Carnival of Hearts: BBW Paranormal Shape Shifter Romance (5 page)

Marcus awoke with a start, smacked in the face by a splash of ice-cold water. He blinked it out of his eyes, wiping at his face, and pushed himself up to his hands and knees, the figure of bearded Mabel coming into view on the other side of the bars as she set down the water bucket.

“Mabel,” he muttered. He glanced at the cage beside his own, and his heart did a flip when he realized it was empty. “Where’s Clara?”

Mabel was not the tall, round bearded lady of the iconic carnivals of the past. She was a small woman with a perfect hourglass figure even at fifty, and a lovely honey-blond beard that curled towards her collarbone and matched the artful coif of hair atop her head. She propped her hands on her hips, still in her morning dressing gown.

“She’s in D’Orfeo’s trailer,” she said. “And you’re lucky he didn’t put her in the snake pit, you damned fool.”

“I have to get her away from here,” Marcus said. “Please, Mabel, will you help me?”

The lady scoffed in the back of her throat. “You must be mad. You think I’d go against the Ringmaster for you? I adore you, my dear, but not enough to challenge my own alpha.”

“Please, he’ll hurt her,” Marcus begged. “You know he will.”

Mabel’s face fell, her expression grim and apologetic. She nodded. “Yes I know he will, sugar,” she murmured, coming close to the bars of the cage. Her sparkling green eyes met his. “But I can’t save her. Only you can.”

Marcus grimaced. “I’m not strong enough.”

Mabel’s soft, pale hands slid over his where he held on to the bars of the cage, and Marcus was surprised to see her smile.

“You’re not strong enough like this,” she agreed with him softly. “You need a
mate
, Marcus. A true, marked mate. She will give you the strength you need to challenge Lucien.”

Marcus’s breath hitched in his throat as he gazed back at Mabel. He shook his head a little. “I can’t,” he said. “Clara is human. She’d never survive the marking. I can’t.”

Mabel arched an eyebrow and took her hands from hers with a sigh. “Then you’re both doomed, Marcus.” She bent and picked up the water bucket, starting off down the lane, but paused and turned back towards him. “But if you want my advice, you should
ask
the young woman you love what
she
thinks before you decide she isn’t strong enough to survive it.”

Then she turned and went back down the lane, disappearing around the side of the big top, and Marcus was left to sit in his cage and think.

It hadn’t even occurred to him that he might ever try to mark Clara. He loved her, deeply, but she was not of their kind, and the mark was a special, mystical bond between alpha and mate. Though Marcus was technically the son of the alpha, and therefore deserving of the title, he had no den and no proper mate to claim. If Mabel was right, however, and if Clara survived the marking, then Marcus would become alpha of his home den no matter how disparate, and he would gain the strength both of any members that survived and of the mark between him and Clara itself. And he could challenge D’Orfeo, and maybe even win.

He didn’t want to risk it, though. Didn’t want to risk her. But he knew that Mabel was definitely right about putting the question to Clara herself. He couldn’t make her choices for her and he would never have wanted to. Marcus put his head in his hands, closing his eyes. It was an impossible choice. Either he had to endure somehow here in the carnival with Clara constantly at risk, or risk losing her altogether at his own damned hands. He tried to imagine what his father would have done in such a situation, but he knew the answer before he’d even fully formed the thought. His father had done just what he could and would always do in such a situation. He’d given his own life in an attempt to spare his people. But noble though it had been, it hadn’t worked. Marcus would have to find another way.

Perhaps that way lay with Clara. He truly hoped it did.

After a while, Liam arrived and freed him from the cage, throwing him a shirt and work boots to put on. He was forced to spend the day cleaning the other animal cages, and though he drifted every so often, he never managed to catch a glimpse of Clara. D’Orfeo must have had her locked in his trailer for the entire day. Liam only let him leave the lane of the cages once, towards the end of the afternoon, so that he could wash up before the dinner bell rang.

