Carnival of Hearts: BBW Paranormal Shape Shifter Romance (6 page)

Marcus was exhausted, but he couldn’t sleep. Instead, he slumped against the bars of his cage, back in his man skin, and listened to the sounds of the sleeping carnival and the night music of the clearing and the beach beyond it. In this stillness, he could hear the roll of the waves in the distance. And then he heard another sound, bare feet across grass and sand, and he sat up a little, looking in either direction down the lane of cages. His heart skipped a beat when he saw them, Clara and Kat running towards him hand in hand. It skipped another beat when he saw a flicker of light bounce off the keys in Kat’s hand. He hurried to the cage door.

“What’s happening?” he asked.

Clara flew to the bars, reaching in to grab his hands, while Kat went to the padlock with the keys.

“Kat’s helping us escape,” Clara whispered. “We’re going to run. We can’t stay here.”

“Kitty-Kat?” Marcus looked at the girl, heart in his throat. He’d adored her these past few years, bright and well-intentioned and full of smiles, but he’d never imagined that she would turn on her adopted father for him.

Kat shot him a smile through the bars of the cage, as the keys
popped
inside the lock, and it fell off the bars and into her palm. “You best run as far as you can. He’ll come after you two.”

She swung open the cage door and Marcus spilled down to the grass. He caught Kat in a warm hug and then stepped over to Clara and lifted her right off her feet and into his arms, burying his face in her hair with a deep, almost trembling breath.

“I’m so sorry,” he sighed.

She smoothed her fingers through his hair and hugged him tight. “I love you.”

“Go!” Kat said, giving him a push. “Hurry!”

He set Clara back on her feet. He didn’t have any shoes and he realized she didn’t either. He also didn’t have a shirt, but she had her little dress and he had his jeans. They couldn’t risk trying to steal a car; the noise might wake the rest of the carnival and alert them to their escape. They’d have to take to the woods between the coast and the highway. Maybe if they could make it to Sandy Isle and take one of Clara’s friends’ cars, they could actually evade the carnival. He shot Kat another grateful smile before he took Clara’s hand and pulled the love of his life into a run towards the tree line on the other side of the carnival lights.

They ran, Marcus thought, for maybe fifteen minutes before Clara started to slow down. She was unaccustomed, of course, to having to run for her life through woods at night, barefoot. Marcus slowed the pace to a quick walk, looking over his shoulder a few times. Sniffing at the air. No scent of anyone chasing them. Yet.

“Where are we going?” Clara asked. She hadn’t complained, but Marcus could tell that her feet were sore and she was afraid.

“Back to Sandy Isle,” he told her.

She stopped walking and looked up at him, shaking her head furiously. “No, we can’t,” she said quickly. “We can’t. He threatened to kill my friends, Marcus.”

Marcus’s stomach turned. That had been the best plan he’d had. Everything else involved moving at a speed she probably couldn’t maintain, even if he shifted and carried her in his bear skin. They couldn’t put enough distance between themselves and the carnival without a car, and they were out in the middle of Nowhere, Carolina. It would take them too many hours to get them to any kind of bus depot. Marcus stood there, trying to remember where the nearest gas station was, thinking maybe he’d just
steal
a car.

“Marcus,” Clara said softly. He looked down at her. The woods were pitch dark, but his shifter eyes could still make out the soft features her face. Her expression was frightened, and it twisted his heart to see her so scared. “What can I do?”

Marcus thought of what Mabel had said to him.

“Clara.” He took her hands, sandwiching them between his. They were so small, and cold. “There might be a way. But it’s very dangerous for us both.”

She grimaced. “
More
dangerous than it is right now?”

“Yes.”

“Tell me.”

He hauled in a breath. “I’m not strong enough like this to defeat the Ringmaster in combat for dominance. If I had a mate…I might be.”

“A
mate
?” She was staring up at him, wide-eyed. “Like another bear, a mate? A she-bear?”

