Once Upon a Forbidden Desire, page 32
But Lorn just squinted at me. “No, but I can breathe above water. And I can change now.” He said it so matter-of-factly but I was utterly bewildered.
“Change?”
“I’m old enough to change to my land form this year. I practice with the sea witch.” The look he gave me was wry as he pushed up with his arms. “I’m still not very fast, need more practice.” Lorn focused on his tail and grit his teeth, his whole body trembling with his struggle. He panted, sounding a bit pained and my hands fluttered over him as if I might help, but I noticed his fins beginning to retract into his beautiful tail. He hunched forward and growled with his efforts, the same way I’d heard people growl when hefting heavy weights, as if it took much strength. I placed my hands on his tail and did indeed find pain from this, so I pushed as much of my soothing magic into him as I could. His scales shimmered before absorbing into his skin, and his tail parted up the middle, and in a blink, I was looking at Lorn’s legs. They were proportionate and shapely and mottled with pale blues and grays like his shoulders and back were. I noticed that the fins on his spine and the backs of his arms were gone now too. He has legs. He collapsed on his back again, panting as if he’d run a great distance.
I was breathless as well, having given him so much of my magic, and confused. “Lorn … how does this work? How long can you breathe air now?” I asked, remembering back to the days when even a few moments were too much for him, and we’d lay for hours in the surf together so we could both breathe.
“Long enough,” he said. “Long enough to marriage you, and for many days after.”
I stared at him, dumbfounded, and he laughed, still sounding winded. My parents would disown me for this, I’d have to work to pay for my own schooling and support myself in the future, something I’d never considered before—but I couldn’t find it in me to care. Nothing they offered meant anything to me if I didn’t have Lorn in my life. But what about him?
“Lorn, you’re made for the sea and it for you. What about your family and your friends? Your home?”
He gave me a confused smile that made my heart flutter. “I can still visit them even if I do not live there. Come. You are cold again,” he said, ghosting his fingers over my skin. “I will not be going back to the sea except to visit, so let’s get you warm.”
I laughed, feeling bewildered, and stood, then had to help Lorn get to his new feet. My tall, strong, fierce merman stood on legs as shaky as a newborn calf’s. He trembled unsteadily, but the look he gave me was possessive and proud. He took one step forward and then stumbled and caught himself on the next. I couldn’t help my grin as I braced him against the rocky overhang, tossed my rain cloak over his nakedness, and donned my dress. I draped him over my shoulder and—trembling with exertion—we took our first steps up the path toward the beach house, and together, into our future.
Lorn
I OPEN MY eyes in the darkness to find my sleeping wife snuggled against my side, her face slack in sleep, and my heart aches at her beauty. She calls herself wife, but I call her something more: my bond-mate.
Her skin is the color of wet slate, her hair like froth on a cresting wave, and her eyes—when open—are as blue as the endless sea in summer. Her tiny fingers clutch the blankets more tightly around herself to protect her from the cold.
I kick my way free of my own blankets, wrapped around me for completely different reasons. My people, the mer, have a habit of wrapping their young in kelp when we sleep to keep us anchored, just like otters do. It’s a feeling of security that we never really grow out of and wrapping myself in a nest of Sadira’s blankets gives me feelings of ease in this arid place. Unfortunately, they also trap heat, which my body cannot disperse as easily as a land walker’s can. My wife takes pity on me (and admits she finds me wrapping myself in “blankies” adorable), so she keeps the temperature of our dwelling much colder than she would otherwise. It’s one of the many compromises we make for each other so that we can enjoy a life together here on land.
Tonight, though, I find that I am too restless for sleep. Too many days spent on land, breathing dry air. Not wanting to leave my beloved’s side long enough to recharge my body beneath the sea. My soul needs Sadira, but my body … sometimes it needs the cold, dark depths of the abyss, where I can stretch and swim and hunt.
I could slip away for a few hours, as I must sometimes do while she is sleeping, and be back before the morning light makes her stir. Perhaps I can even bring her some of her favorite black clams to put into the eggs she insists on cooking to break her fast with each morning. Even after several years of marriage to my bond-mate, I still do not understand her desire to cook her foods.
I let my mind drift to all the things I could hunt for her while I hold her for just a few more minutes. The clams, of course. Some new sea glass for the mural we have created in the front room. Perhaps I can find some new treasures to add to the antique shop we run together. It brings me great pleasure that buyers find such joy in the objects I find. My bond-mate is very clever to have thought that her people would like my treasures enough to trade money for them. She works hard and I am very proud of her. Some days she even takes clients for her massage therapy business because she likes to soothe people’s pains with her hands.
I could not ask for a better wife, I think, as I hold her a little tighter, and I am very lucky she chose me back, because I already belonged to her with everything I am. Pressing my lips against her forehead in a gentle kiss, I let my taste receptors analyze the hormone compounds on her skin and tell me what I already know: she is content. I pull her against me, wrapping her arm over my chest to mimic the kelp, and close my eyes. I will go to visit the sea in a little bit … just a few more minutes to hold her, I think to myself as I drift off to sleep.