He caught a glimpse of her then, sitting at D’Orfeo’s small table with him and young Kat, the Ringmaster’s adopted daughter. Kat was eighteen, devoted to D’Orfeo, but she was a good girl with a gentle heart, and she appeared to be yammering delightedly at Clara. Marcus thought perhaps there might be a way to use her naiveté and sweet disposition to their advantage, but that felt cruel. His quarrel was with D’Orfeo himself and no one else; he wouldn’t put Kat or anyone in the middle of it all.

Clara looked well enough. Her expression was sullen and she kept her eyes low, but she didn’t look as though D’Orfeo had done her any harm during the day. He’d given her some clothes, at least, just a t-shirt and jeans that didn’t quite fit but looked clean enough. She looked up from her plate once, right at him, and when their eyes met, Marcus felt a hammer of determination strike his heart. She was strong and she was his, and if any human could survive the mark, it was Clara. The only real question was whether or not she would want to.

As dinner wound down and twilight began to bruise across the sky in shades of violet and pale, pale blue, Marcus knew that Liam was going to put him back in the cage. While the carnival was open to the public, they wouldn’t take the chance that Marcus would try to escape. Sure enough, once he was finished eating his meal, he felt Liam’s big hand on his shoulder and got to his feet, eyes on Clara until Liam pulled him out of sight and towards the lane of cages once more.

“What will he do with her while the carnival is open?” he asked as he trudged.

“He doesn’t tell me his plans, Marcus.”

“Don’t let him hurt her, Liam.”

Liam looked sharply at him, eyebrows sweeping down towards a scowl. “He won’t hurt her,” he assured Marcus. “The Ringmaster is harsh but fair. He wouldn’t hurt her without provocation.”

Marcus knew that he was provocation unto himself. All he had to do at this point was sneeze and the Ringmaster might take out his annoyance on Clara. But getting into an argument about it with Liam seemed like a waste of energy, so he nodded and said nothing more as they walked back to the animal cages.

Liam locked him in and Marcus stripped down, shifting into his bear skin because he knew he wouldn’t be allowed to just sit in the cage as a man. The bear in his heart rumbled with discontent, and he let the beast overtake his thoughts. It was easier sometimes to give in to the wild mind of the bear, let it roar and rage instead of trying to control his own fate or, worst of all, accept that he might be powerless to do so. He paced from one end of the cage to the other, bellowing and roaring and restless as the music and lights of the carnival lit up the evening sky.

Clara spent the next night and day more or less in Lucien D’Orfeo’s shadow. He kept her by his side while the carnival was open, except during the big top performance, when he left her with Liam in his trailer. She spent that first night in a constant state of panic. With the lights of the carnival streaming through the trailer’s window, the hurdy-gurdy song of the big top blaring nearby and the crowd roaring during the performance, Clara sat on the floor of the Ringmaster’s trailer and tried to come to grips with all that had befallen her. She determined quickly, between what she knew of Marcus and all the strange individuals she’d seen in the carnival itself, that it was a kind of refuge for creatures like Marcus. Just not for Marcus himself. He was basically a permanent prisoner of war.

She couldn’t let herself think too hard about the implications of it all. That there was this secret, supernatural world beneath the one she’d lived in her whole life. Those thoughts would send her into an unhelpful spiral, and she told herself to focus instead on the problems at hand.

They had to escape the carnival. She had to free Marcus somehow, and they had to escape, and go somewhere that D’Orfeo would never find them. She didn’t know how practical that plan might have actually been, but it was the one her mind kept turning back to. There were no alternatives.

She knew she was out of her depth, though. She had no idea what sort of powers these people had, only that Marcus didn’t think he could overpower D’Orfeo, and that the little man with the whip had hurt him so badly he couldn’t even stand. So they would have to escape in secret, and avoid confrontation.

