Bearly a Lady

by Cassandra Khaw

  “This is a lunch table, Oscar. Not a meat market. Have some class.”

  I bury my laughter in a forkful of green curry linguine. Zora can’t abide by this restaurant, preferring more “authentic” venues, but I’m not quite as fussy. Something about the omnivorous disposition of us ursine types, I suppose.

  Besides, anywhere with a revolving dessert menu’s got my vote. (Salted egg yolk lava cake sounds like it could just about work.)

  “So, is it true?” Janine hisses, after the dust has settled and everyone’s gone back to small talk and prodding at their respective lunches. “Are you going on a date?”

  I scrunch my face into a moue. “Why does this seem to surprise everyone? Yes, I’m going on a date!”

  Oscar glowers at me from across the table.

  “He cute then?”

  “Gorgeous.” The word leaps to my tongue, before I can even consider censoring my enthusiasm. “Like a Greek god.”

  Janine runs a critical eye over my figure. I’m dressed a bit risqué for the office today, I’ll admit. The crop-top velvet dinner jacket barely fits around my cleavage, which I may or may not have highlighted with bronzer, and which may or may not be popping out its bustier because Zora laced me in too tight. Everything else is relatively sedate, though. Kitten heels, a non-descript clutch, and a pencil skirt in the style of Francesca Bartonelli.

  What can I say? My boss is totally my style icon.

  Unexpectedly, a frisson of embarrassment shivers down my spine, and I blush, suddenly self-conscious. I fold my arms over my chest, duck my head, and look away, praying that Janine’d turn her attention elsewhere too. Thankfully, she takes the cue, and moves her eyes elsewhere.

  But then she leans forward and smiles at me. “Sooooo. Tell me more.”

  My cheeks warm further.

  “How about I tell you after I’ve had my first date? No need to jinx it.”

  She makes a big show of evaluating my offer, a loud hmmmm vibrating in her chest. Janine looks absolutely stunning today. Minimal makeup, long dark hair pulled back, pant suit like something Kate Winslet’d wear for the front page of Vogue, monochrome palette setting off the gold in her eyes. I don’t know why she’s asking, to be honest. Especially given our history. There’s a part of me that’s hoping that it’s because she’s just a wee bit jealous, but I’m not holding my breath.

  In the end, Janine accepts my proposal with a vehement nod, and an outstretched hand.

  “Fair enough. But I expect details if you two shack up. Details.” She grazes a finger up my wrist.

  I shiver. “Absolutely.”

  With any luck, Janine will have forgotten entirely about this arrangement by this time tomorrow.

  “Juicy details.”

  “Okay! Geez.” Definitely time to meditate on a diversion. Maybe, Zora’ll lend a hand. Actually, no. I don’t want Zora giving me a hand with anything ever again. Especially not with Janine. With my luck, the two will gang up against me instead.

  That, and I don’t want to risk Zora trying to set me up with Janine, because my heart will absolutely break if I had to listen to any romantic misadventures. I mean, I know we’re not meant to be, but it’d still rankle, you know? Just a tiny, tiny bit.

  “I want a full inventory of positions, toys, kinky misdemeanors, and choice excerpts from any and all dirty talk that you two participate in.”

  “That’s com—I, wha—Janine! Why?!”

  “Mostly because I want to see Oscar foam at the mouth,” Janine declares with a sideway jerk of her head, chandelier earrings tinkling.

  “Oh.”

  “Also because I’m nosy,” Janine winks and I feel a jolt of electricity spasm through me. Let’s be clear here. My sexual preferences aren’t gender agnostic, per se. On a Kinsey scale, I’d be a 4, or whatever number’s the one that’s mostly heterosexual but open to opportunities, but there’s just something about Janine that makes me go to pieces.

  I don’t get a chance to ponder my reaction, however. Smiling breezily, Janine switches her attention back to Carol from Human Resources, who is, as far as I can tell, apparently involved in an accidental affair with the owner of a young start-up. These lunches are weird, but Francesca keeps insisting on them. Something about the texture of team spirit.