ELSIE WINTERS SPECIALIZES IN MAGICAL comfort reads featuring sweet men and the strong and spicy ladies they fall for. Find more books set in the same world and sign up for a free story at www.elsiewinters.com!
SEDUCING THE KING
(Cinderella)
TRISH HEINRICH
SCORCHING
with biting
Cynthia refuses to survive on scraps from rich wolf shifter families any longer. If she can win the competition to marry the King Alpha’s son, she’ll never be an outcast again. But it’s the king who arouses her base desires … and she’s tempted to risk everything for him to claim her instead.
IT WAS BEYOND RIDICULOUS TO wear a fucking string bikini in the middle of October. But when the Alpha’s son wants a pool party, he gets one.
At least it’s inside, and the pool is heated.
I sipped the champagne in my hand, still on my first while the rest of the women were on their third or fourth.
After playing this little game for the last month, I knew better than to get drunk here. Philip, the Alpha’s son, was supposed to be getting to know all the eligible women from the other packs in order to choose a wife. Instead the spoiled shit was using it as an excuse to fuck his way through every woman and host a new debauchery every day.
This idiotic tradition dated back to when the Alpha was referred to as King Alpha. We’d gotten rid of the first part of the title but not this excuse to parade us all around like we were being sold at auction.
The custom was that all the women of the right age from every pack were supposed to spend the last month of summer in the Alpha’s compound so his son could look us over. Then, at the autumn masked ball, Philip would announce who had won the lucky prize of being his wife.
The whole thing was like The Bachelor on steroids, and even though Philip set my teeth on edge with his shallow obsessions and drunken groping, I’d played along this whole time.
Marrying him would lift the harsh sentence imposed on my pack two generations ago. Being forced to bear his pups and fuck him on occasion was the price I had to pay to save them all. Just thinking about it had my wolf huffing in disgust within me.
Easy. We talked about this.
She huffed again and went deeper into my subconscious, probably to pout.
I dipped my pedicured feet into the pool, part of my focus on Philip to see if there was anything I could do to tip the scales a little more in my favor while also keeping an ear out for my one true rival in this stupid contest.
Oona Starr was from one of the wealthiest packs in the Alpha’s domain. Before my pack had their status and ability to be independent stripped, they were only second to us in terms of wealth. Oona had made it clear from day one that she was going to win and that I was unequivocally trash.
While most of the women here were letting Philip in their pants by the end of the first week, Oona and I had held back. She’d been alluring enough to keep Philip on the hook, giving him small tastes of her body here and there while denying him what he was really after. Conversely, I had acted like I didn’t really care. It was a gamble, and I’d started to worry when Philip hadn’t tried to feel me up. But then, he’d asked me for a private drink after dinner one night. And, while his conversation was dull as dirt and twice as hard to swallow, I’d managed to hook him that night. I was a mystery, aloof and desirable precisely because I wasn’t giving it away so easily.
Now, with only one week until this was all over, I was starting to worry that I hadn’t done enough to seal the deal. Since my pack was still under the sentence of censure and banishment, I was technically not allowed to participate in this meat market. I, and the rest of my pack, were outcasts until the fourth generation after the sentencing had died. A long-ass time, but that’s what happened when my grandfather tried to stage a coup and failed.
If not for my best friend and mother figure Madge somehow securing me a false identity and an invite to this thing, I wouldn’t be here. No one had laid eyes on me since I was a pup, so no one knew what I looked like, a small blessing.
I just need to figure out how to tip the scales in my favor. Short of fucking him, what would it take to make Philip choose me?
Until he did, I was vulnerable here. If anyone found out who I really was, I’d be thrown out and my pack could have additional judgments against them. I’d been lucky thus far that no one had looked too closely at my cover story, but the last couple of days Oona had been eyeing me like she knew something, and now I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was going to happen.
If I can just get Philip to give me the mating bite, then there’d be no way back. He would have to marry me. And sure, it would be a miserable existence, but my pack would be saved. That’s the only thing that matters.
The doors to the pool opened, and I braced myself for Oona and her entourage to make their usual grand entrance. Instead, a primal energy rolled through the room and warmed my blood. My cheeks flushed, heartbeat rapid as I resisted the need to turn and look at the man who’d just entered the room.
Dress shoes clicked on the tile, getting closer to me. His scent, rosemary and spice, filled my nostrils and I closed my eyes for a moment to savor it.
“Father!” Philip shouted from across the room. “You’re a little overdressed for a pool party.”
Benedict chuckled behind me, a rich, dark sound that sent shivers down my spine.
“I’m just stopping by to say hello. Don’t let me stop your fun.” His voice was like sin and whiskey, even when he was dancing on the edge of disapproving. “Are you having fun, Jean?”
At the sound of my fake name in that deep timbre, I was incapable of not turning to look at him over my shoulder.
Benedict towered over everyone, the tailored pinstriped suit straining against the muscles of his shoulders and biceps. Ice blue eyes took me in with a hint of fire, and while he looked casual with his hands in his pockets and a little half-smile on his full lips, I could tell by his posture that Benedict was anything but.
