Shifters on Fire: A BBW Shifter Romance Boxed Set (42 page)

“Lion to Herself” is a prequel short to
The Lion and the Unicorn
, the story of Leo and his unicorn mate.

About the Author

Dara Fraser is a unicorn. Living in the B3 world, she is often seen flitting around her small bookstore in a fictional college town in New Hampshire. When she is not working or spending time with family and friends, Dara writes in secret.

Dara Fraser is the pen name New Adult author Delphina Henley uses for her adult paranormal and contemporary romances. 

Blog: 
http://delphinahenley.com/

Facebook 
https://www.facebook.com/DelphinaHenley
 

Twitter: @DelphinaReads

Alpha Protecting

The Mercenary Novellas

Becca Vincenza

Winifred, Winnie for short, is looking for a new beginning.  But, her new job at the bar, Lucky, gives her more than she bargained for.

Accidently interrupting a fight out back, she gains the attention of a group of slave-trading shifters. Running on her own won't get her very far.  So when tiger shifting Quentin offers her protection, she has no choice but to say yes.

Quentin knows he's in trouble as soon as he scents curvaceous Winifred and the gang trying to nab her. If he wants to save her, he can't afford distractions.  Yet, what shifter can ignore the primal call of his mate?

Chapter One

Winifred

“Winnie! Mind grabbing my table while I go to the little ladies room?” Mazy asked, already headed back there. I waved my hand in her direction. I didn’t mind. She had been good to me since I started working at Lucky almost three months before.

Lucky, a bar-slash-club, had hired in a whole slew of new waiters and waitresses after being shut down for a couple months after a huge shootout. I heard no one got hurt, but rumors had spread about a man who’d been shot multiple times and escaped with no injuries. I didn’t believe the rumors and I needed the job.

I hated the uniform, though. When I pulled it over my full figure, my breasts spilled over the low-cut top. Now, I was damn proud of my ample chest, but it didn’t mean I needed to flash the whole bar. Especially this bar.

Formerly an old factory building, the walls were lined with booths. They were meant for the VIPs, and the few not reserved often got fought over. Customers could get food at the tables near the back, but at 11:00 p.m., the kitchen closed, the bar opened, and the dance floor filled with revelers. We were encouraged to push drinks and dancing.

Many of the servers complained that they couldn’t see to do their jobs, but my excellent night vision—a present from the father I didn’t remember—allowed me to do my job despite dim lighting.

I wove my way through the dancers and dodged the other waitress’s tables to get to Mazy’s section. She had the best tippers and most frequent regulars. I didn’t mind. She had been here long before me and would be here long after I moved on. She’d earned the best tables, and her customers expected better than average service.

This bar was a little…different. When I was hired, Derek, the manager, had asked me some…unusual questions. At least no bars I had worked at before asked me questions like he did. The patrons were different, as well, but I kept my head down and kept my nose out of any other business.

The table Mazy had asked me to wait on held three men. One dressed like he belonged on the streets, the holes in his jeans and his black hair in disarray like he rolled out of bed. Not the fanciest bar in the city, it wasn’t a biker bar either.

We wore tight tank tops with the bar’s name written across a martini glass on the left breast. I fidgeted with the hem of the shirt as I approached the table. The other two men came into view. The dirty blond’s leathers fit him like a second skin. His eyebrow piercing enhanced cool brown irises and his lopsided smile made him the most approachable one at the table.

The last one at the table was terrifying—in a good way. His ice-blue eyes made me miss a step. My heart nearly stopped in my chest as one thought ran through my head. An idea so foreign I had never entertained it before, and yet something inside me accepted it without question.

Mine.

Ice-eyes didn’t seem to see me which was fine by me. I swallowed down the strange thought plaguing my mind. I had to keep my head on straight and do my job, but he was such a distraction. Ice-eyes’ suit fit him as if tailored to fit his body. The pressed, black, sleek ensemble likely cost more than my rent for a whole year. My heart pounded louder and louder in my ears the closer I got to the table.

My hands perspired. My hands never got sweaty. Graceful for a girl of my size, only one man made me nervous, but for a whole different reason. Ice-eyes was about to turn his head in my direction.

I ducked behind one of the structural pillars left from the building’s former life as a factory as I gathered myself together. My breathing was labored and had been for a while, but I’d never felt so turned on by just looking at a guy. Jeez, I needed to relieve some tension. I had to tamp down those feelings right now.

Giving myself one last pep talk, I bucked up and slipped back around the pillar. I straightened my back and continued my walk to the table.

