Page 32 of A Malicious Menagerie (Fangs & Fables #1)

Finally, his grip on my arm tightens, and he tugs me closer to him. I go with a squeak, throwing my other hand out to catch myself and landing with my palm pressed flat to his firm, scalding chest.

He ducks his chin, and I can feel his breath against my ear as he rumbles, “Do you really think I didn’t want to kiss you?”

“Well… yes?” I reply breathlessly.

“Of course I wanted to kiss you,” he growls, sounding exasperated. My heart kicks so hard at his words that he can probably feel it, close as we’re pressed together. “I still want to kiss you. I never want to stop kissing you.”

“Then why…?”

He huffs a sigh. “I just don’t want you to ever wonder if I only kissed you to try to manipulate you into helping me get out of here.”

Well, now I’m feeling incredibly stupid and naive, because that thought never crossed my mind.

Chase is always just so straightforward, never one to mince words.

It’s not that I think he couldn’t pull off that kind of con, I just never would have pictured him doing it.

“Well, are you?” I ask bluntly. “Trying to manipulate me?”

A low growl rumbles through his chest, making my fingertips buzz where they’re pressed to his taut skin. “No. I would never.”

“Well, then.” I tap his chest. “It’s a non-issue.”

“You shouldn’t just believe me, Anna,” he grumps, leaning away so he can peer down into my eyes, amber on gray. “You need to protect yourself.”

“I don’t need to protect myself from you,” I reply firmly, knowing deep in the pit of my soul that it’s true.

“You don’t know that,” he retorts.

“But I do.”

He’s quiet for a moment, measuring my sincerity, before his expression softens.

He lets go of my arm to bring both palms up to cup my face, his calloused fingertips brushing my jaw like I’m made of porcelain.

“You’re right,” he murmurs. “You don’t need to protect yourself from me.

I’d lie belly up at your feet before I’d ever hurt you.

But regardless of that, I have nothing to offer you, Anna.

I’m stuck here, far from home, at the mercy of a sadistic rich man who thinks I’m a puppet that will do whatever he likes if he pulls my strings just right. And the worst part is, he’s right.”

“You have plenty to offer,” I argue. “You listen, really listen, and never make me feel like my worries are insignificant. You make me laugh, even in the middle of this pretty prison, even when I feel like this place is chipping away pieces of my soul each day. And when I’m with you, I feel safe.”

“You are safe,” he growls, and this time, it’s not a sweet, contented rumble but something dark and menacing. “I’d kill anyone who tried to hurt you.”

“I wouldn’t ask you to kill for me,” I gasp, the word ‘kill’ coming out with a squeak.

“You wouldn’t have to. I’d do it anyway.”

“Don’t,” I command firmly. “I mean it. Promise me you won’t hurt anyone for me.”

He scowls. “I can’t make that promise. I won’t. Not even for you.”

I snatch my hands away like he’s shocked me and pull back. He lets me go, his hands slipping from my face reluctantly, his expression somber but unrelenting.

And here, this moment, right now, is the difference between being human and being a werewolf.

There’s something in his eyes, a feral glint, that reminds me of the predator that lurks under his flirting and gentle humor.

A shark below still waters. Still, when my heart picks up like the dash of a fleeing jackalope’s feet, it isn’t from fear.

When was the last time anyone wanted to protect me?

Nan would love to, sure, but our relationship has transitioned over the past few years until I’m the one protecting her .

My mother was kind and patient and lovely, but losing Dad in such a traumatic way broke something inside her.

After that day, she always reminded me of a porcelain doll—beautiful, brittle, and hollow at her core.

And Adam, my only real boyfriend, didn’t last long after I had to drop out of college to look after Nan.

We hadn’t been together long, and while he was nice enough, he was focused on normal things like classes and parties and planning for a career.

I honestly think he was relieved when I told him I had to focus on Nan and felt it would be best if we broke up.

So to have all of this man’s—this werewolf’s —intensity fixed on me is jarring and, in all honesty, exhilarating. Heady. And more than a little arousing. What that says about me, I don’t care to know. But if I can’t be honest with myself, who can I be honest with?

“I’ll try not to put myself in a position where you have to hurt anyone, then,” I finally respond, my words solemn.

Chase grimaces. He takes a step closer like he can’t help himself, like there’s some gravitational force continuously drawing him into me, and I understand because I feel it, too. “I hate to break it to you,” he murmurs, “but you being here at all is that kind of position.”

He means being here in the menagerie. And I’ve known that for a while, have felt myself teetering precariously on the razor’s edge of danger for weeks now.

With every new and horrible thing I learn about this place and its egotistical master, it becomes more and more clear that I’m not likely to escape this place unscathed.

After all, Mathis fed a celebrity to a vampire.

What do I think he would do to me, a virtual nobody with few connections, if I crossed him or was no longer useful?

Then there’s the fact that he let me witness the murder without a second thought.

Does he really trust that the NDA is going to guarantee my silence?

Sure, no one would believe me if I started raving about how Mathis sacrificed a man to a vampire, but I could certainly send the police in the right direction.

Why would he take that risk when he could make me disappear just as easily as he did Eddie?

“Do not interfere in my affairs again.”

“Thanks for that,” I mutter, feeling the blood drain from my face.

“Honestly,” Chase continues with a scowl, “the safest thing for you to do would actually be to disappear. Get out before Mathis can get any ideas.”

