by Sable Sylvan
“You flew the helicopter that Lance used to save his fated mate?” asked Savina, looking to Mason. “Mace, that’s….pretty frikkin’ badass.”
“Hey, even a bad boy can be a good guy sometimes,” said Mason. “Ever since then, Lance has offered me usage of his choppers whenever I’m in the USA. He doesn’t have any helicopters in the EU, or else I would’ve taken one of those to Iceland instead of my grandpa’s clunker of a private jet. Look out the window. You’re missing the views.”
Savina looked out the helicopter. They were flying over a certain forest. She recognized it from aerial maps she’d seen hung up at the Fallowedirt Post Office. The forest was lush and green, but the river running through it was murky and brown.
“Is that the Sabine Forest?” asked Savina.
“That’s right,” said Mason.
“So that means…we’re headed to Louisiana,” said Savina.
“That’s also right,” said Mason. “It’s only an hour by chopper from our part of East Texas to where we’re headed.”
Savina tried to do the math in her head but couldn’t compare driving times to flight times.
“So you’re not gonna tell me where we’re headed?” asked Savina.
“Not a frikkin’ chance,” said Mason.
Fallowedirt was in a part of Texas that should’ve been moist and lush, but the town itself had earned its name, Fallowedirt, because the land seemed to reject pretty much anything put into its soil. The rest of the county was just right, with lush wooded forest and crystal blue lakes, but not Fallowedirt. As Mason flew the plane over the state and into the next, Savina looked from above down at the rest of the world that, from their height, looked like a diorama. Fallowedirt seemed so small compared to the towns they were flying over, so dry and dusty compared to the swamps and woods of Louisiana.
Savina was so engrossed in watching the rivers and forests that she hardly noticed they were flying into a city until Mason spoke into the mic.
“You’re gonna wanna see this,” said Mace.
Savina turned to look out the windshield. The view was breathtaking. She had never flown into a city with this kind of view before. It was different than flying in an airplane because she wasn’t watching a panoramic view. She was watching the view from the cockpit, and the city seemed to be getting bigger and bigger as they approached.
“New Orleans?” asked Savina.
“That’s right, the big easy,” said Mace.
Mace landed the chopper on the tarmac of a small airport right outside of New Orleans, and he and Savina left in a black sedan, which again, Mace drove.
“You enjoying playing hooky?” asked Mace.
“I gotta admit, it’s a lot more fun than I thought it would be,” said Savina. “Maybe I should take personal days more often.”
Mace drove them through the streets of New Orleans, into the French Quarter. By now, it was only around one in the afternoon, but Savina’s stomach growled.
“Please tell me wherever we’re going has food,” said Savina.
“Trust me,” said Mace. “It does.”
Mace parked the car in a lot and opened the door for Savina. He took her by the hand.
“What are you doing?” asked Savina, pulling her hand away.
Mace took her hand again.
“New Orleans is a shifter city,” said Mace.
“So?” asked Savina, pulling her hand away again.
“So, if you aren’t claimed, you’ll get a lot of unwanted attention from shifter men,” said Mace. “Are you here for the hot sauce, or for hookups?”
“Hot sauce. How does holding your hand stop men from hitting on me?” asked Savina.
“Are you kidding?” asked Mace, motioning to his body. He was wearing black jeans, a spiked belt, and a tight gray shirt that day.
“Look, Savina, I might be the clan omega, but I can pull off alpha,” said Mace. “Would it kill you to pretend to be my girlfriend for the day? I’m not in the mood to fight off any black bear shifters, any Bengals, any pandas, and definitely not any dragons.”
“Fine, do you have any other demands from me?” asked Savina.
“Give me your hoodie,” said Mace.
“My hoodie? You’re gonna stretch it out!” said Savina. “My hoodie is where I draw the line.”
“Not to wear, to mark with my scent,” said Mace. “That way, it’s believable.”
“Okay, fine, here,” said Savina. She unzipped her hoodie and passed it to Mace.
