Carnival of Hearts: BBW Paranormal Shape Shifter Romance (15 page)

It had been a difficult year for Lucien, without Kat. The carnival itself thrived, as it ever did, but he had not expected the loneliness that had crept in after they’d left her behind with the wolf pack. He was beginning to realize that he’d spent eighteen years hiding behind her, hiding behind being her father, using her as a shield against anyone truly getting to know him. She filled his whole heart; he’d told himself he had no room for anyone else. Then he thought that she would be furious and disappointed in him if she knew that he justified many of his meaner attitudes and behaviors as keeping her safe, as protecting her and the carnival. In truth, more often he was protecting himself. He’d let himself get cruel and cold and he’d used his adopted daughter to do it. Without her, he felt exposed and vulnerable. Which had only made him meaner.

He’d withdrawn inward, then, in an attempt to avoid hurting the people he cared for, or alienating the members of the carnival. Though he still performed upon occasion in the big top with Baptiste, he left the day-to-day running of the carnival to Liam. The show and the members were safe in Liam’s hands, and Lucien was left to sulk and brood on his own failings, and on the emptiness in his own heart. He could feel it begin to blacken his soul, and he hated it.

But he didn’t know how to reach out to anyone for help. He didn’t know how to reconcile his own vulnerability and feelings of weakness with his responsibilities as alpha of the carnival. None of the individuals beneath him would be able to understand, he thought. Expressing his feelings would only open him up to attacks of dominance. He could lose the carnival, lose his home and his family, his status. Marcus Zane’s defection had started the ball rolling; Kat leaving them for Max had slammed another nail into Lucien’s coffin, he thought.

When he’d gotten the email from Greta about Kat’s pregnancy, his entire world had tilted once more. A baby. A
grandbaby
. Lucien had never thought about being a grandfather. Frankly, he considered himself far too young to be a grandfather, but then he’d been too young to be a father too when he’d taken Kat in. The news had brought with it a fierce protectiveness and a suddenly renewed sense of responsibility. It had likewise repaired a withered piece of his heart, and he wanted to be with Kat, and her baby, for as long as he could. Which, he knew, was going to bring him and the carnival into direct conflict with Thomas and the wolf pack. With Greta. He hated that, but he loved Kat more than he hated it.

The carnival had pitched the big top and made their camp, and it was several hours later, as the sun set, that Lucien sent Greta a message saying that they had arrived. He didn’t want the wolves catching them unawares, so he made sure that Liam’s security perimeter was guarded at all points, that the lamplights circling the carnival were bright and that everyone knew the dangers lurking in the forest.

Though he had no interest in starting a war with the wolf pack, the tensions that had brought them so close to blows when Kat had run away with Max had never been put to bed. Lucien had told them well in advance that the carnival was coming and that they could not keep him away. Kat was his daughter. She would not be kept from him. But it didn’t do anyone any good for tempers to be lost before conversation had even started. And it would upset Kat. He didn’t want to upset Kat.

He was in his trailer, going over the carnival’s expenses, when someone knocked on the door. With a tired sigh, he rose from his chair and paced to the little door, nudging it open. There was Liam and, to Lucien’s surprise, Greta was standing behind him.

“The perimeter guards found her walking right into the carnival,” Liam explained.

But Lucien barely heard him, because he couldn’t take his eyes off her.

It felt like the first time, every time. She was the most beautiful woman that Lucien had ever laid eyes on, and knowing her only made her more beautiful. Because she was also the strongest woman Lucien had ever known. She was powerful and controlling, fierce and brave, and she’d pushed him to be the best version of himself. And then left him.

Lucien’s eyes traveled over the incredibly long lengths of her legs, the pale fall of her blond hair in the moonlight, and the bright intellect reflected in her light blue eyes. Her face, heart-shaped and delicate-boned, was locked in an expression of relaxed command. She looked back at him, but he saw nothing flicker through her face when their eyes met.

“You got my message,” he said.

She nodded.

He looked at Liam. “It’s fine, she can come in. Thank you.”

Liam sighed and stepped back, and as Greta came up the steps and into the trailer, he closed the door at her back. Lucien backed up into the main area of the trailer, where the kitchen gave way to a booth table and a long stretch of floor that had once had couches cluttering it. Lucien had had the couches ripped out; he preferred having more space to move around in. He did quite a lot of pacing.

“Would you like some tea?” he asked Greta.

She walked past him and over to the table, sliding onto one of the booth seats. “Sure.”

He looked at her back a moment and then went to the kettle, turning on the little hot plate beneath it to heat the tepid water inside.

“She’s very healthy,” Greta said. “Kat. She’s doing very well. It’s so early she’s not even showing yet. You could have waited several months before coming, but I know this town is on your circuit.”

