by Sable Sylvan
Lorelei started to rise to greet the visitor. “Please, don’t rise on my account,” said the handsome man as he walked over to the couch. The man had short blonde hair, and from his big brawny build, Zelda could tell he was some kind of a shifter. The white paw marks on his hand gave away the fact that he was a polar bear shifter. “My name is Lance.”
“Hello Lance, I’m Lorelei,” said Lorelei, taking the man’s hand and shaking it from her seated position. She looked up at his face: he was tall and intimidating given that he was above her. “Are you a friend of my mom’s?”
“You could say that,” said Lance, turning to Lorelei. “She said you might want some company, and I’m in town for the next few weeks, and am looking to make a friend.”
“Mom, what’s your schedule like?” asked Zelda. While Zelda talked to her mother, Lance took the time to admire the curvy beauty. As a shifter, and a man who spent much most of his time in the rural no man’s lands of Alaska, he rarely saw women like Zelda, who were young, curvy, and soft, unhardened by the land that had tried to turn Lance’s heart into stone, or at least, into ice. His heart was warmed by the bright golden tone of Zelda’s hair. Although Lance was a blonde, he was a platinum blonde, not a golden blonde, so his hair had cool tones that were almost grey or blue in certain lights, the same greyish blue as his eyes, whereas Zelda’s hair glimmered as brightly as her hazel eyes.
“Oh, honey, I forgot to tell you...I’ll be at my condo downtown,” said Lorelei as she tapped at her smartphone.
Zelda’s heart fell: her mom had been gone for weeks and was about to be gone again? “Mom, why don’t you just stay here?” asked Lorelei.
“Baby, sugar, doll face, I’d love to stay, but I have business downtown, and lots of late meetings, and working at odd hours, and taking phone calls all the time,” said Lorelei, looking up from her phone for a second. “It would be bad for your health; it would negatively affect your sleep.”
“Alright,” said Zelda, dropping the topic as they had company...for the first time in a long time. Zelda used to go to some of her mom’s business events, the events held in the penthouse, but they’d come to a standstill last year, when she was twenty, as her mother had been away on business so often.
“So, Zelda, your mother tells me you’re quite the artist,” said Lance, looking over Zelda. As soon as he said artist, she started to fidget with her long braid, which fell over one of her shoulders, revealing more of her hair to Lance. The braid was soft and messy, rather than severe like Lorelei’s haircut, and the hair was practically begging for Lance’s touch.
Zelda was surprised that Lorelei had shared her interests with Lance. Usually, Zelda was expected to make nice with whatever banker or finance guy her mother brought over, talking about world events or the news, and occasionally culture, but she had never met somebody who wanted to talk about her and her interests. “Me? No, my art’s nothing,” said Zelda.
“Zelda, dear, why don’t you go and fetch your sketches to show Lance?” insisted Lorelei.
“Mom, that’s so embarrassing,” said Zelda. “But okay. If you insist.” Zelda got up from the couch and headed to her bedroom, which was close by. She opened the door to her resplendent room and walked over to her desk, picking up her trusty sketchbook. It was the second one she’d gone through in the past year, since she’d started sketching.
She walked back out to the living room. “Here,” she said, passing the sketchbook to Lance. As Lance took the sketchbook from her, their hands touched, and for a second, it was like Zelda was shocked by an electrical wave.
Lance opened the sketchbook carefully. He looked at the first drawing. “That’s old,” said Zelda.
Lance flipped to the next page. “I can tell.” He looked at a few more pages. “Your drawings have improved at an impressive and steady rate, Zelda.”
“Really?” asked Zelda.
“Yeah, really,” said Lance gently. “Your cityscapes are impressive. Have you thought of branching out though, and doing studies of other things? Maybe nature studies?”
“I don’t know if that’s such a good idea,” interjected Lorelei. “Zelda’s constitution, you see, is too delicate for the outdoors.”
“Well, she could draw different things indoors,” said Lance. “Just to practice honing different skills and techniques, of course. You could do still lifes.”
“Still lifes? No thanks,” said Zelda. “They’re so...flat and boring.”
“Flat and boring? Do explain,” said Lance. His eyes were focused entirely on Zelda’s.
Zelda had never met someone with such an intense stare. The only things brighter than Lance’s ice-white blonde hair were his eyes. Pale and blue, she swore she’d seen them flash...something only shifters could do. When Lorelei’s eyes flashed, they seemed to turn darker, as if lit by a Miltonian light, but Lance’s eyes...when they lit up, it was like she was a ship on the sea, and her eyes were the beacons in a lighthouse, guiding her home. “Well...they just don’t seem alive,” said Zelda.