Mason took off his jacket. He was wearing one of his black v-neck shirts, but there was something different about him. He had swirls of black ink covering his arms, with designs peeking out of the head-hole of his shirt. There were designs on his chest and his shoulders.
“When did you get inked?” asked Savina.
“Oh, this?” asked Mason. “They’re temporary. My mom would kill me if I got real tats.”
“Wow, you’re still scared of your mom?” asked Savina, a hand on her hip. “I don’t buy it.”
“When you meet her, you will,” said Mason. “She’s tough as nails. Anyways. These are the normal temporary kind of tats, just higher quality than the ones you usually find.”
“Why do you have them on?” asked Savina.
“I don’t want people seeing that I’m a bear shifter,” said Mason. “It’s a disguise. With the tats, who knows what I am? Puma? Mountain lion? Panther? Cougar?”
“Those are all the same animal,” said Savina, crossing her arms.
“Hey, I’d rather have the element of surprise on my side,” said Mason.
“Do you seriously think that we’re gonna face any shizz with me walking around as an unclaimed woman?” asked Savina.
“This is New Orleans,” said Mason. “It’s a major shifter city. I’d be surprised if there weren’t shifters who had scented you out already. I don’t want to take any chances. Wouldn’t you rather pretend I’m your boyfriend for a day than have to explain to Alice and Herb how someone charmed the pants off of you in New Orleans?”
“Fine, fine, but it’s just until we get back to the airport, right?” asked Savina.
“Right,” said Mace.
“Then do your dirty work,” said Savina.
Mace put the hoodie on and got on the parking lot pavement and did about a dozen push-ups.
Mace stood back up and gave Savina her hoodie.
“Gross,” said Savina. “It smells like you.”
“That’s the point,” said Mace. “That way, people will think you’re mine.”
“Ugh, gross,” said Savina. “Let’s just get what we came here for and get the heck outta here.”
“Fine by me,” said Mace, taking Savina by the hand, but this time, Savina didn’t pull her hand away.
Having her hand held by Mason was odd. She’d only held hands with him a few other times before (a handful of times, if you’ll pardon the pun). Every time, she was shocked at how Mason’s hands felt in hers. The rough pads on his hands in the shape of a bear’s paw were one of the markers of his shift. No tattoo, real or fake, could hide that, but could Savina hide how turned on she got being protected by Mason? Was it true that shifters could scent women out, without even seeing them? What could they detect? Could they detect arousal?
They could. Savina didn’t know it, but Mason’s bear roared once the honey-sweet smell of the curvy goddess’s arousal hit Mason’s nose. Mason’s cock throbbed in his pants. He had to admit it. Not only was Savina turned on, but so was Mason, both because he got to protect her and show her another world, a world that shifters kept secret from pretty much everyone, and because he could tell that this adventure was turning Savina on. They were kindred spirits, not just because they were the youngest members of their family, but because they weren’t afraid of adventure. They were only afraid of something far more serious, far more deadly, something that could rip their hearts out and throw them in the street. They were both afraid of love, but neither Mason nor Savina had figured that out yet
.
All they knew was that regardless of how wrong it felt for them to be pretending to be girlfriend and boyfriend, it also felt so, so right. They could lie to the world, they could lie to themselves, but they couldn’t lie to their hearts. Neither Savina nor Mace had figured out what they were truly afraid of yet, but both had to admit that together, they felt better. Together, they were better.
As they walked through the streets of New Orleans, Savina took in the sights and the sounds. She could smell fresh beignets being made in the bakeries, but what overpowered that was the natural masculine scent of Mace. She had instinctually called it a gross smell before because she’d expected it to be gross. However, Mace’s natural musk was sexy. It smelled slightly salty, of course, but there was also a note of pine, and what she swore must be arctic ice, a chilliness that was wet and nearly electric, primal like Mace’s shift. She’d seen his shift before, but not in recent days. He’d been staying inside, helping her come up with ideas for the sauce, instead of playing football in the yard with his brothers. Now, with his hands covering hers, leading her through the bustling city, he had again chosen her over all others…or at the very least, chosen their baby, their sauce baby.