He smiled a little. “No. I don’t want a she-bear, I want you. There is a ritual, a mating ritual. I have to mark you, to bite you…”

“Fine,” she said quickly, nodding. “Fine, do it. If it’ll make you stronger, do it.”

His smile faded away. “Clara, it’s very dangerous. I’ll lose myself a little. I’ve never heard of a human even
trying
to mate with a shifter, let alone surviving the mark. I…don’t know if you would live.”

Clara lifted her chin a little, and Marcus watched a carousel of emotions turn through her eyes. Fear, doubt. But then fierce determination, and love. The love swelled his heart, thickened his breath. Made him feel whole as she looked up at him. She was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen in his life.

“I can do it,” she insisted quietly. She nodded. “I can do it, Marcus. I want to do it. I’ll survive, and then you’ll defeat the Ringmaster and we’ll be free.”

“Yes.” He squeezed her hands. “Then we’ll be free.”

Then he sank down to his knees on the grass in front of her and bowed his head over her hands.

“Clara, I love you,” he whispered. “And I will love you for the rest of my life. Do you consent to be my mate and bear my mark for the rest of yours?”

“Yes.” He heard her voice tighten with impending tears. “Yes, I do.”

He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close, pressing his cheek to her breast to listen to her heartbeat for a moment, letting his align to it. He wasn’t sure he’d ever be able to hold her again after this night.

Marcus had found a soft, dry spread of moss and grass encircled by thick trees, and as Clara laid herself down on the ground, her mind was whirling with thoughts. She didn’t understand a lot of what was happening. She didn’t
really
understand what Marcus even was, but she’d already decided it didn’t matter. There wasn’t time for her to take it all in, and she loved him. She understood that. And she understood that this was their best chance at staying together. She’d certainly seen enough to believe in it all, and she knew Marcus loved her too. All she’d wanted, for the past two years, was to be reunited with him. She couldn’t stand to lose him now, and the idea of going on without him, or living her life knowing that he could be dead or imprisoned, was enough to make the decision quick even if it wasn’t easy. She would lay down her life for him. She knew he’d do the same for her. Perhaps together they would be strong enough to get through it.

She eased back, lying on the grass, and tugged up the hem of her dress, hooking her thumbs on the waistband of the underwear that Kat had given her and tugging them down her thighs. Marcus stood above her, watching, and she felt a gust of warmth move through her, heating up her cheeks as he looked on. It was so dark that she couldn’t make out more than the outline of him, but that was enough. She’d always wanted him and knew that she always would, no matter the circumstances.

In darkness, she watched him unbutton the front of his jeans and slide them off, his silhouette a shadow of strong, lean lines and muscles caught by the occasional glance of moonlight through the trees.

She dropped her panties to one side as he sank to his knees, crawling between her thighs. A breath hitched in her throat as their eyes met, and she saw something primal, and wild, dart through his gorgeous golden eyes. Her heart galloped in her chest.

“You can tell me to stop,” he murmured.

She shook her head a little. “I want to do this, Marcus.”

“After I bite you,” he told her, “you have to bite me too. Hard, Clara. You have to draw blood. Do you understand?” He lifted a hand on her knee, then slid it slowly up her thigh, beneath her dress.

“I understand.” She was already breathless, and he’d barely touched her.

This wasn’t like it had been in her car. This was different. It wasn’t about desperation and need, even though the motivation of it might have been. The act was about love, and passion, and she could feel both welling up inside her.

He settled above her, her knees brushing his hips, and she could feel the hard length of his cock pressing against her thigh as he looked down at her a moment. Then he bent his head and kissed her, his mouth firm and warm against hers. Her lips parted, and at the touch of their tongues, a thrill shot through her, left her shivering with desire. She wrapped her legs around his waist as he sucked lightly on her bottom lip, then began trailing kisses down her jaw, her throat, peeling away the straps of her dress and tugging down the bodice to expose her breasts.

