the century in a classical style, as if to mock the werebeast emperors of Rome who had once pitted rebellious humans against werewolf warriors in gladiatorial games. To be fair, records show that any human who could actually defeat a werewolf in single combat without the use of silver could join the wolves in the ruling warrior class. But only a couple ever had. Most died.

Now I pictured the Astroturf of the base-ball stadium, neat and even. Sans the pitcher’s mound and the bases, I imagined it didn’t look all that different from a cemetery. There were no official memorials for the death of my kind. Monsters didn’t get marked graves.

“No,” I said. “The T-shirt was just on sale, and I like this route as it tends to avoid traffic.”

“Oh,” she said, and didn’t comment on the bumper-to-bumper jam we found ourselves in at the moment. Through the curtain of her braids, her golden matemark shimmered on the back of her neck, the hairs long as freshly cut summer grass. “Well, what do you love?”

I opened my mouth, ready with the stock answers of “saving lives” or “old movies.” Both of those were true, but I liked them. I didn’t love them.

“I’m not sure I know,” I admitted. “I spend a lot of time working, and I enjoy that, but…”

“But you don’t love it,” she finished. “I get you. My job isn’t exactly my favorite thing either. To be honest, I moved here to get into publishing, but no one hired me, and I didn’t want to take any money from my mamma so I got a job as a secretary to make rent.” She laughed at herself. “Huh, I guess that’s a problem of mine. Going for what’s available instead of what I really want.”

“You love stories,” I prompted, checking my rearview mirror. Behind us a puzzles of cars shifted, and I swore I caught a glimpse of a Humvee, one of a similar model that I’d noticed when I pulled up to the restaurant. There was a non-zero possibility Lonan was following us. When I looked over my shoulder, it had taken a right turn. I made a note of the license plate, “GARCIA.”

“Yeah,” she added. “It’s not like I’ve had a bad life, but I love reading about other places and people. I love to escape. Sometimes I feel the freest curled up in a corner surrounded by books.”

“Well, let’s get you lots of books then,” I said.

She giggled. “I like the sound of that. Although I hear it’s kind of forward, buying a girl books on the first date.”

I liked the sound of her. I wanted to make sure that she kept making that little giggle. Exhaling through my nose, I found an answer. “I don’t love my job. But I need to do it. Helping other people calms me.”

“So you want to save the world?” Her hand crept toward the divider between the passenger seat and mine.

It took all my willpower not to snatch her by the wrist and zoom right out of this city. “That’s what I say when most people ask.”

“But the truth is?”

“The truth is I want to save myself.” The emotion cracking at the corners of my words startled me. “I didn’t have an easy adolescence. I…”

Broken bones. Broken bars. Scars screaming. Needles in my arms. Silver in my veins.

“We have a problem! He’s breaking out.”

The taste of warm blood in my mouth and soft flesh parting under my fangs and bright lights and walking naked in the highway and blood in my mouth and blood still in my mouth and blood I can taste right now. Right here. In my mouth.

“Daniel,” her voice brought me back.

I clenched my back molars together so hard my ears popped. “I fought.”

“I see.” Her voice was soft, enthralled, not judging me or pitying me. Just listening.

“Some people put me in a bad situation.” I went on. “To get out, I had to hurt them. It was the right thing to do, but I hated that look in their eyes. As if all the bad things they’d done to me were okay, because in the end I’d proved them right by fighting back. I’d proved, I was just a monster.”

“You’re not a monster.” Her fingers intertwined with mine, and I hated the rush of peace that washed over me at her touch. I was supposed to ease her fears, not the other way around.

“You don’t know that,” I said.

“You’re right. I don’t know it. But I feel it.” She squeezed my hand, and my gut twisted, the ice inside melting to something warm and embarrassingly mushy. My throat was too dry to speak.

She kept talking. “And I know what you mean about people looking for excuses. When I was ten, my daddy got hit by a drunk driver. Back then we still lived in Missouri, and it was funny…” She didn’t laugh. I heard her swallow.

“The guy who did it turned out to be the sheriff of the town,” she said. “So of course he wasn’t charged or anything. Mamma took him to trial in a civil suit and it got kind of nasty. In the end they said that Daddy was at fault because he wasn’t wearing a seat-belt and didn’t use his turn signal. The police department lost the records of the sheriff’s breathalyzer test.”

She shrugged off my condolences preemptively, but I kept silent as I turned onto the Brooklyn Bridge. Above us the circular lights twinkled and the silver cables gleamed, impersonal and bright. A whole world revolved around us, not caring about Rose. Not caring about me. But as I held her hand the world didn’t matter. Only we did.

“Middle school was tough enough for me as it was, you know.” She nodded down to her belly, her voice getting quieter and quieter. “But being the daughter of the woman who dared accuse the sheriff of manslaughter?”

I rubbed her hand.

Her shoulders bowed. “Well, I think no one ever liked me, but that was the excuse they needed to be really cruel. I remember every lunch I’d sit alone at the farthest table and at recess I’d have to walk around the playground, just so that I didn’t run into anyone else, because of the way they looked at me. The things they said.”

She squeezed my hand even harder, hard enough now that I could actually, for the first time, really feel it. The whites of her eyes were fissured with red and glistening with tears.

We reached the end of the bridge, and I flipped on my turn signal to pull over so I could hold her and rock her until she cried like she obviously needed to. But then I noticed something in my mirror. A black speck.

A Humvee. It was still there. Still following. No question now. Lonan. It had to be.

My inner lion, sedate from all the talking, perked up, eyes widening to take in the threat. There was no more time for analyzing emotions—-Rose’s physical safety had to be the first priority.

I ripped the wheel to the right, spinning into a turn up a one-way street. Rose gasped and viced my hand.

Checking over my shoulder, I ignored her, fully expecting the Humvee to be there, closer still, Lonan with a gun in the front seat, pointing right at her head.

But the car wasn’t there.

“Daniel!” Rose gasped. “This is a one-way street. Going the other way.”

Facing front, I took in the wall of cars advancing toward us. Horns blared and my vision strobed as the two nearest vehicles flipped their headlights off and on again. I shook my head, trying to see straight, and yanked the shift into reverse before backing up into a parking garage.

Rose let out another “oof” as she flew forward. The seatbelt cut into her shoulder. Her hand separated from mine.

Fuck.

I scanned traffic, hoping I’d find that Humvee, that I’d have some explanation for my behavior. I didn’t. I exhaled, gripping the steering wheel to keep my hands from shaking.