Taming the Beast: Eleven Paranormal Romances

by Alyse Zaftig

  The new school term was starting in just a few days, and just like every term for the last several years, Matilda would not be joining the other kids in class.

  Lily came back to her table with a tray holding Matilda’s order several minutes later. Lily set the glass of huckleberry milkshake on the table with a straw and then set the huge, delicious-looking Fate Mountain burger and fries in front of Matilda.

  “Can I get you anything else?” Lily asked.

  “This looks great. I’m going to need a full stomach for work today.”

  “Enjoy,” Lily said with a bright smile.

  The bear shifter waitress left Matilda to her burger. She enjoyed every bite. As a starving would-be college student, she didn’t get meals like this very often, even living in her mom’s house. Her mom spent most of her time working, and the kitchen cabinets at home were generally sparse.

  Matilda groaned at the delicious flavor of hamburger. She was so distracted by the feeling of her stomach filling up that she didn’t notice the man who walked into the diner.

  She looked up from her burger, with the secret sauce all over her face, just in time to see her ex-boyfriend Tim walking down the aisle right toward her.

  Matilda grunted and choked on the bite of burger she had in her mouth. She dropped her food on the plate and grabbed her napkin, wiping her face as quickly as she could, trying to clear her throat for air.

  She could not believe that her ex-boyfriend was in Fate Mountain. His family lived in the valley all the way on the other side of the mountain.

  “I knew you would be here,” he said.

  “Why are you in Fate Mountain Village?” she asked, her throat still dry from choking on her burger.

  “I’ve been trying to find you since you left.”

  “If you had just looked at my Facebook profile you would have known that I went back to my mom’s house a week ago.”

  “No more messing around, Matilda. It’s time to come home.”

  “I’m not going anywhere with you. I thought I made it clear when I said that I was leaving and never coming back.”

  “We’ve been through this so many times before. I never take you seriously when you threaten to leave.”

  “This time I mean it. And I’m not coming back. I even have a new job.”

  “Oh, you’re working for your mother, I see. How’s that working out for you?”

  “Amazingly well. I have a job for a billionaire today.”

  “Are you screwing him?”

  “What?” Matilda gasped, slamming her fist into the diner table. Her plate, milkshake glass, and silverware clanged on the tabletop.

  “You heard me.”

  “I haven’t even met this guy yet. And if I were screwing someone, it would be none of your business because this relationship is over!”

  “I know you don’t mean that,” he said grabbing her wrist and pulling her up from the booth.

  Matilda jerked her hand away and glared at him.

  “Don’t make a scene, Tim. You need to leave.”

  “I’m not leaving without you.”

  “Is there a problem here?” came a gruff voice from behind Tim.

  Matilda’s ex-boyfriend turned around to see chef Shane Keenan standing behind him. The grizzly bear shifter’s eyes were bright with the strength of his bear. The arms of his chef coat were folded back to reveal his tattooed arms. The Rescue Bears called Shane ‘Wild Bear’ for a reason. Even though Matilda knew Shane was trying to protect her, the intensity of Shane’s glare still sent a shiver down her spine. Tim took a step to the side as Shane growled and stared into his eyes.

  “No problem at all. I was just leaving,” Tim said.

  “Are you all right?” Lily asked, walking up beside her husband.

  “I’m so sorry that happened. I’m so embarrassed right now.”

  “There’s no reason to be embarrassed. We are just worried about you,” Lily said.

  Shane gripped her shoulder for a split second, while looking her in the eye, and then turned back to the kitchen.

  “Thank you so much for everything, Lily. I should probably get going.”

  “Why don’t you sit back down and calm your nerves for a moment. We want to make sure he drives away.”

  Matilda sat back in the booth and took a long sip of milkshake through her straw. The thick, sweet shake slid down her throat and soothed the raw feeling she’d had since choking.

  She groaned and picked up her phone again, navigating over to her social media page. Matilda scrolled through updates from all of her friends in college. She read posts about their excitement over the new term. She saw their updated profile pictures of New Year’s Eve kisses at midnight with creative Instagram filters. Matilda slapped her palm to her forehead right before she noticed an advertisement for the dating website that Lily was always talking about.

  ‘Find your match on Mate.com.’

  Matilda groaned and clicked on the advertisement, a mixture of anger and terror driving her on. If she couldn’t go to school and she was going to get stalked by her psycho ex-boyfriend, then maybe she could at least get the attention of some male shifter from this silly dating website.

  It was an impulsive move, but as she sat in the diner, waiting for Tim to leave the parking lot, it was the only thing she could think of to do. She filled out the silly questionnaire and uploaded her profile information. When she was done, she pressed enter and waited for her matches to load.

  Out her window, she could see Tim finally drive away, heading east on the highway out of town. With a sigh of relief, she watched her matches load on the screen of her smartphone. She wasn’t expecting anything from it. It was just a stupid way to pass the time. But to her surprise, when the matches were finished loading, she had a hundred percent match. The instructions at the beginning had informed her that a one hundred percent match meant the site had found her a fated mate.