“I still don’t know why you bought this dive, Dominic,” Ice-eyes said. His jaw was tipped up, his voice dripping with distain. His gaze wandered the room with disinterest. My nose scrunched up at his comment. The bar was a nice place. I enjoyed working here. He offended
me,
and if this Dominic was the
owner,
I would have thought he be offended, too. Instead, a sly smile slipped over his lips and his eyes flashed.

“I found something…real special here,” Dominic, the one with the torn jeans, and messy hair, said. He watched something from the corner of his eye, but I didn’t follow his line of sight. I knew better than to get my nose in anyone else’s business. “Quinn, don’t you like my new bar?”

Ice-eyes sat tall in his seat. “I told you not to call me that. It’s Quentin.”

The third man just sat back and smiled. When I paused near their table, he gave me a wink. I pressed my lips together, holding back my smile.

“What can we help you with, darlin’?” Eyebrow-Piercing’s New Orleans accent made me want to swoon a little at his feet. Accents just made girls stupid. I’m pretty certain he knew it, too. His lopsided smile quirked up a bit and a new desire flared in his eyes.

“Honey, I’m here for you.” My voice dipped down a little and I pushed my hip out. A low growl came from Quentin but, working here, I’d learned how to ignore the strange little noises of the patrons. I made myself believe they were part of the music - he natural beat of the music. I tilted my head and batted my eyelashes. My light-tawny curls slipped over my shoulder, a line right down to the free show Lucky’s uniforms offered.

“Is that right?” His tongue swept across his bottom lip.

“What can I get you boys?”

Quentin snorted. My eyes flicked to his and, for a second, something about him brought a part of me alive I hadn’t known existed before. My insides purred.

“Excuse my friend. He doesn’t know a beautiful woman when he sees one,
chérie
. Don’t take it too personally.”

“We all have our types. Now, boys, what’ll it be?”

“Whiskey,” Dominic said, his gaze kept flicking back to the dance floor.

“Same,
chérie
.” He gave me a wink.

“A glass of Chateau Montelena Estate Cabernet Sauvignon,” Quentin ordered. The words slipped off his tongue like silk. I didn’t think I would ever remember the name, but when Dominic barked a laugh I realized it didn’t matter.

“Fuck off, Quinn. I don’t carry that shit here…do I?” Dominic looked at me.

I shook my head, unsure if we did.

“Fancy pants there will take the most expensive wine we have.”

I nodded and headed off. The moment I got away from their table, parts of me that had tensed up and strung tight loosened. I could breathe a little easier, but something in me whined to return to the very stuck-up Quentin. I shook my head. Not him. I didn’t think about customers that way. I lived by a rule— stay from away from patrons of the places I worked. I had learned my lesson.

I slipped between people in order to get back to the bar. A few men turned their heads to watch, but instead of the sweet heat usually accompanying their stares, I felt dirty. My body wasn’t meant for their eyes. I shook my head.

My stomach soured.
He
used to say that to me. I didn’t like it then and I wasn’t okay thinking it now. My body belonged to me and I could flaunt it to anyone I liked.

I found Mazy waiting at the bar. She kept peeking at the table I had just left. Mazy had been one of the rocks for me when I was recovering from
him
. She reminded me I was beautiful both inside and out.

“Thanks, Winnie. Would it be terrible of me to ask you to watch that table until they leave? I didn’t realize Lucas would be here.”

“Lucas?”

“Eyebrow Piercing? Thinks he is hot as shit? The accent…”

“Say no more. I gotcha.” I touched her arm and ordered the men their drinks and made sure to get Quentin his fancy wine. I took it from the bartender and wiped the palm of my hand on the skintight, black uniform pants before lifting the tray.

Chapter Two

Quentin

Dominic couldn’t stop staring at his little human mate. My lips pressed down at the thought. A human mate. If it was meant to be for him then great, but I would rather take a dog as a mate. Humans were far too fragile. Of course, no one would be as protected as the mate of the great dragon-shifter Dominic.

Lucas kept flirting with the waitress who replaced Mazy. I gripped the seat as I thought about his gaze roaming her full figure. She was certainly something to see. Wide hips flared in the right way, her ample chest, on display for the whole bar to see.

I shut down the growl creeping from the back of my throat and tried to calm the beast inside me. I had come here as a favor to Dominic. He had stolen his mate from a powerful bear clan who hadn’t taken it well. Eden had explained her adoptive father was okay with it now, but it didn’t stop some idiots. We had come to witness their official mating ceremony. Eying my old…friend…I couldn’t quite believe the giant was getting married. Dominic, Lucas, and I were all mercenaries. Dominic was not the marrying type. In our profession, few attempted a real relationship. We gained a lot of enemies over our time. Our job meant we chose what jobs to take. People rarely forgot.

