Free ROMANCE: Forbidden Bear Obsession (Werebear Shifter Taboo Paranormal Romance) (New Adult Contemporary Paranormal Romance Short Stories) by Sicily Duval Page A

lipstick, and the transformation
was complete. Last of all I pulled my wedding ring off finger, and tucked it
away in my cupboard. I didn’t want to be Mrs. Lashan when I was at work. I
wanted to get out from under the image that my husband forced on me. At work I
was still Mrs. Herring, I couldn’t lie about being married, but at least I was
Leanne. Independent of a man.
    Myself.
    At the office, the doorman nodded at me,
giving me a smile that flashed straight teeth. It had taken me a while to get
used to that. I worked at a firm where different creatures mixed. It wasn’t
vampire only.
    Lashan always insisted that we only mix with
our own kind. It was racial thing. But I didn’t see the point. Harley, the
receptionist, was a werewolf just like the doorman, and they were both nicer to
me than our social circle had ever been.
    “You look nice today,” Charlene said to me
when I walked into the board room.
    “Thanks, I thought I’d try something different
with my hair.”
    “It suits you.”
    I touched the back of my hairdo to check for
loose strands. We both stood together behind the big table, waiting for the
first directors to arrive. Charlene was a Personal Assistant to Mr. Ring, the
CEO of the company. I was Project Assistant, which really meant I was just a
personal assistant to the rest of the board.
    One by one the directors started filtering in.
I knew all of them well. They took their seats around the table. Most of them
were vampires. We were at the top of the hierarchy. But two of the directors
weren’t. Mr. Spelling was a were-rat, an abomination of a creature if you asked
me, and even in human form he had a sharp face and teeth that protruded from
his mouth. I didn’t like him.
    The other director was Mrs. Nancy Star. She
was a strange kind of shifter, changing into any kind of bird she wanted to. I
heard somewhere that even though she could change into an eagle or a vulture,
she preferred birds like hummingbirds or sparrows. She was out of place in a
room full of predators.
    “Is everyone ready?” Mr. Ring asked. Charlene
and I often joked that he was the Ring leader.
    “We’re just waiting for Crowe,” one of the
other men answered.
    “Crowe?” I whispered to Charlene. I didn’t
know the name.
    “They hired a new Marketing Strategist,” she
answered back. “He was with Ring yesterday.”
    There was no chance to elaborate, because a
man entered. I assumed he was Mr. Crowe, not because he fit in with the board
of directors. On the contrary. The only reason I believed he belonged was
because of his attitude. The atmosphere in the room changed when he walked in.
    “Gentleman, you’ve heard a lot about the man.
It’s my pleasure to introduce Donald Crowe.”
    Donald sat down in the last empty seat, and
Ring called the meeting to order. While he spoke, I only paid half my attention
to what was being said. The rest of it went to Donald. He was a big man, thick
in the shoulders, with a big chest and a trim waist. He looked like he could
take out a football team. When he moved, however, he moved with fluid grace
that didn’t match his appearance. He had a head of chocolate brown hair that
was combed neatly to the back with a side parting, and his eyes were a dark, liquid
black. His cologne was strong in the air to my sensitive vampire nose, but he
smelled of something else too. Power. Money.
    Charlene elbowed me when she saw me staring. I
couldn’t help it.
    When Donald smiled, I noticed his teeth were
blunt. No fangs. He wasn’t a vampire. I wondered what kind of creature he was.
His size suggested he shifted into something big. And his eyes told me it was
wild. This man was a predator.
    Just as I thought it, his eyes locked onto
mine as if he’d read my mind. His gaze pierced into my soul, and I felt raw and
vulnerable. I forced my eyes away, and I knew I’d given in to the power play.
I’d admitted him dominant. In the world where we were all half-animal, there
was a code traveling in