Mace led Savina to a black carriage with purple and green details manned by a white horse and a man with black hair and a whip.
“Do we have enough time to take a carriage ride?” whispered Savina.
“Just be quiet and follow my lead,” said Mace. “Humans aren’t exactly…allowed where we’re going.”
“What?” hissed Savina.
“Shh,” said Mace. He walked up to the man.
“Have you tasted the fruit forbidden?” Mace asked the man.
The man turned and looked over Mace and gave him a sly smile.
“Must your light like mine be hidden?” asked the man.
Mace nodded, and the man opened the carriage door for them. Mace and Savina entered the carriage.
Savina was utterly confused. What had just happened?
The carriage meandered through the city, the carriage driver never once directing the horse. Savina kept her eyes on Mace and her hands on his. He gave her hands a light squeeze, but neither made small talk.
The carriage made its way down into what looked like an alleyway alongside an abandoned warehouse. There was no way there was anything of interest there but then, the carriage made a turn into the warehouse’s open alley door, and Savina couldn’t believe what she was seeing.
Chapter Six
It was a market, a market of exotic vegetables and fruits and cuts of meat, and all around were people shopping. The market was open air, full of stalls and stands of exotic goods in a rainbow of colors. The market was held inside of the warehouse, lit by an array of warm string lights, although vendors had lanterns and signs to draw attention to their stands.
Mace and Savina got off the carriage. Then, the horse that had been driving the cart transformed, into a nude man with white hair. The man who had been driving the coach disrobed and shifted into a black horse. The white-haired man changed into the coach clothing and got onto the carriage. Then the pair left, leaving Mace and Savina in the secret market.
Savina pulled Mace close, as if for a kiss.
“What is this place?” asked Savina, whispering in Mace’s ear.
“They call it the Gobblin’ Market, a market where one can find pretty much anything under the sun,” said Mace. “The goods here are all expensive and very, very hard to find.”
“And humans aren’t allowed?” asked Savina.
“What? No, that was just goofing with you,” said Mace.
“Seriously?” asked Savina. “Ugh. Mace!” She let go of his hand, but he caught it again.
“I wasn’t joking about us having to pretend to be together, though,” said Mace. “The shifters here see what they want and take it. Alice will have my head on a platter if I lose you in Wonderland. Come on. Let’s find my contact and get what we came here for.”
Mace led Savina through the market by hand, walking carefully and slowly through the market with her. His bear roared as Mace felt eyes not on him, but on Savina. There were men here that were interested in more than buying or selling fruit. They were looking for something far more exotic, far rarer, and a sassy BBW with killer curves and big, naive eyes was the perfect prey for any shifter on the hunt for a mate. Mace had known from the start that Savina would be a head-turner. After all, she had made him turn his head too many times to count, whether she was in her store uniform that barely concealed her curves or she was in her loose pajamas, bra strap showing, eating popcorn with her sisters. She was always stunning, captivating, but that effect wasn’t just felt by Mason. It was felt by the other men in the market who weren’t just looking for apples, pears, and quince, but had an appetite for a thick, juicy Quincy gal as well.
Mason told his bear to hush. It was just proof that Savina was a naturally seductive woman, a woman who could have any man she wanted to worship her. That meant that what Mace was feeling wasn’t special. It wasn’t that Savina was special to him. She couldn’t be. It wasn’t allowed. She was the one woman who had made it perfectly clear she didn’t want him.
Mason tried to distract himself by looking at the fruits. Even the common fruits looked better here at the Gobblin’ Market. It was easy to see why the last humans who had seen this market had mistaken it for a Goblin Market. The fruit looked like it must’ve been picked from an otherworldly realm and brought to this one by demons, even a taste of the fruit a sin. There were fruits that looked like they were plucked straight out of an orchard: shiny pink apples, round yellow quinces, lemons that made one’s mouth pucker just from looking at them, and bright Hesperidian oranges that looked like setting suns. There were cherries, each a twin or triplet, linked by the brown stems. There were round melons, as full and as pale as the full moon that was expected that night. There were raspberries, begging to give juicy kisses, and peaches with soft pink curves, offering their cheeks to be kissed.