“Neither are buildings,” said Lance with a small smile.
“But...buildings are full of life,” said Zelda. “They’re filled with people. There’s thousands of people in this building alone. Each of those buildings is like a hive full of bees. Sure, a hive itself isn’t alive...but it’s made by the things that live in it. It’s a home. And those buildings...they’re home, to other people like me, and not just buildings. Homes...well, they just feel alive to me. I know I must sound stupid...”
“Not at all,” said Lance softly. “I never thought of it that way. If you’re interested in drawing things that are alive, your mother could arrange for models to come for you to sketch. Hopefully, individuals would be interesting enough for you to observe.”
Zelda couldn’t believe that Lance hadn’t shot her down for explaining how she saw the world. Her mom would have in a second. “That would be cool,” said Zelda. “But...where would my mom find a model she approves of?”
“I could model for you,” said Lance. “I did some modeling in college, actually. I posed for nudes for the art department.”
Zelda turned beet red as she thought about the hunky man in front of her stark naked in front of a classroom of girls just like her. “No frikkin’ way. You, a nude model?” said Zelda.
“If you’re sure it really wouldn’t be too much trouble, I don’t see why not to allow it,” said Lorelei. “But no nude modeling. That’s where I draw the line.”
“Thank you so much,” said Zelda as Lance passed her sketchbook back to her. “This means so much to me.”
As Lance watched Zelda’s face light up, he didn’t have the heart to tell her that it’d mean much, much more to him. “I’ve actually got a business meeting I have to get to,” said Lance apologetically. “But tomorrow, I can come over for a few hours.”
“I’ll be looking forward to it,” said Zelda, standing as she walked Lance to the door. Standing next to Lance, she felt teeny: the big bear shifter towered over her by over a foot and he was strong and barrel chested. Lance brushed against her on accident, but the feeling of his heat through his suit jacket’s fabric turned Zelda on.
“Well...goodbye,” said Zelda when Lance was at the doorway.
“Goodbye...until tomorrow,” said Lance with a wink. “See you around, princess.”
Princess...? What had Lance meant by that? There was no frikkin’ way that he had meant to say that. It had to be a pet name he used with his cat or something, or with a wife...although Zelda hadn’t seen a ring on his finger.
“Zelda, dear, I’ve got to get going too,” said Lorelei, getting up from the couch. “I’ll see you soon, though, I promise.”
“Really?” asked Zelda. “Because you say that every time.”
“I’ve got to go, honey,” said Lorelei, walking towards the exit.
“But mom...” said Zelda, reaching out to touch her adoptive mother.
Lorelei turned, and swiped at Zelda’s face, hard. The slap stung, turning Zelda’s ch
eek bright red...but there was no way that it wasn’t going to bruise by the next morning, Zelda’s flesh as soft as that of a peach.
In an instant, Lorelei went from busy corporate mom to abusive. “I’ve got to go, and you need to grow up and learn to live on your own,” said Lorelei angrily. Zelda was scared: her mother had shifted in front of her on a few rare occasions that she’d lost her temper entirely, and her shift was a force to be reckoned with. “I’m sorry I hit you...but you just make me so angry sometimes. I worry about you, Zelda, and I love you a lot. Get some sleep. It’s getting late: you’ve got company tomorrow, that’ll be nice, won’t it?”
“Yeah,” said Lorelei. Her cheek still stung from the hard slap. It didn’t hurt nearly as much as the time that Lorelei had accidentally chipped her tooth though. As Zelda left, Lorelei headed back to her room, not knowing that the next day would be the first day of an entirely different life.
About The Author
I’m Sable Sylvan, and the only thing I love more than reading hot paranormal romances is writing down my fantasies and sharing them with readers like you. My heroes are strong alpha male shifters who can be grizzly and gruff at times...but when it comes to their mates, they turn into absolute teddy bears. The curvy heroines in my stories are strong, sassy women, and that’s why the bear shifter men who love them will do anything for their fated mates.
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Goldilocks And The Three Bear Shifters
Little Red Riding Bears
Three Grizzlies Gruff
The Shifter Princes
Shifterella And The Billionaire Bear
Beauty And The Billionaire Bear
Sleeping BBW And The Billionaire Bear
Rapunzel And The Billionaire Bear
Seattle’s Billionaire Bears
Rumpled Bear Skin (coming soon)