  “How was I supposed to know he’s already married—” She moans dramatically, wringing many-ringed fingers, and I’m about to lean into that conversation when:

  “Zelda, was it?”

  I jump at the sound of Francesca’s voice.

  “Mrs Bartonelli! I—”

  “Miss,” Francesca corrects as she takes a luxurious pull from her cigarette, suddenly much closer than I remember.

  “Oh, god. Sorry. I meant Miss Bartonelli. Honest. Freudian slip, I swear. I’m so—” In my panic to stand up, I crash into the table, nearly overturning everyone’s half-eaten lunch.

  “Sit.”

  I plunk back down like a repentant child.

  Francesca inhales another lungful of smoke. Then, she sighs. A tiny, disappointed schoolmarm noise, full of judgment and mild disdain.

  “I’ve heard a bit about you.”

  Not a lot. Just a bit. Because that’s exactly the kind of woman that Francesca is. If the Queen walked up to her, she’d probably say something like “I’ve read an article about you once.”

  “Good things, I hope?”

  “Mm.” She taps the ash from her cigarette, sighs again, with slightly more gusto this time. “Walk with me.”

  Without waiting for agreement, the older woman pivots on a four-inch stiletto heel and begins sashaying into the bustle of the restaurant, trailing smoke like a war banner.

  Francesca is astonishingly spry for her age. So spry, in fact, that I actually lose her in the din of waiters and high street diners. I’m on the verge of skulking back to the table when I spot her silhouette in a doorway.

  She’s talking to someone in one of the restaurant’s private rooms. I can’t quite make out who it is. A man, definitely, lithe and lean, poised as a military officer, his skin pale and almost luminous. His ash-blonde hair is metrosexual-long, salon-fresh, and somehow completely not effeminate.

  “Ms.—” I’m careful this time to stress the appellative as I inch into the field of hearing, head slightly stooped. “—Bartonelli? You wanted to talk to me?”

  They both turn and my breath hitches. Francesca’s companion is beautiful. No. Gorgeous. Elegant, lordly. Like something out of a fairy tale or that Lord of the Rings extravaganza. The Desmond Merrion original he’s wearing, steel-colored and overlaid with a subtle houndstooth pattern, doesn’t hurt the image either.

  Or the glamour that clings to him like an attar of perfect honeymoons. I blink.

  “Hi.”

  I can almost hear Bach rising in the background.

  His mouth lifts into a smirk. “Hello.”

  “This is—” Francesca purses her lips before sliding a slim black cigarette free of its gold-bordered case. Wordlessly, he leans forward to light the tip, the small flame anointing his cufflinks in gold. “—Benedict.”

  I wait.

  “Just Benedict?”

  “Yes,” Francesca sighs again, softly, the cigarette evaporating into a blue shimmer. “Just Benedict. I don’t need you going into teenage hysterics about Benedict’s parentage. Or mine, for that matter.”

  Realization dawns. Heat runnels into my cheeks and my fingertips, a wash of heat that makes the air a little harder to breathe. That otherworldly sense of fashion. The weird arrangement that Francesca has with the various designer labels. All of it. It now makes sense.

  They’re fae.

  I’ve been working for one of the Fair Ones.

  “I—”

  “In case that wasn’t obvious, Miss McCartney, that was a subtly veiled order to not fuck. Up.” Francesca
exhales a regretful plume of smoke. “Frankly, you’re my last choice in bodyguards—”

  Wait. What?

  “—but Benedict insisted that I find someone with—” Another long-suffering sigh. “—curves.”

  Anticipation drains into slow, controlled panic. Benedict’s just smiling now, hands behind the small of his back, clearly delighted with the proceedings.

  “I—”

  “And you were the only werebear I could find on short notice with a H-cup.”

  What.

  This is going too fast. I haven’t even come down from the high of that unexpected epiphany.

  “As such, you are now in charge of my nephew’s personal safety while he gallivants through London. Fail and you’re fired.”

  “But I’ve never even taken an MMA class. I can’t fight. I don’t even own pepper spray! I’m not—”

  “I suggest you make a few important life changes, then. And quickly. Because the Sidhe Court will you have your head if any harm befalls their prince.”

