Carnival of Hearts: BBW Paranormal Shape Shifter Romance (3 page)

It was all just as Clara remembered it. The lights of the Ferris wheel sparkled blue and red and gold, and the lanterns strung up along wire above the campground cast everything in a dreamy tangerine glow. It was bustling, being the first night, and she wanted to just race around the carnival looking for Marcus, but she willed herself to relax and amble along with the crowd, eyes looking all around.

She recognized the big top of course, though she’d never seen one of the performances inside. That was where, she understood, the lion performed. But after meeting Marcus, he’d wanted to show her the carnival, and he’d never wanted to show her that. She saw Mabel’s booth and remembered having a glass of honey bourbon with her late one evening after she’d caught them entangled in one of the caravan trucks. Mabel was a nice person, though Clara had gotten the impression all through their conversation that she was admonishing Marcus with her smile.

A man with one droopy eye they called Salito had run the Ferris wheel, and as she walked past it and down the avenue of gaming booths, Clara saw that he was still running it. There was the funnel cake stand, there the cotton candy, everything just the same.

Marcus had been what they called a roadie. He didn’t have an act or run a booth or anything; his job was to help set up the carnival when it arrived and break it down and pack it in to leave. Clara knew she wouldn’t be able to find him in the main part of the carnival, so she walked and walked, let the crowd’s energy pull her towards the Parlor of Freaks or back towards the little kids’ petting zoo. She was wasting time, though. She was foundering. She knew she had to leave the maze of proper carnival entertainment and go hunting for him off-stage, as it were, by the trucks and the sleeping tents and the maintenance units and the porta-potties, if she really wanted to find him. And she did, didn’t she? She wanted to find him. She needed to know, once and for all, if what they’d had was real or if she should have moved on two years ago. She told herself that was all she needed. To know.

But she knew, as everyone who has huge and life-changing hopes does, that she wanted much more than that. She turned against the crowd and walked between two of the games of chance, towards the lantern lights that marked the edge of the carnival space and the darkness of the unused fairground. Back behind the booths, some of the magic of the carnival dissipated. Like seeing the strings of a puppet. Cables and wires littered the grass, plugged into generators to power the booth lights and the lantern lights. The backs of all the booths were exposed as sturdy wood and metal minus the bright colors of their banners. Roadies sat on crates and in the backs of pickups smoking cigarettes and playing cards, and Clara looked at each and every one of them as she passed, tolerated their
Hey, sweethearts
and
C’mere, honeys
and ignored them because none of them were Marcus. She wasn’t brave enough to stop and ask any of them if he was at the carnival, though she knew that would be the fastest way to end this escapade. Perhaps it would end too fast. Perhaps hope would die too soon. She walked on, towards the big top.

She remembered Marcus taking her around the brightly colored master tent and to the dunes of the beach, where he’d prepared a candlelit dinner for them, illuminated by the glow of the carnival and serenaded by the spectacle of the tent’s festivities. The meal had been simple, some boiled fresh-caught shrimp and biscuits, and the wine had been cheap and sweet, but Clara hadn’t cared about anything but Marcus himself. They’d made love afterward on the checkered blanket he’d brought, their first time together, and she could still close her eyes and feel Marcus inside of her, his strong hands gripping her, their bodies thrusting together as the roar of the waves muffled their passionate cries. Clara’s heartbeat hammered at the memory.

She walked along the rear side of the big top, passing into its massive shadow and carrying on down the lane between the lanterns and its canvas wall, and quickly realized that she was passing the animal cages. The smell gave it away first, and then she heard the soft clucking of the chickens the carnival kept for fresh eggs, and the bleating of the pair of goats they used for milk. A few horses that the acrobats used in their trick show were penned nearby, and of course there was a giant glass terrarium filled with reptiles that some of the dancers employed in their show, and which were likewise featured in the Parlor of Freaks to frighten the audience. And the last in the line was the huge lion cage, though Clara saw that it was lacking a lion. Instead, a great black pile of fur was curled up against one end, pressed against the bars. A bear. Clara did her best not to make a sound as she passed, afraid to wake the beast.

She’d made it nearly to the end of the cage when the bear’s great head lifted and the creature let out a horrible sound, half a moan and half a roar, and she turned to look at it. The bear tilted up its snout, sniffing at the air, and then it rose in one powerful movement, prowling to the other end of the cage with a swiftness she would not have expected from such a huge frame. It pressed its face to the bars, long black nose still sniffing at the air, and a breath caught in Clara’s lungs when she met its large, golden eyes. Then suddenly the bear reared up onto its hind legs, giant paws slamming the cage’s bars, and let out a bone-chilling, bellowing roar. Clara startled, stumbling back, and turned, running away from the cage and down the lane.