  Unlike humans, shifters had a fated mate: that one special person who was perfect for them. Matilda knew enough about shifters and their mates to know that the fated mate thing worked both ways. Even human mates felt undeniably attracted to their shifter. Unfortunately, her mate didn’t even have a profile picture, and his profile name was “Bad Bear”. Neither of those facts were particularly encouraging.

  Matilda rolled her eyes and clicked off her phone. Now that Tim was gone, she could safely leave the diner and get to her job. She was supposed to be there in less than ten minutes, and the haunted mansion was at least fifteen minutes away. She was going to be late on her very first day. This job was over before it had even started.

  Matilda went out to the parking lot and climbed in her car. As the engine warmed up, she groaned and rested her forehead against the wheel. This was not the way that she had expected her life to turn out. Nevertheless, it was what she had to work with. Matilda put the car in reverse, turned out of the parking lot, and drove out onto the highway, headed to the haunted mansion.

  Chapter 4

  James gazed out the window at the snow-covered statues and frowned. He took another sip of coffee and set it back on the counter. The cleaning agency had finally found him a new housekeeper. She would be arriving at any moment. He checked his cellphone to see that she was already late. Then he noticed that there was a text from Mate.com. He clicked on the message and opened it up.

  “Congratulations. Your fated mate has been found.”

  James stared at the text for a long time, not sure what to think about it. Signing up for the dating website had been a momentary case of madness. But apparently, they had found his one true love.

  He grimaced and clicked on the link, opening up the girl’s profile. Immediately, he was stunned by her beauty. Long black hair flowed around her round white shoulders like a dark river. Pouty red lips begged to be kissed. Curvy hips called out to his hands to grip and pull against him. His inner bear snarled, knowing he was looking at his one and only.

  James dropped his phone and looked away, his han
ds curling into claws. The beast inside roared mercilessly in his brain. He could feel his fangs descend in his mouth. The taste of blood slid over his tongue from where the tip of his sharp teeth sliced his thin human flesh. He could not have that girl. There was no way in hell.

  First of all, she was clearly a child. Secondly… he could never bring someone so innocent and beautiful into the darkness of his insanity. He turned back to the phone, reaching out to where it had landed on the ground. He couldn’t bring himself to look at it again. He could never have her. Never. The bear growling inside his mind drove him away from the phone. He’d have to remove his profile later. He couldn’t chance seeing her face again just now.

  He had to get a grip. The cleaning lady would be here any minute. As he was trudging away from the phone on the floor in his kitchen, he heard the doorbell chime throughout the mansion. His bear snarled and James took a gasping breath. He was shirtless and sweaty, his lips were stained with blood from his own fangs. He grabbed an old sweater off a chair and threw it over his bare chest on the way through the sitting room and into the main hall of the mansion. He crossed the cold marble floor in his bare feet and gripped the doorknob. With a deep breath, the swung the door open.

  There was no way in hell he or his inner beast were ready for what they both found standing in front of him.

  It was her. His fated mate.

  The girl with raven dark hair and sparkling green eyes. The girl with full red lips and curves so juicy he could drink them in for the rest of eternity. She was the epitome of every dirty fantasy he’d ever harbored. She was also the thing he feared he could never have.

  She smiled up at him with a mop in one hand and a bucket full of cleaning supplies in the other. James stumbled back, nearly tripping over the hall rug. He grasped his head, hearing his grizzly roar so loud it just about deafened him. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see the girl’s face change to a look of horror.

  “What’s wrong? Should I call a doctor?”

  He tried desperately to get himself under control. She was his cleaning lady. He could glean that much from the mop, bucket and black maid’s uniform. She was here to clean the house, and he was scaring her half to death. He took a deep breath and righted himself, blinking repeatedly to clear away the sound of his bear roaring inside his head.

  The beast filled his mind with images of rutting the girl right there on the snow covering the porch, her white skin sliding over the cold white ground. He shook his head, pushing away the image of her red panties down around her ankles.

  “I’m fine,” he said, finally presenting himself like a normal human being.

  He could never allow this innocent, beautiful creature into his dark, depraved world, but he still needed a cleaning lady. She had come here to do a job. He wouldn’t send her away.

  “I’m Matilda, from Fate Mountain Cleaning,” she said, reluctantly stepping into the house.

  He closed the door behind her and cleared his throat.

  “Yes. Of course. I was expecting you. Forgive me, I was working on a project when you arrived and just had an insight.”

  “Oh…” she said.

  He knew she didn’t believe him. He was already coming across as a maniac. He couldn’t have that. But why did he care?

  He had to get rid of her as soon as possible. As soon as she was done with the cleaning today. He’d booked two hours with the company per day. He’d just have to call them and tell them that he needed someone else. That was it. There had to be someone else.

  He gritted his teeth and showed her to the kitchen to start her cleaning job. The dishes had stacked up rather badly in the sink and around the counters. That was one benefit of being a billionaire. He could always afford new dishes when the old ones got dirty. Unfortunately, that led to a great deal of dirty dishes over time.

  Matilda stood in the doorway of his massive kitchen and took in the sight. Her mouth slowly dropped until it was all the way open. Her eyes stared blankly at the scene.

  “I haven’t had a cleaning lady for weeks. As you can see,” he said.