She knew Liam had the keys to the cages behind the big top. She just had no idea how to get them off him. She was a bartender; she had no real capacity for daring escapes. But she was determined not to let that stop her.

As she sat in the trailer trying to sort through it all, the door opened and Kat tromped in carrying a bundle of clothes. She’d given her the jeans and t-shirt she was currently wearing, along with the bra and underpants, which was humiliating, but Clara would rather have them than not.

“I took up a collection for you,” Kat was saying as she set the clothes down on the table built into the trailer’s wall. “These should all fit better.”

“Thank you.” Clara watched Kat as she went from the table to the small refrigerator, pulling a soda from it and popping it open.

Kat was young and very pretty. A sun-golden face and wild mane of black curls, big green eyes and an abundance of freckles dancing across her nose. Clara wondered how she’d ended up here, and if she had some kind of animal living in her heart like Marcus did.

“The Ringmaster doesn’t
want
to hurt you,” Kat told her as she slouched against the counter, looking at her. “He really doesn’t. He isn’t a bad man.”

“Could’ve fooled me,” Clara muttered.

“He has to maintain control,” Kat explained. “He’s responsible for all of us.”

Clara frowned, focusing more closely on the girl. “We don’t want to hurt anyone either, Kat. Marcus and I just want to be together, and free.”

Now Kat frowned. Clara jumped on it.

“Please,” she said, getting to her feet. “Please help us. Kat, just help us escape. We’ll disappear, we’ll never come back. We’ll never hurt anyone. D’Orfeo doesn’t have to be afraid of us.”

Kat took a step back, eyes widening. “He’d be
furious
.”

“But he loves you,” Clara insisted. “Doesn’t he? Would he be so furious that he’d hurt you?”

Kat hesitated, then shook her head. “He’d never hurt me…”

“Kat, I
love
him.” Clara felt tears fill her eyes. “I’ve never loved anyone the way I love Marcus. I waited for him for two years. I need him and he needs me.
Please
.”

“No, I can’t, I can’t!” Kat cried. She hastily set her soda on the counter and then turned and bolted out of the trailer. Clara chased her, but she slammed the door shut and Clara heard the lock slide into place. She smacked at the trailer door, tears spilling to wet her cheeks, and gasped helplessly for breath against an impending panic attack. She put her forehead to the door and cried for a while, trying to get her breath back, and then she just slid to the floor and put her face in her hands.

Eventually she crawled away from the door and put her back to the trailer’s kitchen cabinets. She cried a little more and then wiped at her face, getting to her feet to wash the tears away in the little kitchen sink. The cool water on her cheeks made her feel a little better, made it all seem a little less hopeless.

She thought of Marcus in his cage and how defeated he’d looked as she’d been dragged away. They couldn’t both just lie down. That wasn’t how a team worked. When one of you was down, the other had to keep fighting. After washing her face, she picked through the clothes that Kat had delivered and changed out of the ill-fitting jeans and t-shirt and into a sundress more like the one she’d been wearing when they’d caught her. It fit her better and was vastly more uncomfortable given the thick North Carolina summer air.

Through the window above the sink, she could see Liam standing guard. Even if she broke out of the trailer, he’d catch her quickly, and she couldn’t free Marcus without the keys to the cage. And if she got caught trying to escape, she was afraid that the Ringmaster would take
her
transgressions out on Marcus, just as he’d promised to take his out on her. As much as she wanted to dive through the window and make a run for it, she knew she had to wait. For an opportunity.

After the big top show was concluded, D’Orfeo returned to the trailer. He was shirtless, glistening with sweat, and though Clara looked politely away, she couldn’t help but notice how handsome he was, how the muscles of his arms and chest gleamed in the big top light streaming through the windows. He had no interest in her at all, however. He walked through the trailer and to the small bathroom in the back to shower, leaving her waiting. When he emerged, he grabbed a shirt and pulled it on, then indicated the bunk built against the ceiling at the back of the trailer.