Lucien frowned. He didn’t move to sit in the booth seat across from her, but stayed instead by the hot plate. When he didn’t come to the table, she twisted in her seat, looking at him over the back of the booth expectantly.

“Yes,” he said. “It’s on our circuit. But this isn’t about convenience, Greta. This is about my daughter having a child, and me being here for it.”

Greta blinked at him, and he saw her eyes widen. She got up from the booth. “You can’t be serious. You plan to
stay
?”

Lucien nodded, frown sharpening. “Of course I plan to stay. She’s my daughter.”

“She’s
my
pack mate,” Greta insisted.

“That doesn’t make her any less my daughter.” Lucien felt the lion in his heart stir, anger rising.

“Lucien, you can’t stay here. You can’t stay here for
nine months
. That is impossible.”

He glared. “I’m not leaving her, Greta.”

Her eyes flashed, bright with fury. He’d figured that was coming. They seemed incapable of having a conversation that didn’t turn into a fight. Even when all he wanted to do was grab her and crush her to his chest and kiss her until neither one of them could think of anything but each other, he didn’t—he just stood there watching her fury build towards a spark. She turned, suddenly, and paced away from him, then back, then away again. She paced a lot too, it seemed.

“You’re going to make this impossible,” she was saying. “And I
knew
you would.”

“This isn’t my fault, Greta,” he said. “This isn’t anyone’s fault. But she’s my daughter, and I’m not going to leave her. Not even for you.”

“Oh, yes,” Greta snapped. “I know all about what you won’t do
for me
, what you’ll do for Kat but not
for me
, or have you forgotten?”

He hadn’t forgotten, but he also hadn’t realized what he’d said. Or that he was saying it to her. Of course, of course she knew. He’d chosen Kat over her once before, hadn’t he? He looked down, shaking his head a little.

“This isn’t about us,” he said softly.

“Isn’t it?” She paced close to him, but he refused to look at her face. “Isn’t it about us, Luce? Wasn’t it about us the moment you realized whose pack she was joining?”

“I didn’t realize that until it was too late,” he muttered.

“Once again, I’m the one taking care of her, protecting her—”

He looked up sharply. “I would give my life for her,” he hissed. “I would do
anything
for her, which is why I’m here and why I’ll stay here, and you have no say in the matter whatsoever! I’m not a member of your pack that you can bully around! I’m not Thomas, who’ll roll over for a gentle word!”

He knew he’d gone too far even as the words were coming out of his mouth, but as ever when his temper lit, he let it burn brightly. So he should not have been surprised when she smacked him across the face, but he was. He let a snarl escape his lips, and took a step toward her, but the teakettle began to howl. He turned, flicking the hot plate off, and as the kettle’s shriek turned into more of a whistle and began to fade completely, he looked back at Greta and some of his temper began to simmer instead of boil. She looked back at him, and he could see her anger begin to cool as well. His cheek was hot with the sting of her handprint. He could see her breathing quicken. She was slightly flushed. Desire bloomed in him, sudden and all-encompassing.

As it always was, for Greta. She was like a magnet, her pull inescapable. Even in the midst of their fighting, he wanted her. He loved her. And to his surprise, in that moment, as he looked at her and she looked back at him, he perceived that she wanted him as well. It stunned him for a moment, but then he surged forward, catching a handful of her soft blond hair against his palm, and jerked her against him and into a deep, fierce kiss.

She had not come to the carnival for this. She’d come to talk to him, to find out what his intentions were, and to form a plan for the upcoming months when Kat would need the both of them. It had not once crossed her mind that she would find herself in his arms again, that his mouth would be meeting hers, impassioned, that she would end up tangled in him once more. But she’d felt it when she’d smacked him. She’d felt the force of emotion, the sudden crackle of need and sexuality between them. It had set her heart to galloping in her chest. They knew each other too well. They loved each other too well.

And now she was pressed up against him, her hands gripping his broad, strong shoulders. And he was kissing her back against the trailer wall, one hand in her hair and one with long fingers curving over her hip. She could feel the heat between them rising. Since she’d turned Thomas away, she had not been with a man in months, and her need was sharp and quick like a blade inside her.

Desire thrilled through her, and desire for
Lucien
had always been such a delicious thing. He gave it back to her tenfold, every time. This part of their relationship had never cooled or blackened; it had always remained hot and wonderful. And she’d missed it. And she’d missed him. More than anything, she realized, she’d missed him. Months of being unable to expel him from her thoughts, sleepless nights remembering him, and now here he was, kissing her. It may not have been what she’d come to the carnival for, but she could not deny it now, as her heart reopened to him and he spilled her to the trailer floor, that she’d wanted this. Still wanted this, him. But what would that mean for them? For the pack?