  My mouth hangs open. “Oh, fuck me.”

  Benedict, beautiful, brazen Benedict, lets out a warm, mocking laugh, his hoarfrost eyes practically incandescent with glee. “We’ve only just met. But if you insist.”

  Chapter Four

  “WE CAN’T.”

  “We absolutely can.”

  “We can’t have a fae prince sleeping on our sofa.”

  “But—”

  “I don’t like fae. No vampire likes fae.”

  “You know, no one’s ever explained to—”

  “Because they treat us like second-class citizens. There’s—there’s a rumor that we’re actually the degenerate children of the Redcaps, the mongrel halfling kids of the lowest of the low.”

  I wince. “Look, just because he’s part of the Sidhe Court, it doesn’t mean that he’s going to be, er, species-ist, or anything like that. It’s possible that he might be entirely against that historical tension. Who knows? This might be an opportunity for vampires everywhere! One day, young vampires might point at this moment and say, ‘This is how we got justice for all the wrong that was committed against us! This is where one of our ancestors stood up to the fae, and this is where we won equal treatment!’”

  Zora pauses, stares, begins counting off her fingers. “Two things. Number one: you have a point. I guess. There is a chance that Benedict’s not a complete arsehole. A small chance, but a chance, nonetheless. So, I’ll give you that. Grudgingly. Number two: Never, ever use that rhetoric on me unless you’re willing to go up to an African-American person and tell them the same thing, okay?”

  “I’m not sure if that’s even the same—”

  “Whatever. My mind’s made up. I’m not standing for this. I’m not. You’re just going to have to—”

  “—let him spirit me off to the Ritz where I’ll be vulnerable to his nefarious advances? Who knows what manner of nefarious things—”

  “I don’t know if you realize, but you’re a Kodiak bear. You belong to the largest brown bear species in the world! You can bench press cars!”

  “No, I can’t!” It’s half-true. I can’t bench press your average car, but I can lift those cute electric hybrids that Zora’s been lusting for. “Besides, he’s one of the Sidhe. They’ve got strange, magical powers.”

  “You have claws.”

  “Royal connections.”

  “You have teeth!”

  “Teeth doesn’t work against centuries-old sorcery!”

  Zora throws her arms up in the air. “There is no scientific reason for you to be afraid of this man!”

  “It’s the only way he’ll let me go to my date.”

  “Ugh. Don’t even—”

  “Also, I’d already said yes.”

  “Double ugh.”

  “I know.”

  “I mean, seriously. Ugh. Couldn’t you at least have brought it up, like, yesterday?” Zora pinches the bridge of her nose, forehead scrunching, before she lets go. “I had plans, you know? Plans that didn’t involve babysitting that asshole. I had a date with two bisexual firemen planned.”

  Oh.

  “Ooooooh.”

  “Bisexual firemen.” Zora doesn’t give me the chance to answer, stomping instead towards our alcohol cabinet. She flings her handbag onto the rug with a clatter of spare change, documents spilling over the thick, green wool. I jog after her, stooping to pick up after the trail of devastation, acutely conscious that our apartment’s not exactly five-star accommodations.

  There’s a pair of knickers, possibly mine, lounging on the dining room table, a—oh, god—Hitachi Magic Wand under the sofa, and I think I spot a box of tampons on a bookshelf. You’d think that two women would be better at keeping things tidy.

  As I tuck the sheaf of papers into the crook of an elbow, Zora pops the stopper from a gin bottle and takes a long,

  long swig.

  “Ugh.”

  “You said that already.”

  She doesn’t dignify me with a response. Kicking off her shoes, she vaults over the back of our sofa to sprawl, effortlessly graceful, over the cushions, bottle still in hand. Another gulp. “So, when’s Prince Odious coming over?”

  I dart a nervous look to the door.

  “Merde.” Zora spits. “Fils de salope.”