  She cleared her throat and finally came to. “Clearly,” she said flatly. “I guess I should start in here then?”

  “That would be great. I love cooking, but not so much cleaning. I’m glad you’ve come. I was going to have to order more pots and pans again.”

  “Right…” she said, her tone growing strained.

  “I’ll leave you to it then,” he said, knowing he had to get away from her as fast as possible.

  Chapter 5

  Matilda set the bucket on the floor and leaned the mop handle against the wall. She had never seen a kitchen this messy in her entire life. Not even in the movies. Not even in her imagination. Every surface of the chrome and black granite kitchen was covered in dirty dishes. Stacks of plates rose up to the thirteen foot ceilings. Pots and pans littered the deep sinks. Matilda rubbed her temples, taking in the scene. It was almost too extraordinary to believe it was real. How can one person possibly make this much of a mess by himself?

  No matter how unbelievable it was, James Hill had indeed trashed his mansion and dirtied every dish he owned. Matilda could make out at least three different plate pattern designs and was beginning to understand the dangers of having too much time and too much money on one’s hands.

  James Hill definitely had both.

  Matilda slowly slid out of her jacket and hung it up on the back of a chair that was tucked into the kitchen table. The breakfast nook was the only surface in the entire room that wasn’t completely covered in dirty dishes and trash. It looked like the one place that James bothered to clean off.

  As Matilda took in the shocking scene around her, she glanced out the window over the breakfast nook at the snowy grounds beyond. It was a lovely view, and she could understand why James chose that area to keep clean.

  Matilda turned back to the kitchen with a sigh and rolled up the sleeves of her maid uniform. This was going to take every ounce of determination she had in her body. She should be getting time and a half for this kind of work, but she doubted she would. Her mother’s help only went so far and Matilda had only just agreed to work for Fate Mountain Cleaning.

  First things first: Matilda began to organize the dirty dishes and rinse them off. James’s kitchen did have a large dishwasher, but it would take about thirty loads to get all of this mess clean. Not to mention the counters, the floors, and what she was sure would be lurking in the refrigerator. As she scraped the plates into the garbage, she wrinkled her nose and scrunched up her eyebrows. This was almost more disgusting than working in the meatpacking plant for Tim’s family.

  When Matilda lived in the valley with Tim, she’d had a full-time job at the meatpacking plant. Unfortunately, Tim burned all her money on drinks and poker, and she had nothing left to show for two years of hard work.

  She hadn’t exactly loved the job, but at least it was consistent, and it had paid her well. Aside from that, she wasn’t working for her mother, which was a major bonus. But she had been working for Tim’s father, and that had a distinct downside: Matilda had become fairly certain that Tim’s family was involved with criminal activity.

  She’d heard rumors about it from her friends in school, but had chosen not to believe anyone since she’d been so in love. Tim was a few years older than her and often came to Fate Mountain to watch his cousin play football on the varsity team. That was how she and Tim had met her senior year of high school.

  Instead of doing what her mother had told her, she had decided to go off with Tim and settle down in the valley to work for his family. Her mother had warned her repeatedly that Tim and his family were bad news, but Matilda had never listened.

  That was what made working for and living with her mother so humiliating. She never wanted to admit that her mom was right all along. Tim was an asshole and his family was sketchy. Matilda wished she had never gotten involved with him. But there was nothing she could do about it now.

  Matilda had al
ways gotten good grades in high school and wanted more than anything to become an archaeologist. Unfortunately, going to school full-time was extremely expensive. Especially for a girl with a single mom living in a rural mountain town. Matilda had a curious mind and she needed to apply it to something, otherwise she tended to get herself into trouble.

  As she washed the dishes and scrubbed the counters clean, she realized that her curiosity was the reason she’d been so willing to get involved with Tim. The discoveries of new love were almost as exciting as unearthing an ancient monument that hadn’t been seen by human eyes for thousands of years.

  But now that the affair was over, she realized it had been a serious mistake. Tim was a controlling jerk who never really loved her for who she was. Tim had no respect for her desire to go to college or study or explore.

  She kept telling him that she was trying to save her money to go to school, but all he ever wanted to do was go out gambling and drinking with friends.

  After about two hours, Matilda had made a serious dent in the mess in the kitchen. That was when James reemerged in the doorway, glancing around at the progress Matilda had made.

  “I didn’t believe anyone could do it. But you did. Now I think you need to get going.”

  “I’ve been here for two hours, and I haven’t even finished this one room. Is the rest of the house like this?”

  “Some of the rooms are better and some of the rooms are worse.”

  “Worse than this?”

  “The master bathroom needs some work.”

  “I don’t even want to know,” Matilda muttered.

  “What?”

  “Nothing,” she said, not wanting to lose her job. “I’ll be back to continue tomorrow.”

  “I don’t know if that will be possible.”

  “Why?” she asked, raising an eyebrow. Was he going to fire her anyway?

  She thought she had done a good job on the kitchen. The last load of dishes was in the dishwasher and the counters were all clean. The sinks were emptied out and scrubbed down. The floors were shining with a fresh polish. She’d worked for Fate Mountain Cleaning in high school and she believed she’d done a good job here.