“You can have the bed,” he told her, pacing to the fridge. “I’ll sleep down here. Tomorrow I’ll try to find you better living quarters. We just don’t have the room to spare quite yet. Things need shuffling.”

“Thanks,” she muttered.

He paused, a beer in his hand, and his eyes traveled over her. Several times. She blushed furiously, her whole face heating up under his scrutiny.

“I see Kat brought you clothes,” he said, nodding. “Good.”

“I don’t see why, if I’m going to spend the rest of my life in a
trailer
.”

He frowned. Something dangerous went darting through his obsidian eyes. But all he said was, “Goodnight.” He pointed at the bunk again, then prowled past her, his arm brushing hers, and left the trailer once more.

Clara sighed and went to the back of the trailer, clambering up into the bunk. With her nose barely a foot away from the ceiling, it felt not unlike what she imagined lying in one’s own coffin might feel like. Claustrophobic and horrible. Trapped. It took her another hour, at least, of rolling from one side to the other, trying to bury her face in the pillow, before she finally fell asleep.

She woke up with a start in the middle of the night, twice. The first time, it was the trailer door opening as D’Orfeo returned from wherever he’d gone. She feigned sleeping through it as he bustled around the kitchen and ultimately stretched out on the floor to sleep without even a pillow beneath his head. Eventually, all was quiet again and she could hear the faint, soft sound of his breathing, and she drifted back to sleep herself.

The second time was different. When she opened her eyes, Clara heard a quiet noise that she not only could not identify, but couldn’t tell where it was coming from at first either. She shifted carefully in the bunk, looking over the edge, and there was D’Orfeo still on the floor, sleeping soundly. And then suddenly the ceiling moved, and Clara realized that it was the emergency exit built into the top of the trailer. The hatch creaked softly and then opened, and Clara sat up as much as she could between the bunk and the ceiling, blinking widely in the dark as she saw Kat’s head appear through the hatch, upside down into the trailer.

“Come on,” the girl whispered, waving her forward. “Quick!”

If this was a trap, Clara decided she was going to fall for it completely. Without a second’s hesitation, she scurried to the edge of the bunk and reached up, grabbing the edges of the hatch, and started hauling herself up and onto the roof. Kat grabbed her arms and helped her through, then quickly closed the hatch and locked it once more. She put a finger to her lips and Clara watched her scramble almost silently over to the edge of the roof, peering over the side and down to where Liam was still standing guard.

Clara’s heart was thundering in her ears. Kat urged her down to the other end of the trailer and then slipped past her and climbed down the ladder built into the back end, down to the ground. She waved her hands for Clara to hurry after her, which she did, though she felt like all of her limbs were trembling violently, adrenaline surging through her. Once they were both on the ground, Kat grabbed her hand and took off running, dragging her along behind her, darting swiftly across the carnival grounds towards the big top.

“I don’t understand!” Clara hissed quietly at the girl as they went running past the freak show’s tent.

“Marcus has always been my friend,” Kat told her. “I was just being a chicken. He deserves happiness and I think you make him happy. I’m sorry I ran away earlier. I realized that I ought to be as brave as I can.”

She said it so simply, and without a trace of fear, and Clara felt her heart swell even as it hammered away in her chest.
I ought to be as brave as I can
. Clara felt her admiration for the girl grow, and thought that everyone should be so honest and simple when it came to hard choices. She squeezed Kat’s hand gratefully.

“What now?”

“I stole Liam’s keys.” Kat shot her a divine grin. “We’ll let Marcus out, and you two will run as fast as you can. Away. I don’t know when Liam will realize. My father sleeps very soundly. You may have a few hours’ head start. You’ll have to use it.”

“What will happen to you?” Clara asked.

Kat’s grin only sharpened with defiance. “I don’t know, but whatever it is, I’ll be fine. I don’t want to live in the shadow of the big top anymore. I want to make my own shadow.”

Clara smiled, and it felt like the first time in a long time.