But she stopped only a moment later when she heard, in a voice as familiar to her as anything, “Clara, wait!”

She whirled back around, and to her shock and amazement, the bear was gone from the cage altogether and there was her beautiful Marcus, reaching to her between the bars, a hand outstretched, naked and gasping for her.

“Clara, please! Clara, love, come back!”

She didn’t understand. How had he gotten into the cage, and where had the bear gone? Slowly, she returned, approaching the cage and Marcus’s beckoning hand. Her eyes traveled all over his form, over all the familiar slopes of skin and muscle, the hands she had once held, the lines she’d traced with her fingertips, and then moved to his face. To his golden eyes. Her heart skipped a beat.

“M-Marcus?”

“There isn’t time to explain,” he said quickly. He pointed to a truck parked nearby. “In the bed there’s a strongbox. There are bolt cutters. You have to get them and cut open the lock on the cage door. Please, Clara, I’ll tell you everything, I swear.”

“I don’t understand…” She looked from him to the truck and back, hesitating.

“I know, love, and I swear I’ll explain, but you
must
free me or all is lost…”

She felt like she was going insane. She’d found the man of her dreams, but he was trapped in a bear cage. He was in a bear cage. He
was
a bear? What? Had the bear turned into Marcus? What other explanation could there possibly be? And who would have
locked
him in a
cage
? She knew the carnival’s contracts were strict; Marcus had told her he couldn’t get out of his, that the travel got to him often, but this…this was madness.

Still, there was such an urgency in his face, and such desperation in his eyes, and she was so stunned and relieved to be looking at him again that she couldn’t stand to just leave now. So she nodded and went to the truck, climbing up into the bed and hurrying to the lockbox. Just as Marcus had said, there were bolt cutters inside, and with both hands she hauled them out of the box, out of the truck and down to the grass, then over to the other end of the cage, where the door and the lock were found.

Marcus dug up a pair of jeans from beneath the straw on the cage’s floor and was climbing into them as Clara hefted up the bolt cutters, catching the padlock between the tool’s teeth.

“Two years!” she cried as she squeezed the ends together as hard as she could. “Where have you been?”

“I think that is readily apparent,” Marcus pointed out as he arrived half-dressed on the other side of the cage door. “Come on, sweetheart, you can do this. Here, give them to me.”

“I can
manage
,” she snapped.

“Clara, there isn’t time to—”

She put all her frustration and anger and loneliness into it and heaved the two ends together; with a
pop
the padlock snapped and fell off the lock, hitting the grass with a thunk. She dropped the bolt cutters and Marcus shoved open the cage door, hopping down to the grass, and before she could muster up another round of anger to yell at him, he’d caught her in his arms and his mouth met hers in a blindingly powerful kiss.

Her knees went weak and she grabbed at his strong shoulders, lips parting against his as warmth flooded through her and she began to tremble in his arms. It was just as she remembered. He tasted just the same, his firm lips on hers, the sizzle of heat between them as their tongues touched and passion burgeoned as it always did. She melted against him as they kissed, moaning a little at the feel of his hands sliding up her sides to cradle her rib cage, her fingers sinking into the thick fall of his hair.

“Marcus,” she gasped as the kiss broke, her breathing coming in hard gulps. Tears burned in her eyes.

“I never should have left you,” he said gruffly, folding her in against his body. He pressed little kisses to her hair, her face. “I’m so sorry, Clara. I should’ve stayed with you. I wanted to stay with you. I wanted to find you again, I’m sorry.”

“I don’t understand what’s happening,” she said, pressing her cheek to the warm surface of his chest.

“We have to go.” His grip on her firmed, and he started urging her towards the lantern lights, towards the edge of the carnival. “We have to go right now. I’ll tell you all, I swear, but we must leave.”

“My car is in the lot,” she said, her voice shaky. All of her was shaky, but she walked with him, still holding on to him, afraid of letting go.

“We’ll go around the big top,” Marcus decided, releasing her so that he could take her hand and pull her into the darkness on the other side of the wired lights. “Come on. Hurry.”

She went with him, struggling to keep up, her heart a knot of terror and love and confusion, but it beat for him as it ever had, always for him.

Marcus’s mind and heart were ablaze, racing against each other like horses galloping side by side inside him. Joy and relief warred with fury and fear; he wanted to push Clara down on the grass and take her, had been so desperate for her for so long, but he was afraid they would be caught. And he couldn’t imagine what would become of her if the Ringmaster caught them together. So he ran with her, careful to stay out of the light, pulling her around the edges of the carnival, towards the parking lot.