He was going slowly, and she knew that was safer, but she didn’t want slow. The ache between her legs was already throbbing. She wanted them to be joined forever, and it would start with this. He squeezed her breasts with his hands and took one hard pink nipple into his mouth. She gasped as he started suckling her, lifting her hips to his in a wordless plea, but he pushed her back down to the ground and continued sucking. She writhed a little against the grass, and he lifted his head, transferring his attention to her other breast, kissing there first before he licked at her and then started to suck there as well.

“Marcus,” she begged, sinking her fingers into the thick, dark spill of his hair. She tried to tug his head up, but he resisted, and sucked all the harder. “Oh god, Marcus…”

Finally, he reached down between them, grasping his length and settling it at her entrance. She wanted him so badly it hurt, could feel herself slick and ready, and when at last he thrust himself inside her, she cried out. In relief, in ecstasy. Still, he moved slowly, pushing himself deeper into her, then withdrawing his entire length, and then driving into her again, all the while suckling at her breast. She felt her orgasm mounting and gripped at his hair. He pulled out of her and shoved back into her hot sex again, and she arched her back, groaning as she came all too readily.

As she trembled, he lifted his head from her breast and grabbed her by the hips, turning her over onto her belly in the grass. She flattened her cheek to the ground as he tugged her rear end into the air, pushing the skirt of her dress up, and got to his knees, angling himself behind her. She felt her thighs begin to shake with anticipation and then he thrust himself back inside her, and she dug her fingers into the grass as he began to ride her with more haste, plunging in and out of her in earnest. She reached a hand back between her legs, fingering her clit as he drove in and out of her, and she felt her second orgasm swell.

She heard him groan behind her, felt his fingers tighten on her hips, her ass, as he pounded into her. The woods were a chorus of insects and birds around them, serenading their grunts and gasps and the soft smack of flesh meeting flesh as he slid in and out of her. Every delicious thrust brought her closer and closer to the brink. Every exquisite flick of her fingertips against her clit sent a shiver through her that seemed to reverberate through him as well.

Her pleasure was his. His hunger was hers. She felt her blood start to boil for him, and her breath came in quick, short gulps. It would happen soon. She could feel that he was starting to lose control. That he wasn’t making love to her anymore; now he was fucking, he was rutting. He was claiming her. And she bowed to it, fully committed, and lifted her ass and her hips to meet his with every violent lance of his cock into her.

“Marcus,” she cried. “Marcus, I need to face you!”

She thought for a second that maybe he hadn’t heard her. That maybe the bear in his heart had overtaken the man and he could no longer hear or feel anything else. But then he let out a furious growl and hauled her up, her back to his chest. He clutched her there a moment and then withdrew from inside her, twisting her about to face him. Their eyes met, and he spilled her back down to the grass and thrust back inside her with a deep groan, then lowered his head to her throat and bit into her flesh.

Pleasure met the fine edge of pain, and Clara moaned and came again, shaking in his arms, but she knew she couldn’t just collapse there against him. Instead she struggled up, grabbing onto his shoulders, and bit down on the skin of his neck as well. She bit as hard as she could, Marcus roaring against her, the sound inhuman and guttural, and then she tasted his blood and let go, falling back to the grass.

With his blood on her mouth, and her blood on his, they looked into each other’s eyes until Marcus’s rolled a little upward and he came inside her, hips bucking, a look of wild joy on his face.

In that moment, Clara felt it. The mark, the bond. It burned from the bite on her throat all the way through her, a fire searing them together for eternity. She gasped and then it faded, smoldered down from a fierce conflagration to a soft, warm candle burning away in her heart, and in his. It was more than magical. It was everything. Marcus wrapped her up in his arms and curled around her on the grass, kissing her shoulder, her arm, and nuzzling against her skin. Clara knew that soon he would have to face the Ringmaster if they were going to have their freedom, but for that moment, everything was perfect. They were together and not even life and death could separate them. The mark was forever, Clara could feel it. She would never doubt her own heart, or Marcus, ever again.