They tore each other’s clothes off. She sensed a desperation in him that matched her own, as he tugged her t-shirt up and over her head and yanked to get her jeans off her legs. She tried to slow herself down, hands lingering on the smooth planes of his chest, brushing the spill of his silvering hair back from his eyes so she could look into them. Just for a second, she thought she saw his eyes, depthless and black, change, narrowing towards feline slits, before he shoved her down onto the floor and climbed atop her.

His hands slid up her sides, fingers splaying across her ribcage as he lowered his head to nip at her bottom lip, and then the flesh of her throat. She couldn’t help arching a little into him, a zing of pleasure skating through her at every touch. She wrapped her legs around his waist, felt the length of his erection pressing between them, and gasped softly. He kissed her again and then reached between them, fingertips slipping between the folds of her sex, gliding against her clit and then right inside her. She tilted her head back, lips parted in a silent moan as he plunged his clever fingers in and out of her.

His free hand grasped one of her bare breasts, squeezing it as she writhed beneath him, and he lowered his head to suck at the peak of one hardened nipple. She felt hot all over, flushed with pleasure, and when he made a noise, it vibrated against her skin and all through her. Not a growl or a snarl this time, but a sound that only Lucien could make, deep in his chest, the beginnings of a roar.

She shivered and pushed her fingers through his hair, lifting her hips to meet the next slick, seeking stroke of his fingers inside her. The wolf in her heart was snapping its jaws wildly, roiling with primal desire, wanting to mate and claim and rut, instinctive and violent in its need. She reached down and pushed his hand away, instead taking his cock in her hand and settling him at her entrance, legs tightening around him to bring him inside her with a squeeze and a buck of her hips. He groaned against her skin, sheathing himself to the hilt deep in her sex, and pleasure throbbed between them. She’d forgotten what it felt like to be so deliciously filled. Even Thomas had never been as thrilling and satisfying as Lucien. He seemed to fit inside her perfectly.

Lucien withdrew and then drove into her again, and she drew her fingernails down his back, a delectable drag against his flesh that saw him arching back into her hands with a hiss. He grabbed her wrists, pinning her arms to the floor on either side of her head, and began thrusting into her in earnest, their hips slamming together as he fucked her hard enough to shake the trailer a little beneath them.

She held on to him with her legs and closed her eyes, her climax a brightening fire inside her, consuming her, sweeping through her limbs and into her core as Lucien pumped his cock in and out of her. His grip on her wrists tightened and he plunged into her again and that was it; she cried out, spasming beneath him as her orgasm burned through her. Three more thrusts and Lucien, too, trembled through his own climax, shuddering above her as he came. He lowered himself down to her, burying his face in her throat as he shook and relaxed, and she lay there sore and satisfied, feeling his breath against her skin. It was as perfect as it had ever been between them. Aching and hungry and sated all at once.

Her heart rate began to slow, limbs heavy from their exertions, and they were still tangled up and recovering as the realities of the world around them came crashing into her mind once more. She should not have had sex with Lucien. She was betraying Thomas and the rest of the pack, endangering their way of life. She’d already made this choice once before. Lucien or the pack. She’d chosen the pack. And yet, here she was. She almost banged her head on the floor, but instead just clenched her teeth and nudged Lucien back, slipping her legs from around him and twisting to be free of his arms.

“I have to go.”

He frowned, sitting up, dark brows sweeping down in consternation. “Why?”

“Because I can’t stay here.” She grabbed at her clothes, pulling them hastily on. “And this can’t happen again. This shouldn’t have happened, Lucien.”

“Greta.” He started towards his feet too. “Don’t say that. Why shouldn’t it have happened? Are you trying to tell me that you don’t have feelings for me still?”

“I have a
pack
,” she said sharply. “That I am responsible for. I have to protect them, and that includes
from you
. And everything you represent.”

He flattened a hand to his chest. “Everything I
represent
? That is the biggest load of bullshit I’ve ever heard. What I represent is a man you
love
.”

She climbed into her jeans, buttoning them up, and started stomping into her shoes. “This can’t happen again.”

“Greta, stop saying that.”

“It
can’t
.” She glared at him. “Stay over there, don’t come near me. I’m leaving. I’ll tell Kat you’re here and she can come see you, but if you enter onto our lands, I can’t protect you.”

“Greta, don’t do this…” He held out a hand to her and she froze a moment, looking at him. It would have been so easy to just reach over and take his hand, go into his arms and stay there. But she’d tried living with him, living with the carnival, and it had never felt right to her. Being with her own kind, with a pack of wolves, that was the only place for her. No matter how tempting the Ringmaster and his traveling shifter carnival could be, she’d already tried and failed to be a part of it. She couldn’t let him pull her away again. She finished getting her shoes on and turned, hurrying down the few steps and through the trailer door, back out into the dim night lights of the carnival grounds.