“Marcus, please,” she was begging him as they went. “Please just tell me I’m not crazy! What I saw—what—you and the bear—”

His heart constricted. He’d thought he’d have more time to figure out what to say to her, how to explain. But he knew that she would only follow him so far without the truth. They made it to the parking lot and she started tugging him between the rows and rows of cars, fumbling her keys out of her bag.

Once they were in the car, however, she put the keys in her lap and looked at him expectantly. Apparently they’d reached that length, the furthest that she could go.

“Clara,” he sighed. “Please, can we…just get further away…?”

She scowled at him, and he winced to see such an expression on her face. “You need to explain this to me, Marcus,” she said softly. “I won’t go on a single moment more. Not a single
inch
.”

Marcus glanced fitfully over his shoulder, back towards the lights of the carnival, and then looked back at Clara. He’d dreamed of her face for two years. The lush curve of her mouth. The deep velvet brown of her eyes and the expressive arch of her eyebrows. The pert tip of her little nose and the full, blushing slopes of her cheeks. Her image swam behind his eyes every night. Just the taste of her he’d had this evening could have kept him going another two years, he thought. But to have her forever, that was his aim. That was what kept him dreaming.

“Please drive, Clara,” he begged her, voice a rasp of desperation even to his own ears. “Please. I’ll tell you everything. Just drive.”

He saw her grit her teeth and expected another protest, but she picked up the keys and popped them into the ignition, turning on the car. In further silence, she drove them out of the parking lot, away from the carnival grounds, and onto the highway that would take them south to Sandy Isle. Marcus cracked the window to let in the sea breeze.

“All right,” Clara eventually said. “I’m driving. It’s half an hour to home. Start talking.”

Marcus hauled in a deep breath. “Firstly, you have to understand that I come from a different sort of people, Clara. All of my family are like me, and so are most of the individuals who work for and in the carnival.”

“Like you,” Clara muttered. “Like what?”

“We are called shifters,” Marcus explained. “We carry a beast in our hearts that sometimes overcomes us and changes our bodies. There are many kinds, and many tribes, but we hide ourselves from humans for fear of persecution.” He looked at her, watching her profile. “For fear of being rejected and misunderstood.”

Her expression tightened, but he couldn’t read it. She gripped the steering wheel of the car as she drove.

“So you’re part bear,” she eventually managed to say.

He nodded. “My den, my family, went to war with D’Orfeo and his den, the carnival. He defeated us, killed most of my people, and took me as prisoner. I have served him ever since. The carnival is a diverse den full of all kinds of shifters, but D’Orfeo is their alpha. He makes the rules.”

“He keeps you in a
cage
?”

“Not usually.” Marcus sighed. “He knew, when we returned here, that I would try to flee and find you. So he locked me up. But Clara…” He reached over, one hand covering hers. “I’m never going to leave you again, I swear. I love you. I have loved you since the night we met. And now I’m free. But we will have to run.”

“Run
where
?”

“Anywhere. Everywhere. We have to leave here and go somewhere that D’Orfeo will never find us. But at least we’ll be together…”

She didn’t say anything for a long moment, and just as Marcus opened his mouth to go on, she jerked the steering wheel and the car swerved. He sat back in the passenger seat, bracing himself against the seat and the window, eyes wide as the car went skidding onto the shoulder and into the grass on the side of the highway. There, she slammed on the brakes and the car stopped, and he watched her throw it into park and sit there, hands tight on the wheel, breathing hard as she stared at the trees illuminated in the car’s headlights. Then she turned the car off and popped the seat belt free of its lock, twisting to look at him.

“You want me to leave my whole life to run away from
bears
with you?” she asked him, and he got the distinct impression that she was teetering towards an anxiety attack.

“Not just bears,” he murmured, frowning. “But…yes. Basically.”

“This is
insane
, Marcus,” she hissed. “I just thought—I just thought you’d left because you didn’t want to be with me! Or—maybe there was some other stupid excuse, and I don’t know why I came to find you tonight except that I still love you!”

“I love you too,” he said, and he felt the frown on his mouth lift towards a smile. “I love you deeply, Clara. I want you to be mine forever.”

He saw tears glisten in her eyes, and it knotted up his heart with grief. He never wanted to make her cry. He felt like a villain for having done so now. He unbuckled his seat belt and reached over, brushing the knuckles of his hand along the edge of her cheek, catching a few tears as they fell.

“I feel,” she whispered, but her words died.

He did smile then. “I know,” he murmured. “You feel insane. I understand. I just hope you love me more than you feel crazy.”

He gazed into her eyes, heart in his throat as she looked back at him and he watched the decisions and choices float through her gaze. To stay or go, to run away or to him, to believe or doubt and the wild strangeness of it all, how she grappled with what he’d told her.

Then she let go of the steering wheel and launched herself at him, her arms snaking about his neck as she kissed him.