  “Sorry. I owe you one.” The last time I heard Zora curse in French, it was when some middle-aged, New Year revellers spitroasted her car between their SUVs. She downs another shot, then another, another, another. Halfway empties the bottle before I tear it from her grip. Zora snarls at me, baring a sickle of sharp white teeth, and then slouches back, lower lip jutting out.

  As though on cue, the door swings open.

  Benedict, dressed now in a different suit, this one an expensive navy accented by a brocaded pocket square, adjusts his tie. “Wrong time for an entrance?”

  I fishmouth helplessly for a minute, before finally finding the words. “The door was locked.”

  “Indeed it was. A rather mildly inconvenient development, I tell you. Is that really any way to treat a treasured guest, princess? To leave them in the cold like that?” Not an apology. Barely an acknowledgment. Hell, his reply’s practically a beratement. Benedict dusts a broad shoulder clean of imaginary lint, before stepping delicately inside, eyebrows raised.

  Zora looks like she’s about to explode.

  “How long is she staying?” He asks.

  “Excuse me?”

  “That,” Benedict seems to savor the word. That. Honestly. Who does he even think he is?

  “Hey, don’t talk about my—”

  “As long as I want. This is my house, you ugly piece of botany.” Zora has all of her fangs out.

  “Benedict is only staying two weeks.” I say, my voice cracking as I try to talk over the building tension, so thick you’d need an axe to cleave it in half. “Just. Two weeks. It’s a matter of interdimensional diplomacy. You two can live with each other for two weeks.”

  Zora says nothing at first, just stares at Benedict, a small growl rippling in her throat. For a moment, I’m terrified she’s going to launch herself at him. But then she stands up and stiffly, silently wobbles back towards her room, both hands raised, middle fingers extended.

  She slams the door shut behind her, the wood rattling on its hinges.

  Benedict and I exchange looks, his amused, mine embarrassed. He smiles and it’s all the warning I’m given before his glamour comes crashing down, two-hundred megatons of magical sex appeal. It hits so hard that I feel the Change roar a challenge, a dull echoing in the marrow.

  “Don’t do that.”

  “Do what?”

  “That,” I say, licking my lips, trying not to sigh as I sit myself in the armchair opposite, legs drawn primly together. My throat is dry. Inversely, other parts of me are so not. I
smooth down my skirt, trying my best not to worry at the hems. Despite my best efforts, I’m breathing harder than before and it’s becoming a struggle to not squirm under Benedict’s scrutiny.

  The world bends and warps, honeyed and dangerous.

  “I think I’m going to like it here,” He announces, his voice pure velvet.

  I raise my eyes to see his grin widen further, his gaze lidding. In the warm yellow light of the living room, his irises are practically silver, molten with mischief. I swallow and focus on my breathing.

  It’s suddenly very, very warm in here.

  “I, um.”

  “You?”

  “I—”

  Benedict slides back, knees spread, a look of feline contentment slinking onto his face. Still holding eye contact, he deliberately taps the muscular column of his left thigh.

  “Sit on my lap.”

  A nervous laugh escapes my throat. “Excuse me?”

  “I want you to sit on my lap.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I told you to.”

  “I’m too big to—” I rasp.

  “You’re perfect.”

  There’s something in the way he says it. The words curl around me, a leash around my neck. Spellbound, I slide off the cushion and step forward, a hand stretched. He laces his fingers with mine, scoops an arm around my waist. I feel his palm smooth along my waist, down the side of a hip, where it stops, just above the curve of my ass.

  “What a magnificent creature.”

  “E−excuse me?”

  Benedict guides me down on his lap, and I don’t stop him. Now, both hands migrate around my waist, infuriatingly close to places I want him to touch, but still oh, so far away. His grip tightens, just a twinge, just enough to make me gasp. If he’d just move an inch lower, if he’d just squeeze—

  “Did you know that fat was prized in olden days? Girth was associated with fertility, desirability.”

  “Are you—”

  “It made so much more sense than this obsession with heroin chic. Sex is about contact, after all. Grabbing. Clenching. Kissing. Biting. Where’s the pleasure in gnawing on bones?” He murmurs, walking fingertips up my sternum, careful not to make contact with my breasts.