Mason’s bear couldn’t be silenced. It roared back. If Savina wasn’t so special, why wasn’t Mace going to let other men hit on her? If Savina wasn’t the one, then why was Mason stopping her from being someone else’s mate? Was there something else about Savina that enticed Mason the same way that the juicy, glossy fruits being looked over by New Orleans shifter dandies? There was every kind of berry, from European mulberries that looked frosted with dew to cranberries that must’ve been grown in the wild swamps of Louisiana, as they looked too fresh to be from the Northeast. How they’d been harvested at this time of year was anyone’s guess. The shifters lusted over the fruit, but as their heads turned, they smelled not just the sweetness of the fruit but of the curvy lass being escorted by a man who looked more like her bodyguard than her boyfriend. Their appetites for fruit were replaced with cravings for something far juicier, sweeter, and more satisfying than a mere fruit picked from the vine or the bush or the swamp. The young woman they spotted looked divine, even in a baggy red hoodie draped over her body like a Rubenesque neo-Classical marble statue’s toga-like chiton. She’d look even better bathed in candlelight in one of the French Quarter’s ornate parlor rooms, or even in Spanish moss during some frenzied orgy.
These appetites were sensed by Mace. The only thing that scared him more than his own hunger for Savina was the hunger he knew lay in the hearts of other shifters, of other men. He knew all too well what power and connections these men must have, and in a sea of faces, it was as hard to pinpoint a given person as it was to pick out a certain piece of fruit from a pile once one had blinked their eye. If Mace blinked, if his hand slipped from Savina’s, who knew if he would see her again, find her again? Would she be swept away by some exotic Greek billionaire looking for a fated mate? Would she be captured by a pack of wolf shifters looking to share more than just a fruit salad after the market closed? Mace had climbed mountains, braved ocean depths, but losing Savina, well, that wasn’t a risk that Mace was willing to take. He trie
d to calm his nerves, take in the sights.
Savina was amazed at the glory of the market. She had never seen so many shifters in one place before. It was impossible to guess what a given person was because she didn’t get to spend much time looking at any given face. The only constant in all this was the feeling of Mason’s hand in hers, holding onto her tightly, as she took in the pageantry of the market. Nature’s full bounty was on display. Young shifters were selling what looked like crab apples from baskets they carried around the market. There were fruits that Mace whispered to Savina were dewberries, and of course, Savina could recognize spiky yellow fruits (with spiky green tops not unlike Mace’s formerly lime locks) as pineapples. There were all kinds of blackberries, including Marionberries from the PNW, and even apricots and strawberries, all perfectly ripe at the same time.
“How did you find this place?” asked Savina. She had stopped with Mason to eat mixed berries from a stall. He had bought them each a cup of berries and a cup of cream for them to sip as they ate the berries. The cream was cold and rich, the berries cleaned in a quick salt bath before they’d been handed to the pair. Savina had never had berries this good before. They burst on her tongue and unleashed their juices, which were sinfully sweet and fruity. The fruit was just the perfect level of ripeness.
“I’m a Scoville, after all,” said Mason. “My family had connections to the spice world since before the Silk Road had been traveled by its first merchant. One such connection is to the Rosetti family. They’ve had a partnership with my family for countless generations, and after recent events, they owed us…a favor.”
“A favor?” asked Savina.
“Ask your sister, Addison, about it sometime,” said Mason. “But I digress. This market is run by someone connected to the Rosetti family. That’s how I received information about how to visit it. It is only held on the afternoon of a full moon, and as dawn rises, it will disappear as quickly as it came. We were lucky that it was in New Orleans this month.”
“And there’s something here you think we should put in the sauce?” asked Savina.