“Mathis already threatened that,” I reply without thinking, remembering the way his black gaze looked as he loomed over me the night of the gala .

“Those who do tend to disappear. Do I make myself clear?”

Chase’s gaze sharpens. “What do you mean?”

“Nothing,” I assure him, shaking off my unease. “Anyway, I can’t just disappear. Where does that leave Nan? Or you?”

“I’d survive, especially knowing you were somewhere far away and safe.” He pauses, considering. “Nan is a bit more complicated to figure out.”

I don’t love that response, though it takes me a few seconds of reflection to figure out why. “You wouldn’t miss me?” I ask tentatively, feeling as vulnerable as an open wound. “If I were to disappear?”

“Of course I’d miss you,” he growls, and his quick response is like a balm and bandage to the raw spot in my chest. He steps closer again, pulled by our mutual gravity, until I have to crane my neck up to look into his hard eyes.

“So fucking much. But better you’re away and okay than here with me in constant danger. ”

“I wouldn’t be okay,” I tell him honestly, my gaze skittering away from his as I make my confession. “I’d miss you too much.”

His big hands come up to cup either side of my neck, and he presses his thumbs to my jaw to tip my gaze back up to his.

The emotions trapped in his starry eyes make my breath catch.

There’s just so much more there than what’s been spoken between us.

And this time, when he leans down to kiss me, it’s slow.

Tender. A long press of lips and exchange of breath.

I cling to his shoulders, soaking up his heat and strength, trying to absorb enough of both to prepare for the uncertain future ahead of us.

* * *

I’m still on cloud nine from Chase’s kiss as I make my way toward the front of the menagerie later that night. Once again, I’m that giddy high school girl squealing with glee. He likes me! He likes me!

My happy thoughts grind to a halt when I hear voices coming from the carousel up ahead, and I slow my pace.

It’s not uncommon for guards to stop and chat, but one of the voices is feminine.

As far as I know, I’m the only woman who works the night shift.

I glance over my shoulder, wondering if I should go back the way I came, but this is the fastest route to my next task.

Besides, it’s not like I’m doing anything wrong.

Just going about my night and doing my job.

Resolved, I continue along the path, but I halt when the carousel and two familiar figures come into view.

In a moment of blind panic, I throw myself behind a tree to hide from Mathis and Radha Gupta where they’re chatting leisurely beside Mathis’s favorite red dragon mount.

I’d hoped to never see the actress again after our last unfortunate encounter, but of course I couldn’t be so lucky.

But what is she doing here?

I don’t mean to eavesdrop. Not really. But announcing myself now would be suspicious and uncomfortable. Better to just wait them out. And if I just so happen to overhear their conversation in the meantime…

“What can I do to convince you?” Radha says in her lilting voice, a touch of fond exasperation in her tone.

“Nothing,” Mathis replies jovially. “He’s not for sale.”

My shoulders stiffen. He? For sale? Who are they talking about? Fionn? The centaur?

But does anyone really make sense other than…

“Surely there’s something,” Radha continues, though I struggle to hear her past my pounding pulse. It feels like someone just dumped a whole bucket of fight or flight over my head. “A creature you have always sought to possess but never been able to acquire?”

“A dragon, perhaps,” Mathis answers, and they both chuckle. Ah, yes. Cryptid captor humor. “Or…”

When he hesitates, Radha jumps at the small show of weakness. “Yes? Or?”

Mathis chuckles again, wryly this time. “Well, I have never been able to find another Grootslang since the one I slayed when I was young. It’s a sentimental wish for an old man, I suppose.”

Radha is quiet for a moment, and I swear I can almost hear her smug, cat-that-got-the-canary smile. “What if I told you I have a contact who could get you one? ”

Mathis’s stunned silence follows. “I’d ask, who is this resourceful contact?”

“You must allow a lady her secrets, Mars,” Radha answers teasingly. “They’re their own kind of currency.”

“You are right about that,” Mathis murmurs in agreement. Louder, he continues, “In any case, I would say I am interested. The werewolf for a Grootslang. I assume you can offer proof of the Grootslang’s existence before the trade?”

My vision narrows until it’s like staring down a long tunnel.

Maybe a train tunnel, because I can hear the sound of the wheels turning and pistons pumping.

It takes a minute to realize that the sound is actually my rapid breaths, and I slap a hand over my mouth before Radha and Mathis realize that they have an audience.

Still, tears sting my eyes and flow over the back of my hand in scalding tracks.

Deep in my bones, I knew it. I knew they had to be talking about Chase. Who else would make sense? I saw the way she looked at him at the gala. The greed in her dark eyes. And after all, who wouldn’t want him?

But he’s not hers to buy, and he’s not Mathis’s to trade away.

With that thought, my spine straightens, and the tears fade away. That bleak sadness that threatened to hollow me out turns into something angry. Something snarling. A wolf of my own making.

I’ve let this go on for too long. Let fear stop me from doing the right thing.

Went along with this absurd place and its cruel master because I was too scared of losing to even start the fight.

But I’ll be damned if I let Radha Gupta buy Chase like a pedigree puppy to put in her Bollywood mansion.

Another pretty prison across a whole damn ocean from his home. From me.

No. No more being complicit in kidnapping, captivity, and murder.

I’m done. I’m out.

And I’m taking every prisoner with me.