He’d been scarce when this all began, not even bothering to show up to dinner most nights. But in the last two weeks, he was everywhere. Dinner, excursions into the city, stopping in for a minute or two to look over the parties Philip was throwing for us all. And each time, no matter where I was, Benedict found a reason to come over to me. At first I thought he was just taking a look at me because I was a contender. But lately, when he looked at me, there was a heat that I could feel to my very core and I highly doubted Oona was getting any of that.
“I’m having a wonderful time, thank you, sir,” I said, my voice breathy and firm.
Benedict’s eyes flicked down to my chest, where my nipples pebbled against the thin fabric of my bikini top and my stomach quivered.
“Your time here is coming to an end,” he said.
“Yes.”
“And will you be sad if you don’t win?”
It was a simple question, but it was loaded with meaning that I struggled to unpack. There was an answer he was looking for and I wasn’t at all sure what it could be.
I held his gaze, searching for what could be hidden in those dark depths and only seeing power, mouthwatering and hot as an inferno. Benedict oozed primal strength, caged and controlled but just on the verge of breaking through. It was intoxicating being near him and right now I was thanking heaven I hadn’t imbibed too much alcohol. As tempting as it was to throw all my caution to the wind and be open with him, as much as I yearned to know what was hidden in his Alpha heart, it wasn’t something I could risk.
I shrugged in response and gave him the rote answer I gave others.
“I intend to win, so I haven’t given it much thought.”
He chuckled, eyes betraying the fact that he knew I was full of shit.
Failing here haunted me. Every night I went to bed with the faces of my pack in my head. The half-starved pups, the adults, bowed and burdened with worry and fear at the future of our pack.
He began to speak again when the door opening and closing cut him off. I turned to see Oona standing at the door, flanked by her besties, all of them festooned in micro bikinis that almost couldn’t contain their fake boobs.
Oona’s green eyes were lit with glee and they zeroed in on me. My stomach dropped and I knew what was coming before she raised her shrill voice.
“I have an announcement, everyone,” she said, stopping conversation cold. “One of us in this room is a filthy, lying traitor.”
Gasps and shouts of shock echoed in the room as everyone looked around.
If she was going to do this, I wouldn’t cower or try to escape it. I’d face it head on like the alpha female I was. So I got to my feet and crossed my arms under my breasts, pushing them up for effect. Benedict was closer to me than I had thought, and the heat from his body warmed my skin in tantalizing ways that I forced myself to ignore.
Oona’s blue lips twisted into a cruel smile as she sauntered up to me.
“Isn’t that right, Cynthia Quinn?”
A wave of louder gasps and snarls echoed through the room. I expected Benedict to be one of them, but he was oddly silent next to me. And while I met the outraged and shocked looks of everyone else around me, I found that I just couldn’t bear to look into his eyes.
“I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said, even though I was certain it was pointless. “This is a pathetic attempt to eliminate the competition, though.”
“Don’t play stupid with me.” She took a folder from one of her friends and held it up triumphantly. “In my hand is proof that the alias she’s been using is false. That she is the alpha of the disgraced pack that tried to overthrow our Alpha all those years ago.”
Benedict held his hand out for the folder and Oona gave me a vicious smile as she put it in his hand.
Still, I couldn’t look at him as he flipped through it. Instead, I glared at Oona, daring her with my eyes to implode in front of everyone. It didn’t take long before she just couldn’t help herself.
“I’m surprised you even know how to act like a proper wolf at all,” she snarled at me. “Your mother died when you were born, right? Probably from the shame of being mated to the alpha of a traitorous, weak pack, not that he really deserved such a title as alpha.”
Oona turned to her two friends and laughed. “He couldn’t even secure enough land for his pack to run properly. You know what they have to do to contain half their pack on full moons?”
My heart stuttered in shock and shame.
No, not in front of Benedict!
“They lock them up in pens, like the dogs they are.”
Bitter laughter echoed behind me and my throat tightened. We hid that fact. How the hell did she know it?
“They don’t even have enough sense to hunt properly to feed everyone,” Oona said with a self-satisfied smile, “so they have to beg other packs for the leftovers. Isn’t that right, Cynthia? I knew I recognized you from somewhere and I was right. That was you last winter, scratching at our back door and begging my father for scraps.”
My face burned, hands clenched into fists. Tears threatened to spill forth and I pulled them back. I’d be damned if I cried in front of this fucking harpy.
“But then, why am I surprised that you don’t know how to run a pack any better than your father,” Oona continued. “A man who drank himself into an early grave—”
And just like that, my tenuous hold on my temper snapped like dry kindling.
I was vaguely aware of my fist careening toward her face, of the impact of my knuckles connecting, the satisfying crunch of her nose breaking.
But it was the ensuing chaos of Philip’s friends rushing toward me that brought me back to reality. Someone’s arm snaked around my waist, pulling me off Oona, though not before I had grabbed fistfuls of her hair.
“My father died of cancer, you frigid bitch!” I screeched at her. “And my pack may be poor, but at least we teach our pups to treat others with respect and kindness!”
