Free Hansel's Bear (Erotic Shifter Fairy Tale) by Yvette Hines Page B

Rorke’s
turn to count. He was inside and the rest of us took off into the
woods. We were supposed to hide in the front only.” She bit the
side of her bottom lip as the heel of her right foot tapped
repeatedly on the wood floor, making her knee bounce.
    Purposely he kept his gaze on her
face, using one of the few gentlemanly manners he had to not take a
glimpse of her treasures as the edge of the shirt slipped up her
thighs.
    It caused his heart to ache to see her
in distress. He should tell her to stop. Let her know she didn’t
have to continue if it was too painful. Even though he wanted her
to share her story. “Gret—”
    “ I was trying to be
clever. I figured if I ran to the back of the cabin and hid in the
woods, when Rorke lighted from it to chase the others in the front
I would go back around and sneak into the house. Then when the
others came back in I’d be sitting inside smiling.” She lifted the
cup, drank deeply and hissed.
    He was sure the hot liquid had burned
her tongue.
    Sitting her mug next to his, she
balled her hands together in her lap. “I remember the sunlight
sending rays through the tops of the trees. It was like running
through a golden shower. I was laughing, holding my arms wide
enjoying the beams of warmth that brushed my arms as I tilted my
head back and ran blindly around the base of the trees. I couldn’t
resist shifting. I wanted to feel the light wind in my fur.
Then…then—”
    Her voice broke. He thought she was
going to stop, but she lifted her gaze from the floor and met
his.
    There were tears hovering on the edge
of her lower lids, filling her eyes with water.
    He sucked in a breath imagining what
was to come.
    “ I didn’t even see the
trap, just felt the heinous bite and the burning.” She blinked and
the river poured down her dark cheeks making them glisten like wet
satin. “I—started to scream…tried to call out, but—but a hand
clutched my muzzle.”
    “ Blackberry, it’s too
painful…you don’t have to go there.” He slid to the edge of the
seat, wanting to go to her, pull her into his arms and console her.
It wasn’t only for her sake, but his as well. Hearing her memories
made his own come flooding into his mind. Memories he’d kept behind
a fortress in his mind.
    With a forceful shaking of her head,
she continued, “I do! Because I should have smelled them, should
have heard them. There were three of them. Men, dirty, stinky,
lumbering men. The truck they tossed me into the back of wasn’t
even hidden. Evidently they had just laid the trap and were about
to leave when I happened upon it. Like an idiot.”
    Unable to stay away from her, he moved
and lowered himself beside her chair then rested a hand on her
knee. “You were a cub, innocent and free. You had every right to
feel safe in your world. Those men were schemers, corrupt.” Even
talking about the men he hunted filled his mouth with a sour
taste.
    “ I was so scared. I didn’t
know if I was going to die or ever see my family again.”
    “ I know.” He did know. He
knew that unmitigated fear that set in so deep into the core when
one was found in the grips of pure evil as those men
were.
    One of her hands covered his as the
other cupped his cheek. Soft warmth greeted him like a
caress.
    “ Then, there you were.”
Her luminous gaze rested on his.
    “ There I was.” There he
had been for too long.
    “ You saved me in so many
ways, Hansel.” She softly whispered his name.
    He turned his face into her palm and
inhaled deeply. Her touch and scent were a comfort to his soul. “I
was the one saved.” He murmured against her skin. “You renewed my
fight.” Reaching up, he brushed his fingers over the back of her
hand as he met her eyes. “I refused to allow the events that I went
through to happen to you. You were too precious to me from the
first moment I saw you.”
    “ When they tossed me in
the cage.”
    “ You shifted and my heart
stopped. You were my kind, something I’d given