And yet, here Dominic was, about to get married. Both the shifter way and the human way. He had been the last one in our little trio I’d ever have guessed would get married. Lucas was a ladies’ man for sure, but he would settle like he was supposed to. I was expected by my family to carry on my genes, and family name. Eventually I the right breed would come along.

The short, sensual waitress made her way back to us. A hand shot out and grabbed her ass. I saw red for a second and stood, making the table lurch forward. I felt Lucas’s and Dominic’s gazes on me, but I couldn’t look away from her. Not even for a second. What about this woman had my animal in a frenzy? He demanded blood for the insult to her person.

Without missing a beat, she twisted on her foot, getting the man’s hand off her sweet behind. She leaned down, the tray with our drinks staying high in the air. I cocked my head, listening to what she had to say over the drone of the club.

“Sugar, next time you touch my ass, I will have
your
ass kicked out. It’s for viewing, not touching.” She said it all with a smile.

I sat back down.

“You plannin’ on a murder?” Dominic snickered.

“Some man just touched your mate,” I said.

Dominic’s face turned murderous as he looked toward Eden dancing with her bear-shifter friend who had been her bodyguard before Dominic and she got together. No men danced close to them; most of the patrons were shifters. They knew when someone had been mated and they stayed away. Out of respect, but also from survival instinct.

“Fucking hilarious.”

I lifted one shoulder, indifferent. The waitress made her way back to us. Handing us each our drinks and flashing both Dominic and Lucas a smile, she gave me a frown and questioning glance instead. I took in her scent again. Diluted with those of all the people she had waited on and the smells of the bar I couldn’t pin it down.

What kind of shifter was she?

“Chérie, you never told us your name.”

“Didn’t know if you wanted me sticking around. I’m sure Mazy takes excellent care of y’all.” She wasn’t southern, just spoke lazily. The idea irked me for some reason. My eyes skated over to Lucas at the mention of Mazy. He never flirted with her like he did this waitress. I sort of wanted to demand Mazy back. Just so Lucas would keep his paws to himself.

“Well, seems like we got you…?”

“Winnie.”

“Short for?” I didn’t like nicknames.

Her tawny-brown eyes flicked in my direction. “Winnie.”

“It must be short for something.”

“Winnie.” Her jaw set, but I was stubborn, too.

“I demand to know what it is short for.”

“How do you not know it’s long for something?” she asked with a graceful cock of her head. When she set the empty tray to her side, her weight shifted, drawing my attention to her curvy hip.

My gaze traveled the length of her body so she felt every second of my exploration. Her chest pushed out with her deepened breaths. The valley of milky skin from the neck to the top of her breasts had me shifting in my seat. Her lips had parted, and I focused on their soft fullness until she huffed and twisted them into an unpleasant frown. Her eyes reflected anger her body wasn’t feeling.

“You were saying?” I couldn’t resist pushing the issue, enjoying her unease.

“It’s long for Win.”

Dominic’s boisterous laugh ended with him slamming his hand down on the table. Lucas’s eyes glinted with approval. I, on the other hand, fantasized of taking her in the back and slapping my hand wide over her ass. The thought had my traitorous body perking up in all the wrong spots. Never had a woman managed to both arouse me and piss me off at the same time.

“Maybe you should learn your place.”
Mate,
my animal added. I shook away the thought. She was not my mate. My stupid beast pined because Dominic had found his mate. I didn’t want to settle down yet.

“And where would that be? Not the bottom. I like the top better.”

Her teasing caused a problem for me. Already painfully tight in my pants and now she had to go and make me seem like a teenager who hadn’t learned how to masturbate yet.

“You boys call me over if you need anything else. I will be back in a while to check up on you.” Winnie who wouldn’t tell me her full name started to leave. I had the sudden urge to grab on to her wrist and keep her near. I didn’t like the idea of others talking to her. Not with the mouth she had on her. Instead, I kept my hands to myself and she headed straight to the bar.

“My, my, that was certainly entertainin’.”

“It was nothing.”

“She caught your eye.”

“No, she didn’t.”

“Then stop staring at her.”

I turned back in my seat to stare at Dominic instead. I wanted to beat away his sly smile. I fought differently, though. He believed in using his claws. I preferred a more elegant fight, knives and guns. Swords were what I lived for but, since the end of the 19
th
century, those were uncommon. I had trained with them since childhood and knew how to handle them but had expertise in weapons of all kinds. Most people pegged me for a businessman,, but the two men in front of me knew me the best.

My nose started to tingle with the residue of a scent. A scent that caught my animal’s interest.